Fallout Equestria: Duty

Fallout Equestria: Duty

Chapter 25

Traitors

“Oh no you don't!”

~O~Firestorm~O~

I was flying over Golden Sunshine, who was pulling the cart with our belongings, and my marefriend, who was trotting next to the Alicorn. Frostmane had asked me to take Homage flying, since she had wanted to talk with our friend alone for a little while, and I had granted her wish. While she had been more than reluctant to climb onto my back at first, the filly looked like she was having the time of her life right now. It seemed that, as long as there wasn't a fight going on, she rather enjoyed flying on my back.

We had departed the ruins this afternoon, shortly after Frostmane had woken up again, due to gunfire and a multitude of explosions. The sounds had come from the direction of Baltimare, indicating that Gingerbreads forces had engaged the enemy, and were currently assisting the Steel Rangers chapter there. The radio chatter we were picking up over the military frequency was another indication for that as well.

From what I could make out, the Trottingham soldiers were outnumbering the force Gear Turn had sent to the city by a great deal, and were doing their best to take them down swiftly. The biggest problem with that seemed to be however, that the Pony in charge of the assault had next to none commanding experience. Whenever the mare spoke up, her voice sounded meek and unsure, not to mention that her orders didn't make much sense to me. Having been able to follow sometimes erratic orders by Frostmane, that was really saying something.

The train tracks below were running north east, towards Manehatten, and yet I desperately wished that my mare would reconsider our route. If we had chosen to take a little detour, we could have concealed ourselves between the rock and boulders to the west. As it was now, however, we didn't have any cover if it came to a fight.

“Ehm... Unit three and four... you have incoming hostiles from your six... be careful...”, came the voice of the “Commander” of the Baltimare battle over the radio. I could only shake my head. They weren't even using an encrypted channel, so everypony who wanted to, could just tune into their broadcast.

“What's wrong?”, the filly on my back called out, and I noticed that I had groaned out loud.

“It's nothing. Just the Pony they put into command of that battle in Baltimare. I've tapped into their command frequency, and if they go on like this, they'll loose the battle, even if they have the advantage for now. Not to mention that they don't even try to encrypt their transmissions. The enemy can listen in just as easily as I can, in other words.”, I explained, thinking this wouldn't interest her at all. I soon saw that I was wrong, as the filly started to explain to me what she thought might be their reason for broadcasting on an open channel.

“Maybe they're doing it on purpose. You know... transmit something over the open channel, but have an encrypted one set up through which the real orders are sent. That way they would be feeding their enemies false information, and be able to catch them off guard.”

I was shocked by that, since the very idea seemed to be brilliant. Something Frostmane could have come up with in fact. Turning my head slightly, I looked back at the filly as I gained some altitude.

“You know... you could have been a great military commander back in the day.”, I said, meaning it as a compliment. Instead, the little gray filly frowned at me.

“If I had been alive back then, I wouldn't have joined the military. I'd have tried to stop the war, not be a part of it!”, she pouted. Just as I wanted to answer, my EFS began to display a warning, and I immediately went into a dive. The filly on my back was screaming her head off, as rays of magical energy shot past us, and I did my best to dodge them. Most of them missed, but once or twice I had to turn in midair, to prevent Homage from being hit.

When the fire finally died down, I looked up, spotting four hovering Pegasi there. Their weapons were trained on me, but they obviously didn't want to pursue me any further. By that time, I was only five feet above the ground. Frostmane and Golden Sunshine came rushing towards us in an instant, asking what was going on.

“It looks like these Enclave guys didn't like me flying through equestrian airspace.”, I replied, landing softly so Homage could climb off my back. It wasn't a moment too soon either, since the first thing she did after she had tumbled off me, was throw up her lunch.

“Let me guess. You want to have a little chat with them?”, Frostmane deadpanned, and I nodded.

“I don't really appreciate it if somepony shoots at me. Don't worry, I'll be fine.”, I said, nuzzeling my marefriends neck. She returned the gesture, urging me to be careful once more. After a quick kiss, I closed my helmet once more and lifted off at top speed towards the four red blips on my EFS.

OooOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

“This is Lieutenant Storm Sheer, of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. Don't come any closer, or we'll open fire again!”, the voice of a stallion crackled over the radio. I couldn't help but smile. If that foal thought I'd turn around because of his empty threats, he had another thing coming.

They did, in fact, start shooting at me again, but their aim was more than poor. Without Homage on my back to worry about, I could evade their shots easily, while returning fire with my own rifles. My first volley hit the power supply on the armor of one them, forcing the mare to abandon it swiftly. Hadn't she done so, the weight of it would have pulled her to the ground like a stone. The white mare looked at me, a shocked expression on her face, before darting back beyond the cloud curtain.

Flying by the remaining three, I used the Hoof-Claws on my forelegs to strike at the straps on two of their battle-saddles, while my tail took out the third. Their weapons dropped like stones, and they too decided to retreat. I, on the other hoof, continued to shoot upwards, after the mare that had fled earlier.

She hadn't cleared the eleven layers of normal clouds yet, when I caught up to her, embedding my claws into her sides like a hawk catching a mouse. She began to thrash violently, but I didn't let go, as my tail shot forward and struck one of her wings. The white mare screamed in pain once more, as the bone broke, rendering her unable to fly on her own. I stopped my ascent, hovering in the middle of the cloud curtain, and bringing my muzzle close to the struggling Ponys ear.

“Don't fight me. I don't want to drop you, but if you keep struggling, I might not have another choice.”, I whispered into her ear with a dangerous undertone in my voice. I could still hear her cry, but she stopped trying to free herself at least.

“Good. At least the Pegasi of this day and age have some common sense.”, I thought, beginning my slow descent towards the surface once more.

OooOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

“Soo.... why exactly did you bring her back? Couldn't you have... well... I don't know... talked over the radio with them?”, Frostmane asked, scratching her head with a hoof, while Golden Sunshine was tending to the shivering Pegasus mare. Her injuries weren't serious, but I was sure that they did hurt pretty badly. Homage was staring at me reproachfully from some way away, still not able to stand up on her own. I sighed, deactivating my armor.

“If I had simply stated my name and rank, I doubt they would have listened. Now I've gotten somepony to carry back a message to the Enclave. They can't just turn her off like a radio after all.”, I replied, to which the mare piped up. Her blonde mane was mangled, and matted with her own blood in places.

“You really think so? Now that I've been down here, they'll never let me back! You've signed my death warrant!”, she shouted, tears in her eyes. “If they don't simply brand me as a Dashite...”, she added, turning her head away. I froze at this. What had she just said?

~O~Frostmane~O~

“What did you just say? Dashite? As in... Rainbow Dash?”, I asked, trotting up to our... “guest”.

“Yeah. That traitor. Everypony who decides to follow in her hoofsteps and come down here gets branded... I don't wanna loose my Cutiemark!”, she cried, and I couldn't help but throw a look at her flank. It was crusted with dried blood, but I could still make out the raincloud on her flank.

“Rainbow Dash is not a traitor. She's the element of loyalty after all.”, Firestorm said as she stepped up next to me. The blonde Pegasus mare snorted before answering.

“She left. She left the Pegasi, when we would have needed her most! She was a traitor to her own kin. Cloudsdale had been wiped off the map, and she was chastising our decision to close off the sky! Who did she think she was? The war was down here, and we Pegasi should never have gotten involved!”, she screamed, her eyes darting back and forth between my marefriend and me. I sighed, before laying down in front of her.

“Rainbow Dash always did what she thought was the right thing. And if you ask me, then all of you are traitors. You abandoned the country that fed and protected you for centuries, after loosing one city. The Ponies down here could have needed your help, and yet you hid behind your precious little cloud curtain, presumably pretending that the wasteland didn't even exist.”, I said, shaking my head, “But that just isn't the case, and I'm sure your people will take you back, once our friend here has healed your wounds.”

“You really have no idea, do you? If we had never involved ourselves in the war, the Zebras wouldn't have had any reason to...”, our “guest” began to rant once more, but was stopped by a strike to the face from Firestorms tail. I could tell that my mare was holding back, due to the fact that the other mare wasn't sent flying.

“We were there during the war, you know. If the Pegasi hadn't gotten themselves involved, then what do you think would have happened? Well, let me tell you. The Zebras were using Batwing Talismans, that granted them the gift of flight. They would have flown through Pegasi airspace to reach targets in Equestria. What would the Pegasi have done? Sit by and grant them safe passage? What do you think Equestria would have done, if we had let their enemies pass through our airspace? The Princesses would have done everything in their power to prevent it. And since the Zebras back then didn't make much of a difference between combatants, and civilians, there would have been Pegasi casualties either way. In the worst case, we would have been forced to fight off Zebras trying to pass through our territory, and Equestrian airships trying to force us to prevent their passage. We would have been forced to ally ourselves with the Zebras in the end, and that would have been the end of the Pegasi race. Not to mention that your Power-Armor was produced on the ground! The Pegasi don't have the resources to produce anything like that. In other words, the Pegasi would have found themselves in a two front conflict, without the means to defend themselves. Are you still so sure about your little isolationist spiel?”, Firestorm shouted, while the other mare held her cheek with a hoof.

Silence filled the air for a while, while the two Pegasi stared at each other. Firestorms eye was filled with intense anger, while the Enclace mare looked back in fear. I got the distinct feeling that it would have been dangerous to speak up, but I did it anyways.

“Calm down Storm. If you ever get your chance to talk to their leaders, you can vent on them all you want, but she's just a hoofsoldier.”, I tried to soothe her, but the voice of the Enclave Pegasus from behind me put more oil into the fire of her rage.

“You? You want to speak to the Enclave council? Good luck with that, mudstomper. If you ever try to get past that cloud curtain again, you'll be greeted by the Wonderbolts! They'll take you out ASAP.”, she laughed, and even I had to admit that she was beginning to annoy me. Turning around, I tried to speak as calmly as possible, while gesturing to Firestorm to be quiet for a moment.

“You will fly back to your precious little Enclave, and you will carry a message. You will tell them that Vice-General Frostmane of the Moon Skulls wants to speak to them about the destruction of her ship. Did I make myself clear?”, I said, unable to keep some resentment about the loss of the Luna Dream out of my voice. The mare nodded, fear creeping back onto her features...

OooOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

About twenty minutes afterwards, the Pegasus mare Firestorm had forced to land with her had taken off again, carrying a message from me on her Pipbuck. She had been reluctant to fly back, but I guess that Firestorms four Novasurge rifles crackling to life, were incentive enough to get her going.

My marefriend was still angry at the ignorance of the mare, and I shared that sentiment. That the Pegasi had become so shortsighted... It made me understand just how much Dash must have had to deal with back in the day. Of course she had told me about the idiots, who wanted the Pegasi to withdraw from the war, but I would have never imagined that they would actually succeed.

“For a moment there, I thought you would kill her.”, Golden Sunshine said, as she watched the mare disappear beyond the clouds. I nodded, looking over at Homage, who was still recovering from her last flight with Firestorm. The filly had thrown up three times by now, and I could tell that she was fighting the urge to do so a fourth time. I could understand her. The first time a Pegasus had taken me flying, the stallion had lost his grip on me, and I had fallen for almost a thousand feet before he managed to catch me again.

“You were right... she didn't deserve that kind of treatment... Maybe I could have made her see reason, if I had tried to  talk normally to her...”, Firestorm sighed, lifting off. I could tell that she didn't want to talk about her outburst just then, and I respected her wish.... for now. Homage found a place between our bedrolls and a barrel of only slightly iradiated water on our cart, before we went on our way again. Manehatten was still a few days away, and I didn't want to linger here for too long. If that Enclave was anything like I imagined it to be, then they would certainly not leave my marefriends attack unanswered. Once that mare got back to her superiors, it was quite likely that she made good on her threat to send some better fliers after us. If she really did that, I wanted to be as far away from this place as possible, as to not endanger Homage and Golden Sunshine.

~O~Firestorm~O~

The sun was already setting, and we had moved farther to the east and onto the shore of the sea. We could avoid detection from our new, slightly lower, vantage point, but there was no shelter to speak of where we could hole up for the night. It worried me slightly as my radio crackled to life, and Frostmanes voice emanated out of my Earbloom.

“Hey Storm, do you see that? Out at the eastern horizon. Heading East North east. Think we could take shelter there for the night?”, my marefriend asked, and I banked to take a look at what she had spotted. At first, I didn't see anything, until I flew a little lower, my hooves almost touching the dirty water. It was the silhouette of ship, by the looks of it. No position lights, or any other sign of recent activity could be seen, and I was seriously doubting that we could even reach it. It was quite far out after all.

“I'll fly over and take a look, but how do you intend to get there? It's at least two miles off shore.”, I asked flatly.

“Golden says she can float our cart and Homage along in her magic, if you can carry me over. Think you're up to that?”

“Shouldn't be a problem. I've carried you before, but never over this kind of distance. Just in case, you can swim, right?”, I joked. There was no answer for a long moment, before Frostmane answered this time.

“You'd better not drop me. Over and out.”

I sighed. There was, of course, no chance in Tartarus that I would drop her, unless she had gained a lot of weight since the last time. Still, I would have been more at ease with myself if I had known she could swim...

About a minute later, I reached the ship. It was a civilian pleasure cruiser named “Alicorn”. The deck was... rusted, and the ship looked beaten up from the outside, but was in considerable better condition on the inside. In the twilight of the early night, I could make out a sunken platform just under the surface of the sea. I suspected that it was some kind of maintenance or refuel platform, and the ship had been docked here when the bombs fell. But... if that was the case, then what had happened with the crew? My first sweep of the wreck didn't reveal any clues. There were no bodies, no bones... no nothing. The kitchens were fully stocked with canned goods, and preserved stuff, while the fresh food had rotted away quite some time ago due to a lack of power to the freezers. All in all, the inside of the ship was dark, and smelling of seaweed, but it was completely intact. Sure, there were some fallen knifes and pots in the kitchen, and some of the furniture had fallen over, but these were things I ignored.

“Just what happened here? If this was indeed a maintenance dock, then where did the mechanics go?”, I said to myself as I pushed open the door to the engine room. My rifles were at the ready, even though my EFS didn't show me anything... Not even a radroach or any other living thing. A stain on the door, which I mistook for rust at first, caught my attention however.

On closer inspection, I realized that it was dried blood. A lot of it to be precise. Dreading what I would find, I took my first look into the room, and the question as to what had happened to the engineers was answered. The giant engine of the ship was... destroyed. Something had fallen into it and mangled up the machine, most likely causing a minor explosion that slammed the door shut.

The light of my helmet lamp cut through the darkness, illuminating the crushed remains of several Ponies, and a catwalk that had fallen down. It was quite obvious what must have happened here. These Ponies had been the maintenance crew, and were working on something on that catwalk when the bombs hit. The explosion from a nearby mega-spell must have caused the ship to almost capsize, and the catwalk to fall. It explained the salty smell on the upper decks, and it explained the almost undamaged state this ship was in.

“So, can we come over now?”, Frostmane asked over the radio.

“Yeah... but keep Homage away from the engine room. It's a gruesome sight. Oh, and there are some fancy buck cakes with your name on it in the kitchens.”, I responded.

“We'll be right there!”, my marefriend answered energetically, and I couldn't help but chuckle a bit. The mentioning of her favorite food had certainly caught her attention...

OooOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

“Is there any way we can restore power to the ship? I'd like to explore the place while we're here, and there might be useful things here.”, Frostmane asked, as we stood on the Alicorns bridge. I nodded.

“If I can get the main generator started, that wouldn't be a problem. The problem is, that I don't know if I can do so without starting the ruined engines as well. Maybe I could separate the two circuits from one another, so the generator doesn't require the engines to run... In the end, only time can tell if it'll work though.”, I replied, taking a look at the blueprints we had found in the captains room. Homage and Golden were already preparing our little camp in it.

“You know... if we can get the generators running, I wouldn't mind making this our home. Trottingham might be nice, but here, we would be really safe. Like you said back in my apartment that night.”, Frostmane offered, looking at the rusty deck through the broken windows of the bridge.

I had to agree. If we got main power back online, this would really make for a fine base of operations. The only thing that worried me was, that nopony seemed to have looted it so far. A few minutes later, it was settled. We would delay our departure the next day so I could take a look at the main generator. If I got them to work, we would have a place to return to that nopony else knew about. If not, then we would have to look for spare parts on our travels.

That night we went to sleep in the captains room, next to the bridge. My left wing was wrapped around Frostmane, while her head rested on my forelegs. I in turn, rested my head on her neck...

Footnotes:

Frostmane:

New Quest:

Collateral damage: You have sent a message to the Grand Pegasus Enclave, and are currently waiting for their response.

Maximum Level

Firestorm:

Maximum Level

Golden Sunshine:

No Status Changes

Homage:

New Trait:

Air sickness: You can't stand flying, due to past experiences when you were in the air. Due to that, you loose 3 endurance for 24h after a flight.