1 No Sleep Till Brooklyn
Ashes and Sackcloth
Chapter One: No Sleep Till Brooklyn
“So, what happened to this slob?”
I’m looking at the corpse of a man, maybe at the cusp of middle age, with a gaping hole in his crown. Doctor Harding, the lone medical officer in Ogilvie Station, was examining the dead man and making notes on his P-HAT, the portable, holographic, adjunct tablet that was popular fifty years ago for business professionals the world over. He gave me a quick glance, then typed in a few more notes before setting the pad down and removing his latex gloves.
“Poor sod was playing with his pistol,” he said, pointing out an aged, chemical propellant slug thrower, “dropped the fucking thing on the floor. Damn thing has no safety on it, so of course it discharges and cleans out poor, ole Dudley Donovan’s noggin clean out. I’ve been clearing fragments of the bullet for the last hour.”
“That poor son of a bitch,” I murmur, “civilian or military?”
“A civvie, Sergeant,” Dr. Harding told me, “of the plain and stupid variety.”
I nod, having met a few of those on my way here to the state of New York by way of Tallahassee. Or what was left of it. The Vultures had reduced that town into a slag heap, just before they moved their gargantuan nano-former machines over it. They never did get to terraform the place, thankfully. The Big Hit made that a certain impossibility.
“He got any family?” I ask.
“Nope,” the good doctor replies, “he was lastman in a party of fifty that made the trek up here. Came to see the ponies. Didn’t look like he had anyone.”
“I don’t know if that’s just luck or misfortune,” I comment, before looking over at the skeletal remains of another man, sporting a similar hole in his head, “same thing happened to him?”
The doc took a moment to look at the remains of the body I was talking about, “Nope, that unfortunate got hit by a Vulture Shock Lance.”
“Ouuch!” I exclaimed, “the poor fucker!”
“Eyup,” Dr. Harding adds, “that was what we found of him in the gullet of a Vulture shock troop. The bastard dropped when The Big Hit went down. Gut was still churning though; must still been digesting the poor fucker.”
“Sorry I asked,” I replied, feeling infinitely sorry. I had seen a number of my squad mates get gored through by the Shock Lances of Vulture shock troops. They weren’t really lances at all, but electrified barbs that settled on Vulture wings. A hot knife through butter would be the best analogy for how the lances would cut through human flesh.
“So, it’s true,” I continued, “the ponies are here, in The City?”
“That’s what I hear,” Doc said, “they’re moving me up to Midtown by morning. Ogilvie Station is getting shut down. I’m getting an escort across the Hudson, might be there by the afternoon. You heading that way?”
“Yeah, I am,” I said, “it’s about the only place where any sense of order seems to be. I figure of the ponies are as nice as the HAM radio reports are saying, then at least I can get a decent meal for my troubles and a soft bed to sleep in.”
“Sure beats sleeping in an old Army cot and fishing through MREs, doesn’t it?” Dr. Harding asks and I nod.
“Is there any way to Midtown on land?” I ask.
“Not really,” he answers, “everywhere else in the Hudson Exchange is teaming with Reavers. Almost lost more good souls to those cannibals then the Vultures. Why do you think I’m getting an escort?”
“Yeah, that would make sense,” I add, “fuck!”
That left me with but one option and I wasn’t really into it. I would need to find a tall building, if any were still left standing, and fly across the Hudson to get to Manhattan. Better still, I had to do it while navigating Reaver territory. Wonderful…
The Reavers are new to the scene. Just after The Big Hit, a lot of militias that were fighting the Vultures for the last fifty years disbanded. Some, like my group in the Southeast, settled into small communities and tried to raise whatever food the land could handle. It didn’t always work; The Vultures had done something to the land, saturating it with sodium or something, so a lot of ground was coming up infertile. Food shortages are plentiful.
In other places where militias were the only government in power, they tried to supplement meager ration supplies with “reconstituted protein.” i.e.: blended corpses. People eating them didn’t know the difference until the rations ran out; by that time, they gotten so used to the taste of human flesh, they started hunting others and consuming them. They overran the nascent militias in command and started gathering in bands as large as one hundred or more. People started calling them Reavers, after some ancient graphic novel concept.
In any case, they raid other human settlements, murdering innocents. I did hear a rumor once that a band of former militia members were going after the Reavers. I think they call themselves Belmont or something. Not something I would do; I’m just an old tech sergeant who strips down Vulture Basilisks for parts. Well, I used to do the for the Florida-Georgia-Carolinas Militia; I still tear down Basilisks, but now I do that to barter for whatever food and water I can get my hands on.
“By the way, Doc,” I begin, “you don’t have any need for some Basilisks parts, do you? I got some prime stuff.”
“Now that you mention it,” he starts, “If you got a sonic scalpel, I’d appreciate it.”
“A sonic scalpel, huh?” I say, “hold a mo.”
Searching around my satchel, I find the object, nothing more than a thin blade of titanium with a vibrating steel wire that rotates the length of the blade. I had just plucked out of a Basilisk I found toppled onto a abandoned house in Staten Island. I show him the blade and wait for his response.
“Hmm,” he muses, “quality blade, a full charge in the power pack, looks straight,” testing it out on a piece of Mr. Donovan, which cut a sizable chunk of the deceased skull off cleanly, “damn, boy, if this could cut the electrons of an atom off! You got yourself a deal. What do you need?”
“Some water,” I croak, “two gallons if you have that much. And some rations, preferably the beef and cheese or peanut butter and crackers. I’ve been living off of canned peaches and roast beef for the last month; if I see another roast beef MRE, I might get violently ill.”
I can hear the doctor guffaw as he reaches into a box labeled “FOOD, NON-PERISHABLE,” and he drags out a months worths of MRE packets. He places them on an empty surgical table while he fishes for some water. He comes up from underneath his laboratory sink with three liters of clear, iodine-treated water.
“Here you go, kid,” he says, handing me the supplies in a cloth rucksack, “you more than earned this. You kept me company for the last little while and even got me a new sonic scalpel. The last one fizzled on me last week. I don’t need these more now that this place is decommissioned.”
“Thanks a lot, Doc!” I cheer, placing my much needed provisions in my satchel, “are you sure you don’t me to spend the night? In case of those Reavers?”
“Don’t worry about it, Juno,” Dr. Harding says dismissively, “I’ve been safe here since The Big Hit. The blast doors could resist a Basilisk plasma cannon at full power for a standard hour; I don’t think those cannibals are going to be getting me anytime soon. And if those Solar Guards arrive tonight, they should be more than enough to handle some half-starved psychos with aluminum armor and iron hatchets.”
“You really think so?” I ask, “I haven't seen a real pony, let alone these alien- What do they call themselves?”
“Equestrians” The Doctor mumbled around the cigarette he was now smoking, “that’s what I heard. Said they come from a world where the Vultures destroyed their planet. Seem awful keen on helping us out.”
“Well, let’s hope so,” I say, “one group of marauding aliens was bad enough for one lifetime. I’d hate to be fighting another group of them.”
“From what I saw of their recon patrols,” Dr. Harding said, “I don’t think they're here to start anything. They look healthy, but they’re just as harried and weather worn as we do.”
We had a good laugh at that; the Vultures had come in on autonomous, aerial mobile weapons platforms that they called Basilisks. They also wore tightly woven titanium fiber armor coated in carbon-silicates. If they weren’t such murderous bastards, one would think of them as heroic soldiers of a gleaming, avian empire. If these ponies were as disheveled a lot as we were now, then God help them.
“Thanks for the vittles,” I tell the doctor, “I’ll be leaving now. Gotta see if I can make my way to the Hudson, get in the air, if I can.”
“You got wings, there, Juno?” he asks.
“In a way,” I answer, “managed to cobble together a working free flight airframe from various Basilisk parts. It’s heavy and flies slow, but it should get me across the river.”
Dr. Harding laughs but it doesn’t sound forced or derogative, “Good luck, kid. Maybe I'll see you in New Canterlot.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I reply, “so long!”
I give him a goodbye wave and then exit via the huge blast doors. They close behind me in a whine of rusted steel and atomically fused titanium plating. Even when I get three blocks away from Ogilvie Station, I can still hear the reverberating sound of the blast sealing shut, likely for the last time.
Avoiding the Reavers is one thing, finding a building tall enough along for me to glide off of on the shores of the Hudson River is another thing. The Vultures hated our architecture so much, that upon landing, they leveled almost all buildings in sight of their landings zones. Three quarters of Manhattan’s skyline was razed in a matter of minutes. Anything left standing has a high likelihood of being unstable or packed to the rafters with Reavers.
I thought back to my school days. I remember when I was four, the teacher showed us a picture of Berlin, Germany, circa 1945. The rubble of bombed out buildings, the corpses on the ground, the smoke filling the air, I remember it all. The recollection of that day comes to me because New York City now very much resembles post-World War Two Berlin. At least one hundred and fifty years have passed between then and now, but the comparison is uncanny. Most of the landscape is barren of anything upright; save for some debris and the few remaining street lamps, the land is barren. I don’t see how The Reavers can hide out here, given how desolate and exposed this place is. Maybe they hide in the sewers or in the old subway tunnels?
Well, if all went as planned, that wouldn't matter to me. I just need a building, preferably a tall one of a greater height than six stories, and then I could glide over the Hudson. With luck, a few thermals, and a burst of ions from the onboard engine, I could reach the wharfs of Manhattan Island. And it did appear that luck was with me. Standing in a pile of broken bricks and concrete was a lone apartment building. The front door had caved inward, but the fire escape on the side of the building was intact enough to let me climb my way to the fifth floor, wherein I scampered into a forlorn and empty apartment.
Walking the silent halls of the building brought a chill up my spine. While it appeared that the Reavers had not been this way, there was definite evidence of former lives lived here: a burned fashion doll, a badly sewn up teddy bear, a coffee table with several faded and yellowed books on it, the desiccated corpse of a dog. It was eerie, in that once, there were people here, living there lives and not fearing being eaten alive by Vulture Warriors.
After traipsing down several corridors, I managed to find my way to the stairs leading to the roof. The door to this stairway was sealed, a rusted padlock and chain keeping the door closed. I managed to force those open with a crowbar I found back in Charlotte, in the northern Carolinas. The door squeaked as I opened it, the rusted hinges protesting. Climbing the clean and evidently unused stairs, I begin to think of how life might have been before the Vultures showed. Then my mind gets turned to my first days on the battlefield, eleven years of age and frightened out my skivvies. I stopped thinking after that.
Like the entryway, the door to the roof is sealed by chain and lock. Unlike the entryway, though, this door was exposed to the elements. Large holes of rust have eaten most of the topmost door, the rest rusted through and weak. I kick my foot into the bottom half; it breaks like an over baked cookie. The chain and padlock offer no further resistance as I step out onto the roof.
The Hudson churned along sluggish, making its way through at least two or maybe three of the Five Boroughs. The building I was on was just close enough to the waterfront to ensure the river was always in view. No doubt that the building wouldn’t have this sight if other buildings had survived The War, but I didn't think anyone was around, or alive, to complain about it. I set my satchel, with it’s new provisions, on the roof. I rummaged around in it for several minutes, as the dying sun set, for my airframe. Once found, I began to strap it on around my chest.
This is where my luck had begun to run out. No sooner had the airframe been firmly lashed to my torso, did I hear the inhuman cry of a Reaver pack. It seems I stood out, alone on one of the last buildings in town. I couldn’t see them yet, but I was unwilling to take any chances. Strapping my satchel back on, I quickly made my way to the lip of the building. Eight stories down, five meters and closing was the largest pack of Reavers I have ever seen. There must have been fifty of them within line-of-sight and more were pouring out from manholes in the street. I needed to get off this building and over the Hudson, before the cannibals got here.
I tapped a button on the airframes harness; the wings spread out, hissing mightily on compressed air pistons. Once fully extracted, I turned back to the Hudson, it’s muddy brown surface lazing it’s way to the Atlantic. The cries of raving lunatics brought me from contemplation of the waterway. There’s nothing to it but the doing, so I put both of my feet on the lip- and fell.
In a moment, I was fully airborne, the wings of my airframe lifting me high above the ground and over the river itself. I chanced a look behind me to see I had missed death by mere seconds. Reavers were now pouring onto the roof of the building I just vacated. Their gaunt faces and gnashing brown teeth only served to make me hasten my glide across the river.
Halfway across the river, I received some company. The visor of my airframe indicated that I had contacts inbound, coming in from Battery Park. According to their profiles, they weren’t humans in airframes like me. Although, to be fair, an airframe like mine is rather hard to get, let alone build. Several minutes later, I was able to make out distant shapes on the horizon. Sure enough, they weren’t humans; they weren’t Vultures, either, even though they did have wings.
Soon, I was able to discern some detail of my presumed escort. They all wore gold, plated armor that, while tarnished, still gleamed in the dying light of day. They were uniformly white coated, with tails in monotone blue; their galea helmets showed a raised stripe of mane, also in monotone blue. They each wielded a modified Shock Lance, but none of those weapons were aimed towards me. As they began to pass me, at speeds that weren’t supposed to be possible with such little wings, I saw that instead of feet, their legs terminated in hooves. I had just gotten my first look at an Equestrian.
It wasn’t long, maybe thirty seconds at most, before they returned again, this time flanking me on both sides. The appeared in formation, six fliers spread out in a staggered line. The two at the top of the aerial column stayed well away from my airfoils wings. They seemed to be the commanding officer and adjunct of the squadron. I was proven right when the lead pony on my right tapped me on the shoulder.
Over the whistle of the wind, I heard the aviator shout, “Identify yourself!”
Shouting back, I replied, “Tech Sergeant Juno, under Perry, One-Oh-Eighty-First!”
The aviator nodded and spoke with their wingman. After a brief conversation, the commander spoke again, “We’re taking to our hospitality station in South Ferry. We’ll get you looked over by our medical team; afterward, if you’re cleared, we’ll see about getting a meal at the mess hall and maybe a bed in the hostel. It may be small, but it’s warm and comfortable.”
“It’ll sure beat sleeping on the ground!” I say, “I may have forgotten what a bed feels like.”
Author's Note
This story was inspired by an awesome dream I had the other day. I started writing it up as soon as I able to get back online. There's a lot of back story I have planned and alluded to but have yet to write it. That background work will get filled in as necessary. In any case, I hope you enjoy, and feel free to comment.
Chapter Two:
Summer in The City
My escort to South Ferry kept stride with me as we passed over the Hudson. They made small comments about how very few soldiers had come up this way. The squadron commander, whose name I learned was the painfully ironic Blue Skies, had told me that the princesses were looking forward to my arrive. According to Cmdr. Skies, most of the influx of humans were refugees from states out west, where The Vultures crimes were more in evidence. The good commander regaled me with the woes of those escaping the sinkhole that was now San Francisco, or the those fleeing the flames of the perpetually burning San Fernando Valley region.
The Heartland hadn’t done much better. Reports were still coming on on how the Breadbasket was still burning, years after Vulture caustic weapons struck the fields. The Reavers have strongholds there; I’ve heard tale that crossing through the states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, parts of Ohio, Kansas, are hazardous for one’s health and southern Michigan is dead zone, no humans allowed. The Four Corners region, though, is still well populated. The Mormons in those states gathered everyone they could into the canyons of Utah, or similar shelters spread out along the Rockies. The Vultures never found them there. I’ve heard tell that they’re trying to rebuild out that way…
Not all that was told to me were sad tales. The commander managed, during her diatribe of the noble class of Equestrians, about a young couple, one human, the other pony, who just welcomed a foal into the world. The little girl (Or was it filly? Cmdr. Skies seemed to infer that the child was female.) was the striking double of her mother, save her eyes, which were more like her father's. I hadn’t seen or heard of children being born since my early battlefield days, so to hear of a successful mating between two species was both curious and heartwarming.
The flight to Manhattan would have gone on without a hitch had my airframe decided to misbehave. At a point between thermals and still some distance from land, the ion engine of my airfoil gave out. I was still at a pleasant altitude, in no immediate danger of plunging into the Hudson or shifting off course and falling briskly into New York Harbor. Eventually though, I started losing much in altitude. My escort noticed as well, but seemed as unconcerned as I was, not knowing that my airframe was now quite hobbled. I tried restarting the engine again but with no success.
I was losing altitude and fast. With the ion engine failing and the winds prevailing across the Hudson shifting from northeast to north, not only was I losing great amounts of height, but also falling away from our course. My escort must have noticed by now, for as I rapidly falling away from them. I had come to a desperate realization: I was doomed! If I couldn’t get the ion engine restarted before I hit the water, I would likewise drown in its depths. The airframe was heavy enough that by the time I got unfastened, I would be leagues submersed. An ignoble drowning when I was so close to my goal.
Certain as I am about my impending demise, it comes as a shock when two of my escort’s number fell out of formation and dropped below me. With outspread wings, they gently carry back towards the proper altitude. They keep me aloft long enough to reach another thermal, where the meteorological phenomenon keeps me airborne for a little while longer. This process repeats itself, save for the fliers doing the lifting, several more times as we make our way to the southern tip of Manhattan.
By the time we got in sight of land, the sun was just a sliver of bright orange in the west while the moon is waxing almost full in the east. There was just enough light left in the day for us to make out Battery Park and the remnants of Brooklyn Bridge in the distance. I can hardly see the ground below, but my escort plainly can. It must be routine to them to use this spot of Manhattan for landings, given what Dr. Harding said. Just before the last of the dying light faded from the day, a landing strip appeared in the direction of South Ferry.
Further south we went, my escort keeping at altitude for the last leg of the journey. The closer we approached the landing strip, the more detail I was able to make, in spite of the darkening sky. The lane was covered in tarmac, guidelines painted in reflective white and yellow, and stationed on the fringe of the lane itself where what I originally had mistaken for light bulbs. As we came within sight of the Battery Maritime Building (still intact, by the way), I could see the the “light bulbs” were actually luminescent crystal batteries, like none I had ever seen before, impregnated at the edges of the airstrip.
I was a significant change to what I had read in the maps I acquired in Virginia Beach. According to the atlass, the airstrip my escort was leading me to was once a major artery of New York called Whitehall Street. Given the way The Vultures abhorred all human artifice, I was surprised to see that the remains of a once thriving traffic artery had been repaired/replaced by tarmac and laid out not unlike an airplane runway. Also coming as a surprise were buildings that retained a great deal of the original function in the days prior to the Vulture invasion: an airport terminal, a radio tower, an airport tower, hangars, an emergency/first response station, and the skeleton of a fully operational airport.
I was so entranced by the return of anything resembling human architecture, that I had hardly noticed my companions descent. Indeed, we were beginning to slow down as well as come closer to the ground. Once I discerned what was happening, I felt a small kernel of panic. My thoughts now came to the wonder just how I was to land! I had never really landed in my airframe before, unless you count ungainly and cumbersome falls. Still, I had the support of the Pegasus Echelon, so I didn't think myself in danger of serious injury.
As we neared the airstrip, I witnessed pairs of Pegasi breaking formation and prepare for landing. The way these Pegasi did it was the most graceful thing I had ever seen in my twenty-one years of life. As the neared the tarmac, each aviator flared their wings; not only did this slow them down, but it caused them to reorient themselves so their hooves struck the ground. A hop, a couple of skips, then some light steps later, the Pegasi came to a dead stop. It was magnificent in a way that defies my meager manner of description. Very soon, all but Cmdr. Skies and her adjunct were on the ground. They too soon left my, still drifting on shoreline current, to make their landing. I guess it was assumed I’d be able to do the same.
I would be lying if I said that I was able to duplicate their feat of athletic beauty. What I did do was make a complete ass of myself. I tried to mimic their landing action, bringing my feet forward while adjusting my airframes wing and airfoil backwards. It did slow me down greatly, but that’s where everything went south. Whereas the Pegasi performed their landing maneuver with practiced ease, my attempt at it was abysmally lame. Instead of landing on my feet and coming to a practiced stop, I got one foot down rather easily, then immediately tripped over my own feet. (I think I may have sprained my ankle on the landing; I do remember a sharp pain as my left foot came down.) I ended up going ass-over-teakettle, tearing apart the wings of my airframe, ripping off the airfoil and partially destroying the ion engine I had so carefully pieced together from scrap.
My tumble of a landing ended at the far end of the airstrip. I was winded, lying flat on my back, a dull ache all over my body and an agony inducing pain from my left ankle. I knew my back was tweaked a little (bruised some muscles back there, maybe pinched a nerve,) and I can say for sure I cracked my skull on the blacktop, even through my helmet. I do believe I blacked out for a while; if I didn’t have a concussion before, I most certainly had one now. When I was next conscious, my vision resolved to find all twelve members of the squadron looking down on me. The mares were looking at me with concern. The stallions, though, were desperately trying not to laugh their heads off. I think the first words I said coming off from that landing were, “Anybody catch the plates off that crosswind that hit me?” (Forgive the poor humor; I am a soldier, not a comedian.)
“Okay, everypony, enough gawking,” Cmdr. Skies said, “give the poor stallion some room. Rainbow Dash, Soarin’, help him to his feet. Spitfire, Lightning Dust, retrieve his gear.”
I was lifted bodily by a mare and a stallion from the squadron. The prismatic mane of the mare was unique amongst the squadron; this was the first time I had taken notice of another unique feature of the Equestrians: the distinctive marking (tattoos, brands?) found on their hips. The mare had a mark depicting a storm cloud issuing a tricolored lightning bolt; the stallion has one also, albeit his was of a lightning bolt splitting a cloud. Cmdr. Blue Skies had a sun on her flank and the others in the squadron had sky or weather related marks as well.
“It’s okay, Big Guy, we gotcha,” the mare said, “Sweet Celestia, what a tumble! Are you sure you aren’t a Diamond Dog or something?”
“Can’t say,” I mumble, “but, as the old adage goes, ‘any landing you can walk away from-’”
“Yeah, I bet that was coined by somepony who always crashed,” the stallion said, sending both ponies into sniggering at my misfortune.
Once I got myself properly upright, I checked to make sure there wasn't any further damage. Back hurt, skull hurt, left leg all the way down to my ankle hurt, but no fresher injuries reported themselves. The biggest hit I had taken in that fiasco was to my pride.
Apropos to nothing, I ask, “What’s a Diamond Dog?”
I get ignored while a pair of mares out looking for my gear return. In a their possession are the remains of my airframe, bundled in a tarp carried between the two of them. The one with the two tone orange mane (And tail, wow! I missing things left, right, and center!) was holding onto my most valued possession: my rucksack. I guess the old thing has seen better days. Maybe I could barter for a new one or find a body that could repair this one because I didn’t fancy carrying all my supplies and provisions in my arms.
“I think you dropped these,” the mare with the flaming wing brand said to me, “given the state of ‘em, it’s lucky you have anything.”
“I seem to have luck in abundance,” I replied, “while my airframe has seen its final days, that rucksack has served me through many toils and snares. I’d hate to think I lost it…”
“Are we sorted now?” Cmdr. Skies asks, “all five by five?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answer, “little worse for wear, I am, but not so bad that I’m hobbled.”
“Good,” the commander says, “because we got a long walk all the way to Hospitality. If I remember right, we got to take the- What’s it called again?”
“The RFD,” answers the one I assume is called Lightning Dust, “or some such like that. Human naming conventions are hard.”
“Are you sure?” Cmdr. Skies asks of her subordinate, “that doesn’t sound right.”
“Hold on,” I interject, “is the route we’re taking a wide, elevated road that runs the length of the western bank of the East River?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Rainbow Dash exclaims, “that leads to Hospitality and New Canterlot. Do you know what’s called?”
“I do; it’s called the FDR Expressway.” I answer, pulling out the atlas of New York City I procured in a marginally intact convenience station in Jersey City. I show the commander the road on the proffered map and I get a nod in return.
“FDR?” Cmdr. Skies queries, “what kind of name is that?”
“It was named after an American president,” I answer, which gets me some rather bizarre looks, “he was a very influential political leader.”
I hear the sound of understanding all around as they digest this information.
“Let’s get going then,” Cmdr. Skies orders, “I got a bed with my name on it and I shan’t be disappointing it.”
