When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support.

This place was busy. At least, more than I’d expected it to be.

Down every steel braced concrete hall I passed by, a dozen ponies in robes or jumpsuits were hard at work on… something. Either repairing and maintaining the base in some capacity, or carting around boxes of old reclaimed wartime arcane technology. It reminded me a bit of the diagram I’d seen in school of an ant’s nest, and to be honest, the comparison seemed too spot on to outright dismiss.

The problem I had now however was finding a single mule in what was turning out to be quite the sprawling underground complex. Though that being said, I did have a bit of a hunch as to where he’d ended up at. I just had to follow my nose, as well as a couple of worn out looking Rangers who seemed to just have wrapped up their work shifts.

Chatter and laughter drifted through the halls as I closed in on the cafeteria, and the smell of freshly baked pies helped to put my still worried mind a little more at ease. Rounding the corner, I was greeted with an expansive room filled nearly wall to wall with tables that had ponies sitting and eating at them. Most of the ponies looked to be the same non-ranger ponies we’d flown over on our way in, and some were even intermixed with some of the ranger personnel.

However, at a table near the corner of the room, I spotted Happy Trails sipping on a bottle of Sparkle Cola. He let out a quick laugh as he chatted with the donkey jenny who’d helped arrest us, who was sitting across from him sipping on her own bottle. While I had hoped he wouldn’t be down here brooding after how he stormed off, somehow to me, this wasn’t quite what I’d expected to find him doing.

He caught a glance at me out of the corner of his eye and excitedly waved me over.

“Hey, there you are, Happy.” I offered as I trotted up to their table. “With Solomon still out there, I need you to stay with Ping and continue working with the rangers while I go out and find Hispano.”

“Really?” Happy grumbled and slumped in his seat. “Why do I have to stay with the jerk when he doesn’t feel like he can trust me? You can’t just take him with you?”

“Look, he should have told you...”

“Damn straight he should have!” Happy cut me off with a huff.

“Yes, but hear me out.” I did my best to push past his normal foalish overly dramatic behavior to reinforce my point. “He’s got a lot on his mind right now, and he’s not feeling well at the moment on top of that.”

“Wait, what?” He pushed himself to sit up again. That seemed to strike down his attitude fairly quickly. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry.” The donkey across from happy jumped in with a smile and a dismissive wave of her hoof. “It’s pretty common for folks who are exposed to the Starscream to feel sick. It should pass in a little while, then I’m sure he’ll be right as rain!”

“I don’t think it’ll be that simple.” I offered back with a bit of a nervous smile. Right, maybe this wasn’t the place or time to be talking about that mysterious signal…

“Hey,” Happy leaned forward, dropping his voice to a soft, but still definitely hearable voice, even with all the chat in the crowded cafeteria. “It's not a, well, mechanical issue, is it?”

“No, but look, you can talk with him about it.” I offered back, glancing over at the donkey as she happily took another sip of her Sparkle Cola. “Maybe in private would be best. But just know that he’s just a little freaked out right now about things, okay? That’s why I need you to be there for, and to keep an eye on him.”

“Yeah, alright.” Happy nodded and let out a bit of a sigh. “I know I was being harsh on him, but if he’s got something worrying him, I can set that aside for now and make sure he’s alright.”

“Thank you, Happy.” I said with a more relieved tone in my voice than I’d meant to use. You know, I think even Delilah would have had to admit that Happy’s made progress toward being a better person. Granted she’d probably still smack him across the back of the head for it taking so long, but still! For now though, at least that’s one worry out of the way. “And I’ll try to make this trip fast. Once I find Hispano, I’ll be back here and we can set out a plan on how to help Ping out.”

“Oh, are you leaving so soon?” The donkey at the table asked with a genuine frown that reminded me just a bit too much of some of the genuine moments Delilah had. “Happy here’s been telling me about some of the adventures you’ve had.” She giggled lightly as she pushed her square glasses further up her muzzle. “I’d love for you to join us, even for a little bit so I can hear some more.”

“Oh, has he now?” I wanted to say that this was surprising, but… like he’d said, it’d been a while since he’d been out with anypony. I guess I really couldn’t get on his case about it so long as he kept his chats to where we’ve been and not where we were going...

“Oh, shit!” Happy blurted out as he beamed a wide smile. “Night, this is Daisy. She joined the rangers here a few weeks ago. Anyway, she saw me sitting over here alone and was kind enough to buy me a drink.” Again, did she now?

Maybe it was because we’d just learned that Solomon was still alive, but I was more than just a bit suspicious of her motives. While I wasn’t getting the feeling that this jenny was working for Solomon, Happy had been sweet-talked just a few too many times for me not to be wary…

“I know you’ve got to go find your friend, but…” She paused and looked somewhat bashfully at the drink in her hooves. “Well, I haven’t really got any of my own to talk to down here. I think it’s because... I’m not a pony.” She looked around the room for a moment as she lowered her voice and sank in her seat. “But I don’t know. I’ve never really fit in anywhere...”

“I don’t believe you.” Happy gasped and stretched his hooves across the table. With a firm grasp, he wrapped his fetlocks around her forelegs and smiled. “A beautiful Jenny like you? Who wouldn’t want to be your friend?”

“Oh, my! Such a strong grip!” She giggled and blushed brightly as her expression softened. “I’ve never had anypony take an interest in me. Especially not anyone as handsome as you…” She leaned across the table, almost floating up out of her seat just to get closer to him. The more she looked straight into Happy’s eyes, the more I got the feeling that either she was a really good actress, or she was actually getting lost in them.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t a plant by Solomon to get information out of Happy…

“Oh… oh dear.” She whined as she glanced over at me. With a firm tug, she pulled her hooves out from Happy’s grip. “I’m so stupid, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize...” She brought her hooves up to try to cover her face as it nearly turned beat red with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to flirt right in front of your marefriend. I’m such an idiot.”

As her words filtered through my mind, I think it also took Happy a second to process what she meant. We both glanced at each other for a moment in silence before we both scrunched up our muzzles hard enough that it hurt. Unfortunately for him, that forced the big guzzle of cola he’d just drank down his throat, and he nearly choked on it.

“Oh no,” I sat down hard and offered a frantic wave to Daisy, “I’m definitely not at all…”

“Oh, we’re not…” Happy managed to choke out between coughs. “Night and I? Hah…”

“Oh, I thought…” Daisy gasped, lowering her hooves as a wide smile pulled across her grey muzzle for just a moment before she pointed a hesitant look across the table at Happy. “I’m sorry, I made things awkward, didn’t I? I always screw these sorts of things up around here. So much in fact that they gave me the nickname ‘Whoopsy’.”

“Whoopsy... Daisy?” I blurt out without thinking. Even I had to admit that it was pretty cruel as far as nicknames go...

“No no, it’s fine!” Happy offered to her as he finally stopped himself from hacking up a lung. “I mean, Night is pretty much my best friend, but not really my type, you see. Just a good friend, that’s all.” With another smile, he leaned over the table again and once more took her hooves with his. “Now you, you’re more my type.”

“Oh, he certainly has a type…” I muttered to myself.

I offered Happy a flat expression as the thoughts came back to me about how he’d hit on me, multiple times at the start of this trip. I mean, even past that, Happy had spent more time with numerous and various mares on this trip than he’d spent actually doing anything useful. Plus at this point after being dry for so long, I’d think he’d sleep with any creature as long as it wasn’t trying to kill him.

“Well, I should probably head back up.” I smiled and glanced at Happy as he finally found the strength to tear his eyes from Daisy. “I’ll have Ping come find you down here, and then I’ll be back when I’ve got Hispano.” I got a nod from him before I turned my attention to Daisy. “It was nice to meet you, sorry I couldn’t stay longer.”

“That’s fine, but…” She scrunched up her muzzle as she looked over at me. “Now that I think of it, if they’re in the city, how are you going to go looking for your friend?” Raising a hoof to her chin, she took a moment to think on it. “I mean, the thing you flew in on looked like it was about to fall out of the sky on it’s own. You couldn’t possibly want to fly out on it in that shape.”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s not a problem. You see, I can fly myself!” I smirked and flared my wings proudly. There was a sharp clink of a few glasses at other tables my feathers grazed, and some angry grumbles I got from those pony filled tables next to me as they shoved my wingtips from their faces. “Oh, sorry about that...”

“Yeah, but with how wet it is out there, I bet those flat feathers are going to make it a pain.” Daisy said starkly as she crossed her legs and stared at my wings. Wait, she could tell? Just by looking at them!? “You know, I just had the craziest idea!” She gasped and pushed herself out from the table. Without saying anything else, she pushed past me and headed for the doorway. Only after a moment did she stop and spin around. With a beaming smile, she waved for Happy and I to follow her. “What are you two doing? Come on, I’ll show you what I’m talking about!”

Glancing back at Happy, he seemed just as confused as I was by the sudden outburst.

“She sure is an… interesting donkey.” I offered to him as he pushed himself out of his seat.

“Yeah, I’ll give you that.” He smirked as he gave me a pat on the side and waited for me to get to my hooves. “But nopony’s perfect, and I’ll be damned if she isn’t the prettiest jenny I think I’ve ever met.” With a beaming grin of his own, he trotted after her with an extra spring in his step. Well, at least he’s in a good mood I suppose.

It was nice to feel something across my numbed skin again, even if it was rain.

The sun had dipped down on the horizon, and the clouds above had muted the evening light to a premature twilight. The sound of thunder off in the distance to the east also brought with it a gusty wind that made the rain wash across the ground in sheets every time it spiked. It was by no means anything close to ideal flying weather, but admittedly, it could have been worse.

That, and to be above ground again without the noisy drone of the Starscream threatening to destroy my hearing was something to be thankful for.

“Hey there, Captain!” Eliza’s cheery voice was another thing I’d desperately needed to help lighten the mood. “Just an update, but I don’t currently have a location for you on Solomon and Rook. After their attempt on your life, they seem to have gone into hiding.”

While that was not exactly great news, the fact they weren’t out and about at least meant that they were probably going to call it a night. Well, either that, or they saw Hispano and were currently going after her. But you know, that… that’s probably not what they’re doing.

“No need to worry, Captain.” Eliza spoke up with a bit of a softer, more understanding tone than usual for her. “I’ll keep looking for them. You just focus on getting to Miss Hispano, alright?”

She’s right, there was no use in worrying myself to death about ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’.

“So, I may be new to the Rangers,” Daisy called back over her shoulder as Happy, Ping, and I followed her out from the safety of the concrete dome sitting over the bunker. “But I’ve been allowed some tinker time on some of the museum pieces we’ve had gathering dust, and I think I’ve got something that can get you to your friend quickly, as long as you know roughly where she is, mind you.”

“A museum?” Happy let out a disappointed snort. “What’s so special about something like that? I’ve been to a few here and there, and generally they’re all full of boring, dusty, useless old things.”

“No, silly. The museum is where the Rangers store all the stuff that’s considered unfixable, but too rare to scrap for parts.” The light giggle she let out instantly brought back Happy’s smile. “And… I kind of lied. I’m not a scribe, so I’m not allowed in there. But… I’ve had help sneaking in a few times after they head off for the night. I’ve been working on one of the pieces all on my own, and I think I actually got it working. If I can just prove to them that I’ve restored it, then maybe they’ll accept me! Oh! Maybe they’ll promote me to being an actual scribe!”

“HEY, CAPTAIN!”

All three of us nearly tripped over our own hooves as Tofu shouted and waved excitedly at us from the Starscream emplacement. Glancing over, I watched as Tofu effortlessly hopped down onto the tarmac and cantered over to us. Despite the fact that there were lines of blood matting down the fur under her ears, she wore the biggest, beaming smile I’d seen on her yet.

“Are you okay, Tofu?” I asked her without thinking.

“I don’t think she can hear you.” Ping of course stated what really should have been obvious to me.

“What gave it away?” Happy said, giving him a playful nudge. “Was it the bleeding out the ears thing?”

“WHAT?” She shouted as she strode up to us and pointed to an ear. “I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING YOU GUYS ARE SAYING. THAT ENGINE WAS LIKE, LITERALLY, THE LOUDEST THING EVER.”

“Ack, stop shouting!” Happy whimpered and hoofed at his ears.

“WHAT?”

Daisy gasped and quickly hoofed deep into one of her jumpsuit pockets. With a spring of her hooves, she brought up and popped the cork of a small vial with her muzzle.

“When you live and work around something like the Starscream everyday…” Daisy chimed happily as she all but shoved the small vial into Tofu’s ear. To her credit, Tofu didn’t seem too put off by the sudden advance from the strange donkey. “You learn to carry a few things for those just in case moments. You uh, doing better there young miss?”

“Oh that literally could not have been more perfect.” With a few flicks of her ear, Tofu’s muzzle split into a wide, beaming smile as she gave Daisy a firm pat on the shoulder. “Thank you for that, you’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem.” Daisy squeaked meekly and nearly glowed at the compliment.

“But seriously, Night, you have to try that thing out.” Tofu wheeled herself and her exuberance right at me like a high power spotlight. “I mean, it was amazing, and terrifying at the same time!” The nearly vibrating grip she clamped onto my shoulder was all I needed to know just how thrilled she was about everything so far today. “Is there even a word for that? I literally don’t even know!” She let out a dizzying string of excited giggles that, for a moment, were nearly the same pitch of the fully spun up Starscream. “At first I didn’t…”

A black and white blur cut her off as Ping used his hoof to hold her muzzle shut.

“I do not mean to silence you, Tofu, or alarm you.” As Ping spoke with a stronger tone than he normally took, Tofu’s exuberance thankfully waned. “but I think you need to know that Solomon is not dead. In fact, he is somewhere here in Seaddle right now.”

“What?” She gasped, forcing his hoof from her muzzle as she took a single, shaky step back. “No! No. Uh-uh. Fuck no. No! That is not true, so you take it the fuck back, right the fuck now!” With a wobble, she slipped and ended up with her flank coming down hard onto the wet tarmac. “We literally watched that asshole blow up. Don’t fucking joke about that shit, it’s not funny, Ping.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not a joke.” Happy grumbled.

“And no, none of us watched him die.” Ping frowned and hung his head shamefully. “Rook must have teleported them out at the last second. We should have assumed that could have always been a possibility.”

“No! You listen here buster.” Tofu snapped back, throwing her hooves forward with enough rage that she came right up onto her hooves and practically impaled her hoof against Ping’s chest. “You made a mistake. He has to be dead, okay? Because if he’s not? Well then excuse me, but what the fuck did Double Delta die for?”

“We’re all pissed off, Tofu.” I could feel the familiar and entirely relatable rage boiling in my veins. “But at the moment, we can’t afford to be angry. Right now, I need to get airborne, and I could use all the help I can get.”

“Yeah.” Happy stepped in to help try to keep Tofu’s rage gauge from tipping over into a full scale meltdown. “Once he finds and gets Hispano here, then we are going to deal with Solomon, alright? Until then, Hispano’s the priority, so you’ve gotta hold it together, ya dig?”

“Hispano?” She asked, trying her hardest to focus on the name and wield it to neutralize her own boiling blood. “Yeah, you’re right. If she’s in trouble, she’s the priority.” With a sharp snort, she passed a quick glance back over at the darkening grey city looming through the rainy haze. “Just point me at whatever you need done, Captain. Even if what it takes is tearing down this whole fucking dreary city.”

As much as I was glad Tofu was on board for helping us, I couldn’t help but feel like she was right where I was after we lost Violet. That meant that I knew she was willing to do exactly whatever she thought was necessary, no matter how far it took her. And unlike how I’d been with Violet, the scary thing was I think she was actually capable of making it happen.

“Wow, it really got kinda heavy all of a sudden, didn’t it?” Daisy let out a short lived nervous laugh that drew a sharp growl from Tofu. Happy did his best to offer her an awkward, but well meaning smile, while I couldn’t really give her anything more than a small shrug. “Okay then… how about we continue on to the museum?” She pointed her hoof across the main runway to the large hanger sitting near the flight control tower. With a nervous smile, she turned and pushed herself right up into a canter. “Alright, and we’re walking…”

Happy was quick to follow her, and Ping did his best to follow behind Happy. However, when I tried to turn as well, Tofu’s hoof came down on my shoulder again. Her grip was just as strong as before, but her leg was now as steady as a steel beam.

“We get you in the air. You get Hispano.” The Tofu I met and had known from Galloway wasn’t the same one speaking now. “Then we’re going on a hunt. We are going to track down that fucking bastard, and blow him up right this time.” Her hoof dug into me harder, and even the fabric of my dress seemed to strain under her iron grip. “And once we know he’s in a million pieces, once we can see his fucking corpse, then, and only then, will we have avenged Delta. No complaints, no excuses, and not one more hoofstep southward until he’s dead.”

Having been where she is, I knew how unpredictable and dangerous that sort of mentality made her. The part of my mind that constantly dwelled on and compared how Delilah had run things screamed at me to put her on a short leash and keep her contained. But at the same time, I’m not sure I even could, or if I should. If anything, it might be beneficial if I let her put her rage to work. Goddesses know that she couldn’t do worse than I did with Galina…

Still, that struck a chord within me. I have cheated death more times than I could count now, survived things that nopony should have any right walking away from. But so has Solomon. For all the chaos and death he’s wrought throughout the north, there was no fucking way now that he was back I was just going to let that continue. Delilah and he had their rules, but now this was my game, with my crew.

“Tofu, as somepony who’s been where you are, I need you to listen up.” Looking back at her, I watched a spark of hope run behind her cold and flat gaze. “We can’t afford to hesitate with Solomon. It may take a while to find him again, but if you see an opportunity to kill him, you take it. I will not let him get away again, not after everyone he’s killed.” Her hoof hold on me loosened as a small frown pulled across her muzzle. “I won’t settle for anything less from any one of us.”

As Tofu nodded and trotted past me, I was left with an odd, familiar feeling. A sense of Deja Vu that I couldn’t quite place, but it left me feeling hollow. I also felt that if Buck had heard me say that, he would have been more disappointed in me than ever. But after the bodycount Solomon had tallied up, with the suffering he’d left in his wake, I’m not sure that disappointment wouldn’t be only a moment’s worth of consideration to him.

As I turned my gaze momentarily back toward the grey city, I’d almost hoped that Solomon was out there watching me. I wanted him to know we were coming. We were as inevitable as a storm cloud bringing rain, and as immutable as the thunder that follows the flash.

By the time I’d caught up with the others and made it through the red ‘maintenance crew only’ door on the side of the hangar, I’d become completely soaked by the rainfall. Though I couldn’t feel it, I knew my body was freezing from how hard it was to control my steps across the immaculately clean smooth concrete hanger floors. The faint flickering of the large fluorescent lights above us was for some reason slightly exaggerated by my augment, and definitely didn’t make trotting any easier.

The hangar itself was incredibly spacious however. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it looked bigger on the inside, I think what might be more apt was to say that I didn’t appreciate the scale of this place from across the runway. I knew somewhere in the back of my head that we’d come here because they built cloudships here during the war, but the realization of the infrastructure that process demanded didn’t hit home until now.

The cavernous structure was nearly a hundred meters tall, and stretched back from us for maybe four hundred. Rusting platforms, gantrys, hanging cranes, all sat above us in configurations that any Pegasus who’d ever visited a skydock would have instantly picked out as familiar. However, there were machines, forms, rigging, and all sorts of manufacturing equipment I’ve never even seen before, with most of them still holding together cloudship parts in various stages of completion, as well as corrosion.

I’m sure if my dad had come down here, he’d be in heaven.

“Woah…” Even as that single word slipped from my muzzle, I still don’t think it could do justice to the sheer amount of awe I was in right now.

“You can say that again…” Tofu offered back as she seemed just as enamored as I was with the veritable deluge of basically undiscovered old world tech.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much the response we all had to this place.” Daisy let out a laugh as she tried to clean her wet glasses with her soaked jumpsuit. It was a laugh that echoed eerily through the expansive building, bouncing around in an odd and almost disorienting way. “You wouldn’t believe all the old stuff we’ve got sitting in these hangars.”

“It’s just a bunch of rusting junk.” Happy scoffed, but screwed up his muzzle as he spun around to Tofu and I. “Unless, are these the parts we’re looking for?”

“No.” Ping’s response was stern, and faster than either Tofu and I could have ever been. But from the way he looked up at the pieces of cloudship around here with a smile, I could tell he was enjoying this just as much as we were. “This assembly line is part of the Raptor upgrade and refit program Equestria implemented in the last six months of the war. It’s quite amazing the efforts they went through for the sake of an efficient production line.” Pausing, he took a moment to just take in everything. “Just to see something like this now… well, it’s almost worth having died earlier.”

“Your friend is correct, I think? It’s nice to meet someone who can appreciate efficient organization!” Daisy let out an oddly squeaky snort as she spun around. “To be honest, we were told not to touch any of this stuff because this particular hangar’s climate control is unreliable, and most of this stuff is too corroded to move safely. Plus as it turns out, the Steel Rangers don’t have much need for a bunch of auxiliary avionics and cloud generator grey water recycling systems without a cloudship to stick them on.”

She turned to the right and started trotting towards another red door on the side of the hangar. It wasn’t until then that I noticed that the door itself had been built inside of a sectioned partition of the wall. Looking at the wall as a whole, it had been designed to be rolled back.

“Are all of these hangars connected?” I asked as Daisy hoofed open the red door.

“Sure are!” She smiled as she stepped aside and waved her hoof for us to head on through. “Actually, this is all technically one building. When not separated by these inner doors, it’s by volume the largest building in all of old Equestria, actually!”

“Did they really need so much space to make skycraft?” Happy blurted out as he stepped into the doorway. With a stutter, he came to a complete stop halfway through. “Holy fuck you weren’t kidding, this place is huge!”

“Considering they built things like the Thunderheads here, I’m sure they needed more space than this sometimes.” I offered as everytime I looked around us, I spotted yet another new thing. Either some strangely shaped tool for a purpose long forgotten to time, or some machine meant to test or measure something or other with the odd collection of parts nearby.

“Actually, Night’s right, they needed more space.” Ping replied with a smile as he stepped up behind Happy and prodded him on the flank. “If you think this is impressive, then you will be happy to know there is also another set of large buildings to the north I believe, on the other side of the city itself. That was where quite a few systems were pre-fabricated at, then moved here for final assembly.”

“Now that doesn’t seem right…” Daisy scrunched her muzzle up once more and held out her hoof, stopping Ping as Happy finally made it through the door. “I’ll admit, I don’t know everything about this place or the Rangers, but… I’m pretty sure they would have told us about a different set of buildings somewhere in the city.” With a frustrated look, she seemed to pull back for a moment in thought. “Then again, maybe they were destroyed when the city slid down the hill on the last day?”

“Perhaps.” Ping shrugged, beaming his smile to her before turning his attention through the doorway again. “But even if it is flooded, the underground tunnels linking them together should still exist somewhere on the north end of this facility.”

I followed Ping through the door, stopping as the lighting above us dimmed. Glancing up, I found the twin boomed tails of a line of incredibly tall, but odd looking propeller craft parked off to our left. Sitting on four sets of lengthy landing gear, the sleek and silver looking completely flat belly of the aircraft sat four meters above the ground, and had mounting points for something all along it’s teardrop shaped underside. While the height of the skycraft alone was odd, the flat fuselage meant that the cabin itself would have been incredibly cramped for the few ponies who might have fit inside it.

Looking down the line to the other two dozen similar crafts next to this one, each one sat straddled over what looked to be a standard sized shipping container. The containers looked to be the same kind that had been on Bertha, but had been modified to be mounted flush against the flat bottoms of the twin engined skycrafts.

Not to mention, a bunch of oddities had been welded and affixed to the containers themselves. Some seemed to hold various radio antennas, other long range communication equipment, as well as… parachutes? While others looked to be more like mobile houses, complete with windows built into them. Steel Ranger carts and wagons sat filled with supplies of all sorts, and sat next to the open containers, with some actually half offloaded. Weirder still, was that some of the twin propeller engined aircraft maintenance panels still sat open, as if they were abandoned only halfway through their flight preparations.

“What happened here?” I couldn’t help but ask myself under my breath.

“Oh, those?” Daisy spoke up starkly as she appeared unexpectedly at my side. “I think those were called 'boxcars' back in the war. They've uh, supposedly just been sitting in this hangar being kept in operational shape by the Rangers. Though, since the clouds came down, there's been a big effort to get them converted to haul shipping containers for an upcoming expedition.” She paused and scrunched up her muzzle as she waved to the half unloaded carts. “Well, at least that had been the plan. You know, before we started fighting ourselves.”

“An expedition?” Ping asked as his ears perked right up. “Where, may I ask, did you plan on going?”

“You know, I'm not sure.” Daisy rubbed at her neck with a shrug. “Most of us had our own betting pools on where the Elders were talking about going. Thing is, I heard a rumor that arguments over the expedition itself are what pushed the base over to embracing our new philosophies.” Waving for us to follow her, she trotted forward between the large landing gear of the skycraft parked over us. “All I know is that Ducky’s mom wanted to use them to set up and supply field bases at strategic points around the region. All so we could better coordinate and deal with threats to the city and the airfield.”

“And what do you think about that?” Happy asked as he quickly trotted himself up beside her.

“I think that if there had been a local squad of Applejack’s Rangers to help my family a decade ago,” She huffed and hung her head, but didn’t let herself slow down. “Then maybe there wouldn’t have been a raider ambush waiting to collapse an overpass on top of them.”

“Oh, I… I didn’t… what I mean is...” Happy tripped over his words, and almost over his own hooves. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Daisy offered him a sad smile that I’m sure she hoped we wouldn’t see right through. “It’s ancient history now. Plus, now that I’m one of them, I can help the Applejack’s Rangers keep the same thing from happening to anypony else.” Waving for us to follow, she trotted off toward the other side of the expansive hanger complex.

As I continued to hobble along with the others, I couldn’t help but think more about these new odd Rangers. Sure, we’d had our issues running into them in the past, but overall, they didn’t seem as bad as the others had made them out to be. Outside of Coconut Curry’s brand of badness, the Galloway Rangers seemed more than willing to help out the ponies of Mare’s Lake and Cantercross. And the Maple Valley Rangers we ran into, while stiff with their protocol, did seem to have the interest of protecting the region over reclaiming tech.

Then there’s these ‘Applejack’s’ Rangers. The fact that they’d split themselves along ideological lines was encouraging on the surface. However, that’s all we’d scratched really, and with all our experiences so far, I wasn’t convinced that somewhere in their ranks was a Coconut Curry type plot going on. The last thing I wanted for us was to get dug in deep enough that we wedged ourselves right into the middle of it.

I took a moment to smile about that fact. As I did, I remembered what Double Drum had told me before we left Cantercross. Not everything was our problem, and that sometimes the best thing to do was to let others handle it. Though, with what we needed from the Rangers here, I wasn’t sure we’d have that luxury this time…

“Bit for your thoughts?” Tofu asked from my side. I looked up, finding she trailed back far enough from the others that she only just kept up with my hobbling pace.

I paused before answering as I looked at Tofu’s genuinely curious expression as it sat on me. Even though there was all this amazing new tech around us, she kept her attention right on me. It wasn’t a big gesture, but it was definitely welcomed.

“What do you think about these Rangers?” I asked her plainly. “Think we can trust them?”

“I’m not sure yet.” She shrugged as her gaze shifted forward. Her eyes narrowed slightly for a moment as she peered at Daisy, but softened again as she thought to herself. “I want to say that something feels off, but I can’t literally put my hoof on it. They just seem too good to be true.”

“I know what you mean.” I nodded to her and shared my own shrug. “I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but every time I’ve given an ounce of leniency or trust, it always explodes in my face.”

“I’d hope... that doesn’t mean that I’ve disappointed you, Captain.” Her somewhat hesitant response came with a frown that hit me harder than I’d have liked. Again, I couldn’t help but feel at least a small sense of pride. She’d come so far with us despite how we’d met.

“I didn’t mean that, and of course not, Tofu.” I offered her a smile that I’d hoped would help her see past the inadvertently mixed message. “But Delilah tried her best to show me that nothing was ever as simple as it looks. Is Daisy helping us so that we’ll help the Rangers out, or does she have her own agenda? What about the Elder here, what games is she playing with us? Or am I distracting myself looking too far into things, and our biggest worry is that Solomon is still out there somewhere?”

“I want to be suspicious, Captain.” Tofu sighed and offered up a marginal smile as she turned her attention back to me. “Believe me, I want to say that they’re up to something. But… most of me says that so far, they’re being honest with wanting to help us.”

While I was happy to have her feel exactly the way I did about these rangers, it was at the same time, the worst answer I could have gotten. Nothing had ever been so simple in our journey. Worst of all, was that between Solomon, the jamming signal, both the Arcturus and the Remora in bad shape, it simply meant that right now we were ripe for something to go terribly wrong.

Which is why Tofu’s light giggle caught me off guard.

“Goddesses, we sound like a couple of foals with tin foil caps on.” She snorted and gave my side a light pat with her hoof. “I know that we shouldn’t let our guard down so easy, but you literally just had a curse pulled out of you. Maybe things are actually looking up for once.”

“I hope to Celestia you’re right.” I forced a nervous smile up over my muzzle as I noticed that Daisy had led the others to yet another door in the hanger wall.

The smiling donkey tugged open the door to the next hangar, and revealed instead, a red painted wooden barn door immediately on the other side. Ping nearly tripped over Happy as he stopped walking, and though both said nothing to each other, they both shared a short glare before going back to puzzling over the odd door in front of us. Daisy, of course, didn’t hesitate to reach her hoof up to the new door, and with a few firm raps, she knocked on it.

“Yeah yeah, keep your horseshoes on, I’m coming.” The gravel filled voice of a mare groaned from through the door.

The heavy creaks of old wood were followed by another groan of protest from the mare. Her stiff hoofsteps came through the old wood with astounding clarity, as well as what sounded like a sliding bolt being unlocked. The door shuddered as it was opened, revealing a ghoul.

What was left of her velvet coat and platinum blond mane gave off a sheen that clashed with the greyed muscle and exposed bleached bones on her body. A body that despite missing bits, was astoundingly near perfect in shape and form. The shade of purple lipstick she wore brightened up the cracked lips barely holding onto her muzzle, and stiff but elegant fake eyelashes sharpened the pair of yellow eyes that already looked like they could cut their way through a stallion’s heart in an instant.

It was clear to me that before she was a ghoul, she must have been one hell of a bombshell, and that she hadn’t let being a ghoul change that about her one bit. And I dare say that she even made me feel a bit jealous with how damn good she looked. The only thing I had going for me over her, was…

I paused as something on her back moved, and she extended a surprisingly well filled out wing forward. In it, she held a cigarette, which she effortlessly slipped from between her immaculate feathers and into her lips. With a flick of her forehoof, she lit a match held in it and brought it to the tip of her smoke. How… how was she the posterfilly of awesome pegasus coolness I never knew I wanted!?

Taking a long drag from her cigarette, she narrowed her eyes and looked over us, hanging on me for more than a moment before ending on Daisy.

“Daisy.” She nodded to the donkey. “I see you’ve brought a whole damned tour group this time.”

“Well, you see…” Daisy let her long ears hang as she dragged her hoof along the floor nervously.

“You know the others don’t want you in here.” The ghoul snorted, blowing out a cloud of smoke right into Happy’s face. “Hell, they still don’t even want me around.” Again she glanced over at me, but this time her eyes dropped to the contents of my flight harness before they returned to Daisy. “I get an earful everytime about letting you in, you know.”

“Yes, I understand, but…” The shy donkey shrunk back further with each word.

“Good point.” The mare snorted sharply. “I don’t give a fuck what they think.” Turning around, she used her wing to wave us all to follow. “Wipe your damned hooves off first. I don’t want you muddying up my workshop.”

“Thank you, Miss. Westervelt.” Daisy perked up and eagerly trotted inside after her. Following almost on top of her hocks, was an elated looking Ping.

“Oh! Now that’s something I’d never expected to hear in this place.” He chimed up as he kicked his hooves on the doorframe quickly before entering.

“She’s something alright.” Happy groaned and glanced back at me. “Can you believe that old bag?”

“I think she’s amazing.” I thought to myself. Wait, no, it just slipped out, didn’t it?

“Of course you do.” Happy retorted flatly before heading inside himself.

“Don’t worry, Captain.” Tofu gave me a few light taps on the side as she stepped past me. “If she weren’t two centuries old and falling apart, I think I’d be right there with you. Though, eyes on the prize. Remember why we came here.”

Right, Hispano.

Shaking the wandering thoughts from my head, I nodded to myself and headed in after Tofu and the others. I had a job to do, and we were already losing too much daylight by the minute. My biggest hope was that for what trust we put into her, Daisy could come through and lend us a helping hoof.

Hobbling through the old barn door, the wide wooden floorboards under me creaked worryingly from the uneven weight I put on them. The old floor was dusty and dry, and I could damn near feel the splinters I was going to be pulling out tomorrow. However, looking around, I was surprised to see that most of this place was as clean as the bunker had been.

Boxes of strange gizmos, gadgets, and various bits of tech were laid out in a precise fashion on several long tables that lined the small side room of the barn we were in. Most of the ones laid out were things I’d never seen anything like before. A powerhoof that utilized opalescent talismans around it that were shaped like fractal snowflakes, or the glass sphere with a pair of silver cylinders inside that emit a prism shaped purple magic around them. And that was just a few of the incredibly odd pieces around here.

“Excuse me, but…” Ping spoke up, pulling the ghoul mare’s attention over to him. “Are you really the Bluebell Westervelt? Former head of the advanced concepts department for Bow-wing?”

“Nothing former about it.” The mare smirked before turning and throwing her whole body into shoving open a sliding wooden door to the main area of the barn. “Technically I’m the CEO now. You know, since all of Bow-wing became mine when the war ended and the management candidates were reduced to a pile of ashes or yours truly. So don’t believe the walking toasters around here who have been claiming otherwise for nearly two centuries.”

With a heavy sigh, Bluebell stepped back from the door and trotted over to the loose collection of furniture sitting in between piles of old tech that had only recently been shoved out of the way. She sat down on a well kept floral print sofa and kicked her rear hooves up onto a low maple coffee table next to it. Looking somewhat relaxed, she brought her smoke back up to her lips and took a long drag on it while eyeing Ping with some interest.

“Not often I’ve seen a stripe with any idea of who I am, let alone one with their skin still intact.” She snorted, blowing a ring of smoke out with a smile. “Tell me, Daisy, where did you find such an interesting collection of strangers?”

“While we’d love to sit and swap stories…” Tofu spoke up as her eyes wandered across all the dusty tech piled around the barn. I could almost see her tense up to hold herself back from just jumping in and looking at all of it. “We came here for your help, ma’am.”

“Well, most of them were interesting…” Bluebell huffed before taking another long draw off her cigarette. She let her eyes wander over Tofu before exhaling with a smirk. “You’re a Ranger alright, but… not from this chapter.”

“Yeah, she’s right though, I brought them here for a reason.” Daisy smiled as she trotted across the room towards a large object stuck in the corner. “I told them that I might have something that could help their friend here get back to the city quickly.” It was covered up with an old tarp, but from its shape, it looked like a fairly small skycraft of some sort. And unlike the other dusty relics here, it was pretty clean, telling me that Daisy must have been telling the truth about having worked on it. “Do you think the Mailmare is in good enough shape to fire up?”

“What?” Bluebell blinked and nearly let her cigarette slip from her lips. “You want to do a test flight now?”

“Well, we’ve done so much work on it…” Daisy called back as she wrapped her hoof around the edge of the tarp. “And it would be the fastest way to get her to downtown.” With a lift of the edge, Daisy disappeared under the tarp.

“And you figured you’d show off your work to the toasters in the process. I get ya.” The ghoul rolled her eyes with a sigh, letting her eyes fall onto me with a smirk. “I’m going to guess that being a pegasus, you don’t have any objections to being shot up into the sky?”

“Excuse me again, but… what is this ‘mailmare’?” Ping once again asked as he slowly made his way over to the tarped craft.

“Oh, just a little side project I never finished for the Equestrian mail service.” Bluebell shrugged and gestured lazily to the tarp.

With a sharp few tugs from the far side, Daisy pulled the tarp back. What she revealed was indeed some sort of skycraft sitting on a standard set of tricycle aircraft gear. A pair of sharply swept wings sat along the sides of a bright red fuselage that was shaped more like a missile than any skycraft I’d ever seen before. Equally swept standard rear control surfaces sat at theback of the craft, as well as what looked like the exhaust manifold of an arcane jet engine. Worryingly, oddly absent from the craft was a cockpit, and in its place, an air intake poked out from the top of the body.

“Daisy here showed some interest in it.” She took another drag of her cigarette with a smirk aimed at me. “So I figured what’s the harm in seeing if we could actually make it work. Not having any second thoughts now, are you?”

“Woah.” Tofu tried her best to stifle a giggle as she lost the fight to keep herself still. “You converted an old megaspell cruise missile for this?” In an instant, she had all but hopped over to the craft and was running her hoof over the smooth nose cone. Her hoof stopped before touching a picture painted on it of a grey wall-eyed pegasus mare straddling the craft with a smile. “What in the wide world of Equestria did the mail service want with something like this?”

“With most pegasi joining the war effort in one way or another, they wanted a way to keep up the mail delivery while minimizing long-haul letter fliers.” Bluebell laughed as she crossed her propped up hind hooves on the table. “It was my job to think outside the box, and we were getting ready to phase these earlier generation missiles out of service anyway. Thought it was a win-win if I’m being honest.”

“You want to stick Night on top of that?” Happy blurt out sharply the way I normally would.

“No no, not on, but in!” Daisy called out as she leaned down and hoofed at something under the main body. With a metallic clunk, a panel swung down and a set of metal boxes dropped out onto the floor. “Other than the launch stresses, it shouldn’t be all that uncomfortable in the mail compartment.”

“I don’t know,” Bluebell again took a long draw on what was quickly becoming a very short smoke. “From the way she looks, I bet she’s handled worse.”

“Night here is no stranger to rough launches, and even used to have a retrofitted jump-pack to get into the sky.” Ping stated with his normal beaming smile as he spun around and waved at me. “In fact, this might be one of the more tame way’s Night’s gotten airborne.”

“Uh...” I tried to speak up. “That shouldn’t be the metric we’re focusing on here, Ping…”

“Well then, that settles it.!” With a sly grin, Bluebell perked her eyebrow at me. “So, what do you say? Are you ready to master rocket riding?”

Oh goddesses, I wish she hadn’t phrased it like that. At least it gave me a moment to deadpan and prepare for what was coming.

“I…” Happy spat out as he hammered his wooden hoof on the floor a few times. With a growl, he spun to me and jabbed his hoof in my face. “You’re lucky, Night. I’m going to forgo the joke I was about to make because it’s more Hispano’s forte, and it’s not fair that she’s not here right now.” Oh, how nice of him.

“Good call, buddy.” Tofu nodded to him while waving me to head over. “We’ve taken long enough, and every moment we waste is a moment Hispano is out there alone. Some come on, Night. Into the rocket ya go!”

As much as I hadn’t planned on getting stuffed inside of a rocket plane today, she was right. We’d taken long enough, and there would be plenty of time to chat later. Right now, I should have one priority, and one priority only.

“Alright, let’s do this.” I took a moment to breathe before nodding. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

“Oh, you won’t need to do anything.” Bluebell spoke as she leaned forward and put her cigarette out on the small table her hooves had been on. “All I need is a location from you and the system will guide itself to the drop zone.”

“Ah shit, I didn’t think about that.” Happy muttered as he turned to me. “How the hell are we supposed to find her?”

“Let me ask Eliza.” Reaching up to my augment, I gave it a tap as I smirked. “Hey, Eliza? Do you happen to know where Hispano is at the moment?”

“Oh hi there, captain!” Eliza’s cheery voice resonated into my mind with a crackle of static. “I'm sorry, but I don't currently see her from where the Arcturus is situated. I would move myself to a different vantage point, but there's a strong shearing crosswind over the city that could cause significant structural damage to the Arcturus if I were to drift any more westward.”

“It’s fine. I’d rather you played it safe, so don’t worry about moving the ship.” I answered back. I caught an understandably nervous glance from Happy from my words. “Where was the last place you were able to observe her at?”

“My best guess as of her last known position and heading, is somewhere in the northeastern part of the city, around the skyscraper barrier. I’m sorry I can’t narrow it down further, Captain.”

“That’s a pretty big area, but it’ll have to do.” I wasn’t exactly a fan of flying around half the city randomly in the dark, but what other choice did I have?

“Hey, I wouldn’t worry, bud.” Happy gave me a reassuring tap on the shoulder. “We’ll do our best to play it by ear, but we’ll find her.”

“Ear…” I blinked up at him as the spark of an idea flashed through my mind. “That’s it! Eliza, can you listen for Hispano? More specifically, Suiza?” If I knew her when she was frustrated, a good fight went a long way to helping out her mood.

“That is an incredible longshot, captain.” Tofu called to me with a scrunched up muzzle. “Sure a twenty millimeter autocannon has a fairly unique report to it, but Hispano would have to be in an active firefight, and…”

“I’ve got a fix on Suiza’s location for you, Captain.”

“You found her?” I had to stifle a laugh as Tofu scrunched up her muzzle even harder.

“Of course she did.” Tofu said as she sat down hard. With a sigh, she brought her hooves up to her head and shook it.

“Hispano is currently engaging unknown assailants near eighteenth and market avenue.” Ping spoke as he beamed his smile right at Tofu.

“Of course she is.” Again, Tofu sighed and looked up at the curious expression currently on Bluebell’s rotting muzzle. “Do you think you can chart a flight plan for there?”

“Sure thing. Should only take a minute.” Bluebell nodded as she pulled herself to her hooves. Her exposed leg bones gave out a concerning creak as she turned herself over towards the large pair of double doors on the other side of the barn. Strangely, she stopped just short of them, instead looking over her shoulder with a smile. “Actually, I’m quite tired today. These old bones don’t have much strength in them left, so could I get you two boys to come help open these doors?”

Ping and Happy traded glances before nodding and heading over after her.

“You however, need to come over here.” Daisy called out to me, waving for me to join her under the rocket plane. “And you, you were a Ranger before, right?”

“Still am.” Tofu snorted as she turned.

“Can you get started on a standard pre-flight systems check?” Daisy did her best to offer a disarming smile to Tofu, and pointed her hoof back toward the arcane jet engine. “We haven’t spooled up the main turbine at all yet, and while it should run fine on paper, a second pair of eyes is always welcome.”

“Fine, but you’ve gotta be kidding me.” Tofu nodded, turning and heading right to the back end of the craft. “I mean, generally you want to test your engine before committing it to a flight. But I’m starting to realize you do everything out of order here, so what do I know?”

“Tofu.” I tried to use my best calm and collected voice with her. “We need to find Hispano before it gets too dark to see out there.” While I know my best wasn’t going to win her over, the flat look she shot across her muzzle at me was sharper than I’d expected. “I’ll be fine so long as this thing can get me in the air.”

“The Mailmare’ll do that.” Bluebell offered with a nod. “I can guarantee you at least a whole minute of flight time. Past that, it’s anyone’s guess if she’ll hold together.”

Looking into Tofu’s eyes, I could see the unease. It had been a lot she’d been exposed to so far today. And I’ll freely admit that these Rangers are far from what I expected to find here. But as Tofu reached up and pressed her hoof against the craft again, her eyes turned back to it and I could see a layer of stress peel away from her. With another sigh, she gave out a nod and turned to look over the engine.

As I walked up to the large red rocket, I reached up and followed Tofu’s example. Balancing on my hind legs, I let my forehoof run along the smooth metal skin of the rocketplane. As I did, I was reminded of the first time I let my hooves run over my jump pack. The memories of Hardcase and Boiler working on it came flooding back, and before I knew it, I was lost in the thoughts of how things were on the convoy.

“Are you... okay?” Daisy’s voice was an anchor that dragged me back to the world of the here and now. “You’re crying.” It wasn’t until she said it that I realized I had tears dripping down my cheeks. “It’s alright if you’re scared, I know I’d be terrified. Never really been a fan of flying myself. But Miss Bluebell and I have put a lot of work into making sure this thing won’t explode on takeoff.”

“I’m… fine.” I smiled at her as I removed my hoof and stood back on all three legs. “Not scared, just remembering a few friends who would have loved to see something like this fly.”

Goddesses, I really missed them all.

Author's Note

A huge thanks as always to TheFurryRailFan for all his help in going over these chapters before they come out. It's been such an enormous help, and I cannot express enough gratitude to you for all the work you've done so far.

And of course, a huge thanks to Kkat for writing FoE and letting us all use the setting freely!