The Northern Wasteland, Exact Location Unknown

I wouldn’t call myself a heavy sleeper. My whole life I’ve been as close to sleeping with one eye open as any pony has. But for whatever reason I found the cold ground I was lying on to be something of a relief. I had definitely woken up, but I couldn’t find the strength to open my eyes.

Then I remembered the furies. We still don’t know where most of them went. At that last thought my eyes snapped open to show me the dull grey ceiling suspended above me. As I sat up and looked around I realized two things. Right off the bat was the different environment. The other was my pipbuck, or lack thereof. When I looked down it wasn’t anywhere in the room, meaning someone removed it while I was passed out.

As I got to my feet I realized another point; I’m starving. The last time I felt this hungry was after two days of throwing up when I was really young… But I couldn’t have been out that long, could I?

The bulkhead to the hallway was easily opened to let me out of the room. As I stepped out into the hall I saw the the Mark of the Royal Sisters plastered on the wall with an anchor in the middle. Other than the lack of drawn on ‘ice’ the logo on the wall was a dead ringer for the one back at the cryo facility. We must’ve made it to the airship and I got dragged along while I was out.

I hung a right and wandered down the hallway. The lights were all on and giving off that soft hum that one associates with fluorescent lighting. So even after two centuries under the snow the ship was still functional to some extent. As the hall opened up into the bridge I could see why no one was with me; both sides of the ship had monitor banks showing camera feeds from inside and outside the ship. The one off to the left was manned by Porter, who seemed rather distracted by some sort of book. “So we found the airship.” I observed aloud.

Porter snapped out of his stupor and realized that he wasn’t alone. “Hey, you’re up!”

“Yes I’m up.” I spat. “Now do you have a protein bar or something, because I feel like I’ve been-” I shut up when Porter fished out the familiar packaging of a chocolate bar and stuffed it in my hands. “Thanks.” I didn’t wait to eat the candy, tearing the package open with a flick of my wrist and dumping the broken pieces of chocolate straight into my open mouth. The chunks melted on contact with my tongue, going from a brittle solid to a smooth and gooey liquid that I was easily able to wash down with some water out of the canteen that Porter handed me.

“You sure that you’re alright?” Porter asked.

“Other than still feeling a bit hungry? Ya, I’d say I’m fine.”

“OK then…” He muttered.

“Is this where you tell me how long I was out?” I asked.

Porter nodded. “You’ve been out cold for eighteen hours. Six of those were spent on the back of some hull plates we salvaged from the vertibuck’s wreckage.”

“Makeshift sled… Sounds like I missed a lot of fun.” I mused.

“Not really. Just a bunch of snow blowing around.”

I nodded and looked around the bridge. All of the consoles were on and controls were lit. “I’m liking what I’m seeing.” I said as I started strolling from station to station. “So everything is working?”

“Everything should be.” Porter answered. “Meteor was just up top trying to get the ice off the communications antenna.”

I nodded as I found the captain’s chair and sat down. “What about Specter and Jericho? Where are they?” Porter looked a bit dejected at that question. “Porter?”

“Missing, presumed dead.” He whispered. “They were gone after the vertibuck blew up and we haven’t seen a trace of them since.”

“And we have no reason to believe we’ll find them.” I turned around in the chair and saw Gramps, covered in ice and snow, coming down from an access ladder through the top of the hull. “Jericho was already injured by one of the furies and we know that others were out there. Considering how those monsters behaved I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them were chewtoys by now.”

I’d offer a more substantive retort, but on Gramp’s right arm was a rather familiar piece of technology. “You're the ass who took my pipbuck!”

Gramps rolled his eyes. “Good to see you too.”

“What would you have us do?” Porter asked “The location for the ship was on the only pipbuck between the three of us, and someone had to drag you around on a sled.”

Well, Porter does have a point. I can’t do a good job of navigating when I was in a veritable coma. “Right… So the antenna?”

“It should be up and running now.” Gramps replied as he plugged the pipbuck into one of the consoles flanking the captain’s chair. The screens flickered from black to green before staying on. The display listed a radio frequency with the word “broadcast” flashing in the bottom left corner. “Go ahead Dusk.”

I flicked the switch on the armrest that said “mic” and cleared my throat. “This is Dusk calling Neighfair, please respond.”

zzzztttt….

“I say again, this is Dusk calling Neighfair. Please respond.”

“Neighfair here and reading you Dusk. Go ahead.”

Well at least the radio is working… That's a plus. “We’ve located the picket ship. From what I can tell everything is working so we should be able to fly it back.”

“Dusk, Kovac here. That’s excellent. Did you manage to locate the key for the cryo pods?”

“Uh…” I shut the transmitter off and looked over at my two compatriots. “Porter, did you find it?” I asked.

The stallion nodded and pulled the chained key out from under the collar of his armor. “Found it on the captain’s corpse.”

“...And where is the captain?”

“We buried him while you were out.” Gramps replied.

I nodded and turned the receiver back on. “Confirmed, we’ve got the key. However we’re coming back less two.”

“Why, what happened?”

“We were attacked by snow furies. Jericho and Specter are missing, and I’m assuming they’re dead.”

“Well I wouldn’t get your hopes up. How far are you from their last known position?”

“I don’t know, a couple miles at least. Why?”

“Because I have a way to at least track Specter. Stand by…”

I shut off the receiver and frowned. From what I know about Specter the Division apparently thought he was dead years ago. But now I’m hearing they can track the kid? “Something doesn’t add up…”

“What doesn’t?” Porter asked.

“I see where you’re going with this.” Gramps muttered. “Specter was outside of Manehattan at that old Division bunker. So if they could track him why assume he was dead?”

“Are you still there Dusk?” Kovac called out over the scratchy sounding speakers.

With a deft flick of the switch the receiver lit back up once more. “I’m here.”

“Alright, that airship should have a doppler program in the computers for tracking adverse weather patterns while out over open ocean. What you’ll need to do is change the scanning beam’s frequency from the standard setting to 40 kilohertz. There’s a crystal fragment under the skin in his arm that will react with the signal and give you a return so you locate him. We used that to find him whenever he went wandering around the valley outside the base when he was a child and got lost. But where our equipment had a seriously limited range because it was a cobbled together assortment of parts, you’ve got purpose built equipment at your disposal. If Specter is out there you’ll be able to find him.”

Gramps was already over at one of the bridge consoles typing away as a map of the area appeared on one of the main bridge displays. “Alright, I’ve got the new frequency plugged into the emitter. We just need to get above the treetops so it can do its job.”

“Thanks Kovac, we’ll see what we can do. Dusk out.”

As the comms array shut down at the push of a button I began assessing what I knew about the Division. They have a full military bunker with tons of stored resources and equipment to maintain a small army. Yet they needed to cobble together a tracking system for when a kid got past their impressive array of defenses and got lost in the foothills that I presume are regularly patrolled. It doesn’t make any sense.

With the shuddering of the deck and the rising hum of the fans outside I realized that Porter had hopped into the pilot's seat and was ripping the picket out of the icy plot of ground it had occupied for the better part of two hundred years. “Alright, so far so good.” He called out. “Engines, power core, enviromental systems… Everything is green across the board.”

I glaced down at the small readout built into the captain’s chair. The elevation was just ticking past sixty feet as the picket started bobbing lightly from left to right. “Are you sure that everything is fine Porter?”

“Absolutely. The stabilizers are just keeping us on the level in the wind.” Porter explained.

“And what about the doppler?” I asked, directing the question to Gramps working at one of the consoles behind me.

“Well I’ve already got something.” He said as a red blinking dot appeared on the map about five miles to the east of us. “According to some of the pre-war maps I’ve been looking at it looks like there was an unincorporated village that grew up around an intersection with some minor highway. I just can’t find a name for it…”

“If that village had a name it's likely pointless now.” I retorted.

“What makes you say that?” Porter asked, never turning away from his controls.

“A name is something that gets applied to a location or a pony that has some sort of meaning to someone.” I said, thinking back to some lessons I learned when I was a colt. “I have yet to meet a pony who describes a bag of bones by the name of the pony who they once were.”

Porter was quiet for a moment before he sighed. “I don’t get it.”

“Think of the wasteland like a skeleton.” Gramps said as he walked up next to me. “What we see down there is the remains of the world that was wiped away by the bombs. The ponies that gave that land worth are all dead after their generation helped destroy it. Hence its worthless.”

Porter seemed to be deep in thought before he flicked a switch and turned around to face the two of us. “So let me get this straight. Because the ponies that called it home are dead, any name that these old towns and villages once went by are pointless simply because the ponies that lived there are dead?”

“I think that about sums it up.” I said. Porter didn’t say a word, instead opting to turn back to the helm. Gramps must have been staring at me because I started feeling a bit uneasy. “Is something wrong?”

“Not at all.” Gramps said. “I’m just glad you still remember some of those ethics and philosophy lessons I gave you.”

“Well there were those talks and you teaching me how to swing a sword without cutting my own head off.” I retorted. “Beyond that I don’t think your homeschooling included much else.”

“Well there was the occasional bit on classical literature-”

I cocked an eyebrow at that, thinking back to those lessons in particular. “I didn’t think that the books on military strategy you dug out of your closet from your time in the academy counted as ‘classical literature’.” I retorted, making a fair bit of a point with my decision to include air quotes.

“Well… Alright, I see what you mean.” Gramps admitted. “But do you at least realize why I taught you those things?”

Well that’s a rather stupid question… “Because you wanted a worthwhile way to continue serving your country?”

“Exactly, and I wanted my family to be there with me.”

“Then why didn’t you come back for me?” I asked. “I thought you were dead after that shitshow in the Badlands. If the Changelings were holding you Mom and Dad hostage, why not come back to make sure I’m OK after you got away?”

Gramps knelt down next to me, obviously coming to the realization that standing over me wasn’t helping anything. “There were two reasons for that. The first was to make sure I didn’t lead any Changelings back to the factory in Manehattan and put you in danger. Ponies don’t just escape Changelings without repercussions, and you parents and I were dogged by drones up until Steeljack triggered the beacon spell I had in my pocket watch.”

Well that’s fair enough… “You said there were two reasons.”

“The other was De Witt.” Gramps admitted. “You know, the psycho that I told you earlier that you guys did a crappy job of killing?”

My memories turned back to the villa just over the border with the Griffon Kingdom where we first found Dart and the other captive servants that were held there. “In our defense most living creatures don’t survive a bullet to the head.”

“I know that, but De Witt isn’t most Griffons." Gramps said. "Hell, up until the Midlothian Ridge incident I considered him a friend.”

Midlothian Ridge? I haven’t heard that one in a while. “You mean where the Griffon commander snapped your horn off?”

Gramps nodded. “As a matter of fact he was that very commander who nearly killed me.”

So let's review for a moment, shall we? In just under a minute I’ve found out that the Griffon that originally took off my Grandfather’s horn was at one point his friend. Almost six years ago now Steeljack and I ran into that very same Griffon who apparently survived getting shot in the head, and the family whom I thought had all died horrific deaths at the time were actively trying to deal with said Griffon while apparently being aware of my own activities to some extent. “Lets just stop right there with the new information for now, alright?”

“I take it your head is spinning?” Gramps asked.

“And yours wouldn’t be?” I snapped right back.

Gramps shrugged. “No, I’d be in similar straights myself.”

Well at least I don’t have to worry about more stuff getting dropped into my lap at an inopportune time… But I’ve got one glaring issue that needs to be addressed. “Can I at least ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“How’d you know that it was me and Steeljack had tried to deal with De Witt?”

Gramps chuckled. “Remember how Blueblood came to you, what was it, five years ago now? He offered you a blank check in return for acting as the strong arm of Royal Intelligence? Well believe me, I’ve known the colt a long time… All it took was a letter to Celestia and a dinner meeting between the three of us to make it happen. Not only that but I could ensure that you’d be safe at a time when I wouldn’t have been able to guarantee you that safety.”

“That explains a lot…” I muttered.

“Are you two done yet?” Porter called from the helm.

I looked up at the map and realized we had quickly covered the few miles between the ship’s original resting place and Specter’s supposed location on the map. Assuming that the center of the map represented the location of the airship, we were already hovering right above Specter. “Well then… What’s down there?”

Porter shrugged. “No idea.” So I’m potentially dropping down into a crowd of ravenous snow furies. That sounds like fun.

“Can you at least cover me?” I asked.

“Um…” Porter got up and hopped into the weapons control station off to his left. After fiddling with a joystick and flicking a few toggles he turned around and nodded. “The ventral machine gun is showing green and the turret camera is working. If I see anything down there I should be able to hit it.”

“Dusk, aren’t you forgetting something?” Gramps asked.

Am I? “Shit, we need to get down there…”

“What about the cargo bay?” Porter asked. “There’s a crane in there for lifting loaded pallets into the hold. You could drop the line and rappel down, then I could pull you guys back up with it when you’re done.”

“It’ll have to do.” Gramps said. “Dusk, you up for it?” It's almost like Gramps was presenting me with a choice, but I know him well enough to not expect to get that choice. Below us was a certain fight, but for what I still don’t know. Will we be trying to save our companions, or will we simply be fighting over scraps that were once ponies in an attempt to bring some closure to this excursion. “Dusk?”

I finally decided I needed to answer the old stallion. “Damn right I’m up for it.” Now let's wrap this trip up and go home.

Author's Note

We're only one chapter away from wrapping this arc up and heading back to warmer climates south of the border. And in the mean time we've introduced some more facets to Dusk's rather cool relationship with his Grandfather. Assuming that people reading this took a glance at the first part of Broken Mirror, Meteor's return was met with Dusk snapping his arm in a fit of rage. While he now is in a position to ask some important questions as to why he was abandoned for so long that doesn't mean he'll immediately forgive his family. For the moment he'll have to put those hurt feelings aside to ensure that the efforts in the Wasteland don't go to waste. There's also that point about Kovac having an ability to track Specter. That there is the first bit of information that actually bugs Dusk. As we know from the epilogue to Part I and the prologue to Part II Kovac is no friend and has a sizable force of synths at his disposal. But in the context of the time where the Wasteland missions occurred, Dusk didn't realize that. This point on tracking Specter planted that initial seed of doubt and led Dusk and those around him (eventually including Specter, Jericho and a number of other Division members) to question Kovac's allegiances before discovering the truth at the eleventh hour during the final battle against the Enclave.

In the meantime, anyone got questions? Like what you're seeing so far? Hell, maybe have some gripes? There's a comment section and the Mirrorverse Codex. Read and comment away, because I want to hear from you fellow denizens of this corner of the internet. Until next time gang!
-Striker