The Brightest Light Casts the Longest Shadows

I leapt on Shiny and tackled his giant flank to the ground. He rolled onto his back and laughed as I scrambled to my hooves. Unbecoming of a PhD and lord’s daughter? Yes. Did I care? No. After a moment Shiny managed to get his legs back underneath his barrel and stand, we stared at each other.

A blue grouse zipped between us, then up and over the railing. After hovering for a moment the bird dove down. I turned and ran to the sidewalk that ran along the side of the park. Shiny followed me. We looked down from the railing into the tier below us; the Lower East Rocord.

In an instant the bird was gone; disappeared into the streets of the lower middle class.

I turned to Shiny and smiled. He smiled-

The crash came without warning. It sounded like metal against metal.

No, it couldn’t be.

“Rockslide!” I screamed out the warning as I ran for safety.

Most of the ponies didn’t move, they just stood in position, frozen by fear. Shiny was still too close-

I groaned as I raised my head. “Wha’ is it.”

Metal crashed against metal.

A few streams of light poured in through the few holes in the side of the cart. That horrid crashing sound that had brought me from my dreamless sleep continued.

I rubbed my eyes with my hooves and tried to stand. “What’s happening.”

The pegasus mare on the other side of the gryphoness shook her head. “I dunno, nopony does, but… I think there was a fight a few minuets ago.”

The metal crashed again, then after a pause and somepony shouting something there were three rapid, less hollow bangs.

Somewhere outside the cart a pony shouted. “Push! Push! Push!”

With a horrid squeal the door buckled at its midpoint. Something snapped and chains clattered to the ground. The door was forced open.

A pony with a helmet stuck his or her head inside and looked around. It was almost imperceptible, but I could have sworn he or she made eye contact with the gryphoness the moment before they pulled their head back out.

“Ma’am. I’ve got them in here.” Definitely a male.

A female called back something, but I couldn't make out any of the words.

I felt movement to my right as the gryphoness stood up.

I reached forward and wrapped my leg around hers. “Where are you going?”

“I need to deal with something. They’ll take care of you.”

“Who are they?” It was the stallion who had been taken with the gryphoness the previous night.

The gryphoness sighed. “That’s not mine to reveal. They will, but only when they’re ready.” She crossed to the door and stepped out. “Petty officer. Who’s the commander on scene?”

“Oh. Ma’am. Uh, Commodore Breeze ma’am.”

“Ooh. I warrant a commodore coming out herself? Or is it just that I owe her on a bet?” She giggled, then turned serious once again. “Keep them secure, they’ll give you all the testimony you need.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The soldier closed the door and his calls were muffled.

I settled in to wait. Rescue had come, somehow, from somewhere, rescue had come.

___ ______ ___

After what felt like hours the door was forced open again.

The same pony stuck his head in and yelled to those of us inside. “The area’s secure. Everypony out. Let’s go.” He withdrew his head and turned it over his shoulder. “Somepony get me a raincloud, these ponies need to be washed and fed.”

“Yes sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. I-”

“-‘work for a living.’ We all know.”

I was the fourth pony out after the two pegasi and another unicorn. An earth pony followed after me followed by six more ponies.

When we were organized into a small cluster another pony spoke, yelling loudly enough to be heard by all of us. “We are going to move in a defensive box around you and escort you to the road. We’ll get you a shower, some food and start interviewing each of you. With luck we’ll be headed home tonight and I’ll get to see my wife tomorrow.” He waved his right hoof above his head in a small circle. “Let’s move out.”

___ ______ ___

It took less than a minuet for the soldiers to organize themselves into a cube with pegasi flying at the four vertices and walking at the corners and midpoints on the ground.

Once they were organized we moved quickly through the forest until we reached the road.

At some point it must have rained because the road was little more than a stretch of mud that was especially deep at the ruts. We were directed to stand off to the side.

On the other side of the road the another group of pegasi was standing over their prisoners. Each pony had their legs bound at the lower part of their radii and fibulas and a black bag tied over their head. The wings of the pegasi and bat ponies were bound and the unicorns had wires running from their heads to the ground to prevent them from casting magic.

From above us a mare called out. “Lieutenant Shine!”

The pony who had spoken earlier looked up. “Cloud Light. What’d you want?”

“This all of ‘em?”

He nodded. “Go ahead and start ‘er up.”

“Yes sir.”

The mare tensed up and jumped. Just as she did the lieutenant shouted. “No! Wai-” She fell down onto the black cloud.

The cloud dumped water down on us in a huge volume. In an instant all the mud, food and other substances that I didn’t want to think about were washed off me and onto the dirt.

After half a minuet the water stopped and the mare poked her head over the edge of the cloud. She gave the lieutenant a cheeky grin as he glared up at her. “I hate you.”

“I know.” She jumped off the cloud and pushed it away.

The lieutenant continued to glare at the mare as she disappeared into the distance. “I will get her one day.”

The petty officer from earlier put a hoof on the lieutenant’s withers. “You’ve been at this for two weeks and haven’t even come close. You have three options; order her to stop, give it up or ask her out.”

“Petty officer! I will not 'ask out' a subord-”

“Trying a new look? I like it.” It was the gryphoness, she was somehow less soaked than any of us, but just as clean.

I turned around more slowly, but the lieutenant reared up and whirled around. “Who are you?”

She smiled. “The reason you’re here I suppose… but I wasn’t talking you. While I am though, I should tell you that we have a pool at the embassy on when you’re going to ask her out, or if she’s going ask you out first. Please ask her out soon, my bet’s on two days from now and I’d be the closest if it were today... it's a decent amount of money and you could have a little bit of it and a beautiful mare too, win-win.” She sidestepped him. “Twilight. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

“Officer on deck!” Most of the soldiers immediately stopped whatever they were doing and saluted the approaching pegasus.

She quickly returned the salute. “As you were.”

The gryphoness leaned down and whispered in my ear with a tiny giggle. “Would you do her?”

I glared at her, then looked at the pegasus for a moment and reconsidered. Muscular body, but not disgusting levels of muscle, not too much fat, but not too little, fuchsia coat, wheat coloured tail and mane that didn't clash with her coat, clean, but not prim and perfect, high ranking, cute black armour with inlaid silver lines running in elaborate patterns, a black chess pawn -I assumed it was either her family's sigil or her cutie mark- was on the brooch holding it all together. I looked back to the gryphoness. “Now that I think about it, probably.”

“She’s supposed to be extremely good in bed, though extremely hard to get there. You might have a chance though, she likes the ones that are like her.”

“Like her how?”

“Social outcasts. Commodore Breeze commands what’s essentially a penal squadron. They send their degenerates, petty criminals and generally terrible ponies to her. She trains them until they’re outstanding soldiers and shares in their pain the entire time. Ends up with an almost undying loyalty from around a thousand soldiers, under fifty or so officers who are transferred in and out every month as punishment for minor infractions. Usually she only has a dozen or so officers that she can actually trust because she never has time to train them. Because of that they're essentially disposable, so the city’s Ascended Council sends her squadron to do their dirty work, the jobs that are too dangerous or would cause morale problems among regular soldiers. Breeze takes them and does them with minimal losses and probably half the time she doesn't lose anypony. That’s not what makes her unpopular though, she knows each soldier under her command and associates with these ‘criminals’ to make sure they leave her command with good training and good morals.”

The commodore stepped into the mud very gently. “Hello.”

The gryphoness smiled. “How are you commodore?”

“I’m fine. I just wanted to say, don’t think for a second that your troubles preclude you from making good on that bet.”

The gryphoness scratched the back of her head. “Well… uh… let me get my bags and I’ll deal with it.”

“We’ll deal with it on the cloud back.”

The gryphoness nodded. “Fair enough, I won’t try to slip away-”

“No you won’t.”

“Uh… you got my report right.”

“The jot-notes, yes.”

“No need to be so growly about it, I’ll be doing a better version for my boss anyway and I’ll make sure I send you a copy.” Despite her words both the gryphoness and the commodore had smiles on their faces.

The commodore dropped her just as she began speaking again. “The prisoners you wanted are headed for the tent once it’s set up. A few enemy combat casualties don’t tend to be noticed on these types of raids.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

A mare ran up to the commodore and panted as she tried to salute. “We- go- the one- esca- escaped- ma- ma’am.”

“Thank you Private Cupcake, convey my thanks to the rest of your team. Dead or alive?”

“Subj- subject is de- dead. Ma’a- ma’am. Took h- hosta- hostages.”

"How are the hostages?"

"Sa-"

“Wounded?”

“Priv- Private Star. Ma’am.”

“Damn.” She looked down for a moment. “How-" She sighed. "Never mind for now. Breathe private.”

“Yes- yes ma’am.”

“And lose the ma’ams, at least after the first one.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Do I have to order you private?”

“No ma-” The private looked down at the ground. “No.”

“Good. Now breathe.”

The private took several deep breaths. When her breathing had returned to normal the commodore started. “Look at me, you're not in trouble. Now, about Private Star?”

“He’s wounded, dead maybe. I don’t know they were trying to hold him together when I was sent.”

“How’d he get hurt?”

We were pursuing the subject when he took hostages from a small campsite, I think it was that group the recce guys noted yesterday. Star ordered a perimeter be set up, then dove into the woods. The subject had a young colt with a knife to his throat. The two parents, at least I assume they were, and another filly were in easy reach. Star tackled the subject and shoved the colt out of the way. But the subject managed to push Star to the ground and he stomped on his chest. I heard something crack and Star was bleeding, he was cut up pretty bad, but… Star stood up and shoved the subject to the ground while shouting for us to stay back and secure the hostages. He was trying to restrain the subject while the four of us got the hostages out of there.”

“How’s the subject dead then?”

“He kept fighting. Managed to hit Star’s leg and get in a few more slashes while Star kept trying to hold him down. Then the subject got up. He charged at us, Star tried to tackle him, but he kept going. Then Star jumped onto the subject's back and slit his throat.”

“Why’d Star keep trying to hold him?”

The mare shrugged. “You’d have to ask him to be sure, but you did tell us to capture the subject if possible.”

“Alright, does he have a status?”

“I don’t know.”

“Alright then. We don’t have any medics, as usual. If he can walk, bring him back, if not, bivouac in place and we’ll take the scenic route to pick you up. If he needs emergency treatment try get him to that village and see if they’ll be able to treat him or see if they'll come out to you. If you need funds to pay for his treatment send me a message and I can get them. If he’s dead, bring him home. Make sure the hostages are detained, I want a statement from them and to check them against our wanted lists.”

“Of course, anything else?”

I jumped in. “Excuse me commodore.”

She turned to me with a scowl. “What?”

“You said you don’t have any medics, correct?”

“Correct. Why? You one?”

“I have a few PhDs in a variety of topics including two in Corporis Magics, which means I had to have a masters in biology before starting my work. I’ve dissected my share of bodies, if you’d let me, I could see what I can do.”

She stood still for a moment.

“It’s better than nothing.” I offered.

“True.” She rubbed her muzzle with her hoof. “Alright. Cupcake… did that get you that a lot in basic?”

“Yes ma- Yes.”

“I don’t doubt it. Stay here.” The commodore looked around the area. “Petty Officer Swing!”

A stallion galloped over and saluted. “Ma’am.”

“Swing, Cupcake's going to give you directions to an area I need secured. I’m assembling a squad and you’re in charge. You’re going to escort this mare to a downed soldier and provide additional security.” She gestured to me. “Cupcake, Swing, go to my command tent and start plotting a route and keep this quiet.”

They both saluted and in sync shouted. “Yes ma’am.”

“Lieutenant-commander Star.”

A stallion with sunset orange pegasus rushed over from the far side of the line of prisoners and saluted. “Yes ma’am.”

“Lieutenant-commander. I need you to prep an escort squad; find me a dozen soldiers that aren’t busy and get them outside my command tent in two minuets. Make sure they’re not doing anything important I don’t want any lapses in security. Once that’s done report to me and resume your duties. You’re staying here.”

“Yes ma’am.” The stallion jumped into the sky and flew off.

The commodore looked down. “Let’s hope he’s alive.”

I nodded. “Indeed, I’ll do my best... I promise I'll do my best.”