FoE: Festering Virtues

Eventually, Melody called us to a halt. I slowed down, bleeding momentum from the overloaded cart, and wincing a bit as my legs and tendons reported in.

“50 kilometers in one day, and nothing attacked us.” Melody said, satisfied. “You couldn’t do that anywhere else in Equestria.”

As far as I knew, Mane tended to be extremely safe. The firestorm had killed off pretty much everything above ground, and long cold winters meant that mutant animals found it hard to live here year round. After a few enterprising hunters had set up shop in the mountain masses for manticore stingers and timberwolf kindling, the mirelurks really were the only non-ponies around.

And when the Mob reorganized itself, it started coming down hard on raiders. If somepony’s stealing from your marks, they have less to give to you.

According to Dad, the only reason why Mane wasn’t a trading superpower was the lack of salvage. Lobster, fish, and vegetables are all well and good, but your really need serious salt mines or large scale refrigeration for it to be a serious commodity. And the Radical twins Pro and Ton’s plan to use radioactive rocks to boil sea water for salt stopped getting support after ponies’ tongues started glowing.

Still, not as if Dad is a real authority on the subject, and I didn’t feel like getting back into that argument with Melody.

“Alright, so over there?” I asked looking around. Not much to see. In the direction I indicated, ten kilometers east, there were the foundations of a Ministry of Arcane Technology lab, now only discernible by a scorched metal sign, while a hundred meters to the west there was a wagon refueling station, and a couple dozen kilometers of bare rolling hills. The farm we accosted was probably the closest thing to a good, defensible location near a water source, but it didn’t seem to be the type of structure to put on top of a 1000 plus pony bunker. Maybe they were hiding the access hatch behind the scavenged sofa.

Melody unstrapped me from the wagon and started walking towards the wagon refueling station.

“No, the Stable is in the basement of this building.” She said, picking her way through the broken glass on the ground and the occasional bullet casing. “Careful about getting cut, this place should be classified as a hazardous waste dump.”

“Err… why?” I asked, ducking my head to fit through the door. “Oh.” In front of me was a picture of a pony in a very elaborate… outfit, I suppose would be the best way of putting it. Apparently full body wagon cleanings were a thing. And somepony decided to use radioactive goo to do it. Never seen a sexy rad suit before.

We continued through the garage, past a 20 wagon shop floor and down a hydraulic lift. Ahead, we heard thuds and muffled angry shouting. Rounding the corner, several raiders with big sledgehammers came into view, fruitlessly pounding away against a massive gear shaped Stable door emblazoned with a yellow 38 in the center.

Off to the side, from what looked like a security checkpoint, came angry yelling and desperate sobbing. The soldiers near the door paused for a few seconds, realized that I was one of them, and continued smashing the door with big hammers. Melody led us to the security checkpoint.

Inside was a pretty standard prewar office. One terminal, one desk, one chair, a number of filling cabinets, an anti-zebra propaganda poster, and some coffee mugs.

“Captain Fisher, 2nd Lieutenant Tree and Administrator Grey reporting as ordered.”

“You, don’t move.” Fisher ordered, the filly cowering in the corner, who nodded frantically. “So, ever break into a Stable?” She asked, slumping heavily onto a couple mattresses piled in the corner, before turning back to us and raising an eyebrow.

She seemed sane, far more stable and none of the twitchiness I’d seen on the other soldiers, let alone the intermittent giggling. Heavy combat armor, a chainsaw strapped across her back, a nearby helmet with a long sharp artificial horn that proclaimed that she liked going hoof to hoof with the enemy, and her zebra enhanced frame that definitely allowed her to do it well.

The only thing detracting from her fearsome features was her baby blue coloring and aquamarine hair.

“Nope.” I said. Melody gaped and hurried to apologize.

“Red Tree is very good at piecing information together. He might be able to guess the override code.”

“Not going to happen. She doesn’t know jack.” Fisher said, nodding in the filly’s direction.

“I told you, we were only supposed to know one word each, and I’m second with ‘the’!” She whined.

“Like I said. She doesn’t know jack.”

Nodding, I looked over the unicorn, pretty small, a little shorter than Melody, and young looking, though that might just be from avoiding the sun and a job other than farming. She wore a blue jumpsuit with yellow highlights. Looked like leather, brahmin? Weird thing to keep underground. Probably recycled from prewar stocks. There was some sort of integrated strap system, which held a few empty holsters, and a canteen. Two large, though empty, saddlebags rested on her back. Her coat seemed to be a fairly vibrant orange, and her mane, green, was teased into a bob. I bit back a snigger. Her head reminded me of a carrot.

I walked over to her, and sat down. I thought for a few moments, and offered her one of the last snack-cakes from my bag, grabbing a ration bar for myself. She practically snatched it from my hooves and shoved it in her face. I waited until she swallowed.

“So, where are the other two?”

“Oh, I found a note in the MAS building about a Stable-Tek thingy like forever away. Cheer and Joy told me that I should wait here.”

I blinked, didn’t really expect her to open up like that, especially since I still towered over her. She went from crying to bouncy in a couple seconds.

“What’s your name? Happy, Grace?”

“No, they’re in Production. I’m Judgment, 2nd shift trainee, Security Division.”

“Judgment? What’s your mother’s name?”

“Sentence.”

“Your supervisor?”

“Wrath.”

“I see… Aside from Production and Security, what other divisions are in your Stable?”

“Administration mostly, there’s a few weirdos who keep the old Stable-Tek stuff going, but a lost of admin dweebs.”

“Can you tell me about the ‘admin dweebs’?”

“Sure, there’s Content, she’s pretty nice, always has snack-cakes, Reason, talks with mom a lot, Logic, mostly deals with computers.”

Fisher’s face darkened and she rose from her mattresses, stomping over. “Why the hell are you wasting time like this?”

She demanded. “What does any of this have to do with the code?”

“Just trying to relax Judgment and make her feel comfortable.” I turned to the cowering filly. “Did Cheer and Joy program where they were going into your Pip-Buck?”

“Oh, so that’s what they were doing? Erm...yeah, here’s the map.”

Looking over the highlighted location, I asked “So, how long ago did they leave?”

“I sort of took a nap before they decided to leave. I guess sometime yesterday morning?”

“You didn’t notice them leaving?” I asked Fisher.

Her permanent glower deepened. “No, I assumed that we could wait until the breaching unit showed up, so I pushed everypony out on security. I was upstairs scavenging and monitoring the radio. The soldiers were supposed to push out a kilometer and stay on watch. Two of them got bored and decided to kill a couple hours together. We only realized that something had happened when I found her patrolling in front of the Stable door.”

I nodded, trying to keep the judgment out of my eyes. The pulsing vein in her neck showed it was mostly futile. “Alright, did they call back to tell you they made it or anything?”

“Yep, I didn’t even know that Pip-Bucks could have transmitters. I think it was sometime around sundown.”

“Ok, I think we can assume that Stable Dwellers would be very used to a set schedule. They probably bedded down for the night for a full eight hours. Give them a couple hours to search the building, they should be coming back tonight.” I said, trying to sound more confident than I actually felt.

“And we can ambush them then.” Fisher said, her eyes lighting up.

“As long as we take them alive, the Stable should be easy enough to open.”

“Excellent. Foxtrot Squad, on me!” She shouted, running down the hall. “We have an ambush to set up.” She froze suddenly and spun in place. “Judgment, you’re going to follow me. And you are going to keep quiet. Tell me when you see your friends.”

“they’re not my friends.” Judgment said under her breath, before following Fisher.

***

Setting up the ambush was easy enough. The ruins offered plenty of cover, and Judgment was able to tell us exactly the direction they went by setting the Stable-Tek building in her Eyes Forward Sparkle, the navigation spell built into her Pip-Buck. The direct route, which still had hoofprints, went through the bored soldiers’ sector of fire, so that checked out. The rest was just choosing hiding places and waiting.

Which was getting increasingly annoying.

Fisher had holed up behind a concrete barrier to the west, using a pair of binoculars to scan the horizon. I was to the north, with Melody. In between us were the three soldiers. Since we didn’t expect the Stable Dwellers for a few hours, Fisher decided to let the soldiers amuse themselves so they could concentrate when the time came.

“I can keep watch, if it’s too difficult.” Melody offered kindly from her vantage point. I glared, looking up from where my distracted leg tapping had broken through the concrete. Again. “I’m honestly impressed that you are this controlled.”

“I’m not going through a drug induced fugue state, again. Especially not if we’re trying to take live prisoners.” I replied, turning back to look over the wastes.

“I’m still confused why you’re focused there. Wouldn’t they go along the roads?”

“The navigation feature on the Pip-Buck is a flashing bar over the compass, according to Judgment. It only does as the crow flies.”

“And you think they’ll do cross country?”

“Pretty sure. They missed a couple soldiers enjoying themselves less than 800 meters away. They’re focused on what’s in front of them.”

“Is that why you chose here?” Melody asked, pointing at the hillside culvert we were hiding in. My eyes just peeked over the concrete if I stood upright, while Melody lounged nearby on the loose dirt above the concrete lip. Hard to see me from exactly one direction, while having great fields of fire over the entire engagement area.

“Partially.” I said.

“Why else?” She grinned, enjoying me struggle to justify why I was hiding in a drain.

“I don’t know what weapons they have or how good they are with them. Say what you want about Judgment being in Security, but I don’t think she was chosen for this mission based on her killer instinct.”

“Hey!” Judgment said from behind us, having successfully annoyed Fisher enough to get me saddled with babysitting duty. She had amused herself for the past few hours by looking at the clouds, being scared, making lines in the dirt, and repeating the process, fortunately on the side of the hill away from the ambush.

“Speaking of Judgment, why did you ask about all those names?”

“I wanted to see if there was anything strange going on down there.” Her quizzical expression made me fill in the gaps. “I’ve met a few ponies who claimed that the Stables were part of some government experiment to create a new society. So, each Stable had its own ‘special set of instructions’ on how it should be run.”

“Wasn’t there one around Canterlot that was half zebra and half pony?”

“Yeah, stuff like that. Trying out different ways of making it so that everypony could get along.”

“I’m not even sure if there are any that are still functional.”

“I mean, if they died, you don’t hear about it. If they’re still working, you don’t hear about it. The only ones you hear about are the ones that opened up, so they had to work for at least a while.”

“I guess. Any good ones?”

“Did you hear about Stable 69? The one with 1 stallion and 999 mares? Major pornography printer?”

“No, what happened to the lucky stallion?”

“Well, the obvious, for the first few years. He wasn’t the person in charge or anything, and they didn’t go nuts trying to fix the problem. There were a few decades before anything became serious, so it was apparently pretty relaxed.”

“Huh, I would have expected something else.”

“Well, apparently the stallion started acting like an entitled prat, and started expecting stuff out of the other ponies. It pissed off a few unicorns who used to work at the Ministry of Magical Research, who ended up developing a few gender change spells. Apparently, he got stonewalled for most of a decade after that.”

“That’s less horrific than I was expecting.”

I shrugged, “Hey, even out here ponies are still ponies. And they still reprint ‘Magically Enhanced Everything number 1’ on occasion.”

“So, what do you think about this one?”

“Not sure. I think it has something to do with emotions and moods though. Everypony from Production had positive names. Everypony from Security had negative or controlling names.”

“And everypony from Administration has, what? ‘Nerdy’ names?”

“I’d say ‘logical,’ but yeah. Plus did you see Judgment’s mood swings?”

“She seemed weirdly fine with answering your questions.”

“Off the top of my head, I think this Stable uses emotional manipulation to work. Could be just aimed at increasing productivity, could be absolute control, or anything in between. Seems like the research would be perfect for your soldiers.”

“Oh, Command doesn’t want to capture anything, they just want it as a secure outpost.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, Vault Dwellers are really bad soldiers. The living space is more valuable.”

“They’re a population conditioned to follow an absolute ruler. At least judging by the Overmare comments I’ve heard.” I trailed off, trying to remember if I’d heard anything more specific, then rallied. “Anyway, how can you call a settlement of at least 1000 ponies useless?”

“First, I never called them useless. Second, not my call.” I stopped tapping, well- stomping, my hoof in confusion. Then sat on the ground as the implications became apparent.

By sundown, Fisher had spotted the Stable Dwellers and made the soldiers knock it off. I looked at them over the crest of the hill. Quiet, not moving, big heavy weapons, semi-trained soldiers waiting in ambush. The targets, covered in dust, sweat, and bruises. The Stable Dwellers were squinting against the sun, looking tired, irritated, and walking in a straight line home. The taller one was wearing sunglasses and carrying a sawn off shotgun. The shorter one was carrying two pistols and had a few bulges that looked like grenades.

From a tactical perspective, it was beautiful. On my signal, the soldiers would charge from less than 20 meters away with the sun to their backs, overwhelming the inexperienced Vault Dwellers. Even if they got a few shots off, the chances of a lethal hit would be extremely low. Interrogate them, get the code, and then what? Murder orgy through 1000 ponies? Still working on that last part.

Melody was right in front of me, starting at the targets slowly walking home, and closer to the soldiers. Had to be in front, the slope of the hill meant she couldn’t see over unless she crouched much higher up. I could still see Fisher, fully armored, though her chainsaw was stowed. The soldiers were still behind cover, shaking with anticipation.

I loaded my rifle, then worked the bolt to load a round. We’d agreed that the shot would be the signal to attack. Didn’t have any blanks, so the shot could have lethal effects.

Breathing in, I sighted on the taller of the two ponies. One shot, and they’ll all be safe. I thought, but then went a little deeper. Maybe Fisher could figure out the pass phrase with two parts. And killing both would just mean that we’d need to wait for the breaching team. The pass phrase was simply easier and faster than the drill.

So, if killing them won’t help…

I breathed out, and breathed in again, holding it for a second and pulled the trigger.

“Nightmare fucking Moon!” Melody screamed as a 50 caliber rifle went off by her head. She cradled her head, moaning on the ground.

The bullet flew straight at Captain Fisher’s head, punching right through the helmet and making her skull explode like a blood sausage. 1 threat gone.

I frantically worked the bolt, moving the sight to the charging raiders.

The raiders started sprinting and shouting war cries at the sound of the gunshot. They were further away than they were supposed to be, maybe 50 meters rather than 20. Still open ground, against unsuspecting untrained civilians, there was no way for them to live. The bolt caught. I cleaned this for TWO FUCKING HOURS! I thought. Fuck, they’re going to die. For nearly two seconds, the raiders charged, while the Stable Dwellers were frozen in shock. Then they responded.

The taller one yanked the shotgun out of the holster smoothly, almost as if on greased rails, and pivoted towards the nearest raider. They fired twice, the first at the raider’s mostly exposed head, the second at his front legs, before reloading in that same weirdly mechanical manner. The raider fell to the ground, at best blind, though likely dying. Lead slugs and skulls don’t mix. The taller Dweller looked at the body, mouth open in horror, recoiling.

The bolt slid home, and I braced the stock against my chest.

The shorter one levitated out two pistols, firing almost before they cleared the holsters. Then the same mechanical excellence took over, and he fired multiple 10mm bullets at another raider. The raider shrugged off the first few shots, but the sheer volume of fire rapidly pulped her skull. The shooter shook his head and recoiled in horror. He stared at the gore pile, seeming like he was going to vomit.

The last raider didn’t care, and continued his charge, raising a club to crush the smaller Dweller in one blow.
I fired again. Center of mass this time, not trusting anything fancy. Lucky miss on my part. The raider’s neck exploded, and his head landed a meter away from the pile of gore. Oh thank the goddesses.

The two Vault Dwellers pivoted wildly, looking for me. I was maybe 75 meters away, outside the range of a sawn off shotgun or pistols, and the smaller one levitated out his grenades, pulling the pin.

I stood up, and laid my rifle on the ground. The taller one looked at me warily, while the smaller one entered the same mechanical stillness for a fraction of a second, before coming out of it.

Over the post battle silence, I heard something metallic hit the ground. The spoon.

“THROW THE FUCKING GRENADE!” I shouted, diving for cover and then peaking over.

The two Vault Dwellers stared at each other, then at the grenade, and back at each other. Stunned realization came over their faces, replaced by horror. The levitation field winked out, dropping it to the ground. The taller one ran to kick it, and…

Dammit… I slumped down on the ground and looked for Melody. A trail of blood led towards downhill, back towards the service station. Double dammit…

I started walking down the hill. I didn’t want to kill her, since she hadn’t lobotomized me, but I still kept my rifle at the ready. She had a pistol for self defense, but that shouldn’t pose too much of a threat, and not as if she had anything else that could…

Suddenly, the heavy bracelet on my right forehoof stopped feeling so decorative. Right… Ok, so, erm… It was pretty obvious what I had to do. Tourniquet, then I needed to decide between detonating it myself and giving her the ability to cripple me. Well, the tourniquet was easy enough. Relatively speaking.

I dug inside the medical pouch, pulling out the military style tourniquet, a magical bandage, a flask of alcohol, and wonderglue. I slipped the tourniquet above the bomb collar, and pulled the velcro strap tight, then fed it through the second locking bit. Now for the fun part. I twisted the attached stick, until it started burning, then kept twisting. One more half rotation. And there.

I nuzzled my forehoof below the tourniquet, feeling for a pulse. Nothing. Ugh, I hate this feeling, I complained to myself.
“Judgment, what time is it?”

“1917, Red Tree.” She replied, still weirdly chipper. Ok, need to get it off in at most… an hour? Or is it two? Or four? I decided to limit it to one, gangrene wasn’t worth it. And I could check based on bloodloss. Now, for the really annoying part.

I pulled out my multitool, and unfolded it into a pair of needle nose pliers. Carefully bracing it, I wormed it under the restraining wire. I need to get this off sooner or later, and this does it on my terms, at least. I jerked my head.
A small amount of shaped explosive concentrated the blast inward, minimizing the amount of damage to any slavers nearby, with enough force to gouge out somepony’s windpipe and certainly kill them. On a mutant my size, a couple inches meant death by mangled arteries, rather than partial amputation.

I only realized that after the fact. At the moment, I screamed as I was sure my leg was blown off. I pulled at the bomb collar, the lock shattered easily.

You ever look at a Salisbury Steak and try to figure out what pieces used to be connected to what? Trying to figure out what piece of minced and ground meat, scraped off bone, interspersed with tendons and ligaments, how it used to be part of an animal? It’s hard to do. It’s hard enough that you can forget that it used to be part of some living creature.
Now, take that and shove it into a 6 centimeter circle on your leg. It was pulverized, mashed, shredded, and ruined. Numbly, barely able to think of the mess as me, I started trying to what to do.

Ok, severed artery, severed tendon. Bone, seems fine. Muscle gaping, skin shredded. Without an actual doctor, I wasn’t sure what would heal properly, or even if healing potions could reach something below a tourniquet. Maybe they could because magic, maybe not because no blood flow, but that’s not a fun guess when staring at becoming a cripple. It was “safer” to just use the bandage, since it was applied directly to the wound.

Unfortunately, the wound was definitely dirty. Metal fragments and explosive residue at the least. Hair and surface dirt probably. Thankfully not cloth or leather, made sure to roll that up when I got the bracelet.

I didn’t have the skill to remove all the fragments, and digging with my needle nose pliers would probably just push dirt in deeper. Just need to wash it out. I thought glumly, untwisting the flask. I dumped it into the would, suppressing a groan as my muscles reflexively twitched at the pain. Eww, I didn’t want to see my tendon twitching. I shook off the feeling and finished pouring.

Ok, possible circulation issues, probable movement issues, but hopefully not infection. I carefully bit the wonderglue, lifting it and coating the wound in a thin layer, holding the meat generally in place. Before it dried, I held my forehoof with one leg, and used my nose to force the other side of the wound closed, covering the entrance in glue. Skin was pulled taut, which wasn’t good, but I needed to get it closed. I held it for a count of two hundred, then pulled away. Well, tried. Some fur got stuck to the glue. A tug later and I was free, minus some annoyingly sensitive hair follicles. And the wound stayed closed, more importantly.

A tightly wrapped bandage, hastily tied sling, and a few hesitant steps later, I was pretty sure that the wound wouldn’t kill me. Still, I decided to keep the tourniquet on, at least until the glue dried completely and the magic had some time to work.

It took longer than I expected to hobble down the hill, back towards the service station and wagon. The Zebra twins probably never intended for their creations to work on three legs. I was straining muscles that really weren’t meant to work that hard.

It was solidly night by the time I was in sight of the station, still lit up. I couldn’t exactly see Melody, but her pacing shadow was pretty apparent. Looked like she was hiding behind the wagon. My brow furrowed in confusion. Why would she not be hiding somewhere safer?

Oh well, don’t look a gift brahmin in the mouth. I pulled out my rifle, and racked another round. The click echoed through the night. I sighted on her head, or at least where it would be. Wasn’t as if the wood would stand up to the round. Then I thought for a second.

I sighed. Aside from not wanting to kill somepony who probably couldn’t kill me, I probably needed Melody. It would solve a lot of potential problems if I just took the shot, but I was nearly 100 kilometers away from home, with a hostile army in between, I needed Melody to make sure I got back. Especially with a mostly useless leg.

I stowed the rifle away, and moved to the side, making sure that I was visible. “Melody?”

She peaked out from behind the wagon, rifle wobbling wildly. “Do- don’t move.” She stammered, trying to draw a bead on me. “I I’ll detonate the collar.” She gulped audibly as she saw the tourniquet, bandage, and missing explosive. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, not sure exactly what to do. I heard regular thumping from the side, and turned slightly to look.

“Hi!” Judgment shouted, jumping out of the dark. Melody spun wildly and shot. It went wide, and I lunged forward, knocking the rifle out of her magic field. I pressed the magazine release, and stood on top of it, hoping she wouldn’t be able to levitate both the rifle and me.

“Judgment, please don’t appear behind somepony when they’re jumpy and carrying a gun.” I said, much more calmly than I felt.

“Sorry, she didn’t look like she was hostile, so I thought it would be fine.”

“You can tell when ponies are hostile?”

“And when they’re angry, happy, and calm!”

“Interesting. ponies can still shoot when they don’t mean to, so try to be more careful in the future.”

“Will do!”

“Now, Melody. I’m going to let go of the rifle, and put down mine. We’re going to act like rational adults and talk about what happened. Please nod if you’re ok with that.” I turned my head to look at her.

Melody, still frozen to my rear, nodded and swallowed. I dropped my rifle, and started heading inside. The other two followed.

***

About 30 minutes later, the three of us were sitting in the bay, around a hotplate. One of the raiders had been something of a joker and arranged rocks around it. I felt a little bad about using their bedding, but well, I killed most of them. Not hypocritical per se, but… social conventions. You don’t sleep in someone else’s bed.

Judgment had picked up our weapons, wrapped them in tape, and shoved them in a bag, as an accepted neutral party. At least after we realized that leaving the weapons outside was a bad idea.

Melody had scavenged food from the raider’s stores, so we had a pretty excessive dinner in front of us. I was snacking on a mixture of ration bars and brahmin steaks, idly hoping that they’d bothered to check if the previous owner was sapient or not, Melody was content with a can of corn, and Judgment was absolutely pigging out on Sugar Bombs.

“Not much sweet food down there?”

“Nope, mostly recycled food chips. They’re alright, but don’t taste like much.”

An awkward silence fell. I decided to deepen it by releasing the tourniquet by a half rotation. I nuzzled my leg again and felt a weak pulse, without blood gushing out of my leg. Huh, guess the bandage fixed the artery. Hooray for magic! I smiled slightly, was half expecting to need amputation. And I returned to my food.

A few minutes later, tapping the empty corn can back and forth, Melody asked “Why did you kill them?”

I swallowed the rest of the ration bar and replied, “I’m not killing an entire Stable.”

She froze. “I see.” She said frostily. “Makes sense, if you don’t want to kill. I’m not a threat, am I? At least without that collar.” She paused, running down that line of thought. “Now what are you going to do? Start a rebellion against the Colonel?”

“I guess the obvious thing is to try to get Judgment back inside.” I muttered.

“How? She doesn’t know the passcode.” She paused. “Do you?” She asked Judgment.

Judgment looked up for a moment. “No idea.” She said happily, before attempting to fit an entire box inside her mouth.

Melody and I shared an irritated look.

“We might be able to get something off the Stable Dwellers’ Pip Bucks tomorrow. If not, well, I’ll figure out something.” I said after a few seconds thought.

Melody looked into the mid distance for a minute. Eventually she asked “What are you planning on doing with me?”

“As soon as I get past the 3rd Experimental, you’re free to go. Just don’t think I can do it on my own.”

“That’s reasonable...” She trailed off. “You paying me or am I slave?”

Her tone was half joking, but I still frowned. I rummaged through my pack for the last snack-cake and threw it over to her. She jumped a bit, but still caught the sweetened dough. “You’ll get a share of the profits.” I smirked a bit. Didn’t expect much from wandering around the wasteland.

Melody had a ghost of a smile about her lips, but she yawned after a few seconds.

“Judgment probably should take the first shift, considering how much sugar she ate.” Judgment, still cramming her face full of sweets, nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll take second, you take third? 4 hours each?”

“Sounds fine. Everypony up by dawn?”

“Nobody should be in the area. I’m fine with 8 o’ clock.”

“Works for me. If anyone sees blood coming out of my leg, wake me up.”

I loosened the tourniquet entirely, and my leg filled with pins and needles. I stumbled over to one of the beds, and collapsed into it, falling asleep almost immediately.

Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Sniper: You’ve learned how to control your breathing and aim more effectively. 25% increased chance to hit when aiming at a target’s head.