Chapter 1: Maintenance Is Magic
The wrench slipped again. I cursed, wiping sweat from my eyes, and tried to find a better angle for it.
The problem with the Stable’s maintenance levels, in my professional opinion, was that they were too goddamn hot. You had not only the main generator, but also the air handling units, beam reactor, even the bucking computer coolant loops, all terminating here on Level D. And of course the air conditioning vent had something stuffed in it. The heat was infernal.
All I wanted was to get this thing in place, before my back completely seized up. Ponies weren’t meant to be in this position. And even worse, I was starting to slip behind schedule.
“Hi!” I whacked my head on the hatch and nearly dropped the wrench, as a face suddenly appeared above me. It belonged to a painfully cheerful young earth mare, wearing reflective yellow barding, just like mine. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going OK,” I chuckled, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my head. “Do you have, uh, a just-less-than-three-eighths?”
“Try this one! Nine millimeters.” She passed a very nice socket wrench down to me, which I awkwardly took in my mouth. Being an earth pony was nice, but very unhygienic sometimes. I snugged down the bolts and double-checked the wire connections, before rolling back out and unfolding myself.
“I’m Glow Plug,” she said, looking at me carefully and furrowing her brow. I knew that look. She clearly had no idea who I was. “I’m kind of new here,” she admitted. “Are you on Shift 1 too?”
“Shift 3, actually. I’m Socket. Just finishing up some deferred repairs.” There was no particular reason she would know another random Maintenance worker, of course. It was a big Stable, nearly nine hundred residents, and even in the same department some ponies would be strangers. Kind of sad, actually.
She smiled. “Nice to meet you! Are you going to the solstice festival?”
“Right... when is that again?”
“Tomorrow, silly! On the solstice. Ten a.m. in the atrium.”
“Of course! Wouldn’t miss it. See you there?”
“See you!” She slipped the socket wrench back into her barding and trotted off. Nice to meet a friendly pony.
Not good to leave ports hanging open on the main generator. I took my time and finished up carefully, doing a really professional job. Hatch the right way up, all the bolts on, leftover washers kicked under equipment where nobody could see them.
My PipBuck beeped with a schedule reminder. Next up, a very important delivery to the security office.
The attitude in Security was not nearly as friendly. They kept me waiting in the outer office for over an hour, while the supervisor wandered back from her “break.” A steady stream of very fit ponies filtered past me as I waited, clearly not interested in talking to someone wearing the wrong-colored barding. I put on my best helpful expression, as a scowling mare twice my size emerged from the depths of the office.
“No deliveries during day shift.” It was covered by her barding, but I bet her cutie mark was a rock. Or maybe a block of concrete.
“Sorry,” I said, with what I hoped was a winning grin. “New sensor modules, for the perimeter security monitors. I hear that system’s been down for a while now.”
She grunted. “Don’t remind me. And we’ve got all-hooves training today.”
The security office was as big a space as any in the Stable. Still, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have nearly every guard crammed in there together, for a full shift. My eyes watered just thinking about it.
She poked at the crate on my dolly. According to the warning stickers, there would be dire consequences if it was opened by unapproved personnel. “Can you install this?”
I shook my head sadly. “I’m a little behind schedule. But I can come back! Around two thirty?”
She grunted again, in what seemed to be an affirmative way. “Run along.” She waved over a gangly stallion in a recruit’s uniform, who wheeled the dolly and crate past her desk and deeper into the office.
I ran along.
“Look,” I replied evenly, “the Overmare’s air conditioning has been on the fritz now for nearly 24 hours. And that office has huge glass windows which face the atrium. It’s an oven.”
“No entry without authorization.”
My PipBuck beeped again. It was annoyed that I was taking so long, but it really wasn’t my fault this time! If Security was rock-like, then the Overmare’s personal guards were solid titanium.
“She’ll be upset! Look, it’s on the maintenance schedule!” I waved the clipboard with the work order. It was very official. There was a stamp and everything.
“No entry without authorization.”
Scratch that, not titanium. Lead. Definitely lead. That was hard to move and linked with brain damage, right?
Just as I was getting ready to withdraw and regroup, the door slid open with a whoosh. Leave it to Stable-Tec to put exactly one door in the whole place that opened like that.
“Are you here to fix my damn A/C?”
“Yes ma’am!” I wondered if I should salute. The clipboard would have made it awkward, though.
I poked merrily around inside the wiring cabinet, thankful the Overmare’s office had a nice carpeted floor. Much easier on the back.
“How’s that coming?” she barked.
“I think I’m just about done.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but never got the chance. A distant boom echoed from somewhere below us in the Stable, and the lights flickered. Dust filtered down from the ceiling tiles. I could hear muffled shouting through the floor, and there was suddenly a lot of activity in the atrium.
The Overmare went to her security terminal, but it was dead. So were the phones.
There was a crackle from the backup radio. “Gumdrop... I mean, Prowler to Hawk’s Nest,” called a shaky voice, and I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly fell out of my skull. The voice continued. “Security net down! Fire on Level 2. Can’t reach main security office by phone or radio. Sounding the general alarm.”
I put my hooves over my ears as the piercing siren sounded throughout the Stable. Hooves pounded around us as an entire Stable of highly-trained ponies rushed to their stations, ready to fight fire, flooding, or worse. Even with the security network down, they could handle nearly any threat, so long as the Stable had power.
There was a second boom, louder than the first, which rattled the windows.
The lights went out.
Four hours later, the situation had not improved. Without power, the Overmare’s fancy sliding door wouldn’t open. Our only means of communication were the backup radios, and at this point half the radios in the Stable had run out of batteries. The pumps had stopped working, and the Maintenance levels were mostly under water.
The only light in the increasingly stuffy office came from a red emergency flare, that hissed and smoked on the Overmare’s desk, slowly ruining the finish.
Even worse, the entire Stable rang with the sound of drilling and hammering. Someone was clearly trying to get in. That was impossible, of course... even the weakest part of the Stable’s shell, the huge gearlike main door, was magically locked and impervious to drilling. For an attack to have any chance of success, someone would have to disable the locks first. Which could only be done in a hardened location, like Security, or the Overmare’s office.
There was a tremendous crash from the upper levels, and the Overmare actually jumped. The sound of drilling stopped, replaced by gunfire and shouting. In the flickering red light, she looked shaken, and for the first time, unsure. Shadows danced around her as she opened a safe at the back of the office, pulling out a pistol.
“Stay behind me,” she ordered, taking aim at the door. I did, although by now I was also behind her conference table, file cabinet, desk chair, and wastepaper basket. None of it seemed very bulletproof.
Shouting started outside the door, and I heard the deafening rattle of automatic gunfire as the Overmare’s guards opened up. It stopped abruptly, with a sharp bang, and something red and wet sailed past the window. A violent hammering noise started, vibrating the entire room and setting my teeth on edge. The door flexed in its frame, and I watched as the reinforced metal slowly bent around the edges, until finally it popped like the lid on a can.
The Overmare fired a total of three shots before the brick hit her head. She went down like a sack of hammers, kicking weakly and losing her grip on the gun. My ears rang with the shriek of rending metal, and I watched as an impossibly enormous pony forced his way through the broken door.
His horrible spiked armor gleamed hellishly in the red light from the flare, as he reared up, and up, and up, a colossal wall of flesh and muscle, filling the room to the ceiling. Roaring, he brought both front hooves down on her head.
Then he turned to me.
It was like facing a demon out of Tartarus. Flickering red shadows spread across his body; his leering face ran black with blood, eyes burning from the darkness like glowing coals. And in a deafening, grinding rumble he spoke...
“Nice work, squirt.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “These Stable ponies are unbelievably stupid, though.”
It was good to get back into proper armor. I adjusted the skulls.
I mean, technically they were rabbit skulls, but still.
I left my Maintenance barding... Socket’s barding... on the floor of the Overmare’s office. It got pretty splashed when she died. I supposed the stallion I took it from was still down there on Level D, stuffed into the air conditioning duct. Dead, I guess. You never know, though. Maybe unicorns can breathe underwater?
I walked out of the office, and into a huge party.
They had cleared the Stable in record time. The scrappers and salvagers had got temporary power running, and were already carting out loads of equipment, computer terminals, medical supplies, and other valuables. And books, of course; the nights were starting to get cold, and a nice campfire was always enjoyable.
I heard the usual grumbling from a long line of dejected-looking Stable residents, in chains, being led out the ruins of the main door. Party poopers. Everypony else was engaged in wild inebriated celebration.
Particularly Rock.
As soon as he saw me again, he grabbed me by the mane and shook me furiously, until I worried my head might separate from my body. He had cleaned most of the blood off his face, although I could see bits of the Overmare still stuck to his horseshoes. “Better than that stupid bonfire thing we had last time, eh!”
We were both members of the Red Tongues, but unlike me, Rock was a raider. Meaning the ones who carried out the attacks, after I did all the real work of softening up the Stable, and oh by the way, unlocking the bucking door.
Now I don’t mean an uncouth independent raider, waiting in the shadows of some abandoned building for the chance to shove an old curtain rod where curtain rods don’t belong. Rock, and the rest of his Red Tongue colleagues, were professional raiders, applying their curtain rods with purpose. That meant they were fully qualified to both smash things and celebrate, and there was a lot to celebrate. Red Tongue raiders got all the caps they could carry, and first pick when it came to salvage rights.
And mares, of course. Even Potato Masher got mares, and his special talent was sitting on ponies until they suffocated.
Rock continued, his face unreasonably close to mine. “You don’t knock over a Stable every day! I’m sick of those stupid caravans and dumbass little towns with toothpick fences. Half of them don’t even have booze! I like a party with guts.”
Guts was right. The floor in front of the Overmare’s office was so slippery it should have had a warning sign. And one small group of raiders, clearly drunk out of their minds, were showing a Stable guard where balloon animals came from.
I found Golden down on the second level, by a burned-out classroom. She was talking with Skull Crusher, a massive stallion who was second in authority only to the Chief, and second in skull-crushing to no one. I decided our little chat could wait until they were finished; Skull was rumored to have gotten his cutie mark after someone interrupted him during a meeting. I sat for a while looking at the Stable foals’ drawings, taped to the wall.
Which were terrible. Really. They were better off as slaves.
Golden was an earth pony, like me and most of the Red Tongues. She actually had a somewhat-golden coat, kind of a dusky tan color, although while she was working it usually got streaked with various darker-colored fluids. Her special talent involved railroad spikes.
She had been fighting alongside Rock and Shredder and the rest of them for over a year now. Must be nice.
Golden headed over, as Skull walked off. I grinned. “Soooooo.... how are things down in the security office?”
“Completely mulched,” she said, grinning back. “Can’t even count the bodies. Thanks, by the way. Our casualties could have been a lot worse.”
It turns out you can fit a ton of explosives inside one of those equipment crates. Not to mention inside a generator module. I’d thank the Security mare for helping, if she hadn’t been mulched along with the rest of them.
“What did Skull want?”
She lit up. “Good news! Chief wants to see the two of us, after the party.”
Well, that was unexpected. I had only met him once, when I joined. He’d said ”Welcome to the team!” and given me a good thump on the back, that was sore for several days.
“Great,” I said, “I have some things to ask him about.”
“Diesel, please don’t blow this for me.”
“I’m not going to blow anything. But I already told you, I’m doing practically the same work you guys are.”
She rolled her eyes. “We had two casualties today raiding the Stable. And Silver Hoof nearly had his balls twisted off by some crazy Maintenance mare with a socket wrench. While, no offense, you were sitting in an armored office, having tea with the Overmare...”
“There wasn’t tea!”
“Sorry. Rock said it was a pillow fort, I believe.”
“Furniture fort. Barricade, I mean. Anyway, I’m a Red Tongue, just like you!”
She threw up her hooves. “You’re a Red Tongue infiltrator. A very good infiltrator.”
I looked stoically off into the distance, definitely not pouting, while she patted me awkwardly on my barding. “Look, next caravan we hit, I’ll let you do some of the sniping again, OK?”.
“Golden?”
“Er, yes?” She looked back to the party, but it was much too late to escape.
“Do you think I’d make a good raider?”
“Well, you have good aim,” she said, clearly trying to think of nice things to say. “Even with unicorns, which can be tricky. Drill them right in the face, that’s the professional approach, don’t let the horn get in the way. And, um, you’re very... hard working?”
I gave her a firm look.
“Punctual?”
A less firm look, which some might have called “crestfallen.”
“Oh! You disembowelled that prisoner last month! I heard Skull was really impressed, too. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I didn’t have it in me,” I said morosely. “I was just using the tail grinder on him, and it slipped.”
I wandered around the party for a while, not sure what to do with myself. I got lots of hoof-bumps and thank-yous, though. Eventually I ended back up on the top level, with some scrappers and knife specialists, playing pin-the-tail-on-the-pony. Which was fun, but kind of loud.
After about twenty minutes Rock showed up again, and gave me some advice on improving my technique, delivered at enormous volume.
“Thanks,” I lied. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, I’m just giving Sparkle Smash the grand tour. Showing her the ropes. Good day for it!”
Rock waved at a brilliantly violet earth mare, wearing surprisingly clean leather armour. She was with a small group tossing bound Security stallions off the atrium balcony, competing for the best air time. Her cutie mark was a spiked hammer smashing something.
He grinned. “It’s her first raid, you know. Just officially joined last week.”
“Her first raid?” That didn’t make any sense. New recruits had to spend at least six months on scrapping duty. Then develop a technical specialty, like weapons. Or infiltration, just to give a completely random example. Then become a raider. Or, you know, not.
“Yeah, I hear she impressed the leadership.”
Sparkle trotted over, smiling widely. Well I certainly wasn’t impressed, and resolved myself to tell her exactly how I felt. Ponies shouldn’t skip the line. There was a system.
“Small world, actually,” continued Rock. “She’s Skull’s daughter in law.”
I unresolved myself. “Er, hello. Getting on OK?”
“Yes! Everypony is so friendly!”
I bit my tongue, harder than I meant to. Rock turned to me. “This is Diesel F...”
“Fuel,” I interrupted. “Diesel Fuel.” Rock moseyed off, coming down with a sudden coughing fit. I fumed.
Sparkle Smash continued smiling, and I got the sense it was her default setting. My eyes drifted back to her cutie mark. “Um, so what’s your special talent?”
She beamed. “Gelding!”
The Chief’s tent was salvaged from a wrecked circus, and was beyond-richly decorated, with a huge collection of rugs, tacky gold furniture, and expensive equipment that looked mostly unused. Three stunningly beautiful mares lay glumly on an enormous pile of pillows at the back of the tent.
“Welcome!” he rumbled as Golden and I walked in, gesturing to a low table surrounded by plump, comfortable-looking cushions. I was surprised they hadn’t been crushed flat by now. I had met stallions with two chins before, but this was more of a single continuous chin, that swept smoothly from his lower lip all the way down to his barrel. “Sit down, have a drink!”
We sat down. A stallion with an eyepatch poured two cups of steamingly hot coffee, for him and Golden, and one cup of lukewarm and appallingly weak tea, for me. I had heard the speech before. Coffee is for raiders.
“Now! I wanted to brief you both on an extremely exciting opportunity that’s just come up.” His eyebrows waggled like they were trying to escape. “As you know, we have just liberated Stable 43. And we have just located... Stable 44!”
He whipped out a set of blueprints.
“The crooked subcontractors who built this ridiculous place, hallowed be their names, saved money by making 44 an exact copy. Including the access tunnel you used to sneak in! Geography’s a bit different, but nothing a little elbow grease can’t fix. Now, this is a high-risk, high-reward operation, so we’re going to limit the resources we commit. It’ll be a small, surgical team.”
I noticed Golden smiled at that. She liked surgery.
“I’ve already briefed Rock, who will be in command. You two will round out the team. Along with one of our new recruits, Sparkle! She’s really going places. Plus whatever assets you need, within reason! Except PipBucks, though; not in the budget.”
He rolled up the blueprints, waving them dramatically. “I’ll have Muck fill you in on the details! What an adventure!”
Be firm. “No,” I said. Golden made a strangled coughing noise as she choked on her coffee.
His smile froze. “Hmmm. Can you elaborate.”
“I’m your best infiltrator.”
He didn’t say anything, but eyed me pensively.
“So, if I agree... I mean, when I do this mission... I’m tired of being shut out. I want a full share.” She recovered and started kicking me under the table.
“You have food, I trust!” he said with a joking smile, which didn’t reach his eyes. “Shelter! Protection! Interesting missions! Really, quite a good deal!”
“Yes,” I said, feeling uncertain but deciding to press on. “But I went in there, alone, and took out the Security forces, and the generator, and unlocked the door, and well, Rock, and Shredder, and all the others, they get the caps, and first choice at salvage... I mean, there’s a lot of stuff in a Stable, and surely...”
I trailed off limply. Golden gave up kicking me and just tried to blend into the background.
He stared silently at me, not blinking, for longer than was strictly reasonable. “You do realize,” he finally began, “that we have a system in place. Ponies pay their dues, and receive certain privileges, in return for certain obligations. For example, raiders fight to capture caravans, towns, even Stables... and they take enormous risks. Charging into battle, life and limb, with an uncertain outcome. And their share of the spoils reflects that risk.”
His uni-chin wobbled as he spoke. One of the occupants of the pillow pile scratched herself.
“That makes sense,” I said. His smile returned, and Golden unwound herself a little.
“Excellent! I’ll send you down to meet Muck, charming fellow, really organized...”
“So I want to be a raider.”
“Ah, well...” He trailed off, then looked at me sharply. “I’ll tell you what. Good infiltrators are hard to come by, so my hooves are tied at the moment. But! You do a good job on 44, and I mean a really good job, and I’ll personally see whether you have what it takes to be a raider. And if you do, then whew...” --- the eyebrows waggled again --- “...it’ll be caps, mares, everything. Far as the eye can see.”
“Well,” I began.
“And if,” he continued smoothly, “you choose instead to leave our little family, the system we have says that nobody will try to stop you. Perish the thought! You are free to leave whenever you want, and live a life of independence, with the same duties and obligations as any other rugged freedom-loving resident of our great land.”
“And of course...”
“Of course, in my professional experience, I have found that a great many rugged freedom-loving individuals are overly attached to their skin. Which may pose a conflict.”
“I would like to learn more about Stable 44, please.”
Golden resumed her kicking as soon as we were out of the tent.
“Ow! Stop that! I get the message.”
There was a problem.
Not a problem with the room we were in, although it was a tight fit around the table. Rock, as the leader, sat next to Muck, pointing at the plans in front of him and making the occasional comment. The other three of us jostled for elbow space. Sparkle Smash had even brought a pencil and notepad, which she was gradually filling up with notes. Clearly showing off. I could have brought those too, if I’d thought of it.
The plan also wasn’t the problem, although we had just started going over it. The idea was pretty much as the Chief had outlined. Lots of details to work out, though.
The problem was, Muck was a smiler.
He smiled when he said hello, he smiled when he unrolled the blueprints, he smiled when he rolled them up again, he smiled and nodded and said of course when I asked a question. I wanted to borrow one of Rock’s bricks.
Muck smiled, and resumed talking about the Stables’ construction, pointing to a map of the area.
“Now again,” he said, smiling, “this is Stable 43, where we are! It’s actually one of a group of four planned Stables. One was never built; another is Stable 45, which was abandoned and looted years ago. And the last is Stable 44, over here. They all share a common design, and common defects in that design.”
“What happened with Stable 45?” asked Sparkle. Great, she was asking questions now too. Insufferable.
“Awesome question! It was an experimental Stable. After six months, the residents forced the door open and fled into the radioactive wasteland.”
Rock furrowed his brow. “What was the experiment?”
“To see whether ponies could tolerate eating nothing but lettuce. It turns out they can’t!”
With a grin, he put down a blueprint showing the Stable design in detail. “Back to our entry strategy! This is the access tunnel you used, at the bottom of the Stable. It was meant to be sealed off after construction was finished, but they just left it. And didn’t inform the Stable residents, of course. Magical sealing materials are expensive. Stable 44 has a similar tunnel, but there’s a catch!”
I opened my mouth to say something about fish, but Golden’s expression made me think twice.
“Their computer system is different.” he finished, with a chuckle. “So you’ll have trouble getting the main door open. Thankfully, I went over the inventory from here in Stable 43, and found an asset.”
“An asset,” Golden said.
“Yes! To help you deal with a Stable’s electrical and mechanical systems. Which you can pick up in the machine shop, I believe.”
“Can I have my PipBuck back?” I asked.
“Great question, Diesel! You’ll have to, er, aquire one once you get into 44. No budget. Plus taking an outside PipBuck into a Stable might set off alarms. Any more questions!”
Rock pointed at the Stable 44 plans. “What’s this leading down to the tunnel?”
“Of course! That’s how you get in, via the original shaft used during construction. Stable 43 was built into the hillside, but they had to dig straight down for 44. We’re absolutely certain there might be stairs.”
He smiled seriously. “Now remember, the Chief won’t commit our little army of raiders until you successfully infiltrate. Once you’re in, just program the computer to open the door at a pre-arranged time, preferably after midnight, and radio us to confirm. Then we’ll come over and be waiting for that door to pop open. And bang! Another Stable captured!”
I spoke up. “What happens if you don’t hear back from us?”
“Good point, Diesel!” he said, smiling. “After thirty days, we’ll assume they’ve captured you!”
“And then?”
He smiled. “And then what?”
“Got it, thanks.”
“No problem!” he said, grinning. “Other questions!”
Rock sent me down to the machine shop, which was just about the only place in the Stable left undamaged. Tools of any kind were worth a fortune, and the scrappers had already emptied every drawer in the place. Muddy hoof-marked paperwork lay strewn all over the floor, including Stable blueprints. Not much use for those anymore.
The asset was awkwardly tied to a chair. Her mood did not improve when I entered the room.
“She’s chained,” said Silver Hoof, wincing, “but don’t get too close.” I noticed a twisted socket wrench lying on the workbench. Some wag had put it in a plastic bag, salvaged from the ruins of the security office, that said EVIDENCE.
I didn’t quite know what to say.
“Sorry about the solstice festival.”
“How do you sleep at night?” she seethed.
“I’d like to say ‘on a big pile of caps’,” I replied testily. “But I’m not a raider yet.”
