We had to wait outside whilst Misty worked her magic (in a sense, as we had no magic), so Hitch and I had to take cover to ensure our own safety. If any soldier came into the plaza and spotted us our entire mission would be compromised, and that would never do.

Not to mention one member of the assault party had something that no other pegasus I've ever seen actually has- fluffy, puffy wings. They'd spot me really easily if these were clearly on show.

Speaking of my wings, they were starting to cramp up again, and I needed to give them some adjustments. I hid in position and moved them a bit to stretch out the muscles. Looking at them now, and sorry for doing some preening whilst we talk, but I realised then it should have been rather obvious that we couldn't fly back then. The wingspan was too short to hold us in the air. When Zipp explained this she used loads of sciencey words that I couldn't really understand, but I'll do my best to explain in laypony's terms.

Basically, ability to get off the ground is relative to the body size and the wingspan. My wingspan is not big enough to get me off the ground, and it would struggle to lift anything else. When I tested them after first arriving, I was only able to get a few inches into the air. Not only that, the required muscles for flight would take up the bulk of a pegasus' chest, and the resulting wings would need to be ridiculously big to generate enough lift.

In other words, it should have been obvious that we couldn't fly without magic. It just goes to show how desperate they were to believe that there was a chance we would get flight back that they were willing to completely ignore the laws of physics in the face of all the evidence.

Besides, it kept those technicians in a job, didn't it? Speaking of which, I thought at the time about them, and hoped they were OK. I had no doubt Gulfstream had them targeted, but that was not a productive thought for this mission. We had to get in there and get this broadcast done, then escape before anypony found us and get to safety once more.

My phone had signal again, but obviously I wasn't using it to avoid being detected. It was a very distinctive device, and one that I was quite keen to not lose. So under my wing it stayed.

I glanced back to the door. Although the outdoor clock in the plaza (which somehow still worked) revealed only a few minutes had passed, it felt like hours had gone by. I was pretty tense, and looked about as I sat there. The plaza was still very quiet, so presumably the place was pretty quiet or the soldiers were fighting on other parts of the line. The latter seemed to make more sense on that front.

Suddenly, the door opened, and Misty emerged. She looked a little tired, but the door was open, which was what mattered.

Hitch was the first to speak, collecting up some of his equipment (he had taken his gun off the support slot and rested it in a place he could easily pick it up). "Let's go," he said, looking at me. "Lead the way, Misty."

I nodded, and collected my stuff before we headed indoors. The lack of light made things spooky but actually quite fun and exciting at the same time. It was like that time I played a spy in a movie who was working to bring down a threat to the state. I don't think it had much of a plot, and I was certain the director was making it up as he went along. Oh well. I got to do some fun stunts, such as climb up the side of a building! Yes, that was the one where my character disguises herself as a nightclub singer in order to get closer to the target.

We continued onwards, the lack of light starting to get a little annoying on my eyes. This place was getting harder to see in, and my eyes were struggling to adapt to the sudden changes in color temperature, meaning the constant changes between light and dark were making it hard for me to see. Still, I kept going regardless, as I had a mission to perform for the sake of all us in the realm.

Not that it was easy. I had considered trying to use my phone camera to figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, bestie's camera is even worse at detecting light levels and color temperature than my eyes, meaning the resulting image would be horribly overexposed and I wouldn't be able to make sense of anything. And flash? No way.

I began to wheeze as I trotted along, the gear weighing me down. I'm so not used to this.

Hitch dropped back and looked at me, noticing I was struggling. "Move slower, and try to avoid exerting too hard," he advised, giving me something to prop against whilst I got my breath back. Thanks, Hitch! "If you try to run too hard you'll get even more tired out."

I groaned, noting what he had said. "I'm a popstar, not a secret agent," I grumbled. If they regularly had to drag this lot about it was not a life I wanted. Besides, I enjoyed the princess life. "I know I played one in a movie, but that was to fulfill contractual obligations. And my cameo in Pegasus Protocol doesn't count!"

Hitch had no reply to that, but that wasn't hugely surprising. Why would a pegasus movie be released in earth pony territory? Considering the way it portrays earth ponies (totes regret that, by the way) it would probably perform really badly at the box office. So yeah, releasing it would be a complete waste of time out there.

As we continued on, we found an elevator. This was needed to get us to the right floor to make the broadcast. I waited back whilst Misty fiddled with it, and found it wouldn't open because it was biometrically locked. I had seen photos of me in the building, but I had no doubt that my hoofprints had been removed from the records to prevent me from getting in. If I tried it, the fire alarm would probably go off. It'd blow our cover!

Misty then had another idea. Misty then produced a keycard from nowhere and slipped it through the slot on the side, and the display changed.

KEYCARD ACCEPTED. PRIVATE SKYTRAIL. ACCESS TO UPPER LEVELS GRANTED. HAVE A NICE DAY.

Presumably Misty had swiped it from the guard on the door. Crafty and sly, she is. I mean, she did nearly steal the crown- twice. Good thing we had all the fake crowns made!

But yeah, crafty. Good thing she's on our side.

We popped inside the elevator and the floors were set so we could get on with our mission. Hitch sighed. "This keycard network doesn't exactly seem like the most secure of security systems," he said.

"I can only assume it was how ZBS moved its employees about, and they retained it as a backup safety system in case the reader failed," Misty informed him.

Hmmm, that did seem logical, so I chimed in. "It's certainly handy, though," I said, trying (and failing) to suppress a yawn. "Beats having to punch loads of number combinations into a keypad! Imagine how long that would take with hooves!" I always use speed dial, but at least phones are ergonomically designed to suit hooves. The numbers are also pretty big on the digital displays.

Once the elevator got into position, we stopped outside the broadcast room. Unfortunately, we were not getting in there. It was way too full!

"No way we're getting in there," I said. "Far too many ponies. We'd be spotted and look like Swiss cheese before we could say 'rise and shine'."

"Rise and shine?" Hitch asked. "That's oddly specific."

"I'll get them off your tail," Misty said suddenly, before vanishing off into the corridors.

Minutes later, I nearly jumped out of my skin as an alarm went off. It was loud, and beepy, and came from somewhere down the corridor.

The soldiers started to flood out of the room.

"ALARM'S BEEN TRIGGERED!"

"THERE'S A THREAT IN THE BUILDING!"

"FIND THE SOURCE OF THE NOISE AND SILENCE IT!"

Well, that worked quickly. They flooded out and sped down the corridor, trying to locate the source of the noise they described. And it meant the coast was clear for us.

Misty then returned to our position, so all was good to go. "Door's open," she said. "The guards are gone."

"Gotcha," Hitch said. "Hopefully this won't be too complex to set up."

I glanced over. "I'll show you how to configure it." I had long since stopped questioning how I knew how to do all of this stuff.

But we stepped inside, awaiting our date with destiny.

Author's Note

Sorry about the wait, got caught up in a bit of other stuff. :P

Anyways... almost there now to finishing up this week's leg for of Pipp Petals. =3