Fallout Equestria: The Indefatigable

November 30, 1277 - Mission Day 52

Flow Kindheart woke up with a start, having entirely missed the tinny ring of the alarm clock that Band Ball had made for her. She cast her sheets off, rolling to her left, only for her muzzle to press squarely into a cold, steel wall.

It was only as she cracked open her weary, crusted, swollen eyes that she remembered she wasn't in her clinic in Sunset Town. She hadn't heard her clock go off because it was still sitting beside her bedroll in the attic of said clinic. Instead, she was in one of the 'on-call rooms' aboard the Phantom Ship. It also explained why her sheets didn't itch and why her back sunk so far into the suffocatingly soft mattress of the bunk.

She sighed, rolling over the other direction, whacking her horn painfully as she stood up and bumped into the top bunk. Her hooves pressed onto the cold, metallic floor of the ship as she woozily stumbled towards the door and back out into the main infirmary, only the muttered sleeptalking of the nurse on the top bunk to see her off as she left.

"What time is it...?" Flow muttered, attempting to blink the spots and floaters in her eyes away as she walked towards the gold-colored frame of Doctor Hoof.

"Nine AM," the surgeon answered with a smile, looking towards her, "That had to be what, eleven hours? Feeling better?"

Kindheart snorted, "I bet doctors in your time got to sleep that long all the time."

"No, not really. When I'd be on call in my residency, I'd be lucky to get thirty minutes cause I'd be real nervous," Firm Hoof chuckled with a smile and a slight twinkle in his creased eye, "Don't worry, Miss. Nopony died because of your curing your own chronic sleep deprivation."

Flow frowned. She couldn't help but feel slightly belittled. Sleeping for that long back in Sunset Town might legitimately mean somepony's death. It wasn't her fault that she didn't have some fancy autodoc, diagnostic doohickeys, and fancy magic to keep her patients alive.

"Speaking of self care..." Hoof continued, seemingly uncaring about Kindheart's sour face as he turned back to glowing terminal screen, "I've scheduled you an appointment with our dentist at eleven, last one before lunch. I've seen those cavities and that plaque, you need the help just as much as the average patient here does. Why don't you go and get some breakfast, then maybe hit up the rec rooms, then come back around then and Dr Sweet Paste will fix those pearly whites right back up!" he gave her another smile.

"The dentist should see to the earth ponies first," Flow's scowl deepened. Earth Ponies always had the worst teeth, especially the ones that fired pistols a lot. Apparently pre-war ponies used mouthguards to avoid cracking their molars with every trigger pull. Who knew?

"A doctor must take care of their own health first, Miss Kindheart," Hoof lectured in a way that only an old stallion with an actual education could, "I'm the Head Surgeon of this ship. Even if you're not a member of the crew, you're my responsibility. If you want to keep working here, I suggest you do what I say. I don't want to see you back here until after those teeth have been fixed."

Flow Kindheart's scowl lessened. With a side-eye, she looked out towards the waiting room. For once, many of the chairs were empty. Just a few of the pre-war ponies in uniform, sitting around. She supposed she could give herself a break... it's not like she could really return to her clinic until that plan to bring the ship to Sunset Town and construct a gantry to allow ponies to just walk to the ship and back was finished.

As Kindheart moved to walk past the head surgeon and towards the exit, the stallion turned in his seat to add, "Oh! One last thing.."

She gave him a neutral, tired look.

"You're.." he scrunched up his muzzle, "You're... rather odoriferous. Please, in the three hours you have, use some of it to take a shower and take that filthy outfit to be laundered. It's no insult to you, it's just extremely displeasing to work with. I'm glad you haven't been handling patients directly, or else I'm sure most of them would have gone into sepsis by now," Hoof shivered slightly, "Take one of the unoccupied patient facilities... and use that anti-parasitic shampoo, please."

Kindheart raised a leg, sniffing at it and frowning. Smelled normal to her. If anything, the ponies around the ship smelled sickeningly flowery. Still, by the long-suffering cringe on the old stallion's face, she decided that it was probably for the best she take his advice, diverting her course towards one of the sets of bathrooms available for use by the infirmary staff.

The medicinal shampoo stung and burned, especially at the patches of her hide where the fur had fallen away. Still, she lathered up until the stream of water underneath her slowly turned from brown to clear. Towelling down, she'd tried to use the sink to wash her clothes like she was asked, only to get a strange look from a passing corpspony.

Apparently, the ship had a place to do laundry. Was a sink with pure, water-talisman water not good enough for pre-war ponies? She supposed so. Still, after being harrassed several times, she agreed to take her clothes down to the laundry compartment.

Laundry aboard the Phantom Ship was apparently done via huge, noisy, headache-inducing machines. The machines would soak the clothes and then spin aggressively, using Abraxo Cleaner of all thing to actually get the dirt out. The sailor who took her clothes to be put in one of the machines gave her yet another strange look when she suggested that it was actually meant to be used for scrubbing stains off of floorboards and the decks of boats. Eventually, he admitted that it probably could be used for scrubbing surfaces, but still affirmed that its original use was as 'laundry detergent'.

Pre-War Ponies apparently had made soap for not just themselves but for clothes. Ridiculous.

Next was breakfast, served in the mess halls. Apparently the top doctors had another place they ate. She wasn't a real doctor (she was a 'civilian') so she ate in a big common area with the rest of the 'enlisted ponies' (it'd taken her a while to learn the different terms for a pony in a military uniform). She'd noticed some of the other corpsponies getting in line to eat, so she fell in line with them, grabbing one of the plastic trays.

Until now, she'd just had her meals delivered to her as she made rounds around the waiting room and offices of the infirmary (again, not a 'real doctor', so she couldn't touch the patients she'd been treating naught but a week ago), so going and getting her own food from the mess was new to her. Food was portioned out into trays, with reminders taped to the tables about rationing and maximum portions.

There were a lot of foods she didn't know about. In Las Pegasus, some ponies would hunt Radigator or Steelbeak Eggs to scramble and cook - she'd had those once, they were certainly a step up from fish. Here, however, they served some sickly yellow, squishy version of egg scramble. When she inquired about it, she was told it was yellow because it was from a chicken.

She'd only read about chickens in books. From the depictions of them on 'Old Granny Smith's Farmhouse', they looked demonic. She'd much rather hunt a radigator's nest than farm 'chickens'.

Still, it didn't stop her from spooning a good portion out onto her platter, since it was a relatively familiar foodstuff. Further down the line was a majority vegetables, something you could only get in such plenty if you were an upper Syndicate brownnoser like Gears. There was also a soup being served, though it was extremely thick and obviously meant to actually sate rather than just serve as an excuse to cut rations.

Then, she noticed something at the end of the meal line. A big, clear cylindrical tub of Sugar Apple Bombs. Fresh.

Her tongue tingled and her mouth wetted as she painstakingly waited the few steps it took for the line to progress close enough to the tub. Taking a plastic bowl, she cranked the lever connected to a chute at the bottom of the cylinder until she got weird looks from those waiting behind her.

As soon as about three kernels of the sugary cereal bounced off the floor, she licked her chops, levitated the tray above her head, and advanced to a table with a giant grin on her face.

Kindheart ended up following the other corpsponies to their table. They seemed to tolerate her presence there as she wolfed down her food. One of them commented about her smelling better. Kindheart muttered back something about trying to deal with an entire town's worth of bowel incontinence and open wounds, the entire time only being rationed a few buckets of clean water, and come back and criticize her for smelling bad.

Placed into an awkward silence, her messmates (as she'd learned was the word for ponies you ate with) simply ate their breakfast in silence. Thankfully, very little distracted Kindheart from her own meal... that is until one of the corpsponies took their bowl of cereal and came back with it bathed in a white liquid that could only be milk.

For once, she was the one giving him the strange look, which he noticed after a few seconds of him eating his weird cereal-soup hybrid.

"...What?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Is that milk?" she asked, crunching on a beautifully fresh and crisp kernel of hyper-processed and sugared corn. There was just something different tasting about it when it wasn't 200 years old.

"Yes...?" he mumbled, tapping the cereal bowl to push some more of the kernels below the water.

Kindheart chuckled, "Uh, why? Why spoil it with milk? It's just gonna get all soggy."

"I mean... you eat it... before it gets soggy," the stallion said, clearly lost in confusion as he watched her crunch down on another dry kernel, "...The milk absorbs some of the sugar and also becomes sweet. It's nice."

She didn't question it that much further, it was probably just some Old World gourmet way of eating cereal.

She remembered seeing an old milk carton in one of the scavenger shops in Sunset Town, and how unlike most packaged pre-war food all of the milk had rotted away. Elsewhere in the Wasteland, some ponies kept animals that yielded milk, but Las Pegasus was barren when it came to mammalian wildlife that could be domesticated. It was only a matter of time until this ship ran out of these things.

Kindheart's face slowly fell, even as she crunched more of the delicious cereal. Sure they were beginning to trade for food... but how long was it until they ran out of medicine? They were practically dumping RadAway onto every stray patient, no matter how minor their poisoning. They were made out of oranges,

What about antibiotics? Those were extremely hard to find in a form that still worked, since they had a relatively short shelf life. From what books she'd read, the active ingredient in common antibiotics was some sort of fungus - something that had probably mutated beyond recognition by now, as fungi liked eating up Rads.

Her eyes wandered around the cafeteria. Sailors laughed, ate, drank, and were merry. She noticed they were always happy when they were eating, but were always coated in some varying layer of glum or soberness elsewhere. She could understand, she supposed, what with them having apparently seen the bombs go off; mealtime was probably some area of solace where they could pretend all was right in the world.

Would they stay as happy when they had to eat tumor-ridden, thoroughly cooked fish and stale alfalfa for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? What was the Syndicate going to do once the infirmary ran out of free RadAway and antibiotics?

She looked back to her half-emptied bowl of cereal. Maybe she'd try that milk trick now...

Just outside the rusted, chainlink fences of the Blueblood Military Academy was an old boardwalk, one that used to extend out over the side of the River Rush as part of a pre-war City Park. Of course, the boardwalk had burned up and fallen into the river a long time ago and left just a shear drop down the riverbank, paved by cracked and subsiding concrete.

The part of the river that the base was adjacent to was part of a sort of shoulder in the river, just as it turned southwards. The far bank of the river was almost out of sight in the dusky glow of the overcast, midday sun. It was far beyond where anything but high-velocity rifles could fire, and the scavenger teams were still unable to find any shells to supply the artillery pieces they had recovered. Thus, sadly, river traffic remained unpoliced by the Rangers, allowing the Syndicate to send trade up and down the river (and thus towards the Central Wasteland and those thugs in Fillydelphia) without interference.

Roaring Thunder sighed as he looked away from the far bank, turning with the slow, casual hiss and wheeze of his powered armor. Perhaps he should ask their friends aboard the Indefatigable if they had shells... or perhaps an entirely new weapon system to loan them!

The thought of sinking a few Syndicate boats made him smile. Thinking of new weapons system made him look towards the two Vertibucks parked in the training beyond the fences and sandbags of the base.

They had returned that day with specialists from the ship, clothed in baggy yellow hazmat suits. Captain Bugle as well as a few Ranger-Marines had come with them as an escort, although they had spent most of the time since landing talking to a few Knights and several crowds of eager Initiates (before they had been yelled at by their tutors to get back to their duties). Two of the Ranger-Marines, dressed in their shining, white-painted power armor stood guard over the specialists as they did their duties.

Running through the remains of the old City Park was a flow of Balefire Lava. The white, silvery substance radiated an uncomfortable amount of heat, emitting a not-unsubstantial amount of radiation even while cooled. All around the flow of lava, blackened and charred dirt smouldered, remains of the unquenchable fires sparked by the rainstorms. The very end of the flow was about twenty meters or so from the side of the river - from flowing down the bank and straight into the water.

Fortunately the rain and fire had concealed the tracks from where they had used Jenny to push the noxious goop into the water. The specialists hadn't made any comments about it either.

One of the said specialists was standing a few meters back, looking into a PipBuck mounted on her foreleg as her comrades swept the lava flow with a variety of tools, instruments, and spells. A unicorn horn was pressed into the hood of the hazmat suit and a patch on her left shoulder depicted a purple six-pointed star and the letters "M.A.S." around it. She tapped the buttons and dials on the PipBuck with flashes of orange magic, seemingly entering data into some sort of program he didn't recognize.

Coughing into an armored hoof, Roaring Thunder approached behind the unicorn, "So, what's the prognosis, doc?"

The unicorn turned to look out of the side of her helmet, "Oh, uh, we're still taking readings. You ponies said your armor reacts negatively to the Balefire Lava?"

Roaring Thunder winced as memories of one of his old squadmates being pushed into a pool of Balefire Lava, his armor erupting into a shower of sparks and fire as the substance ate straight through. Nodding, he simply said, "Yeah..."

"We believe Balefire Lava is engineered to act as a catalyst for a massively exothermic oxygen reaction when introduced to certain molecular structures. Silicates like earth, concrete, stone, and plastic seem to be non-reactive," the unicorn winced as she looked back down to her PipBuck, "...Except that the Lava is also passively corrosive. We don't think we can move enough of it by just using plastic containers. It eats holes in it too fast."

He blinked. Most of the words went over his head, except for the last part, "Actually. I know that the Scribes use a gold basin to grab samples for the base's generator."

"Gold?" through the glossy refraction of the unicorn's visor she raised an eyebrow, "I suppose it's a fairly non-reactive metal. Isn't that rather expensive, though?"

Roaring Thunder snickered, "Hah. That's a good one. There's a bank about fifty klicks out from here. The vault's never been looted, cause it contains gold. You know what gold's useful for?"

The unicorn's face fell, but she nodded in understanding anyway, "Nothing, I suppose, unless you're doing some specific thaumomechanical enchanting."

"Yeah... sure..." Roaring Thunder's brow furrowed, before he spoke once again, "Haven't caught your name, by the way."

"Dr Summer Fruit," she smiled, "You?"

"Star Paladin Roaring Thunder," he inclined his head down (more than usual) to her, "Pleased to meet you," a pause, "...Old World doctor meant you went to school and got a specialization in something, right?"

Summer Fruit nodded, "I studied megaspells and thaumic physics."

He whistled, which came out as more of an obnoxious whine through the speakers of his suit, "Those are some fancy words.... megaspells? Like, the ones that destroyed the world?"

"Well I didn't build any," she snorted, looking back down to her PipBuck once again, "But yes. The MAS were hiring a lot for ponies with that specialization. I wanted to get a place at one of the Hubs, but they put me on the Indefatigable instead."

He grinned, bumping her on the shoulder as lightly as he could with his empowered hoof, "Lucky gal, huh? A lot of MAS places these days belong to Hellhounds."

"Hellhounds?" Summer Fruit asked, rubbing her shoulder in a way that indicated to him that she hadn't appreciated the poke.

Raising a hoof to fidget around his neck, Roaring Thunder winced, "Yeah. Big, scary motherfuckers. Mutant Diamond Dogs. They can shear your armor open in one swipe. Every single one of them hate ponies with a passion, don't deserve much mercy in return."

"what's next? giant cockroaches?"

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Summer Fruit shook her head, going silent as she was absorbed by her work on her PipBuck.

Leaning over her shoulder to get a better look at the screen, Roaring pursed his lips as he tried to make sense of the information. Whatever it was, it involved rapidly oscillating between a calculator, some sort of chemical chart, a big list of magical runes, and a bunch of funky purple waves.

The scientist gave a few awkward side-eyes towards him as he continued to loom over her shoulder, causing him to eventually take a hesitant step back. Eventually, Summer sighed, "Hey, listen, we've got a lot of work to do. Do you mind?"

"Yeah, sure, sorry for bothering you," Thunder muttered, stalking off.

Three hours later, Flow Kindheart walked out of the dentist's office, her teeth feeling like a single misplaced clench could shatter every single one of them.

The appointment had involved a lot of swearing, sighing, and muttering from the ship's dentist. She'd fully expected going in that she was just going to have a few teeth pulled - it's what she did to most of her dental patients at the clinic. Instead, the dentist had gone through with some sort of extremely cold, extremely bone-chilling jet and blasted her mouth until it felt numb. Then, he'd taken some sort of tool and began poking and prodding every crevice and crack in her teeth until they were all filled with some sort of concrete. Then, he'd given her something called 'toothpaste' and sent her on her way, instructing her to use it twice a day.

Hesitantly closing her mouth, her teeth twinging and clacking as they finally rejoined their counterparts on her lower jaw, she walked back through the infirmary to the doctor's offices - just in time for afternoon rounds.

She stopped as she walked by the Intensive Care Unit. In one of the wards, a colt sat underneath a blanket, slowly breathing in and out through a nose tube. His midsection was still covered in bandages and a IV tube was inserted into an artery by the neck.

Kindheart walked slowly into the room after checking quickly for any of the medical staff who might try to stop her. His heartrate was weak, but steady. There was no more bleeding from his side, the bandages wrapped around his barrel being there more to aid healing than to apply pressure to the site. His septic fever had gone down and he had even woken up a few times. He'd surely have died if it weren't for the Phantom Ship appearing that night.

"You're not supposed to be here, Miss Kindheart," came a voice from her side as Doctor Hoof suddenly appeared in her peripheral.

Jumping slightly, she wrenched her eyes away from her nephew towards the doctor, "Oh... sorry, I was just checking on him."

"That's okay. We just had a patient with a case of what looks like Mange come in, would you mind taking a look with us?" Doctor Hoof asked, lighting his horn and drawing the curtain closed in front of the bed, right in her face.

Blinking at the sudden obstruction, she frowned, giving him a slight glare, "What am I gonna advise you on? How to give that anti-parasitic medication?"

"It's much better to be certain in medicine," Hoof gave one of his smiles, turning and patting her on the shoulder, "Come on, let's walk."

Following after a moment of reluctance, they passed through the metal-lined halls of the ship's hospital, heading back towards the doctors' offices. Kindheart ran another gently probe across her teeth with her tongue, still feeling as if they were going to pop out of her gums at any moment after the 'cleaning'. As she did so, her eyes landed on a gurney being wheeled by, a full bag of RadAway liquid mix propped up on an IV connected to a conscious patient's veins. A quick glance at the diagnostics screen on the back of the cart showed a Rad level not even at severe yet, just 50%.

She frowned, "You need to stop giving our patients so much RadAway."

"They have radiation poisoning," the doctor shrugged, "We have to discharge them with a clear bill of health. Besides, radiation sickness is no joke! Those scanners aren't always accurate."

"Yeah," her frown turned into a scowl, "That guy was fully conscious, didn't look sick-"

"You can't know that without a proper diagnostic," Hoof immediately dismissed, adjusting his glasses with a flick of his telekinesis.

"I know," Kindheart groaned, throwing her head back slightly, "I know a patient with rads when I see one. I've been treating them my entire life! That patient did not need RadAway."

"Things are done differently here, Miss Kindheart," the doctor muttered, his voice lowering as his patience seemingly ran thin.

Regardless, Kindheart was too tired of the same answer to listen, "What's different about this place is that you just have more. More equipment. More drugs. More beds. More ponies. Can you make more RadAway? Can you make more Antibiotics? Can you make more of that painkiller? I don't know if you've noticed," she cantered forward and stopped in front of him, jabbing a hoof at a random wall, "But we don't exactly have pharmacies brimming with pre-war meds anymore, Doctor!"

Hoof, stopped by her, gave a sigh, "As a member of the Ministry of Peace, it is my duty to give every patient that comes through those doors the best possible care. I would have thought you would have been more supportive of this, considering we've had at least ten cases over the past week that would have passed away without our intervention!"

"You aren't gonna be able to heal the ponies that really need it if you keep wasting penicillin and RadAway on every random Raider that comes in here with a venereal disease and an infected papercut, Doctor Hoof!" Kindheart lowered her foreleg and stomped in frustration.

Rolling his eyes and stepping around her, Firm Hoof simply said, "I will pass on your concerns to the Admiral. If we need to source more medication, we will. I understand you're a volunteer. If you think you don't support this hospital's altruistic care, then you may return to land with the next flight."

"There is no medication! You don't think we've tried to find it? There just isn't any! It all rotted away on the shelves! Everything else has been stripped by scavvers long ago. Even if you find a deposit it won't last long!" Kindheart argued.

Hoof kept walking away from her, his only response being an ear flick.

Kindheart clenched her tender, brittle teeth, hissing from between them: "Jackass."

Night had fallen on the Blueblood Military Academy. Fires had been lit around the base, though nopony was gathered around the majority of them. The Knights that were up and about patrolled the base, headlamps illuminating great swathes of land before them as they strolled. Every Initiate was sound asleep in their bunk, the intense training regime of Steel Rangers leaving no room for leisure.

Still, the aftershock of meeting pre-war military still had some of the upper ranks giddy, especially Roaring Thunder. When the Ranger-Marines had gathered around a campfire to sit and relax, Thunder and several other of the upper echelon had decided to neglect sleep and join them.

The Ranger-Marines, the 15 of them that were off-shift, had sat down and taken their helmets off. The post-war Rangers had performed the same courtesy, despite technically being vulnerable to snipers out in the open. Roaring doubted anypony had plans to attack the base at this time, not with their very powerful friends hanging around.

To say the Ranger-Marines were different would be an understatement. Comparatively to most Rangers, Roaring thought of himself as fairly lighthearted. These ponies put him to shame and made his stone-faced brothers purse their lips at just how many jokes, jabs, and idle chatter was exchanged between them. They ate MREs, chewed on chocolate beads, and tossed wrappers onto the fire. Somepony had asked if they always got this time to themselves, which had sent them down a trail of discussion about the Steel Ranger's training regimen.

"So you recruit foals?" Captain Brass Bugle asked, taking a spoonful of noodles out of her plastic meal wrapper.

Paladin Big Splash nodded solemnly, "Rarely, a foal may be born into the Rangers through the civilian ranks - the Scribes. This is not enough to maintain our population, you must understand. We generally pick from liberated populations."

"...Huh. Guess that makes some sorta sense," Bugle creased her forehead as she thought, "...Back in my day, we'd never recruit foals. Heck, there was a big hoopla about if'n we should lower the draftin' age to 18."

The post-war Rangers shared a mutual chuckle. Roaring added a snort into the chorus of laughter, just as Big Splash added, "When we take them young, they may learn our ways and infuze our ideals into their core essence - truly become one of us. We ensure only those forged into steel can become worthy to wear armor, and only the brightest may be accepted amongst our Scribes."

Bugle nodded hesitantly, eventually choosing to just return to focusing on her meal. That didn't stop another Ranger-Marine next to her from asking, "...And what if somepony's not good enough?"

"They usually always are. If an Initiate grows to an age where they may become a Knight or a Scribe but still is not fit for duty, then this is a grave error on behalf of their instructors," Paladin Big Splash lowered his head solemnly, his power armor groaning as he leaned forward, "There are times when a Ranger misbehaves, though, due to a clear lack of commitment."

Roaring Thunder tried to catch Big Splash's gaze, shaking his head rapidly, but it was of no use.

"...In that case," he continued, still solely focused on looking across the flames at Captain Bugle and not seeing Thunder's expression, "There are punishments. Flogging, beating... Path of Exile."

"So... you jus' kick 'em out of camp?" Bugle asked. Thunder facehooved.

"No. We strip them naked of all equipment, scorch their horn if they have one, attach a bomb collar to their neck, and walk in a straight line towards the eastern shore. If they deviate from the path, the collar goes off. Thirst and hunger gets them if the mutants don't," Big Splash explained, every word coming out of his mouth increasing the horror on the Ranger-Marines' faces.

Roaring Thunder gave a wide, awkward grin, holding up a placating hoof as he walked over to Big Splash's side, "That never happens, you must understand. I've never seen it happen in my lifetime. It's more of a threat than a real thing we'd ever resort to. Most of the time we'd just hang them if they did something really serious, like refuse critical orders or murder somepony, y'know? Heh heh..."

Punching the Paladin in the shoulder, Roaring Thunder hissed at him in a tone just low enough to be inaudible under the crackle of the fire, "Didn't you fucking listen in history? They wouldn't understand this sorta thing, Paladin Splash! I don't even think they flogged ponies!"

Splash, seemingly finally realizing why the Marines were looking at him strangely, lowered his head, "My most sincere apologies. I only wished to be honest."

There was an awkward silence for a moment, before Bugle simply chuckled, "W-Well, I guess you gotta have some tough discipline ta survive out here, huh?"

"Yep!" Roaring Thunder nodded eagerly.

Another awkward silence, fortunately broken up by the sound of something wooden bumping around amongst the Ranger-Marines drew everypony's attention. One of the Marines, having completely vacated her armor, had procured a guitar from her rucksack. She ran her forehooves up and down the stringes, slowly tuning it. Her green uniform had the nametag 'Quick Eyes'.

"Hey!" she asked, "Any requests?"

The Marines seemed to finally relax, leading to Roaring Thunder finally allowing himself to sit again. A voice came from Thunder's left, "Something the Ministry of Image would fucking hate!" a holler of cheers erupted in response to that suggestion.

The guitarist seemed to consider that for a moment, before smiling and nodding, beginning to strum. The rhythm was obviously recognizable to her comrades, as they cheered again.

"Some folks are born made to wave the flag
"Hoo, they're cyan, white and blue
"And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
"Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Celestia!"

Voices from across the platoon joined in, slightly off-tune as they sung.

"It ain't me, it ain't me
"I ain't no noble filly, no
"It ain't me, it ain't me
"I ain't no fortunate one, no!"

"Some folks are born silver spoon in hoof
"Celestia, don't they help themselves, Celestia?
"But when the taxpony come to the door
"Celestia, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah!"

"It ain't me, it ain't me
"I ain't no millionaire's filly, no, no
"It ain't me, it ain't me
"I ain't no fortunate one, no!"

"Yeah-yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes
"Hoo, they send you down to war, Celestia!
"And when you ask 'em, 'How much should we give?'
"Hoo, they only answer, 'More, more, more, more'!"

The chorus repeated a few times, leaving Roaring Thunder to slowly frown, full of thought. As the song ended and the Marines hollered once again, several more song requests being thrown the way of the guitarist, he leaned forward towards Bugle.

"Hey, Captain?" he asked.

"Mhm?" Bugle answered, chucking a chocolate pellet into her mouth.

Rubbing his chin with a slightly muddy armored hoof, he asked, "What was that song about? Why would the Ministry of Image hate it?"

Bugle paused, considering it for a moment, "Uhh... I mean it's up to some interpretation. My interpretation is that the song's 'bout how rich ponies are always all patriotic, but never suffer and make other ponies do the bleedin' and dyin'. The singer dun' wanna go to war, y'know?"

Roaring Thunder rolled that response around his mind for a moment, before giving it a dismissive shake of his head, "But why? What's life without laying yourself down for something bigger than yourself?"

"Heh. Well maybe that's yer opinion," Bugle sighed, taking a sip from her water mouthpiece in the neck of her suit, before adding, "I'd rather go back home t' the farm. Just get back to th' husband and th' filly. Grow some corn. No need to worry about Stripes hunkering behind every bush, no more fighting tanks, no more war."

The same pony that had asked about punishments in the Rangers earlier, sitting next to Bugle, added, "On the bright side, Cap, guess there's no more War. Zebras all died, right Thunder?"

A bit insulted at just being called by his last name, Roaring Thunder shrugged, "Well there are Zebras still. We've actually been fighting them for a while."

Bugle's eyebrow shot up, "Hol' up. What's this?"

He pursed his lips. Surely he could let her in on that secret, right? "Well, ah, we don't know where they've been coming from, but there's been a bunch of Zebras patrolling the inner city. They occasionally ambush our exploration teams. They've also been sending robots out to the Syndicate to trade," he spat, "Every time we try and fight them, they always just disappear. They must have the entirety of the inner city ruins mapped or something."

Music started back up again as the musician started another tune. Bugle bit her lip, "...Guess the War isn't over."

"If you could help us find their main base, we could find everything they've been hoarding and excise the threat together. Surely with your flying machines, your equipment... we could easily just plough straight through them," Roaring Thunder leaned forward slightly.

Bugle gave a... disappointed frown? Eventually, she muttered, "I'll pass that on to Command. Thank ya."

"Of course. Rangers have to help each other out," Roaring Thunder said matter-of-factly.

"Uh huh..." the Captain frowned, "...Hey, goin' back to a previous subject for a moment..."

He raised an eyebrow, but stayed silent.

"Just curious... what're you gonna do when you retire? Do y'all even got retirement?"

That one elicited a full on belly laugh, "No!" he said, grinning, "Of course not. A Ranger is a Ranger for life. I wouldn't do it if I even got the chance."

Paladin Big Splash butted into the conversation, adding, "Perhaps we shall retire when we have total victory."

"Total victory...?" Bugle asked, seemingly hesitant.

"Equestria is reforged. Our contingents bring about a new age, where there are no more slavers, no more raiders, where settlements can live with no fear under our flag. Where we can use technology to bring about peace, crushing all who would dare break it under a steel-plated hoof!" Big Splash slammed a hoof against his chestpiece with a resounding clang.

Roaring Thunder bit his lip, quickly adding for Bugle's sake: "We want things back to the way they were. Where ponies can just... own a farm and not worry about ponies like the Syndicate ambushing them from the bushes. A New Equestria, get me?"

"Yeah..." the farm mare nodded, face still uncertain, "What would you do then?"

"Hmm?" he hummed.

"Like, let's say we rebuild Equestria. No more war. Ponies all working together to rebuild. What then?" Bugle asked, popping another chocolate pellet.

Roaring Thunder gave her a shrug, "Well there's always gonna be a need for Rangers."

"Well if there's peace, no more monsters or anythin', is there really gonna be a need?" she probed.

"Well we'd be upholding that peace, of course. If we decided to all give up everything would just devolve into violence again. Heck, they might even blow up the world for a second time!" he rolled his eyes. It was an obvious answer.

Bugle's ears fell as she looked down into her empty dessert package, "...Right, o' course. Ain't never will be any peace," she said as she threw the wrapper into the fire.

Roaring Thunder looked her up and down, heart falling as the Captain's mood fell quickly. With a sigh, he turned his attention back to the music.

She just didn't get it.