Fallout Equestria: The Indefatigable

November 10, 1077 - Mission Day 32

The ventilation fan rattled above. A fluorescent light buzzed in the ceiling. A pane of one-way glass covered one side of the room. Two Mares-At-Arms stood at either side of the window, staring across the metal table at him, their lips thin and eyes bleak.

Ivory lifted his forehooves from the desk, fetter chains rattling as he rubbed them together to try and restore some warmth to them.

The door opened, Admiral Azure Bluette entering, wearing her winter service uniform and breath fogging as she made her way for one of the chairs on the opposite side of the desk. Following her closely was the more familiar face of the ship's Captain, stepping cleanly through the bulkhead to take a seat by the table. Another pony in an officer's uniform walked in, carrying a tray with four cups of coffee steaming away on it. Rather than the sun and moon pinned to his collars, however, there was instead a trio of balloons.

"Why don't you tell the Admiral Bluette and Captain Aweigh what happened, Mr Heart?" the Ministry of Morale officer asked, sitting down at the table and levitating one of the cups of coffee over to him.

Ivory shivered, reaching out and wrapping his forehooves around the cup. His nerves stung as the heat battled with his freezing hooves, "Really bringing the full brass in here to finalize your decision?" he asked.

"Maybe," Captain Aweigh answered, looking at his cup of coffee but not taking it, "Why don't you just tell us the whole story over again from the top?"

"I was on my way back to my berth from the kitchen-" Ivory began to recite, only for the MoM officer to cut him off.

"You forgetting something?" he said, voice clipped.

Ivory blinked, before sighing and starting over, "I was finishing my duties in the kitchen. We had just finished breakfast, where I had been assigned to cutting vegetables. Like I always have. I stayed late after the food was cleaned up to scour the grill, and the guards left early along with my colleagues. Since nopony was watching, I took my kitchen knife with me rather than putting it in the washer with the rest of them."

"And what possessed you to do that?" the Admiral asked, raising her cup for a sip.

Ivory gave him a tired look, before saying, "I planned to walk back to my berth, wait until the head was empty, lock myself in the privvy and then slit my own throat sir."

The Admiral swallowed her mouthful of coffee, "Why would you want do that, sailor?"

Ivory gave a snort, "Because the world blew up, ma'am," he spat.

Azure didn't react, simply nodding and saying, "Go on."

"The usual route to my berth was blocked off because of the radioactive fires in the shield projector. So, I went around to the stairwell by the long way. When I made the final turn to the stairwell, these three ponies were waiting for me. They were wearing the uniforms of the military police, and I knew that the MPs usually didn't guard that hallway. They told me to stop where I was. I told them I wasn't looking for trouble, and they made it clear it was them that wanted trouble."

"How did they do that?" the Morale officer interjected.

"By taking out their batons and walking up on me," Ivory said through gritted teeth, "I feared for my life, since I happen to be a Zebra. Even though I was gonna try and end myself, I was pretty sure they intended to make it very painful for me. So I went for my knife and threatened them. That's when one of them tackled me from behind and I got prodded with the stuns. They beat me around the head and held me down. Their sergeant took out a plastic bag of glowing ash, and explained it was fallout from the flight deck. Then they held my mouth open and prepared to pour it in."

Ivory paused, looking between the two officers on the other side of the table. The Morale officer simply nodded at him to keep going.

"One of them spotted Butter Apron down the hallway. He demanded they let me go. A fight broke out, and he used a nearby fire extinguisher to knock a bunch out. He used the fire extinguisher to spray somepony, which happened to cause the dust inside of the sergeant's biohazard bag to fly up into his face. During the fight, one of the policeponies pulled out a gun and aimed it at Butter, who shielded himself with the body of one of the stunned earth ponies. The policepony shot first, and Butter responded by shooting the gun out of his teeth. Then, the sergeant pulled a gun on Butter, so I lunged for him and disarmed him with a stun baton. Soon afterwards, the Rangers from upstairs arrived, probably because of the gunfire."

Admiral Azure looked over to the Captain, who simply nodded back at her, as if giving her permission to go on. Sucking in a breath, the pegasus mare looked back towards him, "Despite the lack of CCTV coverage of that area of the ship, we have found other evidence to corroborate your story."

Ivory's ears perked.

"Namely that bag of radioactive fallout. As it turns out, it was missing from one of the sample containers in the sickbay. Investigation of various recordings revealed that Sergeant Coal Poke did indeed access the locker without authorization, stealing one of the samples," Azure pursed her lips, "Additionally, forensic investigation of the scene matched yours and Mr. Apron's stories. This has lead us to believe that there was self defense involved in this fight."

Ivory's expression didn't change all too much, him simply asking, "So...?"

"Private Twinkle Canopy, the mare initially attacked with a fire extinguisher, died from the head trauma shortly after being admitted to sickbay. Private Hill Skip, sprayed with the fire extinguisher, has suffered permanent sight loss along with disfigurement to his jaw and nasal bones. Corporal Button Basher has lost an eye and has permanent scarring to the face. Radiation burns to Sergeant Square Clock may be irreversible, and there may be unforeseen risks from such a high and concentrated dose of necrotic magic," Azure frowned, "Not to mention..."

Ivory raised a hoof, closing his eyes, "Listen, Admiral. I'm smart for a zebra, okay? I went to Pony School. You release me, they'll just be angry and the Sergeant's friends are just gonna come and finish me off. You just put me in front of a firing squad, or toss me over the side of the ship, then everything goes back to normal," he managed a smile, "It's okay. I want to die."

Captain Anchor gave a derisive snort, before levelling a hoof at him and saying, "See? He wants to die. Problem solved."

Azure gave the Captain a look over her shoulder, before shaking her head and looking forward again, "Listen, Mr Heart. What happened on the 2nd was a symptom of a greater problem. They didn't care about you enough before the bombs to threaten your life, did they?"

Ivory opened his mouth, before shutting it and shaking his head.

"They did it now cause they're angry. They want something to unite against, because they believe we're good as dead. Something they can do something about. Who're they gonna go after once you're dead?" the Admiral gave a dry chortle, leaning forward onto the table and steepling her hooves, "Aside from you, we're fresh out of Stripes!"

She changed her seating slightly, "Listen. I have to make the right judgement here. That judgement says you're innocent. But you're right, I can't just turn you loose or else you're gonna get yourself murdered," she raised her hoof to her muzzle, rubbing it for a moment, before saying, "Hey... you know how I told you that if you didn't poison the food we'd be on speaking terms?"

"Sure," Ivory grunted, eyebrow raised.

"Have you?" Azure asked.

"No ma'am."

She pulled her chair closer, "I also have been informed you've been Cook's Mate since joining this navy."

"Yes ma'am."

Azure nodded slowly, before letting her hoof fall onto the table, "Well. You and Butter Apron are promoted to Steward's Mate. He had the balls to take on four armed ponies for you, so it's unlikely you two will try and murder each other. Additionally, I highly doubt your new boss will harm you if I tell him not to. Both of you will have a berth up fore near the wardroom," she gestured towards the Morale officer, who reached for a keychain on his belt.

Ivory's brow crinkled, looking down as the officer undid his fetters. He opened his mouth again, but for what felt like the fiftieth time he couldn't think of anything to say.

Azure got up as the cuffs fell with a clank to the tabletop, "Oh, and I'll make sure Gutsy takes every measure to stop your suicidal ideations. If you're gonna kill yourself, make sure to figure out a conniving way of doing it that takes you long enough to plan that my message sinks in anyway!"

Captain Anchor sighed as he watched Azure pass him, going for the door, getting up himself and giving Ivory a sharp side-eye.

The door to the briefing room was closed and latched shut by the Master-At-Arms, the stallion himself stepping back and raising his chin to stand in the corner. In front of him, chairs scraped against the walls and the ship's officers sat down with the squeak of wood and the shuffle of coats and shirts.

Stepping to the forefront was Dr. Atom Bash, who looked between his levitated clipboard and back up at his audience, "Well. I am happy to report that over the last two weeks, our makeshift team of me, Dr Fruit, Commander Ship Right, Junior Lieutenant Click Pip, Dr Measures, and Dr Watts, have been working tirelessly to gain insight to the current situation

"We have collected constant data on radiation levels outside the ship, installed radiation filters on the air intakes, installed the washoff system to clear the flight deck of excess fallout, and performed modifications to the ship's heating system in order to offset the sudden drop in temperatures. After and while addressing those immediate problems, we have been looking into the cause of the sudden failure of the Sunrise Shield System, the continued faults with the ship's sensors, and a solution to our food problem."

Atom Bash flipped through a page on his clipboard, looking down through his glasses at his notes, "We have tried many methods to diagnose the fault with our sensors. These methods have included moving one of the scout planes onto the flight deck and having it use its own, onboard sensor suite. Aside from picking up our own superstructure, it could not detect anything either, experiencing similar distortions as to our main sensor suite. We believe the distortion must be some sort of external factor, perhaps a lingering EMP field from the balefire or some sort of Zebra superweapon."

Uncomfortable mutters came from the officers at that.

"We conducted a test where we ordered a Gutsy to fly in a straight line away from the ship and then to return in increasingly long distances. As it reached a range of 20 miles, something still within normal communication ranges for its model, we suddenly lost all contact with it. This was repeated with the other two Gutsies we sent out, even one that was shielded with lead. Due to this, it is our recommendation to command that we not launch any more aircraft from the ship until these issues have been remediated."

Another page was flipped over, "Dr Fruit has been looking into the sequence of events resulting in the full burnout of all transmitters on the Sunrise system," Bash nodded towards the technician in question.

Summer Fruit stood up, adjusting her midshippone's uniform, "I have good reason to believe the fault was due to the modified numbers given to us by command along with Admiral Bluette's arrival on board," she shrugged, "There's just- no real mechanical or software related issue that could explain it. The Sunrise's transmitter arrays were highly experimental, nopony really knows them fully, even me- who worked on the project personally," she reached up to her shoulder, where an Ministry of Arcane Sciences patch rested alongside her chevrons, "While the modified numbers seemed benign, I believe some unknown physical element related to the transmitter alignment must have caused the containment fields to fail to form energy channels correctly."

Atom Bash nodded, before looking to the back of the room, where Admiral Azure and Captain Anchor sat side by side, "I would like to ask Admiral Bluette if she perhaps has any insight on this problem."

All eyes moved to the back of the room. Admiral Bluette herself glanced around the room, before sighing and shrugging, "The entire move to this ship was rushed. I was hoofed my orders shortly after my promotion to full admiral, and told to come to the Indefatigable, which would join the fleet - and my flag staff - after completing its mission at Skye. I got on a train to Las Pegasus, and at the docks next to the Vertibuck they shoved those papers into my briefcase and shook my hoof. I know as much as the rest of you."

Eyes turned back towards the front room as her explanation finished, except for Captain Anchor's. The two caught each other's eyes, before he looked away to the front with a frown.

Atom Bash nodded, "Well, regardless, the projector is completely burned out. We do not have the spare parts to repair the main array, nor do we have the facilities or materials aboard to fabricate those parts. We have extinguished the fires and replaced the cladding, so that the radiation is once again contained. However, until parts are recovered it's a complete write-off."

There were some mutters from around the room. Captain Anchor simply shook his head, "Doesn't matter that the shields don't work anyway. Without sensors we couldn't see an attack coming from far enough away to stop it."

Ship Right spoke up, "You have our assurance, Captain, getting our sensors back online is of our utmost priority."

"I don't care if you need to spear the antennae up my ass and get me to yodel the praises of the Caesar, get those sensors back up! At the very least get us EFS so that our laser turrets can canvas incoming air targets," Anchor grumbled.

"Again, we are doing everything we can, Captain," Atom Bash held up a placating hoof, "The last item on our docket is, of course, the food problem. Dr Watts, the ship's nutritionist," the mentioned mare, wearing a Ministry of Peace uniform, gave a nod, "Has given us a general estimate of crop values and what a farming effort would require."

Dr Talley Watts smoothed out her labcoat , "It would be depressing, but technically the potato has all the nutrients we need to survive while eating it solely, and depending on a few vitamin supplements from our stores until we can plant other crops to fill the gaps. We also have enough for a starter crop of potatoes in the form of our Hearth's Warming meals."

"Eating potatoes is less depressing than having no food at all," Azure spoke up, "How much land are we talking?"

"Well, for a crew of 4,000, we need a harvest of around 163,000 potatoes every harvest cycle of 100 days, all of which would require around 7.7 square miles of dirt," Dr Talley bit her lip.

Murmuring echoed through the crowd. Captain Anchor shook his head, "Even if we covered the entire flight deck and stuffed every spare compartment..."

"We could shrink that down to around 4 square miles with some earth magic," Talley shrugged, "Still, it would be my recommendation to find a field to culture."

Azure Bluette pursed her lips. She could imagine it now. The crew working as farmers in the field, subsistence farming. Would they be like lords over the peasantry? The Ranger-Marines their noble knights, executing all the serfs that stepped out of line? She'd managed to avoid thinking about just how much the end of the world changed things, but as she looked around the room she wondered if the others were thinking along the exact same lines as her.

"How are we gonna do that?" Brass Bugle spoke up, folding her forelegs, "Farmin's harder than they give the earth ponies credit for. I can't imagine tryin' to raise crops in this weather, when there's probably all kinds'a nasty stuff in the dirt."

"Well, good news first," Atom Bash adjusted his tie, "While observing radioactive snow beginning to fall last week was concerning, along with the temperature drop, we have actually been observing an unprecedentedly fast retreat in the ambient radiation coming off of new fallout. Additionally, temperature appears to have stopped falling, and seems to have begun rising slowly again.

"Admittedly we don't have an explanation why. This could be a temporary reprieve, or it could be a sign of some sort of cleanup effort on behalf of the SPP system or..." he shrugged.

Lightning Bringer shook her head, "No, SPP isn't capable of that kind of weather control."

"What if it's not us, what if it's the Zebras?" Calm Seas brought up, raising an eyebrow, "They might have survived the blasts. In fact, it would explain their move to doom the world- if they had a way to rapidly repair the damage. They might have just prioritized taking out the Princess, since she's a demon figure in their religion, and then worked on reclaiming the ashes?"

There was silence in the room for a moment as eyes wandered and foreheads crinkled.

Lightning Bringer rolled her tongue in her mouth, "Surely we'd have picked up on such a project in advance..."

"Surely Awesome woulda given us all more'n 7 minutes of warnin'," Brass Bugle snarked.

Azure waved a hoof dismissively, "If the Zebras truly did this all as a tactical move, then we'd best prepare to throw ourselves at their mercy in surrender."

Many eyes turned to her, some horrified.

The Admiral simply gave a tired chuckle, "We criticized the Zebras for potentially ending the world just because they were losing a war. If this was their long game, then I have to admit we're probably beat, especially if we're alone as a surviving military unit. We would be hypocrites to stand and be destroyed for no purpose. I'm all for heroic sacrifice, but truly pointless heroic sacrifice is just tactically inefficient. Sometimes you have to know when to fold them," she shook her head, "That's all speculation though. The most likely scenario still stands that communually assured reciprocal existence has reached its doomsday conclusion, and that neither side has survived. We will continue to operate under that assumption until we obtain further information."

"If only we could contact command..." Anchor frowned, "Or find our missing fleet."

"Still no sign of them, Captain," Calm Seas said, "We've tried everything."

"We'll keep trying. If only we had working sensors invented in the last century," Anchor Aweigh growled.

After waiting a moment, Atom Bash nodded, "Back to the, erm, subject of food. In order to even start growing something to offset our supply problem and buy time, we need healthy soil."

Talley, turning in her seat to look back at the other officers, spoke up again, "We can take contaminated soil and purify it. However, doing so would also... sterilize it. We can take that and mix it with product from our septic tanks in order to enrich it with the proper bacteria to support plants. However, certain elements Earth Ponies introduced to increase crop vitality and growth rate do not survive in pony... excrement. We need samples of uncontaminated soil with active bacteria inside to introduce to our fields in order to use most of the spectrum of earth pony magic. We might find such samples in an agriculture lab at a university, which would likely be shielded from the fallout.

"Earth bacteria or not, we need soil, period. We simply just can't make a field purely out of septic tank tar. So, my primary advice is to make for land immediately."

"What is the status of our navigation? Do we know where we are with our sensor outages?" Azure asked.

Wood Sextant, the ship's master navigator, looked up from where he sat, twiddling his hooves, "We've been holding a search pattern ever since we lost contact with our escorts. We cannot talk with SPP for global positioning, nor can we pick up EFS tags with that system online. We can't even see the stars or sun for old fashioned forms of navigation. Fortunately, though, our compass works, and we can be sure of our position within about 30 miles. We just need to point our bow dead east and keep sailing until we reach land. At this rate, that'll be about 2 weeks away."

Commander Bright Bean's forehead suddenly wrinkled, "Wait- something doesn't add up. You said a potato's harvest cycle is 100 days?"

"Yes," Talley nodded.

"That can't work. We only have 76 days of food. By the time we reach land it'll be 62. We'll have to cut rations in half and plant the full smack in order to meet our needs," Bean gave an disbelieving chuckle.

Calm Seas steepled her hooves, "It's not the end of the world. Las Pegasus had significant food storage, both intentionally in its military facilities, and also by attribute of it being a city. We have the authority on board," she nodded towards Azure, "To access those emergency storage facilities. It is of course likely that facilities in Las Pegasus were made into strategic targets and levelled to their basements, but I find it highly unlikely there's no single food depot, megamart, or military facility in the city that was not destroyed. Even if it's outside the city, we have the Heavy-Lift Vertibucks to move cargo."

"Once we have land in sight, we can adjust our course to sail for Las Pegasus then," Sextant commented.

"Still, it is about time we cut our rations," Azure nodded, "Talley? How much can we safely cut down without risking malnutrition?"

Talley winced, "Military ration is already calculated around what is healthy for the soldier, Admiral."

Captain Anchor looked to his right, at the Admiral, "And the morale of the crew?"

"Hearing that we have a workable solution to our long term survival will outweigh the announcement of some light rationing, Captain," Admiral Azure dismissed, before looking back to Talley, "Give me a ballpark, then work out exactly what we can cut out later. I'm not asking you to make a new diet that keeps them plump and healthy for the next 50 years, just for the foreseeable future. Enough to keep them strong until we have a food solution."

"I'd say we're looking at about three-quarters rations at the very most," Talley nodded, "It's more likely to be around eighty to ninety percent rations, though."

"And this will apply to the officer corps as well," Azure added, "I know I'll be missing my sides and garnishes, but this only pans out of we're seen sucking on the hard tack as well. Understood?"

General affirmatives were echoed from the crew.

"Keep at your work diagnosing the sensors, and make with all haste towards land, Lieutenant Sextant," Admiral Azure Bluette said, standing up, "Dismissed."

Ivory Heart carried his ruck on his back, Butter Apron walking shortly behind him. Over the past several days, the air had warmed up again so much that it almost seemed like it was back to normal again. Thermostats claimed it was still a few degrees below what it should be at this time of year, but that along with the announcements about the officers finally having a plan had brought a bit of a spring back into the steps of every sailor aboard.

Rather than commiserate about lost family members, friends, luxuries, and countries over bottles of Sparkle Cola from the dwindling vending machines, sailors had started wondering if maybe they were actually alive. Maybe the Stables had accepted them on, or maybe they had made it to some other fallout shelters. Maybe they'd come home to see them someday still.

A small voice in the back of Ivory's brain asked if he had been too hasty in his plans earlier. It was silenced quickly.

"So, Butter," Ivory asked, looking back towards the stallion, now sporting one less PipBuck and one more roll of bandages around his shoulder (the equine shield he was using actually got off lucky as it went all the way through him, Butter had to be taken for surgery to get the bullet removed in case the healing potion didn't remove it), "Where did you get that PipBuck, and where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Got a friend downs in the armory whose a Stable-Tec Contractors. Got plentys of work brawling back in Manehatten," Butter grinned.

"Yeah. You totally get fighting experience like that on the streets and you are definitely not a Ministry of Morale Agent trying to keep an eye on me," Ivory frowned, "I thought you ponies were more subtle. The only thing I'm curious about is why you bothered to stop those MPs."

The stallion simply gave him an insulted look, "What if I just like yous, huh?"

"You should probably stop doing that then," Ivory gave a bitter grin, "It's getting you moved halfway across the ship to get away from ponies who probably want to bash your head in with a fire extinguisher."

"Nah, it gots me a promotion to Steward's Mate and a more spacious berth," Butter poked the zebra in the shoulder, "And I gots to beat the snot out of cops without being locked up myselfs."

"You're a really weird Pink, Pink," Ivory muttered as they made a turn, passing by several of the doors leading into the officer's cabins.

"I ain't a Pink."

"Sure."

When they finally reached the wardroom kitchen, it was locked, like most food preparation areas aboard the ship those days. However, after knocking, the door was eventually unlocked, revealing a robot on the other side.

"Ah! You two must be my new assistants!" said the floating Mr Gutsy on the other side, painted green like every other model aboard the ship, a star painted on its side, and a bowtie taped just above its levitator motor. Every maintenance-classed Gutsy had different tools for its job attached to its arms, this one had two precision grabbers and a blowtorch, "A Stripe and a bastard Stripe-fucker! I'd flambet you both right here and now, but I've been given explicit orders from the Admiral herself to cause you no physical harm! This can't stop me from throwing every racially-charged insult in my databank at you!"

The robot made the sound of a spit in their general direction.

"Well! What are you doing loafing about out there??? We have a soup to prepare! Are you trying to sabotage this ship by inaction? Hop to it, colts! Hup! Hup! Hup!" the Gutsy demanded, floating aside to allow them access to the kitchen.

Ivory gave a look towards Butter, who simply shrugged. Entering together, they looked around. Essentially, the Wardroom Kitchen was just a smaller version of the ship's main cookery, with all the same utensils, appliances, and fixtures. Ivory even recognized the same drawer of utensils in the corner, and opened it to find everything in the same place.

The Gutsy gestured towards a door in the back, "That's the way to your berth, by the way. They came and installed your bunks over there just as they took my two old assistants to go and replace some other robots that apparently flew away and defected! Probably a result of your sabotage, so you could take their jobs! Pah!"

Ivory walked over, taking a quick peek. Two bunks were sat in the corner, a writing desk installed on one of the walls, and three robot charging stations next to it. A small bathroom the size of a closet was crammed into one of the corners. He suspected he wouldn't be leaving the view of the Gutsy, even when he was asleep, and he was probably right. He sighed.

"What are you doing!? You think this is a royal tour, do you think this is a royal tour!? I'd rather donate my chassis to a Striped Tank than do that! Dinner is in two hours! I need two pounds of diced onions and carrots, a pot of tofu protein sauce, and a pasta defrosted on the double! Hup! Hup! Hup!" the robot angrily waved a grabber at them as it switched on a stove with another arm.