Frostpony: Of Hounds & Horses

The following morning, Rini found the scrapyard abuzz with activity and it left little to the imagination why.

Work on the Rustbucket had begun even before she’d arrived, and scores of military equipment were neatly lined up by the garage. Trucks, armoured cars, steamsleds, the list went on as she passed by the gates and clocked in. They’d even bought in a new, jumbo sized food truck which would’ve no doubt won Bramble’s favour.

But as she grabbed her toolbox from her locker and headed for the ambulance to continue her work, a paw held her shoulder.

Rini jumped around with a yelp, seeing Snapjaw materialise behind her.

“Gah, damn it Snap! Don’t sneak up on a bitch like that!”

“Sorry Rini, but we need you in the vehicle bay.”

“Huh?” Rini paused, still overcoming her adrenaline spike. “I-I thought work here was freeform.”

“Eh mostly, I ain’t exactly calling the shots anymore.”

Her eyes widened at that and she turned towards him. Meeting his casual frown with a glare. “You mean to tell me the army’s got you out of the job?”

“No no, I’m still the Foredog, but that officer mutt…Caleb Gnash? He’s going around pulling everydog’s collar. I don’t like it either but I’m not about to argue with somedog holding a gun.”

Rini groaned and pushed his paw off, storming away from the Foredog towards the Rustbucket. From the outside it didn’t appear much had changed. The back ramp was still open and saw plenty of traffic, but she saw fit to use one of the access hatches on its hull.

It looked too busy for her liking, and she’d rather not receive a surprise kiss from a rolling component crate.

Huge plates of armour formed a skirt covering the tread wheels, which themselves were of unequal size. If she looked hard enough behind them, she could see plates of metal on the interior meant for knocking track pins back in place. The skirt had numerous dents and pot marks, spare wheels, loose luggage and shabby ladders. Half of which looked barely stable and liable to give way.

It was honestly a miracle this thing had managed to hold itself together up to this point.

Perhaps then her lighter frame was a blessing in disguise? As while the climb was made all the more lengthy, the flimsy ladder failed to give way under her weight.

Opening the access hatch she was blasted by a wave of hot, humid air that rushed past her face. Catching her breath she jumped inside and felt she’d dropped hinds first into an oven. Greeted by a darkened maintenance corridor, the heat visibly radiated through the air as the Rustbucket’s engines churned through fuel, trying to keep itself warm.

Rini panted and undid several buttons on her jacket. The freezing air outside had made the sudden change all the worse.

If the ventilation system was faulty before, then it was on its deathbed now.

“First order of business, fix the damn air conditioning! I’ll cook at this rate.”

Rini grabbed her tools and the next thing she knew, she was shifting through vents and crawl spaces with a satchel by her side. Replacing bad wiring, unjamming vent blades and cleaning air filters. Thankfully the vents were plenty spacious for her and if it weren’t for the bruise on her back, she might’ve enjoyed it.

She was just starting to have fun when she turned a corner and found several holes lining the vent wall. Crawling to them, she traced their trajectory into the other side and was greeted by a brassy gleam.

Her expression dropped and her stomach suddenly felt empty, as did her ears slump to their sides.

“Oh crap, this thing’s seen action…like it’s actually been shot at and attacked.”

She reached a paw and pulled on one of the bullets, bringing it up to her chest light so she could see it was…

“Copper?”

Looking back, she shined her light upon the warped projectiles and saw many of them were made of different materials. Brass, lead, steel, copper, she wasn’t a metallurgist nor a gunsmith so she couldn’t name them all, but it brought a giggle to her rising grin.

“Who’d be so dumb as to not standardise their bullets?”

No answer came for a moment before it finally clicked in her head.

“Oh right…us.”

Rini let out a disappointed sigh as she pulled the rest of the bullets out and drew out her tools. Replacing the whole vent section wasn’t needed, not with what she had in mind. “Still, why would they shoot at their own vehicle?”

As she theorised, a few spare metal plates and a welding torch were brought to the bullet holes. Her goggles and gloves protecting her whilst the holes were sealed. “Maybe there was a misfire? An accident? No, don't kid yourself Rini, there had to have been a fight. Only question is whether it was over something important or stupid.”

It was unnerving to think she was sharing space with mutts that had…killed other creatures. Sure in the back of her mind she knew that was their job, but there was a difference between just seeing somedog in uniform and seeing the aftereffects of their work first paw.

These soldiers were dangerous, and she had to remind herself of that.

Rini finished her repairs and climbed out of the vent, hitting the ground with a soft clang.

The work had left her panting with her tongue out and her coat undone, like some wild mutt in summer. Sure, she could’ve opened one of the hatches and let some air in, but then her lungs would revolt from the temperature shock. Besides, the engines needed this.

So after painstakingly patching up the climate control she yearned for what came next.

With a flick of a switch she waited by an open duct, anticipating a cool breeze of air that’d no doubt wipe away this blasted heat!...

Any moment now!...

“Come on!…”

Yet even after a solid minute passed by, there was still no response.

“Oh you’re kidding me.”

Rini frowned and flicked the switch off, slamming the vent cover before storming away again. How long had she been working on those things? She didn’t carry a watch and without any windows she couldn’t see the sun. It was all throwing off her sense of time and that pained her almost as much as the heat.

If she was going to keep doing this she at least needed to cool off.

“Maybe the breakroom fridge has some water? Failing that, I’ll use the garage’s bathroom sink.”

Her clothes hung loosely to her frame, with only a few buttons keeping her coat from flailing about. “Oh how nice it would be to be able to sweat. Gale doesn’t know how lucky he is.”

Finally, Rini reached the door to the breakroom seated above the vehicle bay and threw it open. Finding it barren of activity and just as hot as the rooms behind her. There was a dart board, a pool table, couches, tables and a kitchen unit with a few fridges sitting to the side.

Wasting little time, she moved towards them and pulled open one of their doors, revealing a darkened, depowered unit barren of content.

Rini’s eye twitched.

The second fridge was pulled open to reveal much of the same.

Now her ears flicked to!

The third and final fridge had its door practically fly open as Rini peered inside, manic for aid. Only for it to also share a similar state as the others.

An increasingly frustrated growl hummed from the back of her throat, rising in volume before lashing out as an angry bark. She slammed the door shut and turned around, pressing her back into it only for her bruise to agitate her further.

“Mother!- Why isn’t the damn fridge stocked!?” She howled, knowing none would hear her whilst covering one side of her face. “Aaaagghh!”

She stood there for a few moments, re-taking control of her pulse as the anger faded. Keeping the broken fridge topped off with water at least had to be somedog’s job, right? Otherwise where would they get water from while on shift? The garage had some but it wasn’t enough for the workers and the army.

“Not unless they plan on giving it away at the food truck,” Rini theorised, before her eyes went wide, “…which we have to pay for.”

She hit the fridge door with the back of her fist and walked forward, her head swimming with heat. Both from her pent up emotion and the ongoing operation of the vehicle bay. Placing a paw on the pool table she rested, the other rubbing her forehead as she lazily looked around.

“So that’s what’s going on huh? They get Snapjaw to encourage longer hours, whilst getting the money they’d have spent on wages back in food and drink? What next? A tool lease?”

Rini panted as she slowly shook her head to and fro, a vain attempt to quell her rising headache.

“Oh by the dime do I wanna kick their asses. First though, this heat’s gonna kill me if I don’t do something.”

At last her gaze fell upon the windows observing the vehicle bay and workshop below. The back ramp lowered, giving view of the world outside as she approached.

Pulling the latches open, a gust of chilled wind met her and she finally felt sweet relief! But quickly, she began coughing as her lungs and throat were bitten back by the stark difference in temperature. Stricken by a burning sensation in both she stepped back to catch herself.

It was a harsh flip of the script. Like going from an oven to a meat locker, and she suddenly remembered why she hadn’t tried for the hatch earlier on.

Steadying herself, Rini did her buttons up again as the cold flooded into the room. Hopefully she could equalise the temperature and come back to rest between repairs. For the time being however she wanted to relax, let herself calm down.

During that time, the sound of more distinct vehicle engines managed to worm their way past the audio mess that was the Rustbucket, and she peaked through the window. A pair of half tracks were pushed up and into the vehicle bay by a pair of massive, hulking Diamond dogs. Mastiff breeds if she had to guess where nearby engineers got to work on them.

Seeing them try repairing a couple of their vehicles didn’t surprise her, not in the slightest. Gnash had stated that the Rustbucket’s job was to service vehicles in the first place.

But it did get her thinking, just how many of the trucks, transports and auto-wagons they had parked outside needed repairs? How many could actually start their engines or needed some other fix? There were tons of them.

That was when something clicked in her head. She remembered how they’d struggled to get all of their trucks through the gate the day they arrived, and how some broke down right there and then.

Like a puzzle coming together, several things clicked at once.

“Oh right! Cherrywood doesn’t have heavy industry or a great auto-mobile presence.” She recalled, the scrapyard’s garage being the only one in town. “There’s nowhere they can go for parts except here. They need this thing to jury rig components for their trucks and cars!”

She looked down, observing how the scrappers would push crates full of parts up the ramp to be taken and examined. Some being fitted into the half-track, some taken to the machine tables for adjustments and others thrown right back in for later use.

“Without the Rustbucket, they’d all break down without the parts to reach the next town! Who needs big, expensive factories producing spare parts when you can just take and adjust what the ponies have?”

As she thought this a loud banging sound resounded through the hull along with a couple creaking noises.

“Diamidian Engineering at. It’s. Finest.”

Rini smiled as she watched the dogs below, revelling in her discovery. The army’s lynchpin should she want to take action. What would she do with this information? She didn’t quite know yet, but it was nice to have in her back pocket.

“Come to think of it, what if Gale does have to skip town? Where’d he have to go? Maybe Mom’s right about starting over.”

She shook her head and turned around, going back to her duties within the ventilation ducts.