A Second Chance

Oliver Aldair walked down the streets of Donegal, passing various shops, restaurants and hotels. How did it come to this? A month ago he had an entire jumpship at his command. Now he had nothing but a bag of bits and his pride. It began to rain, chilling Oliver down to the bones.

He walked into some bar that was empty except for a couple groups of stallions sitting round some tables. They looked up at him as he entered then muttered amongst each other. Oliver paid them no thought and walked up to the bar.

“Gimme the strongest thing you have,” he said as he sat down. The bartender nodded and walked away. Well wasn’t this fun. Sitting in a bar alone paying for liquor with severance money. He looked around and saw one of the groups staring at him. They noticed and quickly went back to muttering to each other. Oliver rolled his eyes and picked up the drink that had been served to him. He drank it one gulp, and looked down at the glass with a sneer.

“Can’t make a drink to save his life,” he muttered. He didn’t really want to go back out into the rain but there wasn’t much to do here. He paid for the drink and got up to go.

He walked by the group once more; they stared as he walked by. He reached the door and walked back out into the rain. He had barely walked 3 metres before one of the stallions burst out and trotted after him.

“Captain Aldair! Wait!” The white unicorn turned to look at the young stallion.

“Yes that’s me. Leave out the captain from now on though.” He sighed deeply and looked down at the floor. ”What do you want?”

“Sorry sir, I heard about the loss,” he said, a pained expression on his face. “How bad was it?”

“I lost 7 men in that fight. I took a gamble and led them right into an ambush.” The stallion gasped “I was officially suspended from duty, but at that point I just resigned.” He looked down at the pavement. “What do you want?”

At this the rest of the group walked out of the bar. “We want to recruit you. For our unit,” came a voice from one of them.

“Have you been listening the whole time?” They simply nodded. He thought about this offer. Recruiting a jumpship captain who essentially killed off an entire lance of mechs. What were they playing at? “You guys serious?”

They looked at each other before nodding at him. One produced a flyer and a pen from his jacket pocket. Shielding it from the rain he quickly wrote on it and hoofed it over.

Oliver quickly read the heading out loud, “Equestria Royal Guard. Mercenary corp.” He folded the flyer and tucked it away with his magic. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

The group nodded and walked away, except for one, the one who first came out. “Honour to meet you,” he said holding out a hoof.

Oliver took it and shook. “Likewise.”

The stallion saluted him before saying “Hope to see you soon.”

Oliver woke up in a hotel room, the sunlight streaming in through the window. He looked at the little clock on the bedside table. 8:33AM, fuck it was early. He was too tired to do much so he simply shut the curtains with his magic and went to sleep again. When he woke again the clock read 10:48AM.

“That’s better,” he said out loud before getting up. He proceeded to brush his mane and tail; both dishevelled from sleep, put on his jacket and get out of the room. He walked downstairs his mind full of things to do but first and foremost breakfast. As he walked down the road he spotted a small café. He entered the building and waited to be seated. A young waitress came over “Table for one?”

“Yes,” he said beginning to follow her. He got seated in a corner and proceeded to order a coffee. He looked inside his jacket pocket for the flyer.

He read it over looking at the recruitment options. “Mech pilots, engineers, medical assistant,” he said out loud. The last one caught his attention, medical assistant, he could do that! After all he had the necessary training.

The waitress came by with the coffee, “Here you go,” she said placing it on the table. She noticed the flyer, “What are you reading?”

“Recruitment flyer. Got it yesterday,” he said sipping his drink.

“Is that the Royal Guard thing? They’ve been in town a few days now, never knew they were recruiting.”

“Yes it is. Have they been in here?”

“Oh yes, only the privates and such though. The officers usually prefer the bars.” She trotted away, smiling.

Oliver grinned and returned to the flyer, reading over the necessary requirements. Medical training, completed it years ago in school, earned a doctorate. Mech combat training, completed when joining the military. Experienced space travel, 5 years as a jumpship captain, pretty sure he fulfilled that criterion.

That looked to be it; he tucked away the flyer and finished his drink. The waitress returned with the bill and left with the empty cup. Oliver paid for the drink and left the café. He was going to, well, he didn’t know. He pulled out the flyer again and looked it over. On the back was the small writing in pen, “26, 51, and 84.” Co-ordinates to their location he guessed.

He searched his pockets for his GPS (His jacket pockets were full of old military hardware). He pulled it out and punched in the numbers. The machine did its work and located the position. “2 and a half miles south east?!?” He groaned and began trotting in the general direction. The journey was fairly long but eventually he arrived at what looked to be a dropship.

He walked up and was met by a pair of guards lounging about outside. “Hello?”

They looked up and walked towards him. “What are you doing here?” said one of them in a sharp tone.

Oliver simply pulled out the flyer and hoofed it over. They looked at it and before long nodded. “Very well head inside.”

Oliver nodded and walked towards the large ship. He looked back and saw one of the guards talking into a radio. He ignored it and walked inside. The ship was quite big and had many corridors leading off from the entrance. He stood there wondering which to take when he saw someone trotting towards him through a corridor on his left.

A young mare with bat wings and fluffy ears walked towards him. Bat ponies, this should be interesting.

“Aldair?” said the young mare as she approached.

“That’s me.”

“Follow me please.” And she began walking down another corridor, two to the right of the one she came from. Oliver followed closely examining his surroundings. Large ship, heavily armed and considering it was a mercenary corp probably a mech bay around somewhere.

They arrived at a door which the young mare who hadn’t given her name quickly opened.

They walked into a room; it looked a bit like a lounge. The mare produced a pen and paper from her pocket. “Fill this out. I’ll be back soon.”

He walked over to one of the tables and sat down. Looking over the sheet he ticked the boxes, filled in blanks and wrote down sentences. He finished in about 10 minutes. He placed the paper on the table and looked around. The room was fairly barren apart from the few tables and chairs that adorned it.

He lounged about until the mare returned a full 15 minutes later. “Finished?”

“It’s all filled out,” he said pointing at the paper. She quickly retrieved it and read it over. “Wait here.” She said as she left the room.

He got up and walked around the small room. It screamed recruitment centre, propaganda posters everywhere, flyers much like the one he received, the logo of the corp everywhere, the list went on. They probably just used this as a lounge when not recruiting.

He was examining one of the posters when the mare returned with someone else. Another mare, who was given a pen and paper like him and was told to fill it out. The guide left and the two were left alone.

She promptly raised a hoof and waved “Hello!”

Aldair waved back “Hi! New as well?”

“Yeah, got the flyer yesterday, you been with this corp long?”

“No, I just hoofed in that sheet about fifteen minutes ago,” he said gesturing at the recruitment form.

“Oh, well I better start filling this out!” she said, grasping the pen in her mouth and beginning to write.

Oliver chuckled and went back to looking at the posters. The guide came back and took the mare’s form. It then occurred to him, he hadn’t asked her name.

“Sorry I never thought to ask, what’s your name?”

“Starlight, and yours?”

“Oliver, Oliver Aldair.”

She immediately started thinking, “Strange name, could have sworn I heard it before somewhere.”

Oliver decided to jog her memory “Jumpship captain, 5 years of service, was suspended after a decisive loss against the Draconis

Combine?”

She perked up “Yeah that’s it! Sorry about that by the way.”

He simply smiled “It’s not your fault, wish I could just forget about it though. What did you do before joining?”

“I was with the military, 3 years of service on the front lines.”

“Impressive! What kind of mech did you...” but he was interrupted by the guide coming back and telling both of them to follow her.

They walked down the long corridors, not seeing anyone walking by at all. Must still be enjoying leave he thought. They arrived at a lift; they got inside and went up, all the way up.

They arrived in the bridge where they were welcomed by the captain “Welcome! You two have been accepted and will stay aboard for 2 days until we return to the jumpship All Dawn. Feel free to explore the ship, rest in your cabins or head back into town, just be back for lift-off. Now follow Miss Moondust here to your quarters.”

The guide now known as Moondust gestured for them to follow her back into the lift. They went a few floors down to the crew quarters. It was fairly large for a mercenary corp, corridor after corridor of rooms. Moondust didn’t stay that long though; she simply gave them each a piece of paper with a door number and a keypad code scrawled on them before heading back into the lift.

“What’s your room number?” asked Starlight “Mine is 48.”

Oliver looked down at his own piece “Its 54.”

“Great we’re close to each other!”

Oliver raised an eyebrow “That’s good?”

“Well, we’re friends aren’t we?”

“Yeah I guess so,” he said with a grin.

“Great! So see you later!” and with that she trotted off down the various corridors looking up at the signs.

Oliver just followed her until he lost her round a corner. He looked up at the signs above his head, they weren’t very helpful. With difficulty he found his room and punched in the code on the keypad.

The door opened to reveal a very nice (and dusty) room. He simply frowned and got to work cleaning it up. A couple spells and some elbow grease later the room was spotless. He looked around admiring his work and his eyes fell on a dresser. It occurred to him that he didn’t have any clothes to wear but knowing how military ships worked they should have… - he opened the dresser - recruit fatigues! A few pairs of them and also some fairly casual clothes.

He got changed into a recruit uniform which he thought looked much better than the ones the Federated Commonwealth gave him. He also noticed a small patch over his left torso bearing the universal mark for someone in medicine, as well as another one for mech pilots.

He looked around the room some more, opening drawers ETC. All he found was a recruit training manual, an itinerary showing the schedule for new recruits and a clock that he placed on his bedside table; it read 3:16 PM. He decided to take a nap so he lay down on the bed (Not all that comfortable). He quickly fell asleep but he didn’t sleep not for long.

He awoke to someone bashing on his door. “I’m coming! Give me a moment!” He looked over at the clock, 4:11PM. He got out of bed with a groan and opened up the door.

“Hi!” said Starlight. “Wow those look good on you!” she pointed at the fatigues.

“Hey Starlight, thanks.” She looked pretty good in hers as well but he didn't say so. “What do you want?”

“I thought maybe you might like to look around but if you want to go back to…”

Oliver quickly interrupted “No! It’s fine, let’s see what we can find shall we?”

They trotted down the corridor towards the elevator. They walked inside and hit a random button.

They went down and when the doors opened found a dimly lit corridor. They followed it all the way to… “A mech bay!” exclaimed Starlight.

“I thought they might have one. Let’s see what they’ve got.”

They passed various mechs and mechanics who greeted the pair with a wave. Many kinds of mechs were in here. Ravens, Atlas’, Dragons, Cataphracts, Centurions they had a little of everything!

“Oh look that’s the same one I piloted with the military!” she pointed at a Cataphract.

“Wow a Cataphract! Haven’t seen one in a while. Our jumpship mostly piloted lights and mediums.”

“Well that’s my first choice when I get my own mech.”

They continued to walk and examine all the different mechs in the bay, talk to some of the mechanics. Some of them when they saw Starlight winked at Oliver to which he would just smile back at them.

“Want to get something to eat?” Starlight asked.

“Don’t see why not. Where do we go though?”

A mechanic who overheard them answered that. “It’s on the third floor, can’t miss it.”

They thanked him and walked back to the lift and soon found themselves in the mess hall.

The pair talked all through their meal about their lives in the military and back home with their families. It pained Oliver to think about his parents; both had died when he was fairly young but he kept that part from Starlight and only talked about his school life and his brother.

When they were satisfied they got up and walked back towards the lift, this time though going back to the crew quarters.

On the way back to their cabins there were quite a few ponies returning to the ship who welcomed them with a simple hello or a hoofshake. They came to Starlight’s cabin first which she opened promptly. She walked inside and gestured for Oliver to follow.

Eyebrows raised he walked inside

She shut the door behind him and she then sat on the bed. “Thank you, for everything.”

Oliver didn’t move “Your welcome, just doing what anypony else would do,” he said with a smile.

“No pony has been so nice to me. You know for a suspended officer you’re a real gentlecolt.” She got up and kissed him on the cheek. “Good night.”

“Good night,” and with that he walked out the door. He stood in the hallway for a good few minutes thinking about what just happened. He only snapped back to reality when a passing colt noticed. “Are you alright recruit?”

“Yeah fine.” He walked to his cabin, opened the door and collapsed on the bed. He lay awake for a good thirty minutes thinking about everything. He never really had friends. His childhood had been fairly lonely, no friends he had only his brother. Now he had a great friend (a filly at that) it was all so confusing.

Eventually he pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind and drifted off to sleep.