Chapter Eight - Commander Hurricane
Once more the sun rose over the sea of white puff spanning to the horizon, another day given with no promise of returning. Below, Hurricane saw the brightly colored specks she called soldiers patching the thin veneer of cloud. Above, she nothing but the endless blue and the relentless sun. The treacherous, relentless sun.
She pulled on the heavy steel armor that had become her badge of rank. Her shoulders ached with the weight of it, but if she intended to save this strange band she called a nation from itself, she needed to appear strong. Strength is what Pegasi respected. Strength had forged them into the mighty nation they were now. Strength was control.
But her own strength was waning, the years had not been kind. Even now, they were nipping at her heels to keel over so that they could take the reigns. “I’ve been leading Pegasopolis for what? Thirty years? Forty? Yet those feather brains would dash it to pieces before my ashes were even cool.”
“Commander, urgent report!” A messenger interrupted her thoughts.
Hurricane sighed, “What is it, Private?”
“Word from the cloud banks, the reserves have run dry. They can’t continue this cloud cover any longer.”
“What?” Hurricane spun around. “Those eggheads said they could get me five days of cover. It’s only been three!”
The private recoiled back, “I... I...” He was just a messenger, she knew; he had nothing to do with this. Hurricane pushed past him and grabbed her helmet as she spread her wings. She leaped from the landing balcony and dived, rushing past various ponies performing various duties. Keeping the command complex alive, like a bee hive. She pulled up sharper than she had meant to, feeling her shoulders pop as her wings strained to arrest her descent. She winced momentarily from the pain but pushed it out of her thoughts. “That spear in ‘82 had been worse,” she told herself.
She trotted forward and pushed open a mist veil to reveal an empty cavernous space in the base of the complex. The cloud bank. Normally it would be filled with large, grey, moisture laden clouds, ready to be used for anything from construction to rain. It was a strategic reserve, and one of the main reasons Pegasopolis ruled over all pegasi. Yet when Hurricane walked in, the place was empty, save for a tiny white cloud no bigger than a bed and two ponies with goggles.
“Stratos!” she bellowed. Stratos cringed as he saw his commander angrily stomping over. “What is this I’m being told? Why are there no clouds in here! You said I would have five days of rain, soldier!”
The pegasus with Stratos shook in his armor, “Ma’am, I...”
“I don’t give a plucked feather what you have to say, soldier.” She turned on the other soldier, Aileron. “I’m here wondering why the troops coming north from the Bucking Mountains are going to have no cover to shield their movements.”
“We would have had five days Mam,” Stratos calmly replied, “If you hadn’t taken all the ponies off moisture farming.”
“Just where did you think I was going to get the wingpower to mobilize this cover then?” Hurricane stopped herself. She took a deep breath and stopped yelling. “How much longer do we have?”
“The reserve is dry, Commander. And all this has driven the humidity down, so the clouds we do have are dissipating faster than usual. I’d give it half a day at most.”
“Nonsense, The 35th needs at least another twenty four hours.”
“I’m just telling it as it is Ma’am.”
“And I’m telling you as it has to be, Stratos. I don’t care how you do it but you are getting me a full day or I will personally cut both your wings off!”
“Just where do you expect me to find all that moisture, Ma’am?”
“How the hay should I know? Bucket out a lake! Dismantle the complex! Use your own piss if you have to! We need every pony in steel around that mountain and your clouds need to be under them! Now quit asking questions and get to work!” She paused, then acquiesced slightly. “I’ll give you as many hooves as you need, but this needs to be done, Stratos.” Hurricane ignored the pain as she launched right there and flew out from the reserve.
As Hurricane lazily circled in the rising thermal on the way back to her office, she heard a call from behind her. She turned her head to see another messenger huffing as he fought the thermal to try and intercept her. Hurricane let the air spill from her wings and she lowered to his altitude. “Urgent scroll from Canterlot, Ma’am!”
Only one pony in Canterlot could be reporting at this point. Hurricane took the scroll and was not surprised to see Pansy’s mark pressed into the wax seal. Hurricane opened the scroll and hurriedly read the neat writing.
“Commander Hurricane,” the letter read. “It seems that the situation is worse than originally predicted. The creature who calls herself Celestia is as powerful as her initial claims. I have been working closely with Smart Cookie and Clover to ascertain what she might be and...” Hurricane rolled back up the scroll. It was no good, Pansy was too infatuated with the other tribes to see what was really going on.
“Private, go to the cell layer. Tell them to bring to me Prisoner E immediately. I’ll be in my quarters.” The soldier, out of breath saluted and flew off.
When Hurricane reached her office, she saw three ponies were there waiting for her. Two she recognised from mere moments before, Stratos and Aileron from the cloud bank. The last couldn’t be mistaken if the room had been filled with fog. The rainbow mane and the armor to match made her more vibrant than a clown in a paint factory. This outlandish style came to a head with her over confident smirk. “Commander Hurricane, so good of you to show up.”
“General Lightning Dash, this is my office. I was bound to show up here sooner or later.”
“It seems later in your case. Stratos here has been telling me some distressing news.”
“Oh I bet he has.” The Commander glared at the young cloudwatcher. “Perhaps we should speak in private then?”
“Oh no no no no,” Dash tisked. “I need a witness for my challenge.”
So this was her game. It did not surprise Hurricane, but she thought she would have held out for just awhile longer, at least long enough to get the mountain operation underway. “Dash, you’re a greedy arrogant fool and if it weren't for the fact you are a halfway decent general, I’d have gutted you years ago for your insubordination,” Hurricane growled.
“I’m the fool? I’m not the one who has wasted our entire reserve of clouds on some silly exercise. If it were me, I would have attacked Canterlot...”
Hurricane cut her off, “If it were you, we would have had enough dead pegasi to stuff every mattress in equestria.”
“At least then we would have died with honor then with this slaver’s peace. You sell out all the wings of your tribe to the pinheads and for what? Peace, you said! Ha! We should have struck when we had the chance.” Dash really was being a fool if she thought they had a chance to take the might of magic head on. Especially now.
“Enough! Are you going to cut me in the air or talk me to death, Dash?”
“Noon tomorrow,” she calmly replied. “With wing blades.”
“Make it dawn, I have an operation to oversee thanks to some weatherpony running out of cloud.” Hurricane glared at Stratos again.
“So eager to die, Old Crow? Fine then, make it dawn.”
As Dash moved to leave the cloud room, Hurricane turned and said, “Tell your husband I’m sorry for his loss.” Dash didn’t acknowledge the comment as she left, taking to the air and flying away.
Hurricane turned to the two weatherponies still in the room, “What in the three hells are you still doing here?”
“Ma’am, I..”
“Is that all you can say, Aileron? Find me those clouds or I’ll burn you two alive on Dash’s corpse come tomorrow!”
The two scrambled and she was soon left alone in her office. She pulled the scroll from under her breastplate and tossed onto the desk. “It had been so close, Pansy. You had almost guaranteed a lasting peace for the pegasi. No more midnight raids by the light of the moon. No more stealing food and killing to get by. They were so close, but then they pulled the cloud right out from under us. They clearly had summoned this creature from beyond the veil or some such place. Having one being to power the sun, it was a show of power. They even had the audacity to give her wings.”
Hurricane was still brooding when the guards interrupted her thoughts. “Ma’am, we’ve brought Prisoner E.”
“Good, bring her in.” The guards carried in a large thunderforged steel plate. Chained to the plate by her neck was a unicorn, blue and shivering. Most non-pegasi found higher altitudes to be rather cold. Her coat was dirty and matted and she was clearly starved. She lay there on the plate as it was rested on the cloud. “Leave us.” The guards saluted and left, leaving the two of them alone in the cloud room.
“Zoe Lulamoon, good morning.” Hurricane smiled, “Tell me what you know about the sun.”