//------------------------------// // Saving the Hung Jury // Story: Odrsjot // by Imploding Colon //------------------------------// Hoofsteps thundered through the floorboards, drawing closer… closer. With a flash of light, the door to the Steel Wing cabin room flew open. Belle was tossed unceremoniously inside with a breathy grunt. She leaned weakly against a wooden panel in the dimly lit recess, still trying to recover her nerves. Shell’s frame stood like a broken obelisk in the doorframe. From the top deck, Evans trotted into view behind him. “Ahem. Prime Enforcer, sir. Was the pegasus on board that ship?” “She was not,” Shell droned. “Then we are to continue with the search? Could she be on another skystone vessel?” “The search is being put on hold for the time being.” Evans did a double-take, his face blanching. “Sir?!” “Set course for Far Ridge, maximum speed.” “That… that will take us to the northern heights! That’s severely off course! After all we sacrificed, I thought--” “My command stands, Evans,” Shell grunted. “How about you?” He turned to glare at the officer. “Are you putting those hooves to good use?” Evans bit his lip. With a shuddering sigh, he saluted and backtrotted away. “Aye, sir.” Belle was sniffling at this point. Shell turned towards her. “You should be thankful, Doctor.” His eye glinted like a beacon in the sliver of sunlight wafting in. “I gave them a swift end. You had better not deceive me, or else I will not administer the same grace to you.” With a swivel of his muscular form, Shell slammed the door and was gone. Belle’s entire body jerked. She leaned her head back, listening to the enforcer’s hoofsteps as they grew more and more distant. She did not dare move--even to shiver. At last, when all was dead silent, she spun around and reached into the base of her tail hairs. It took some fumbling, but she was eventually able to remove the sound stone that Props had placed in there. Squatting low, facing away from the doorframe, she wheezed desperately into the dimly-glowing shard. “Bellesmith to Noble Jury. Bellesmith to Noble Jury! Are you there?!” Silence. “Noble Jury, please respond!” She began hyperventilating. “Pilate… Pilate, my beloved…” Her face caved in. She leaned over, weeping silently as her tears cascaded down her muzzle and past the sound stone against her lips. “Pilate, please… please come back to me. Blessed Spark, I beg you. I beg you I beg you I beg you…” More silence. Belle choked on a wailing voice. She bit on her forelimb to keep herself silent as the agonized waves ripped through her. And then, from the darkness… ”B-Belle? Beloved?” The mare’s breath sucked in savagely. She thrashed her head ceiling-ward with a weeping smile. Her voice cracked as she murmured into the sound stone. “Pilate? Oh, thank the Spark! Thank the Spark! I-I thought… I thought I had lost you, darling.” She wiped her eyes and quivered. “I love you so much, Pilate. I love you and I wouldn’t know what… wh-what…” ”Shhh…” The voice coughed on the other end. “It’s alright, my love. we are… Another cough. I… am alive. I am not about to l-leave you.” “You… you’re in one p-piece?” Belle panted between mewling breaths. “The Noble Jury survived?” “Yes. Y-Yes, we did…” “But, but how?” Belle swallowed hard. “How in Spark’s name did you survive?” The zebra’s voice hesitated slightly. Eventually, he murmured, ”Not without a great price…” Twenty minutes earlier… “You be a good mare, Belley Belley!” Props said as Belle was led up onto the floating skiff. “ “And we’ll speak again!” “Yes. Yes, I think we will…” Belle murmured. “Back to the Steel Wing,” Shell said as he icily mounted the skiff beside her. “All eyes on the doctor.” Pilate gnashed his teeth as he heard the engine of the hovercraft puttering away. Soon, the Noble Jury was alone, adrift in cold gusts, still reeling from the previous cannon shots. “Nnngh…” Floydien limped onto his hooves, seething as he picked up his antlers one after another. “The boomers instabbied Floydien!” He kicked at a wooden panel. “Grrggh! A pox upon boomer bile tubes! Floydien’s a good mind to ram Nancy Jane into their eye sockets, yes yes?” “We are very much lucky to be alive,” Ebon stammered. “Those cannons all but destroyed us--” “Lucky?!” Eagle Eye barked, frowning. “Did you not see?! They took off with Belle!” “It’s okay, everypony!” Props exclaimed, waving a sound stone around in her hoof. “I slipped one of these into Belle’s butt!” Pilate swung his head towards her. “You what?!” “Err… the butt of her tail, I mean!” “Props, when they discover her with that on her body--” “Hey! We wanna keep track of her now that she’s in the big meanie’s hooves, don’t we?!” Props managed a hopeful grin. “Well, now we can!” “That means…” Eagle Eye let loose a breathy gasp. “We can still communicate with her! Maybe even track her!” “Propsy, you’re a genius!” Ebon exclaimed. Props blushed. “Only on Tuesdays.” “Forgive Floydien if he doesn’t have time to giggle-spit.” The elk angrily marched towards the cockpit, waving away errant streams of smoke. “Nancy Jane deserves more to drift like hollow stones through the clouds--” Two claps of thunder. Eagle Eye suddenly jerked, staring do west. “What is it?” Ebon asked. “Spark, spare us…” Eagle Eye grabbed the nearest pony he could--ultimately shoving Pilate and himself to the side. “Everypony brace yourself--” The Nancy Jane veered hard to starboard. Only by the third time it had wildly spun did everyone see chunks of metal ribboning upwards into the sky. The ship was spiraling, plunging, and the sheer force of it spin was flinging every hoofed creature towards the precarious edge of the vessel. “Spit on snow beams!” Floydien shouted from where he clung awkwardly to the doorframe of the cockpit entrance. “How much skin will they take from her?!” “Mr. Floydien, we’re plummeting!” Pilate shouted into Eagle’s grip as the two were thrown against a railing. “Ungh! Where… where is every--” A beam slammed across his forehead, showering sparks from his runic plate. “Gaaah!” “Props!” Ebon shouted from where he clung to a loose chunk of railing. As the clouds spun around him with blistering winds, the beam he was clinging to shifted by a foot and a half. He gasped, holding on by one hoof. “I-I’m slipping!” “Hold on, Ebony!” Props slid over and flung her wrench at him. The plank shattered beneath him. The earth pony went sailing into the blurring horizon with a maddening scream. “Yuunngh!” Props extended her front body as far as it could reach. Ebon’s hoof grabbed onto her wrench, anchoring him by a hair’s grip. The stallion flailed at the end of his hold for several frightening seconds, and then Props managed to yank him back so that the two embraced with their backs to the ship’s careening deck. “Handsome!” Props shouted above the tumultuous noise. She winced through the blistering, whistling winds and yelled towards the cockpit. “The starboard thrusters are all shot! I think it’s ripped out the main steam rigging! We have nothing giving us either lateral or forward propulsion!” “Floydien’s giving it all the glimmer he can!” the elk warbled back from where he fought with several splashing beams of electrical energy within the cockpit. “Nancy Jane won’t even out!” He slammed the bulkheads around him as he fought for an even grip. “Come on, beloved! Catch the wind! Catch the wind and bird bird!” “Can we abandon ship?!” Eagle Eye shouted. “And do what, plummet faster?!” Pilate exclaimed. “We have no means of parachuting--” “I can see the horizon above us!” Ebon howled as mountains and treetops loomed on either side. “This is it!” He buried his face into Props’ side. “This is the end!” “Mr. Floydien!” Pilate howled through a trickle of blood. “Floydien can’t! Too much speed! Too much--” Just then, everypony’s bodies shifted as the ship came to a shaky hover. Breathless, the ponies stared at each other. The horizon was locked in place, though it wobbled with every other passing second. “Where…” Pilate stammered into the deafening silence. “How…?” “We are twenty meters up!” Props exclaimed. “A mountain’s edge! What the McFuzz?” “Nancy Jane…?” Floydien trotted out of the cockpit, glancing left and right. “What shines in you? Huh? How does--” His whole body froze as his red eyes locked on a site at the ship’s stern. On a jutting beam just along the edge of the ship’s fresh gaping hole, a petite squirrel was mounted. Its body quivered violently as it spread both paws out towards the bleeding sky. Bolts of lightning shot randomly from the teslacoils mounted in its skull. With a long, painful wheeze, the rodent flexed its paws. With a lurch--at first--the ship descended, slowly, like a feather. “We’re… we’re floating down!” Props exclaimed. “Fifty five meters! Fifty!” “Simon…” Floydien stammered, his muzzle quivering numbly as his eyes reflected the trembling little creature. “Simon, watch the glimmer…” “Forty meters! Thirty five…” Floydien gulped dryly. “Watch the glimmer, little boomer…” Simon shook. Buckled. A painful expression flashed across his whiskery face. He turned and pivoted his head aside. A tiny black eye reflected the elk from afar. His incisors twitched. A cold, shuddering breath. A tear. “...Simon?” That instant, bright manabeams shot out at all angles. The teslacoils along the rodent’s skull exploded. He fell like a damp brown rag. “Simon!” Floydien howled, but then his body was flung forward as the Noble Jury beneath him plunged the last remaining distance. The vessel fell for less than a second. When it landed, it did so with a thud, but barely a dent formed in the ship’s hull. Miraculously, it slid to a grinding stop along the foothills of the mountain looming above it. The bodies of the crew on board slumped to a stop, panting for breath. Then all was silent. “Nnnngh...” Eagle Eye sat up first. Wincing, he turned and gave Pilate a good shake. “Pilate! Pilate, you okay, friend?” “It’s…” The zebra grunted as he rubbed the fresh wound alongside his skull plate. “It’s no worse than anything I’ve suffered before.” “Just stay put, okay?” Eagle got up and galloped towards the other two bodies nearby. “Props! Ebon! Speak to me! Are you in one piece?” “I… I think so…” Ebon grunted as he rubbed his elbow. “My leg is numb.” “It doesn’t look so bad.” “Yeah, thanks…” Ebon glanced aside, still shaking the cobwebs out as he sat on the slanted deck of the ship. “Propsy? Propsy, you okay, girl--” The mare was inhaling sharply, covering two hooves over her muzzle. A pair of bright, blue eyes quivered as they looked over the ship’s side. The ponies stood up and limped to the edge of the ship. Positioned along the craggy rocks below, his body in a slump, sat Floydien. He was hunched over a scrap of leather with a bushy tail--a scrap of leather that refused to move. His shoulders quivered as he bowed over, nuzzling the remains of Simon with a tense, seething muzzle. “I don’t get it…” Pilate exclaimed hoarsely as he fumbled with O.A.S.I.S. “Why is everypony so--?” His words broke apart. Tilting his head towards the mountain, he murmured, “Who was it? Which of the two…?” “Simon,” Eagle Eye breathed. At this point, Props was already sliding down the hull of the Noble Jury and trotting quietly up to Floydien’s backside. She fidgeted, her teary eyes hanging over a perpetual grimace. “Oh… oh Mr. Floydien…” She whimpered slightly. After a deep breath, she reached forward and grazed his shoulder with her hoof. “Mr. Floydien, we are so… so sorry--” “Yaaaaaaaaugh!” Floydien tilted his muzzle skyward. The air bristled with lightning as his antlers glowed brighter than the sun. Ebon yanked Props protectively back as the elk arched up and flung his head towards the mountain. Rampaging beams of burning mana flew into the rockface, pelting the crash-landed ship with pebbles and curtains of dust: a very dirty burial. Spinning around, Floydien glared at the surviving equines, reflecting their distraught faces in his glossy, angry eyes. “Sorry?! Nopony is ever sorry?! Only spit in the wind of glimmer!” He stomped at the rocky floor and stormed off. “Stabby stabby are the ones who should feel sorry! Sorry that Floydien is not goring them to a pulp! He swears to beloved!” “Please…” Pilate craned his neck towards the stomping hooves. “Mr. Floydien--” “Meat!” Floydien’s voice echoed back, wavering more and more with the distance the anguished sound carried. “Meat is all Floydien is! The meat of Deep Ridge! Allow Mr. Floydien to rot, you stupid, stupid boomers!” And once that thunder was over with, the others hovered in silence, their shadows converging over a lone tuft of bushy hairs fluttering in the plateau’s wind.