//------------------------------//
// Chapter 32 
// Story: Those Distant Sisters 
// by Rettro 
//------------------------------//

The chattering of teeth formed a subtle addition to the typical chirping of crickets around the broadcast tower overlooking Hearth’s Core. Hearth had slowly been cooling since the government’s squad of unicorns keeping the magma warm had retired. Thirty fire sympathizers, including Resonance, were spread around the tower. They had forgone their warming fires for the sake of secrecy, choosing instead to dawn thick layers of wool and cotton in a vain attempt to keep themselves warm. 

“The mare with the banana cutie mark is on the third floor balcony again.” Resonance commented, hoping that talking would keep her warm. It didn’t. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of another pony approaching from along the ridge. When he arrived, the new pony immediately held out his forehoof, revealing a watch. 

“Make sure your time’s right.” Resonance pulled out her watch and checked while he continued. “There’s a colt with a shield mark on the first floor, a colt with a microphone mark on the second, and a mare with a banana mark on the third. We’ve been out here for hours and we haven’t seen anypony else.” The colt pointed to the right of the tower. “None of them patrol the south side. We all gather there, stay spread, and move in on the south entrance at exactly 5:23. I got three more to find, so get goin’.” The colt disappeared in a different direction than he came, leaving Resonance with her new orders and her thoughts. 

She gathered up the folds of her clothing and started moving to the south side of the tower. She had just over twenty minutes to travel a half mile – a difficult task when creeping slowly but she was able to gallop across open ground thanks to what they had learned about the patrol times. She found herself at a barbed wire fence, forty feet and ten minutes short of the south entrance. She sat, shivering, watching for other eyes in the woods. There were several. As time passed, she stayed perfectly still behind the wire fence, thinking about the ponies inside. We don’t kill. That’s not what the flames do. We take them alive or we don’t take them at all.

The eyes in the woods started blinking out. Resonance looked at her watch: 5:21. Peeling off her outermost layer she covered the barbs of the fence and climbed over, joining two other ponies at the door. The mare beside her had a knife on her belt, loosely tied and within reach of her teeth. Resonance put a hoof on her shoulder. 

“No deaths tonight. Either side.” She said in a harsh whisper. The other mare agreed and as the clocks ticked over to 5:23, they broke in. Resonance pushed her way to the top floor, being one of the few in the group who actually knew where to go. Occasionally she would hear a scuffle in a room off to the side, but the night staff seemed to be just as light as they had hoped. There wasn’t even anypony in the radio room on the top floor. 

Resonance scanned through the radio stations across hearth, catching bits and pieces of government intelligence as she tuned manually to the station Equestria had been built on. The blue mare from her bunker came into the room, marveling at the information they could get as soon as they were done what they had come to do. Finally, Resonance settled on the correct frequency. She couldn’t recall if it was 8.419 or 8.194… or 8.941… but she found it eventually. 

“Hello? This is Resonance. Remember me? Anypony out there? We… We need your help.” There was silence. Definitely on the right channel, anything occupied by a Hearth citizen would have answered by now. “Come in Equestria. This is Resonance in Hearth. We need your help.” Resonance looked at the other mare in the room, silently praying for a response to break through the silence. A familiar voice entered the room, somewhat torn by static.

“Hello?”