The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 34 - Downed

Their aircraft glided through the opens skies far smoother and quieter than they ever thought possible, and just for a fleeting moment, they thought that they might just get used to this kind of treatment.

Luna’s job offer was tempting, fantastic even, but there at the back of their minds was the nagging and unceasing voice of doubt that threatened to ruin their confident mood. Unbeknownst to Lucky and Matterhorn, Access and Sheet Rock were hard at work talking between themselves over sub-vocal chat, facilitated by their comms implants so as not to risk anyone, especially the two crown operatives, eavesdropping on them,

Access looked up at Matterhorn discreetly. “Can we really trust those two? Especially him, he could break us in two without even breaking a sweat.”

Sheet Rock nodded. “They’re willing to help us correct our mistakes, and if that means they need our help to capture the maniac that caused all this then we’ll just have to live with that.”

“This feels very wrong, we’re flying straight into the belly of the beast with few ways to pull our backsides out the fire if everything goes south.”

“Calm yourself, we’ll be fine.”

Access looked out of the side window at the dense treeline outside of the aircraft, and in the distance a small pinprick of light could be seen that reached high into the sky. As they got closer to the large pyramid structure that just now peeked over the horizon, they saw large anti-aircraft emplacements topped with warning signal lights.

It occurred to him the warning lights must be the pinpricks of light scattered across the horizon. There must be hundreds of emplacements all around the forest, all ready and waiting to do some real damage.

He looked them over as they passed, now slowing down for their final approach. The emplacements looked like standard single-barrel flak cannons, designed to shred small aircraft, drones, and even ground based infantry in a pinch.

“I don’t like this.” Lucky said quietly with her nose pressed to the window. “I’m pretty sure those emplacements are tracking us. Watch this one as we fly past, you’ll see.”

Everyone watched intently as they passed another one of the large and imposing emplacements, and to their horror the emplacement was indeed tracking them very accurately, barrels trained on the engine section of the aircraft.

“How sturdy is the hull, out of interest?” Star asked nervously.

“Not study enough to deal with a direct hit.” Lucky responded. “The Pilot AI will try to keep the craft safe if the do decide they want us gone, but it wont be able to deal with the shrapnel.”

“We aren’t far from Rift City, so if anything goes wrong we can meet there.” Matterhorn pointed out. “Sure it’s a purist city, but they’ll at least provide shelter if we ask nicely.”

“Purists, fantastic.” Access grumbled, slumping into his seat.

---

At the very top level of the Arcology, a group of Thestral security operators surrounded by monitors watched a number of live feeds from each and every one of the emplacements that surrounded their veritable fortress, and they worked tirelessly in observing their assigned areas with great discipline.

One of them caught sight of an aircraft currently passing close by and flagged down a superior to advise, unsure of what to do about the unscheduled aircraft.

“Sir, AV in transit from the north. At present speed it’ll arrive within the hour, defenses have it covered and are currently tracking its progress.”

The commander, a rather large leathery winged Thestral leaned over his subordinate and inspected the aircraft on screen. “Are we expecting any drop-offs today? Have you tried contacting those on board?”

“No sir, the last booked arrival was hours ago. That particular AV however is being piloted autonomously, no pilot or crew. Its AI insists it’s carrying tourists bound for the Arcology, and it hasn’t deviated from that story no matter how many times we ask.”

“Show me its IFF tags, operator information, and manifest. If it’s legitimate it’ll easily be able to provide this information.”

“I’m sorry to say this sir, but I’ve already tried. It isn’t flying any ID codes we recognize, nor is its AI willing to answer any questions regarding who owns it.”

The commander thinks for a moment, before smirking lightly. “Blast it out the sky, we’ll see how cocky it feels after being shot down.”

“Sir?”

“If it’s not willing to identify itself, tell us who is on board, or what’s on board, then it isn’t worth the risk in letting it land. Disable the aircraft but try not to kill the occupants, fine shrapnel cloud rounds only.”

---

The cold robotic voice of the aircraft’s AI pilot rang out over a small speaker suddenly. “Alert. Everfree Arcology security have noticed our presence and are likely to fire upon us, please secure yourselves in your seats at once.”

“They WHAT!?” Star screeched. “What did we do?”

“Exist, apparently.” Matterhorn grumbled, buckling up in a real hurry. “Clearly the eggheads in the hanger got something wrong when programming our flight plan.”

Pops and cracks could be heard outside, followed by the high pitched whistling of rapidly approaching shells. But when the impact never came, Matterhorn looked out of the window at the expanding black cloud of particles that the aircraft was about to fly into.

It sounded like they were passing through a cloud of gravel and all went dark for a few moments, leaving them bewildered as to what the emplacements had even fired at them. Some of the dust settled on the window, it was gritty, rough, and seemingly magnetic in some manner as it stuck to the outside of the fuselage with relative ease.

A loud bang resounded from the engine above them and the aircraft quickly started to plummet toward the ground, and secured in their seats, the crew held on for dear life. The aircraft, now unable to even steer itself during its descent due to the cloud of magnetic dust, soon slammed roughly into the forest floor below, kicking up mud, splintered wood, and pieces of the rapidly disintegrating aircraft’s own fuselage, and it came to a rest up against a large tree, its occupants completely out cold form the impact.

---

A golden coated mare looked through the lens of a monocular at the distant pops and cracks of the Arcology emplacements that were clearly visible in the distance. She couldn’t see what they were firing at, but the sound piqued her interest somewhat.

“See something, Golden?” a brown coated stallion remarked. “Sounds like something's going down out by the Arcology.”

“In a sense, but I can’t see what they’re actually shooting at. Probably using that magnetic dust garbage again, real nasty stuff.” Golden answered, collapsing the monocular into a small case. “We should probably get out there, see if anyone’s still alive.”

“Is that wise? I know the crew’s been itching to get into the Arcology for the longest while, but we don’t who they are, and they could easily be corpos.”

“Flywheel, you know as well as I do that we don’t just leave ponies for dead. That’s not what we’re about.”

Flywheel threw her hooves up. “Fine, I’m not even gonna argue, I’ll go get Cogwheel and we’ll get moving. Hopefully we’ll get to them before Arcology drones do.”

Author's Note:

Little bit of a shorter one this week, but it sets up the tone of the next few chapters and as a result the next few chapters should be much longer.

Work has been pretty heavy for me right now, and i had considered not releasing a chapter this week just so i could have a break, but i figured i should post at least SOMETHING and not leave everyone hanging, so to speak.