Planet Hell
Solocitizen

21.

Wander My Friends, Come Wander with Me

Present Day
14th of Planting Season, 10,056 AC

In the dark Thunder Gale awoke coughing, gasping for air, eyes open to the marble floor in front of him, and head splitting in pain. He rubbed a hoof between his eyes, and the memory of all that happened returned to him. He patted down his forehead in search of a horn, and relaxed when he found nothing but the hair of his coat and the roots of his mane.

“We must admit we did not believe you would return,” said Urizen right into his ear. “No time remained on your clock. Your brain tissue should at least be exhibiting some sign of cellular decay but we can detect none. The fact that you are here now and breathing is nothing short of miraculous.”

Rather than a boom, his voice was as distant as a breeze across the desert floor. Though Thunder Gale checked over his shoulders for any glimmer of light across the black, he caught no sign of Urizen.

“How long have I been, you know, gone?” He picked himself up onto wobbly legs.

“You have been gone for the last thirty minutes and eleven seconds,” he said. “You completed your task approximately eleven seconds, and we were preparing to dispose of your corpse.”

“All that happened in eleven seconds?” Thunder coughed, and shook his head. “The rainbow, the great empty plane, and Breeze Heart?”

“If I had a year to, I don’t think I could explain it any better.” Thunder rubbed a hoof all over his face and shook out his feathers. “It’s like when you dream of an adventure and in the end you walk away with something solid in your hooves that’s totally going to change your life forever, then wake up to discover it was never really there. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“If it is any consolation you may be returning to your dream shortly,” whispered Urizen. “We armed the bomb once your timer ran out. We have already begun the process of storing our personalities until another sentient species arrives. You only have ten minutes to reach a minimum safe distance from this site. We are unable to cancel the countdown.”

“What?” Thunder Gale attempted to rise out of his chair and onto all fours, but as weak as his hindlegs were he crashed down on his side. After all he’d been through, he was going to see Breeze again. He huffed and forced himself to stand on wobbling legs. “No, I’m getting out of here. Where’s the exit?”

A door slid open in the dark ahead of him and in spilled the sun. He raised his hoof to shield his eyes from the glare, but he caught a glimpse of the other side. Beyond it sprawled the ruins of the undercity he passed on his way down, painted in the red-amber light of the morning. The cries of changelings and gunfire echoed across Urizen’s chamber.

As sure as he was when he spread his wings and trusted that he would fly, he was getting out of there. He didn’t know how, but he knew that spending time to blame Urizen or giving into thoughts of hopeless would not help him escape. So instead he ran.

The door out led him to a courtyard and beyond it rose the spire. Pillar upon pillar, rampart upon rampart, it twisted like a changeling’s horn toward the oculus above. From it poured the sun. Fires burned in the archways along the surface of the dome above, and the green glow of magic lit the paths in bursts; a quick glance told him that was where the worst of the battle was unfolding. He’d follow the spire up, and think of something clever when he reached the top.

Thunder Gale pulled his wings in close and galloped past the archways of the courtyard, and up the path of the spire. The path wound as tight and narrow as a the grooves on the head of a drill. However much he dug his head in for the sprint, the constant turn of the path and the numerous potholes prevented him from reaching his top speed.

More than halfway to the top a mortar screeched from above and blasted apart the stone and soil ahead of him. There was so much smoke he couldn’t see if the path had survived or collapsed, but he didn’t have time to stop and check. So he kicked off the ground, bounded past the smoke, and landed on the other side.

Green light pummeled the base of the spire, and when he glanced off the side of the ledge at path below him, changelings emerged from out of the blast craters. They snarled and screeched and took to the wing. Five of them in total landed ahead of him ready to charged.

Not a single one of them did he kick or tackle, instead he weaved past the first three and their fangs, and ducked around to the side as the other two rushed him. He bolted past them and kept climbing for the summit.

A pothole snagged his leg and brought him down face first on the stone. His leg stung, and as he dragged his head off the ground he saw blood dribbling from it. Further down the path, the changelings had already circled around to face him and were preparing to charge.

The idea of giving up tempted him, as he had no idea how he’d even get through the oculus by the time the bomb went off, let alone how he’d get outside that ten-mile blast radius. He laughed.

Faint at first, a buzz rose up his spine and he found the strength to stand through the pain. It asked him again to listen, and so he closed his eyes and let the buzz direct his ears.

The roar of fusion jets tore through the dome followed seconds later by the silhouette of a shuttle swaggering down from the oculus. A shuttle circled the spire and swooped in low over Thunder’s head. It shook the stone and called up a torrent of dust that flung his mane and tail about.

“Six hours on the money!” Gerard’s voice boomed out of the ship’s loud speakers. “Am I good, or am I good?”

Green light burst against the hull and left changelings chewing on the patchwork of metal and ceramics that held the shuttle together. The engines roared again, and the shuttle zipped out of sight around the other side of the spire.

It circled and careened around the spire as Thunder Gale forced himself into a galloped on the heat of adrenaline and the buzz coursing down his spine. The cries and shrieking of changelings followed the entire way. When he glanced up, he spotted the circle of pillars he saw when he first fell into the dome. He was getting close.

When he reached the center of the pillars at the top, Gerard’s shuttle leapt out from under the spire and entered into a low hover a short span away from the edge of the peak. The changelings clinging to its hull had been flung off during the flight, but more were on their way and screeching up the path on Thunder’s tail.

The doors of the shuttle opened and there stood Gerard, one eagle claw braced against the frame and the other reaching out for Thunder. The morning sun reflected off the hull and shined.

“Just stay right there, alright?” Gerard put his other claw down and leaned back inside. “I’ll bring the ship around and try to get a little closer.”

Thunder checked over his shoulder, and saw the vanguard of the changeling mob pouring out from the path and among the pillars. A bullet zipped at the ground by his hooves. He turned back around and sized up the gap again. The buzz in his spine had migrated into his wings and hooves where it thundered. He paused long enough to shut his eyes, and listen to the sinew of his flesh. If he opened his wings, they’d catch him.

“No, there isn’t enough time.” He cracked a smile. “I’m just going to have to do it right now.”

But Thunder had already cantered back, and broke into his sprint for the shuttlecraft’s hold.

When his hooves drummed off the stone he spread the wings on his back, and flapped for the open door. As he sailed through the air he felt just as alive as he did when he flew through the clouds with Rainbow Dash and for just a brief instant as the wind rushed under him.

Reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and all the purples pulsed from inside him and lit up the dome and the shuttle as they rippled out of him. Then he hit the floor of the shuttle with a thud and rolled into a cargo net on the other side. The light vanished.

“Dude, you flew.” Gerard stood over him mouth open. “You actually flew! And there was a boom and sweet Celestia what was that light? You did see that right? I’m not hallucinating am I?”

“That was called a rainboom.” Thunder Gale untangled himself from the net and pointed at the door. “The changelings are still right over there and and we don’t have much time before the bomb goes off.”

“Right.” Gerard darted to the door, shut it, and climbed up to the cockpit. “Hang on to something. We’re about to pull some g-forces and only one inertial dampener out of six are still working.”

Thunder Gale wrapped his hooves around the cargo netting and dug into it as much as possible.

The shuttle roared and bucked while Thunder clung to the net for dear life. He looked up, once, and saw the oculus and the towers of the city beyond whirling by. He closed his eyes and fought the dizzying acceleration. The shuttle leveled out after a few seconds but it didn’t slow any. The cargo netting ripped into him against the strain but he didn’t let go.

It continued on far longer than he thought he could bear, but then a wave of turbulence washed over the shuttle and it almost rocked out of the sky. He opened his eyes, and saw a glare more intense than the sun streaming in from the shuttle’s cockpit. Then the light faded, the turbulence subsided, and the acceleration broke into an even speed.

“Who do you think I am?” Gerard peered his head back at him. “Of course we made it. Lightning Fire gave me the blast radius stuff and we past the lethal zone a few kilometers ago.” He tapped on the cockpit ceiling. “I know she’s a sack of shit but she’s rugged and very radiation proof.”

“What about my crew?” Thunder let go and leaned against the wall behind him. “Are they safe?”

“Lightning Fire was ferrying ponies out on the remaining drop ships last time I checked. We’ll be coming right up on their new camp in forty seconds. Still, I wouldn’t drink the water around here and I’m sure we all need some treatment for the exposure.”

Thunder Gale rested a hoof on his stomach and let the rest of his legs sprawl out. His blue-grey coat was covered in black soot and when he scratched his blue mane chunks of dirt and rock tumbled out. He laughed from his belly until tears rolled out his eyes.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “It’s over. It’s actually over. We made it out of there alive.”

“I can’t believe that you flew,” said Gerard. “Daring rescue aside, we wouldn’t have made it out of there if you hadn’t pulled that rabbit out of your hat.”

The rush of adrenaline was beginning to cool, and with its retreat pain returned. As much as his leg stun, it was the ache blooming in his shoulders that held him captive. His wings, he never once used them before to fly, and just after that brief spurt they burned from over exertion. It was an entirely new sensation for him, and he couldn’t help but enjoy it. He let his head tumble back against the side of the hull.

“Yeah, but I’ll admit,” Thunder Gale said between breaths. “I wouldn’t be here now if you hadn’t come back for me. What made you change your mind?”

“No offense, you are a dweeb and just as much as a punk as I’d come to expect from your family, but you went back to save one of your own. Your grandfather wouldn’t have done that, and neither would your father.”

“Besides, you’re as miserable as I am. If there’s no hope for you, what chance do I have?”

“What?” Gerard sat up, lifted a pair of aviators off his beak, and squinted out the window. “Great, it’s those cloacas. Hang on, Commander, we’re not out of the suck just yet.”

As the adrenaline high that had been keeping Thunder afloat all through the night continued to vanish, so did his strength. Moreover, that burn in his back was killing him, good pain or not. He hardly mustered up the strength to lift his head enough to look out the window, but when he did, he shot up again.

His entire crew was gathered in the open desert around their supplies and the two surviving dropships, and encircling them all were earth ponies and unicorns and glistening white powered armor. There were ships too, mostly dropships, but he spotted a number of gunships many times the Spitfire’s size hovering above the ground. He didn’t recognize their colors, but the symbol etched into their armor he did: it was the shield and the heart of Sigil Tech.

“It looks like they’ve put together a welcoming committee for us.” Gerard pointed to a squad of powered troopers filing out towards them. “I’ll put her down and we’ll see what they want.”

Gerard brought the shuttle into a hover a short distance from the Sigil Tech dropships and set it down. He pulled the keys from the ignition and gave Thunder a nod.

The Sigil Tech guards in their white power armor stormed in. They shoved Thunder to the grated floor and stuck their guns right up in Gerard’s face.

“Don’t shoot!” Gerard held up his claws and motioned at the Interplanetary Express logo on his denim jacket. “We’re friendlies. Actually, I’m a friendly. I can’t vouch for the other guy.”

They ignored him, and moved their attention on to Thunder. The white plates of their armor were dusted with sand and soil.

“Are you Major Thunder Gale of the Spitfire?” one of the troopers asked. “Are you the pony in charge here?”

“Come with us immediately. We need to confirm the identities of both you and your pilot.”

“No.” Thunder Gale forced himself back up on his tired legs and looked them straight in their eye cameras. “I’m going to talk to the crew, and then I’m going to find my fillyfriend.”

“You can talk to them all you want after we’ve confirmed that you are who you say you are.”

“You’re not going to stop me.” Thunder raised a hoof and pushed the soldier’s rifle out of his face. “If you shoot me, just what do you think is going to happen to you once all those marines out there hear that their prince just returned from a suicide mission, made it all the way back here, only to get shot by you.”

“Fine,” he said. “Have it your way. But once you get finished talking you are to report to our technicians immediately.”

As he trotted past the soldiers and the dropships corralling his crew together, a marine from the crowd spotted him.

“It’s the Major!” She pointed to him and shouted to the crowd. “He’s back!”

They all hushed and paused in their activities, and looked right to him. And he looked back.

“Hello,” he said to them. “I’m glad to see you’re all safe, but I need to speak with Lightning Fire. I need to check-in with her as quickly as I can.”

Out from behind two marines dirty and tired from the night, Lightning Fire shoved her way forward. She blinked her one good eye and cantered up to Thunder.

“You’re back.” She looked him up and down. “By Celestia, I can’t believe you actually returned.”

“I’m here, in the flesh.” Thunder leaned forward, put a hoof over her shoulders, and gave her a quick hug. “It’s good to see you again too.”

“Did you have any more trouble with the changelings? What’s the status of the crew?”

“That way.” She pointed at a shining white dropship with the Sigil Tech logo plastered on it. “They’re preparing to evacuate our wounded to a hospital ship in orbit.”

When he got there the soldiers guarding its door didn’t try to stop him. He climbed up the ramp, past the medics and their supplies, and into the low light of the dropship. Sure enough, among those well enough for stretchers, and those such as Lt. Cloud Twist who were bundled up inside medi-pods, there he found Breeze Heart safe in a cot with her pink mane in a mess as if she had just woken up.

She held him close, and buried her face in his mane. Her scent, her mane, and the warm of her all exactly as he remembered.

“I’ve got dirt, sweat, bits of rock, and soot all over me,” he whispered in her ear. “That might not be such a good idea.”

For along while they held each other, and they would have stayed like that all day if the soldier Thunder spoke to earlier hadn’t stomped into the shuttlecraft.

“I know I might look strong.” Thunder untangled himself from Breeze but kept his hoof in hers. “But the truth is I can hardly stand. Why don’t you just let us be?”

“It’s not going to work on me this time.” The soldier jabbed a metal hoof at his chest. “The CEO wants to speak with you. She’s a very busy mare and she doesn’t wait for anypony.”

Reluctantly, he let go, and followed the soldier out into the desert and to a glittering white gunship at the edge of the camp.

Inside, a team of medical experts and technicians showed him into a steel cell and picked samples out of his mane and coat, one even drew blood from his leg, and then whisked the bits of him off into little vials, and vanished. They left him waiting alone on a bench for a long time. He wanted to sleep, and was so tired, but couldn’t. The sweat and the blood on him dried during the wait, and his only company for all that time was Sigil Tech’s shield and heart logo staring him down from the far wall.

After a time the door to his cell opened and a unicorn about half his size in a white lab coat slipped inside.

“The CEO will see you now.” He sniffed at him, and set a holographic projector the size of an apple on the floor.

The projector hummed, flashed, and then up sprang the image of a unicorn in a dull amber light. She sat in a steel chair with all the confidence of a monarch on a throne, and from it she sized Thunder Gale down. Her image filled the far wall, and behind her shone the bridge of a starship. It gleamed white, and from what he could gather from its sleek contours, prefered form over function.

“Blood pattern analysis confirmed,” he said. “His blood is as red as ours. It’s impossible to tell from the data available if he’s the prince or not, but he’s one of us at least.”

“All this security and we’re not even meeting face to face?” Thunder paced around her holographic projection and lay down on his stomach on the bench across from her; his leg still stung.

“My scientists can tell me the color of your blood, but she can’t tell me your intent. My name is Mi Amore Cadenza the Twenty-First. I am the CEO and majority shareholder for Sigil Tech and all its child companies. Your Highness, we have a lot to talk about.”

That name, Thunder recognized it; that was the full name of Princess Cadence, one of the greatest pegasi who ever lived, alicorn, and the true ruler of the fabled Crystal Empire. The memory stirred in his head, and when he looked at Sigil Tech’s logo his eyes widened. It was a combination of Cadence’s heart and the mark he wore around his neck for years: Shining Armor’s shield.

“Yes, your Highness, now I’d like to make you an offer.” She aimed her ears squarely at him and she spoke with a calculated authority. “This company was founded by my ancestors to ensure the survival of pony kind from its most ruthless of enemies. Including one you’re already intimately familiar with: the changelings. You and I are both aware that they have infiltrated every level of the Pegasus Empire, but I have reason to suspect this is only the opening maneuver of a much larger game. Whatever their plans are, it would seem that the Imperial Throne and its line of succession plays a critical role.”

She made no effort to hide the weight or edge in her voice, and never did she so much as glance away from Thunder Gale. Combined with the enormous size of her image projected on the wall, she was nothing less than intimidating. One way or the other, she was going to have her way.

“You never did your homework, did you?” He shook his head and chuckled. “I would make a terrible emperor. The answer’s no.”

“Still I have no doubt that if the changelings were to catch you, they would kill you. For that reason alone you’re worth keeping around, and I can think of several others. Your value as a political and intelligence asset is greater than I can afford to let disappear.”

“If you accept my offer your official title would be Captain of the Guard.” She tapped her hoof rest. “You’d be stationed on New Canterlot and be given whatever you need to live comfortably. Your actual responsibilities would be serving as my personal advisor and will conduct your work from behind a desk. You don’t even have to ascend to the throne if you don’t want; I won’t force you.”

“What about the crew of the Spitfire?” Thunder Gale picked himself up and limped up to her hologram. “Just a few hours ago you tried to kill one of your own pilots, and do you expect me to believe you’d treat them any better?”

“I expect you to believe whatever you want to,” she said. “However, our goal was not to kill Gerard, but to prevent Discord, an incredibly hostile entity, from leaving the planet.”

Thunder Gale thought about it for a moment, and stared down at his hooves as he did.

“You own the Interplanetary Express, so you can get something pretty much anywhere in the galaxy, right?” he asked.

“I’ll take up on your offer, but only for the sake of the crew. I’d like you to give them the option to go anywhere they’d like in the galaxy and whatever they need to start new lives for themselves. Let them live like kings.”

“That can be arranged.” She held out a hoof and offered to shake. “Do we have a deal?”

Thunder Gale found Breeze Heart inside a dropship with the injured marines, but she had gotten out of her cot and was helping the medics tend to their wounds.

When she saw him limping to the door, she passed her work onto the medic beside her and rushed out to meet him. She nearly hugged him again, but stopped herself when she noticed the blood dried on his leg.

“You’re bleeding.” She held his torn leg in her hoof and inspected the cut. “Here, come inside and I’ll have it cleaned and dressed for you in no time.”

“Wait, there’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said. “I’ve made a deal with the CEO of Sigil Tech. They’re going to give you, and everypony else in the crew, everything you need to start a new life for yourself including transport to anywhere in the galaxy.”

“Part of the deal is that I work for her now.” He brushed her hoof from his leg and hung his head. “I’m going to be her advisor, and live in a hole on New Canterlot. I’m too valuable an asset for her to let out of her sights.”

Breeze Heart glanced down at his hoof and then at the ponies hurrying to and fro in the shimmer of the desert heat.

“New Canterlot doesn’t have any atmosphere on the surface,” she said after a minute. “But I hear the medical schools there are some of the best in known space.”

“Now, why don’t you come inside and rest while I tend to that leg of yours?” She squeezed his hoof and beamed.

He flicked his tail, and followed Breeze inside the dropship to a fresh cot. He lay down, closed his eyes, and let her work on his leg. Sometime while she bandaged his leg, he sleep finally took him.

When he awoke next, Lightning Fire had joined Breeze at his side. He filled her in on his conversation with Mi Amore Cadenza XI, and promptly nodded off again.

The roar of fusion engines roused him from his sleep again a short time later. He got up on all fours and was met by a medic in a Sigil Tech uniform.

“The CEO would like you to join her on the flag ship,” she said. “If you’d please disembark, sir, we’re making our final preparations for departure.”

Standing at attention in parade formation along both his sides was the entirety of the Spitfire’s remaining crew. They extended all the way from the dropship to the airlock of the gunship in front of him. Lightning Fire was right at his side at the start of her row, and inside the airlock of the gunship, where the formations terminated, Breeze Heart and Gerard stood waiting for him.

“How did you get this together so quickly?” he asked Lightning Fire. “And why? After all those choices I made as the commanding officer of this crew, I never would have thought I’d get a send of like this.”

“You’re still the prince of our tribe. Wherever you go, that will still count for something.”

“Manticore Company, attention!” Lightning Fire barked and the entire crew raised their hooves to salute. “Officer on deck!”

Thunder Gale marched down the row, and as he passed by each face, he mentally put a name to them all. He climbed up the steps to the gunship’s airlock, and when he got to Breeze Heart’s side he held her hoof. He faced his crew, raised his free hoof, and saluted.

“Manticore Company, dismissed!” Lightning Fire barked again and, still in formation the crew rolled out.

The airlock hatch locked down in front of Thunder Gale, and hissed sealed. He watched them for a few minutes more from his window, until they finally broke formation and started gathering their supplies and loading them into the dropships around them.

“Where do you think they’ll go?” Breeze Heart asked him. “What do you think will happen to them?”

Together they watched the crew buzz by until the engines around them rumbled and the desert peeled away, and they vanished into starry sky. Tomorrow more challenges awaited them, but in that moment in each other’s company, those struggles felt as distant as the desert receding below the sky. They’d be okay; they had each other.

Planet Hell: The Redemption of Harmony

by solocitizen

21. Wander my Friends, Come Wander with Me