//------------------------------// // 08: Colorless Sky / The Present // Story: Light Despondent Remixed // by Doctor Fluffy //------------------------------// Light Despondent Remixed Chapter 8: Colorless Sky / The Present The present is in fact not a present Even though i'm glad that it's here at all I'd like to think that something is gonna happen When i know damn well that it won't All i'll ever do is behold Pull yourself together When you're the primary feather This is what you have been waiting for You want progress, here is the antidote A bit of your life in a cage Biting Elbows, The Present August 8, 2022 Heliotrope “You’re wondering if we’re going to hit Portland, the hostages, or the boats first. Well, you’ll find out if we don’t get what we want.” Those were the words of Leonid Nikolaievitch Lovikov, his face filling up the screen in front of them. ‘They actually did it,’ Heliotrope thought, her jaw dropping halfway to the floor. ‘Luna’s Mane, they did it.’ All were sat in Gardner’s briefing room – which had been a conference room, then an office, then a conference room again. What that had to say about its occupant’s sense of consistency, Heliotrope might have wondered at, were her attention not on the far more alarming sight of Gardner in the here and now. He sat at the head table, both elbows firmly planted on it. He was trembling and purple-faced, practically frothing at the mouth. The projector screen was just behind him, showing a livestream of the Sorghum’s radio station. “Those motherfuckers!” Gardner roared, pounding the table. Heliotrope heard something crack under the impact. The radio was at the center of the room, slightly out of sync with the livestream. “Firstly,” Lovikov’s voice said, “we demand the release of Michael Carter, who is being held unlawfully by lackeys of the Equestrian column, who have unjustly taken command of Earth military movements. Secondly, we demand food, ammunition, and medical supplies for those who live in Defiance and other free HLF settlements.” “Even Bastion?” asked a man in the background. Again, the livestream lagged slightly. Lovikov scratched his scraggly-yet-immaculate beard, a contemplative look on his radiation-scarred face. According to Yael, he had once looked… almost handsome. But Heliotrope – who wasn’t by any means one of the PHL’s more anthrophilic ponies – couldn’t see a way anyone would consider him human. He looked like a sculpture that’d been dropped and crudely mashed back together, with strange lumps, scars, and patches. “With the exception of Bastion, and any settlements held by the HLF groups associated with Maximilian Yarrow and his side of the split,” Lovikov said. “Fuck em.” “... Good God,” Yael said, rapt at attention as she watched the scarred Ukrainian monologuing on the big projector screen. She sat at a table with, Quiette Shy, Smoky, Lorne and Eva. There was also a number of Marines, Coast Guard, and National Guard, a few of them familiar faces – a woman by the name of Crawford, a tall white man with black buzzcut hair and an eyepatch, a man with brown hair that’d tried to play as ROB not long ago, an Asian (Korean or Japanese?) woman with curly red hair  – but most of whom Heliotrope didn’t know. The ponies among their number sat awkwardly in the chairs, Heliotrope constantly fidgeting against a chair to keep her wings comfy, or just to work off nervous energy. It honestly could have been either. Heliotrope, as it happened, had a matching look of horror, her wings spread in fear, feathers tickling Quiette Shy’s face. “They wouldn’t,” Lorne said. There was complete certainty in his voice, a certainty that Heliotrope envied. If she remembered anything from the Purple Winter, it was being proven wrong time and time again about what the Empire or HLF would do. “They absolutely would,” Yael said, plainly trying to come to terms with this massive attack, and not quite succeeding. “They did,” Gardner spat, as they watched the broadcast from Lovikov. “At 1730 hours, this HLF filth took over our Sorghum rig, and threatened to fire on Portland and its outlying islands. Or the ships surrounding our rig.” Heliotrope nodded, fluttering out of her seat and next to her friend. “Yael’s right. We saw what they were like in the Purple Winter, or when they saw people trying to help out Equestrian refugees, but… God, I hope they won’t go this far.” “Still,” Lorne said, “Attacking a city with that many people in it? That’s… they have to be bluffing. I knew some guys tried to pull this, and it turned out they couldn’t talk the talk.” “And how did you–” Eva asked. Lorne raised an eyebrow. “Later,” he said, in a tone that implied ‘later’ meant ‘Fuck no.’ “Even if they are,” Gardner said, “We can’t brush this threat off. This is clear provocation, and by any reasonable metric, it is an act of war.” He let that hang over the table. “And I will be deploying our forces against it. It is well within the bounds of my authority.” It was at that moment that Heliotrope had a thought so clear to her, so vivid that it was as if someone whispered it in her ear. ‘This will not end well.’ Probably because it actually had been, by the woman right next to her. “You heard me,” Yael whispered. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” ‘Why?’ Heliotrope wondered, not daring to reply. ‘We’re going after the HLF.’ “Get ready, everyone,” Gardner said, rising from his seat with ram-rod straightness. Those in the room followed his cue. “I shall put in a request at High Command for permission to deploy, and by God, faced with this, I expect we’ll be getting it in ten minutes flat. They’ll have some negotiator there, but I’ll be there as backup. If I know her, she’ll let the HLF walk all over her. Heliotrope, Ze’ev, you’re with me. We’re taking Samson.” Heliotrope blinked. “...What’s Samson?” It took a minute or two or three more, and a walk to the hangar, until she got her answer. Samson, it turned out, was a massive chopper, even bigger than the MI-24 Hinds that Heliotrope had gotten used to in Northern Africa and even some parts of the US. At its back was a drop bay, and it looked big enough to– “You could drop a power armor out of this,” Heliotrope breathed, amazed. “An astute observation,” Gardner said drily. “But entirely valid. Try two power armors, in fact. This baby you’re looking at here, is an ATC dropship, built at the beginning of the war to ferry ordnance and supplies in massive quantities. And, as you’ve guessed, dropping ATC-built power armor onto Imperial positions. Not to mention,” he breathed, “if push comes to shove... fighting the larger potioneers on equal terms.” Heliotrope looked up at him. “Then you’re saying–“ “I wish,” Gardner cut her off. “Samson here can do almost anything, but when it comes to shielding technology, this remains the one area where the Empire consistently has us by the balls. I’d hoped that the disruptor grenades would work, but…” Heliotrope nodded. Shield disruptor grenades were a pet project for most PHL, and while they were mostly effective, they were incredibly hard to produce. “Still,” the man said, “we’re hoping that, once PHL R&D’s work on it is brought to fruition, she’ll be one of the first to receive the upgrade. And as she is now, if those bastards ever did come looking for a fair fight, they’d get one. You’re looking at a milestone here, people.” Heliotrope noticed Oscar cocking his head suspiciously, like a curious dog, as he looked over the ATC-built vehicle. But this was soon forgotten as she took a moment to drink in the sight of the chopper herself. ‘I’d love to get to work on this!’ Heliotrope practically gasped. ‘This thing must be so powerful! The engines, the… I bet this could lift a whole building off the ground! Screw my wings, I’d love to fly this! I’m almost drooling!’ This was one of her favourite things about getting to work on human machinery. While Earth may have lagged behind in terms of magic, it was leaps and bounds past Equestria in terms of technology. Every new machine that Heliotrope got to open up, be it cell phones, cars, guns, trains, planes, or in this case gunships, was like getting to see her dreams from the Sciences of Equus magazine come true, and then some. ‘Sometimes,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘I love my life.’ These were too rare for comfort, though. “Samson’s stocked with a reserve of power armor,” Gardner told them, hand sweeping over the magnificent chopper. “Room enough for, hm, eight apiece, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, nobody in this group is currently certified to wear power armor. So I guess we’ll-– ” “I can pilot it,” Oscar said, raising a hand. The six-fingered one, naturally. Gardner glared at him. “Do your soldiers come with any discipline whatsoever, Lieutenant Ze’ev?!” Yael furrowed her eyebrows. “He’s fine as he is. Which reminds me. Oscar, are you sure you want to do it?” “Yeah,” Heliotrope said. “I mean, you could get–” It was probably for the best that Oscar interrupted her. “I know exactly what could happen,” Oscar said. “But there’s no day that has been, or will be, when this tr– when Oscar Mikkelsen passes up piloting a suit of power armor.” Quiette Shy held up a foreleg, which Oscar bumped with his own fist. “My Man,” Quiette Shy said. The automatic voicebox usually had a faux-upbeat tone, but somehow it sounded genuine this time. And Heliotrope thought, for a second, about what could happen if Oscar was discovered behind the controls. ‘Should I…’ But she decided against it. This was, well, this was something she just couldn’t bear to take from Oscar. He just got so animated at the prospect of getting in the cockpit. More than she’d ever seen him outside of battle or a good game of Smash Bros. or Titanfall 3. “Heliotrope,” Gardner said. “Can you fly at the same pace as Samson?” “... Probably?” Heliotrope said, hoping he wouldn’t spot her hesitation. Nothing could get in her way to being a part of this. “I might be able to get to the rig, easy, but I don’t know how long I can sustain that pace. I’m not a Wonderbolt or anything, after all.” “I see,” Gardner said, impassively. “Why, what did you have in mind?” Heliotrope swallowed down a gulp. “Think there’ll be a situation where we have to make a quick getaway, and I’d be left behind?” Yael placed a hand on her shoulder. “If that’s what it is, you can put your trust in her, sir,” she told Gardner. “She’s been there. Playing wingman to Miss Sanderson, when she shot that footage of the Tyrant’s showdown with her sister.” “As I’m aware,” Gardner replied, his voice betraying neither awe nor approval. “We’ve all seen Sergeant Heliotrope’s little contribution to the conspiracy theories surrounding the Tyrant. But, no,” he added, eyes meeting Heliotrope’s. “Nothing like that. What I need for you, Sergeant, is to scout the rig. Give me an idea of how many HLF are holed up in there.” December 24, 2022 Dancing Day “Hold on a moment,” Aegis interrupts, with a cough. “I mean, isn’t it a little bit important to say what happened during negotiations?” Kraber shakes his head. “I thought we agreed we were going to just keep this sort of focused to one group of us.” “What agreement?!” Yael scowls. “We were doing this anyway, no questions asked.” “Huh,” Vinyl says. “That is weird. Which reminds me, what was Aegis doing at thi–” July 25, 2022 Aegis Aegis was watering the flowers outside his shipping container home, a hearty dinner of mushroom pie and salad sitting on his table. Cooked by Popover, who was lying on the couch. “I sure hope nothing bad happens,” Aegis said. And nothing bad did happen to him. Even the time his family got stuck in the abandoned house up in Bethlehem, where nothing supernatural happened, and they all realized that the real axe murderer was love all along. December 24, 2022. Dancing Day “WHAT?!” Vinyl yells. Aegis just shrugs. “I’m kidding.” Kraber raises an eyebrow. “... It gets hard to tell sometimes, ja? You have like, the most fokkin’ lekker deadpan.” “I get that a lot,” Aegis says. “So, uh, what were you doing? During the negotiations?” July 25, 2022 Kraber It was at that moment, on the big projector screen at the far end of the room, that a dirty-blond woman made her appearance. A PHL Lieutenant Colonel, if the uniform she wore was any hint, though her being flanked by a pony did, in itself, narrow down her allegiances considerably. A mare so gray, Kraber could probably have drawn her in pencil without getting the colors wrong. Of course, Kraber didn’t know either of them. He would later learn that the mare was named Chalcedony. But that was not important just then. “I’m here... Lovikov,” said the woman on screen. And, turning her eye to the doorway. “And Verity Carter. Excellent.” True to form, there was Verity, striding into the studio. “I thought you’d be guarding the boat,” Lovikov said. “I left Redd and a few other toughs to do it,” Verity said dismissively. “No way in hell am I standing by when I can help free Dad.” Kraber had heard of that. Of Carter’s personal HLF unit in some hole-in-the-wall town in Maryland, a battle with PER from offshore… and by the time the PHL and National Guard got there, they’d seen Carter standing over a horrific crime scene in a bank vault, admitting readily that he’d done it. As Kraber heard it, Verity had been just outside the vault, hiding in a former restaurant. “Lieutenant Colonel Northwoods,” Lovikov responded, almost purring. “What’s the news?” Kraber lay back against a chair, watching intently. There was a strange look on Northwoods’ face. “...These demands are too much!” “You and I both know that they’re not,” Lovikov snarled. “All we want here is legitimacy. We want our leader back, and we want to help humanity as best we can. We can’t do that when every battle we show up to turns into a three-way, can we?” “I suppose not,” Northwoods said breathlessly. “Of course not,” Verity snarled. “We’re only trying to help.” “But listen, Leonid. Verity,” Northwoods said. “The PHL does not want to get bogged down in a pointless, self-destructive war against the HLF. You’ll get hurt, badly.” “The hell we will!” Verity interjected. “We’re facing the death of the world,” Northwoods said, almost pleading. “You’re too established, and well-hidden for a fight with you to turn into more than a bloody slog. We have enough weapons to make straight fights with you a massacre. If either of us pushes a fight, nobody wins but the Solar Empire.” “She’s right,” the gray mare said, “I believe that if we pool our resources, we could… we could do so much good.” “You and the gluestick,” Lovikov hissed. For a moment Kraber was absolutely certain he was going to burst into a real fire-and-brimstone speech. But then, begrudgingly, the other shoe dropped. “You and the gluestick… have a point.” ‘Lovikov agreeing with one of the fokkin’ gluesticks?’ Kraber thought. ‘Will wonders never fokkin’ cease.’ Northwoods smiled faintly. “I’m glad you’re willing to agree with me on that.” Kraber was almost something that could charitably be called ‘relaxed,’ and then there was an interruption on the feed. “Northwoods?” Lovikov asked. “What’s happening? What’s going on?” There was a distant buzz outside. A window popped up on the lower-right corner of the screen. And expanded, taking up half the space to squash aside Northwoods, her face abruptly made thinner by the diminished aspect-ratio. The PHL officer’s eyes flickering down towards the right, where her left would be, was a sign the intrusion upon communications had not gone unnoticed by her, either. The interloper’s face, placed like a perverse mirror to her own, stared ahead, unspeaking. “And just who–” Northwoods started. “–are you?!” Lovikov yelled. The distant buzz grew louder. ‘Oh, fokdammit. Those are helicopter blades.’ * * * Yael Their massive gunship roared across the ocean towards the Sorghum. ‘This is such overkill,’ Yael thought uneasily. For reasons she could neither comprehend nor explain, Gardner had been able to find space inside it for her, Quiette Shy, and a computer that was capable of connecting to the HLF’s Skype call. “Hostage negotiations by Skype,” Quiette Shy asked. “What have our lives become.” Yael smiled slightly. The great thing about QS trying to tell jokes was that her automatic voice box gave her essentially the perfect deadpan. Which was great for stand-up comedy night at the PHL base where they’d previously stayed. “Quiet. Both of you,” Gardner snapped. Quiette Shy raised an eyebrow under her goggles, and flicked both ears back. Anyone else would have a hard time understanding the subtleties of the body language of someone who kept most of their face covered and couldn’t inflect vocally, but between her, Oscar, and pub night, Yael was a master of reading these subtleties. This was without a doubt the ‘what-a-douche’ eyebrow-raise. December 24, 2022 Dancing Day “Trust me,” Yael is saying at this very moment, “You get to be a bit of an expert.” “Wait, I’m confused,” Kraber says. “How do you tell? Like, ‘what-a-douche’ is pretty much her default expression.” “No, that’s her ‘I-hate-everything’ expression,” Vinyl says. “Get with the times, Viktor!” “No, no,” Heliotrope says. “Her default expression is ‘I-hate-everything.’” July 25, 2022 Yael The screen on the Samson flared to life, and Yael could see two screens – one with Lieutenant Colonel Northwoods and Chalcedony, the other with Leonid Lovikov. “And just who-” Northwoods started. “Are you?!” Lovikov yelled. Gardner didn’t miss a beat. “The PHL called me in as insurance,” Gardner said. “And it is a role I am happy to fill.” “INSURANCE FOR FUCKING WHAT?!” December 24, 2022 Dancing Day “Wait,” Yael says, “I don’t remember Lovikov being that angry…” “Really? Seems much more him,” Kraber says. “It really does,” Aegis adds. “I’m going to be honest, let’s go with Kraber’s version here.” Heliotrope shrugs noncommittally with both forelegs. “Whatevs. Any thoughts, Yael? Elena?” “This is definitely Lovikov,” Elena said. “110%.” July 25, 2022 Kraber Lovikov had screamed those last three words, white-knuckled as he grabbed onto a control panel. “I mean, it’s just you talking to Northwoods, and... Who are you again?” Gardner asked, his eyes moving from his right to his left. Ironically enough, opposite from where Northwoods and Chalcedony were positioned on this screen. “Chalcedony, PHL R&D,” said the gray mare. Her tone was, at best, dubious. “I see you’ve brought a wonderful assortment of characters, Lovikov,” Gardner said. “Verity Carter... yes, I know you used her help to get aboard the Sorghum. Eugene Sullivan, wanted for organizing militias, stockpiling weapons and drugs, and selling drugs to finance the HLF.” The bear-like man scowled. “So what if I did?” “Helen Murphy, wanted for mass arson and stealing from resettlement efforts for Equestrian refugees,” Gardner continued. “Andrew Murphy, wanted for theft, armed robbery, assault and battery. And finally, Viktor Kraber.” Kraber watched Gardner’s stare settle on him. “... Where do I even begin,” Gardner sighed. “And as far as I’m concerned, you’re all criminals. Graffiti taggers, murderers, thieves, rapists–” “Whoa whoa whoa,” Kraber said. “The fok did jou just fokkin’ say to me, varknaaier?!” “You know what I said,” Gardner said, smiling. “Even about you.” “DON’T JOU FOKKIN’ CALL ME THAT, KONTGESIG!” Kraber screamed. “DON’T JOU FOKKIN’-!” “Figures,” Gardner sighed. “Angry because I’m right.” “I’LL BASH YOUR FOKKIN’ HEAD AGAINST THE CURB AS I THUMB OUT YOUR EYES, YA DUMB FOK!” Kraber roared. “HOW DARE YOU, HOW FOKKIN’ DARE YOU CALL ME THAT, JOU BLIKSEM?!!” Verity stared at him in horror. “There was an allegation of it when you were in college,” Gardner mused. “And, there’s no way of knowing if your marriage to Kate Baldwin was legal and consensual–” “THAT WAS FOKKIN’ FAKED!” Kraber howled. “LAST FOKKIN’ STUKKIE CALLED ME THAT, I CALLED HER AN AMBULANCE! AND I AM THE FOKKIN’ AMBULANCE, HONDENAAIER! I WILL RIP OFF YOUR HEAD AND PISS IN YOUR SKULL, JOU FOKMAGGOT! FOK JOU AND EVERYONE BEHIND YOU, EVEN YOU ZE’EV! FOK YOU FOR WORKING WITH THIS SHRIMP-PIEL KONTWURM, AND FOK THE FOKKIN’ GLUESTICK! LET ME FOKKIN’ AT HIM, LOVIKOV! FOKKIN’ DO IT! I’LL FOK HIM UP!” But, on the inside, his thoughts were more distant. Detached. Deadened. ‘Gardner… he’s going to shoot us,’ Kraber thought from somewhere, far away inside his own mind, as a Thenardier dragged him back across the room. Whoever this was, they must have been a very brave person, to get up close to him while he was in this state. Yet Kraber was too lost, be it in rage or bodily dissociation, to dwell on it. ‘We’re going to get shot by someone who wants the death penalty for graffiti taggers… Gardner. If he’s not everything we hate about the PHL, I don’t know what is.’ “I could be wrong,” Gardner said, “But even if you aren’t, it’s not like that makes you any better.” “LICK MY BALLS AND CHOKE TO DEATH ON THEM, JOU KONTGESIG!” Kraber yelled in response, struggling against his Thenardier restrainer. “I’LL BLIKSEM JOU!” “These people, huh?” Gardner said, performing what was meant to be a long-suffering sigh. “Fuck you, Gardner!” Verity yelled. “All we want is my father back! We just want to–” “Funny way of showing it,” Gardner said. * * * Yael ‘I can’t believe I’m this close to Viktor Kraber,’ Yael thought. ‘To Lovikov.’ “And These People Want Us To Work With Them?” Quiette Shy asked. Yael nodded, and sighed. Whereupon, her disbelief of being such a short distance from Kraber was overcome by disbelief in something else. “You know what I said,” Colonel Gardner said, smiling. “Even about you. “DON’T JOU FOKKIN’ CALL ME THAT, KONTGESIG!” Viktor Kraber screamed. “DON’T JOU FOKKIN’-” “Figures,” Gardner said. “Angry because. I’m right.” ‘Is he enjoying this?!’ Yael thought. Gardner’s face was in the same stoic, determined expression as always, but… ‘I swear I can hear a smile in his voice.’ “I’LL BASH YOUR FOKKIN’ HEAD AGAINST THE CURB AS I THUMB OUT YOUR EYES, YA DUMB FOK!” Viktor Kraber roared. “HOW DARE YOU, HOW FOKKIN’ DARE YOU CALL ME THAT, JOU BLIKSEM?!” He looked absolutely livid. Yael could see it plain as day. He had murder in his eyes. She’d seen him look like that back during the Purple Winter, on the blurry cell phone footage and news cameras. And Gardner was clearly prodding him towards that. After watching yet more tongue-lashing of Kraber, trying to remain unemotional and failing, Yael spoke up. “He may be a bastard, sir,” Yael said. “But…” “Why, Ze’ev,” Gardner interrupted. “Is that… concern I hear? For one Viktor Marius Kraber?” Quiette Shy was looking at Yael at that moment, face set even further in her ‘what-a-douche’ expression. There were a number of responses rushing through Yael’s mind. ‘That’s sick!’ or ‘I’ve read his file, telling him that about his wife… that’s just wrong!’ or ‘Rape is the one low that historically, Kraber hasn’t sunk to.’ But at that moment, Gardner seemed to loom over her and Quiette Shy. And, from deep withiin her gut, she felt absolutely certain Gardner wouldn’t react well if she said what she really felt. “Go on,” Gardner said. “Tell me, Lieutenant.” ‘Is he taunting me? It honestly wouldn’t surprise me.’ “...No, sir,” she said, finally. And really. Why should there have been anything wrong there? This was Kraber, after all. This was Leonid Lovikov, who killed his commanding officer, burned an Equestrian refugee caravan, and refused to evacuate anyone he deemed to be PHL. ‘And… these people are holding a city hostage. They’d kill hundreds to prove a point.’ “Absolutely Not,” Quiette Shy said, unreadable as always. “Let’s Not Waste Our Time Here.” “That’s what I thought,” Gardner said, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “We can’t let these people get the upper hand over us. Look at them. Look at these people they call their heroes. Mass murderers, thieves, criminals of the worst kind.” ‘That does sound like Kraber, Yael thought, watching Kraber still screaming in rage. * * * Kraber “I WILL KILL JOU ALL AND FEED JOU BODY TO THE FOKKING NEIGHBORHOOD HONDS!” Kraber yelled. “I BLIKSEM JOU FOKKIN FACE OUT SO HARD YOUR JAW FOKKIN POWDER AND JOU CHOKE ON OWN FOKDAMN TEETH, VARKNAAIER!” The huge man was holding Kraber back, at the edge of the room. “Kraber,” he said. “Kraber, please, calm down.” A small piece of Kraber’s rational self had returned to the surface. It recognised the man holding him as Sullivan, who’d (seemingly) threatened him hours earlier. He must have forgotten, so consumed was he. But that was all that came back up. The rest of him was still at sea. In more than one way. “I’LL BE FOKKIN CALM WHEN I’VE BROKEN HIS SKULL AGAINST THE WALL AND I’M RUNNING MY FINGERS THROUGH HIS BRAINS LIKE I’M MAKING FOKKIN’ BOEREWORS!” Lovikov seemed almost… unconcerned. “Gardner,” Northwoods’ on-screen face said, through tightly gritted teeth. “You’re not helping.” The Colonel shrugged dismissively, still looking the wrong way if he meant to see her, from the perspective of the HLF members in the room. “With these people, I don’t know if there’s anything to be helped. I stand by what I said.” “I knew we should have brought Bowman,” Chalcedony muttered. “He’d be nailing this so hard right now,” Northwoods agreed. ‘What you said was FOKKIN’ DISGUSTING–’ Kraber thought, half to himself. ‘But is… is he right?’ “FUCK YOU!” Lovikov yelled. “We literally have guns pointed at three targets. Do you really want to find out who we fire them at?!” “I said,” Northwoods said, “YOU’RE NOT HELPING, Gardner!” “Really now,” Gardner said. ‘And… did Yael Ze’ev just feel pity for me?’ Kraber thought. ‘What the fok was that?’ * * * Heliotrope ‘Northwoods is letting them walk all over her! Working with HLF? Especially these HLF? Like hell I will. She completed a circuit around the rig, the salt air feeling cold and biting against her cheek, even in summer. Her assessment was, the guns were open to the air, and she could see HLF walking around them, holding shells and large crates. Her earpiece crackled. “Heliotrope,” she heard a voice say. “It’s Northwoods. Remember, your job is only to observe.” “I could end it,” Heliotrope protested. “Right here. And now. They wouldn’t know what hit em!” she paused. “I mean, I think they’d guess eventually after the tenth guy lost an arm? But it’d take awhile.” “You could,” Northwoods said. “But if you don’t recall, that was what got you here. Imagine the headlines. PHL show themselves impossible to negotiate with, once more. Firebrand–” “He’s off in Asia,” Heliotrope interrupted, confused. “I’ll pretend I didn’t just hear you interrupt a superior officer,” Northwoods said, her tone acidic. “I was going to say, firebrand officers, like you or Ze’ev, or Gardner, always think they can solve everything themselves. Which works well and good until they fail. Imagine what the headlines will look like if you do.” Admittedly, Heliotrope wasn’t thinking of headlines, she was thinking social media, but that was beside the point. “As I understand it, Gardner didn’t break up your squad. There’s others who can, and will do worse to you if you or Yael make it clear we can’t negotiate with the HLF.” “But… with them?” Heliotrope asked, raising an eyebrow. “There’s also the fact that if you go in all on your own, there’s no telling what could happen,” Northwoods said, sounding urgent. “This needs to be resolved calmly. Peacefully. I know you’re think they’re armed crazies that’d be better off working with us, but… they’re armed crazies we can’t afford to not be allied with.” ‘I think we can afford to be without people taking over the Sorghum.’ Northwoods’ meaning was clear. ‘I don’t trust you in the least, and I will have your hide if you go against orders here.’ A line of text scrolled by, in the lower-left of Heliotrope’s goggles. ‘HATE TO ADMIT IT BUT N IS RIGHT. WE NEED TO PLAN THIS OUT FIRST – G.’ Gardner, then. Well, if it was Gardner, then that… that at least made sense. So Heliotrope flew around the rig once more. ‘Three heading for that cannon,’ she thought, wondering who thought it was a good idea to lend them this much ammo, instead of relying on nearby tugboats. Her goggles were giving her readouts on what guns the HLF were carrying, the caliber of the cannons they were commandeering… ‘Two over by that one on the west side, aiming it towards the city–’... Heliotrope noted, relaying the information back to Gardner and Yael. ‘Please, Luna, do not let them do this.’ The tall, dark-skinned – well, not just tall, but big – human named Lorne had said something like that, and even so, the HLF had been totally willing to do this. If they, or at least, Lovikov, were willing to pull such a blatant terrorist attack, then Heliotrope had to wonder what else they were ready to try. ‘Would they shell Portland if need be?’ Heliotrope wondered. It was at that moment that something caught her eye. She could see the radio station – see Lovikov through the glass. And behind him... ‘Kraber.’ The man that’d shot her back in Cyprus. Left her wondering if she’d ever fly, let alone walk or feed herself again. Left her feverish in an improvised hospital bed in the abandoned, crumbling resort of Varosha, next to a potion amputee that screamed himself to sleep every night. The man who had bombed more Bureaus than she remembered, killing countless innocents. Hung and garrotted ponies from lampposts in Austria. ‘I’m going to murder him.’ But, Northwoods was r– Okay, it was a stupid decision, but the thought of going against orders, what could happen to her and Yael, and QS and Oscar? That was too horrible to imagine. “Kraber is leaving the room,” Heliotrope said. “No idea why.” “I noticed,” Yael said. * * * Kraber The reason why Kraber was leaving the room was that something deep inside was screaming at him, roaring, all the words for loudly telling him one single thing: THIS WILL NOT END WELL. Kraber would’ve liked to think it was Victory, or a hallucination of Kate, or… or some other thing… that told him that. It wasn’t. It was bone-deep… no, not fear. It was a sense of inarticulate negotiation, a wordless certainty that he absolutely should not be here. LEAVE. NOW. Lovikov would have said to ignore that. That it was all going to be be fine. That Kraber should trust him. Kraber, on the other hand, would’ve  been perfectly happy driving a right hook into Lovikov’s face. He was, after all… ‘Impulsive, prone to not using that brain of his, violent, easily provoked…’ As at least one psych evaluation from back in college had read. But, more often than not, his gut hadn’t been wrong. ‘Does what you’re feeling make sense?’ Kate had once asked him. So, now, Kraber thought that one over. ‘I’m with Lovikov, who has all the intrapersonal skill that God gave mustard gas. Arguing with the worst fokkin’ officer I’ve ever seen, one standing next to a gluestick. Meanwhile, they’re walking over some blonde that looks stoned. And Ze’evs there.’ “Whatever you throw at us,” Lovikov yelled, “We can make you regret every second of it! Following me, the HLF will be a powerful ally. With what Yael did, that FUCKING KI–” ‘Ja, fok this.’ Kraber thought, mentally drowning out that last word. “You didn’t just say that,” Yael said evenly. “I absolutely did,” Lovikov continued, smirking. “You can’t afford to piss us off any more. Can you. Anything we do next is your fault. You provoked us.” “So It’s Our Fault You Did This,” said the strange white pony, of indeterminate gender, standing next to Yael. “Sorry. Not Buying It.” “QS!” Northwoods snapped. “Look. Everyone. We can talk this out, L… Lovikov. There’s no need for any of us to fight, we’re all against the same enemy, aren’t we?” “We’re all against Equestria,” Lovikov said evenly. “Correction. You are against Equestrians,” Gardner said. “Including the refugees fleeing a totalitarian nightmare. And any human who reaches out their hand to them. This may be the most perfect enemy the human race has ever faced, and still, you manage to target the wrong people.” “Worst fucking negotiator ever,” Sullivan muttered under his breath. Kraber couldn’t tell if he meant Gardner or Lovikov. “So,” Gardner continued. “Tell me what we get in exchange for releasing Carter.” Wherever someone was watching the “negotiations”, if that was the right word for what Gardner was doing, jaws were dropping. “WHAT?!” Lovikov yelled. “Are you really that callous?!” Mariesa gasped, running a hand through her massive mop of curly hair. “Are you fokkin’ tuning me kak?!” Kraber yelled. “We literally have guns pointed at three different targets! Are you really going to just… ask for more?!” It wasn’t like he was a stranger to callousness. But that was… that was just… What kind of person would do that?! Yael’s face was unreadable. Kraber wanted to punch it. It reminded him of Kiana, of those FOKKIN’ KONTGESIGS THAT FOKKIN’ STOOD BY IN BOSTON WHILE THE POLICE WERE – no, no, calm. STAY FOKKIN’ ONTSPAN. “Gardner,” Northwoods breathed. “I… I can’t believe you.” “It makes sense, doesn’t it?” Gardner asked. “You’re asking us to release a mass murderer. A homegrown terrorist. I saw what Carter did to those poor ponies in the bank vault. Tell me, what makes this worth letting him out?” Verity flinched, a look of… what was that on her face? Fear? Anger? Whatever it was, Kraber was certain there was a story behind it. ‘Well, shit,’ Kraber thought. ‘It’s now or never to do it, isn’t it?’ Whatever ‘it’ was, Kraber didn’t know. But his instincts were screaming at him to leave. ‘I’ll figure something out,’ Never mind that he didn’t know how to get off the rig. (Wait, wat die FOK!?! Where did desertion come from?’) something wasn’t right. And whatever it was, he wanted to get away from it. Kraber stepped up to Lovikov, trying to put everything out of his mind. To remember what he learned back during acting in Boston. “I’ll be making another sweep of the rig,” Kraber said, desperate to be somewhere without Lovikov. And, oddly enough, the blood. The red stuff was becoming a little unnerving somehow, pretty impressive from how much it had splattered, but something – be it his hallucinations, his conscience, what little he had left of a soul – was screaming out at him, to get out of this room! “I get the feeling the enemy could be holed up in a lot of places in here.” “Just... be careful,” Mariesa said. “Don’t... don’t get hurt, alright?” “I promise,” Kraber said, heading for the door and switching for a shotgun. “Are you sure that’s wise?” Sullivan asked. “We’re not far from the coast,” Kraber said, “We’re surrounded by people that survived the Bad Old Days in Europe. Ponies and horsefuckers that are survivors. If one of them is thinking of pulling a Die Hard, it wouldn’t surprise me.” “Very well then,” Lovikov said. “Just remember. Anyone plans on fucking with us, you kill em then and there.” “What’s that?” Ze’ev asked. “Losing control of your attack dog?” Kraber jerked back like he’d been shot. But he continued moving down the hallway. * * * Yael The comment about Kraber being an attack dog had just slipped out as she and Gardner were talking with Lovikov. Right as Kraber had left the room. Quiette Shy shot her a… well, it was difficult to tell behind her goggles. Maybe it was agreement or pride, maybe it was disapproval. It was hard to say. Yael didn’t quite cringe. But for a second, a sense of resignation hung over her. ‘Great, again. Here comes another–’ Gardner glanced at her, a little smile on his face. ‘He doesn’t mind? Huh,’ Yael thought to herself. ‘Maybe Gardner’s not so bad. Callous as it sounds, they are asking us to release a mass murderer...’ “Maybe you’re the one with an attack dog,” Lovikov said. “And he’s my friend, goddammit!” “I’m sure,” Yael said. She’d read some psych profiles provided by Agent Garrett Nichols, before he’d embarked on that wild goose chase in the Pacific Northwest, and what she saw had raised questions about how Lovikov saw Kraber. “Kraber is leaving the room,” Heliotrope said over one of Yael’s earpieces. “No idea why.” “I noticed,” Yael whispered. “So,” Gardner said, stone-faced. “What are you prepared to offer if we let Carter go free?” “He leads the HLF again,” Verity said. “Leads us to glory, more than you could ever hope for.” “Hmm,” Gardner said. “Empty promises from a child soldier with a reputation for cruelty. I’m not considering that a benefit.” Verity glared at him through the camera. On Northwoods’ side of the argument – that is to say, of the screens – Chalcedony rocked back like she’d been hit. Meanwhile, in Samson, on this side, Quiette Shy stared up at Gardner. Again, Yael wasn’t entirely sure how to read it. But for a second, she was certain that QS was aghast. She could see eyes widening, eyebrows threatening to hide themselves under QS’ messy blond hair. And Yael heard a whispery, wavery noise that almost made her eyes water. QS’ real voice. “That’s just beyond the pale,” Yael heard her say. There was only one thing that could mean. QS never used her real voice, damaged as it was. She just used the neural controls to activate her artificial voicebox. For QS to forget, that was… Just so bizarre. “Can we?” QS asked. Yael winced, not quite from the sound but from the sympathetic pain. Talking like that, with the damage to QS’s voicebox, had to be causing a lot of pain. But then she realized: It was the only way for Gardner not to hear her. QS’ voicebox didn’t exactly come with ‘whispering,’ only ‘slightly above indoor voice’ and above. Which meant… QS didn’t trust Gardner. “Do we really want to risk all these innocent lives?” “Isn’t it a bigger risk to let Carter go free?” Yael whispered back. “They’re both such huge risks I see no difference,” Quiette Shy said. “I’m wondering if we wouldn’t be better off in military prison.” “It all depends on what you make of it,” Gardner said, turning his head to both of them. Clearly, he’d heard the whole thing. “Of course, I’m sure both of you have another idea instead?” Yael and Quiette Shy looked at each other. She shook her head. Letting the HLF take more, letting them go without Gardner asking more of them… that was just too hard to imagine. “That’s what I thought,” Gardner said. “...Maybe all these people don’t DIE?!” Lovikov yelled. “I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS! Doesn’t anyone notice this?! Am I the only one of us that cares that I’m pointing a gun at this many people?! I can do it. Right here. And now!” “I need more than that,” Gardner said. “I don’t know how they did things back in Ukraine–” “Russia,” Lovikov corrected, hissing between clenched teeth. “But America, the PHL? They do not simply roll over and let people like you take from them,” Gardner said.  “You could just slide even further. Kill even more. Like that family in Rangeley.” ‘Like what?!’ Yael thought. ‘What did he…?!’ Lovikov stared at Gardner, betraying no hint of emotion. “How do you know about that?” “We keep tabs on all of you,” Gardner said, running his fingers through Quiette Shy’s mane. She bristled slightly, and Yael was left with an impression of anger from the normally unemotive mare. But Gardner didn’t seem to notice. Or care. “So, tell me. Why should I even want to negotiate with people like you?” Yael placed herself between Gardner and QS, slightly maneuvering QS to the other side of her, to the wall furthest from Gardner. QS nodded in thanks. ‘That’s… why, Gardner?’ Yael thought. ‘This has to be the right place for me. Heliotrope has to be right. But why does this… why do I keep feeling like it can’t be? This should be everything I want. A commanding officer that agrees with me. My favorite squadmates at my side. But why does this feel wrong?’ “Northwoods said it herself,” Chalcedony said, speaking for the first time in awhile. “We all have a common enemy, right? There’s no reason to fight. A friend of mine once said that the only way people can live in peace is if they’re prepared to forgive.” “Oh, I wouldn’t quite be sure of that,” Lovikov said. “There’s plenty of reason to fight.” “And if you are talking about who I think you are,” Gardner added, “he’s just a bleeding heart idiot anyway. Having twice as much heart, allegedly, as us common mortals, will do that to a man, you know.” ‘This is the right thing to do,’ Yael thought, looking down to QS, who wore a similarly doubtful and worried expression. ‘It has to be, right? We’re here to maintain order. To stop these... fanatics, from murdering countless people. That has to be right. She sighed. ‘I’m looking for ways to sleep at night and I know it.’ December 24, 2022 Dancing Day “Of all the people Doctor Bowman hates in the PHL/UN Taskforce, that guy makes the most sense,” Kraber says in the here and now. “Even if he had the whole ‘good intentions’ thing to hide behind… he basically carpet-bombed any high ground he could have ever had.” “Wish we really had had him there,” Yael says, sighing. “If nothing else, it would have been really funny,” Kraber says, nodding sagely. “I mean, it was when the Doc finally did let loose. And Lovikov was there. Full-on ‘annoyed spaced-out clever British person’ ranting at both those douchenozzles at once? Fokkin’ priceless.” “He really missed watching that time in Montreal though,” Vinyl adds. “You know, when Yael broke–” “Really?” Heliotrope asks. “Next time I see him I’ll have to show him the video I made. It’s a Sparta remix!” “I still have one of the teeth,” Kraber said, fondly. “One of em ended up in my pocket, and I never remembered to get rid of it. July 25, 2002 Kraber ‘Anyone plans on fucking with us, you kill em then and there.’ The words rang in his ears as he made his way down the corridors of the rig. It felt like it shouldn’t have, couldn’t have possibly been this big… but, well, there it was. ‘That should be fun,’ something inside Kraber thought. Except it felt as alien, as not-him as Victory did. “Do you even believe that?” the Newfoal asked. “Of course I fokking do!” Kraber hissed, all pretense of sanity and normality gone as he argued with the… what was it? A ghost? A representation of his own guilt? Ah, it didn’t matter. What it was, he decided, was annoying. “No,” it said, “I’m right. And even so, I’m only annoying because you don’t fokking listen!” it mocked him, using his own voice. “Tremble as your psyche unwinds, praise her in your madness. As your children so sublime, you will know but gladness!” “Get… out… of… my… fokking. HEAD!” Kraber yelled. “Ooh, that’s a bad habit you’re getting into,” the Newfoal taunted him. He strode down the corridors, shotgun held at the hip, ready to fire, searching for more ponies to kill. He kicked open doors, peered inside, prepped to throw grenades. He poked his head out from behind corners, scouring for anything that moved. And he searched every door, every alcove in the rig’s accommodation block. He’d seen a movie where children and others would hide, and soldiers would come to smoke them out. Couldn’t remember the movie’s title – it was in black and white, so it must have been an old one. He threw open cupboards, taking spare change and finding food. He threw open doors. He opened the doors to closets, kicked open crawlspaces, opened up whatever holes he could find. ‘What is this,’ Kraber thought, as he threw open a cupboard door, walking through the… kitchen? Was it a kitchen or galley on a rig? He could never remember. “Eish,” he said to himself as he peered in. “It’s not like anyone but a child would fit in he–” ‘Great, more killing children, nearly destroying mothers, killing innocent humans who just signed up with the PHL– Whoa, where did that last thought come from? ‘–and being the pet psycho of a bunch of fanatics that live in the fokkin’ woods playing treehouse,’ Kraber thought. ‘I CAN’T FOKKIN’ DO THIS ANYMORE!’ And it was at that moment that Viktor remembered the name of the movie this reminded him of... Schindler’s List And here he was, cast in the role of… No, he couldn’t be, he was Jewish, he went to synagogue when he could. Oh, God, no. The world dropped out beneath his feet, and one leg simply gave out under him. ‘It’s more of the mind spell,’ Kraber thought, uneasily. ‘Has to be.’ But none of the hallucinations answered. Somehow, that wasn’t a good sign. Kraber’s eyes darted over the room’s doors and exits, looking for one he could escape through without arousing suspicion. ‘It’s. Just. The. Mind. Spell,’ Kraber thought. ‘Come on, what would Kate–’ It could’ve been the mind spell, or the hallucination, or both if they were one of the same. But he heard it clear as day. ‘Oh, what is this white-person-in-a-horror-movie bullshit,’ Kate would sigh. Yeah, that was exactly what she’d say. Always finding a joke. Always finding some way to think that maybe, just maybe there weren’t so many reasons for him to be angry. Well, that clinched it. As he walked through the corridor, he thought back to the foal he’d shot in Maine, and the way he’d almost certainly done that again today, and how he didn’t want to think on what fate he’d brought to their mothers up on deck. To their fathers… The terrible feeling as countless fathers entered their homes and saw the slaughter, searching in terror through an eerily silent house, falling to their knees as they smelled the psychopathic purple liquid and cried, NO NO NO NO NO for hours as they realized how much they’d been destroyed, the glee on their faces, the utter hate overcoming them as they took the knife to their torturer, hour after hour until morning turned into night and had it been fifteen hours already, they’d ask as they looked down at their victim, disemboweled and painting the room with their own blood, viscera and fluids and oh FOK oh fok oh no no NO NO NO NO he couldn’t be he was HLF he was a heroic partisan striking against a corrupt he was destroying families no no no he killed children dammit No he could have just as easily been them he might have been broken but he’d broken so many more He was the PER. Alright, no. He was just as hateful as them. Still, they were monsters– But did that justify what he’d done? It... it didn’t. Kraber turned away, hoping they wouldn't see him shaking like a leaf, or the tears welling up in his eyes. Ah, fok! FOK! FOK! F– Shit. He’d really beaten any meaning out of that word, hadn’t he? He slumped down, sliding against the wall. He was idly aware that something had rubbed off on his back, maybe the blood. What was he to do?! “Hey? Annoying hallucinatory kontgesigs!” Kraber said. “Where the hell are you when I need you?” There was no answer. “We can’t do anything here. We’re just figments of your imagination,” said Anka. Or rather, an earthpony with what Kraber was acutely aware to be Anka’s voice. “It’s up to you.” “But…” Kraber sighed, and slumped even further against the wall. “I’ve got kak. I have no idea what the fok I’m doing, I’ve got nowhere to run…” “We don’t come up with ideas, Daddy. It’s only you.” And for a moment, sitting next to the bodies of humans and ponies alike, Kraber felt… almost calm. “If the PHL, no, when the PHL get here, because Lovikov is sure doing his damnedest to piss them off,” Kraber heard himself say, “I’m fokked. Pure and simple. If Lovikov finds me here, I’m probably also fokked. I’m not convinced he doesn’t want to throw me under the bus.” ‘... Something else doesn’t feel right,’ Kraber thought. He didn’t know what. But there was a feeling of… presence. Of something else, some other thing that could go wrong. Whenever he tried to guess what it was, it… slipped through his hands. Like he was remembering a page of a book, but whenever he tried to focus on the words, his mind went blank. “And I know Yael’s with her. And so’s that… that blond fokkin mal varknaaier Gardner,” Kraber continued. “Whatever else could go wrong, I know they want my head.” And right then, Heliotrope bursts into the room – or was she there the whole time – and guns him down with those silenced SMGS of hers. Except that didn’t happen. ‘But it will if I stay here. I am not getting off this thing alive,’ Kraber thought. ‘And Lovikov’s … either he’s looking for an excuse, or I just want to be away from him as soon as I can. Both work. So I need a...’ He thought back to the PHL man that’d attacked him. ‘That could work…’ * * * Heliotrope From what she could hear of the negotiations… Well, they sounded less like negotiations and more like a screaming match. And Kraber was… Well, that was the thing. Her goggles, packed with functions as they were, couldn’t see through walls. Not yet, anyway. As far as she could tell, he was somewhere in the bowels of the rig. Whatever he was doing, it was hard to say. She flew towards… towards some high point of what looked like a fishing boat, and decided to listen in on the news. All the while staring off at the rig. Portland was in chaos, going by what she saw on social media, and heard on the radio. “... evacuate immediately,” went one video she saw on Facebook, live footage of a news story. “This is a crisis…” And in a video from Twitter: “My name is Rolling Storm,–” a hippogriff, female, hiding in a basement. Next to a dark-skinned bald man that looked a bit like Lorne, but shorter. “We’d leave, but… we can’t. There’s HLF in our neighborhood. My daughter, Sunset Horizon, is on the rig with her father. I hope she’s… I hope she’s going to be okay...” “There’s a man outside!” the bald man hissed. He was clutching a cheap pump-action shotgun. A Facebook post which said ‘Got out just in time - I’m hunkering down with my relatives over in Steep Falls.’ A Facebook video of a blockade on the highway. Live video from a train stopped in a station by HLF with guns and crude, homemade rocket launchers. And, mystifyingly, Twitter video of someone breaking in to the ruins of Portland’s old, never-finished Conversion Bureau. But that last part couldn’t be important. A Twitter post reading ‘HLF aren’t guarding Allen Ave, I got through that way.’ A reply to that same post reading ‘I took Auburn.’ But that wasn’t the worst of it. A photo of a pony cowering before a mob of HLF with various guns. And, as a counterpoint, a red-orange pegasus mare standing in front of a woman in a wheelchair, guarded by a man with a cheap Glock. A sky-blue unicorn pony with a slicked-back gray mane hiding on a rooftop, captured from behind on cell phone video from a friend. In the streets below, there was a group of pro-HLF protesters standing in front of snipers and improvised barricades, on trucks with machineguns and even a missile pod or two bolted to the roofs blocking roads, carrying signs reading ‘Let The Real Hero Out.’ ‘Holy Harmony,’ Heliotrope thought, ‘It’s a madhouse out there!’ At the other end of the street, the camera swung around to reveal police with not-quite nonlethal weapons, riot shields, tasers, shotguns wrapped with blue tape, a few AR-15s. Civilians caught between them in their cars, ready to flee. Some more successful than others, with one HLF woman standing on the hood of a pickup truck, FAL pointed down at the driver… who coincidentally had a yellow mare – it was hard to tell if they were a pegasus, earthpony, or unicorn – in the passenger seat. ‘He’s done more than any of you!’ read another sign. “He fought for us first!” someone yelled. On and on. More and more protest signs. ‘Almost as if they planned this…’ Heliotrope mused. ‘Dear Luna, please don’t let this go pear-shaped…’ She tapped the slider on the video with a stylus in a bracelet around her fetlock, and watched again. ‘Nobody wants to shoot anyone,’ she realized. ‘The police could have, but they won’t. The HLF would like to, but they won’t.’ It was weird. Despite how much she’d been told back before she deserted Captain Cactus’ division that humans loved war, and how very believable that was, they were weirdly squeamish about the real thing. ‘Maybe that’s a good thing,’ she thought. ‘I really hope this can last…’ * * * Yael “I think you’ll find more support than you assume,” Lovikov said. “Look at some of the social media from the city.” He paused. “I almost wish Kraber stayed in here,” he added. “He would’ve had something really funny to say about it. Probably would’ve referenced Metal Gear.” (“For what it’s worth,” Kraber says, in December, “I would’ve said ‘Checked the internet lately?’ or–” And he drops the volume of his voice to a whispery rasp: “ The memes…” “Wow,” says one human man named Jack – who has a faux-hawk, a red tank top, and aviators. He has found a comfy armchair in the room, one that Kraber clearly wishes he had snapped up earlier. “That was a dead-on Quinton Flynn imitation.” “Thanks, Jack!” Kraber says. “I worked very hard at it.” “He really did,” Aegis adds. “In the shower. For fifteen minutes straight. And he took my fur shampoo, too!” “It was an accident!” Kraber protests. “Hey,” Dancing Day asks. “Why does Aegis know that he-” “Reasons,” Aegis says, maintaining a perfect poker face.) ‘What is wrong with this man,’ Yael thought. For a second, she didn’t know if she was thinking so about Gardner or Lovikov. She eventually decided on the latter. Though she did take a look at social media, at news. At some of the same things Heliotrope did. But, unbeknownst to Yael, it'd gotten worse since Heliotrope had checked. Not by much, seeing as that had only been a few minutes ago. I never would've dreamed there were this many HLF supporters out there in Portland, she thought. And, as she stared at video of a blocked highway, HLF trucks armed with machineguns blocking one end, staring down a massive traffic jam that looked to be backed up for miles, she had one single thought: Someone's going to die by the end of the night. “What,” Quiette Shy said. Yael could see some hint of emotion behind her not-quite-opaque goggles. She guessed it was fear, or surprise. “It’s A Madhouse Out There.” “As you can see,” Lovikov says. “The city supports me.” ‘I’m not so sure all of it does,’ Yael thought, watching the video of the HLF protesters in front of allied snipers, and police. She really, really wanted to come to the same conclusion that Heliotrope had. She even came close, thinking something like ‘Good thing they don’t want to fight.’ Part of her imagined the struggle winding down by morning. Part of her imagined the emotional energy of this barely-restrained chaos bleeding off. There was only so much energy you could put in at times like this. But… ‘Even if they don’t want to,’ Yael thought, ‘All that these people don’t want to fight won’t mean anything if one of these people goes over the edge.’ Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn’t. But Yael couldn’t see the night ending without bloodshed. “They want me to succeed,” Lovikov continued. “If you give us what we want, it’s o-” Anger surged in Yael. “YOU MANIAC!” she yelled. “... Excuse me?” Lovikov asked. “What?” Verity added. “Yeah,” Northwoods said. “They’ve been–” “Lovikov, you haven’t created some sort of brilliant no-win situation, you’ve made a powderkeg!” Yael yelled. “Even if you meticulously arranged this little clusterfuck, what happens if it all topples down and there you are, standing at ground zero?!” * * * Kraber Moving as if in a trance, Kraber began to strip the corpse of its armor and forced it onto himself. New armor in digital urban gray camo, nearly pristine and filled with numerous of items for him to use. There was even a belt of grenades on the armor, with a note shoved in next to a black, hexagon-shaped grenade: Imbeault: I don’t understand why you feel like you needed these. You’re guarding a rig, not PHL R&D or Commandant Cherry’s office, but apparently, the public responds well to us looking like hardy Space Marines. I was told to make grenades to look futuristic and barely better than average, but I made a few with some Japanese research just for a laugh. They will work, but they probably aren’t meant to be used in close combat on the rig. Only use the black one in the event of an emergency. Sincerely, Rebecca Presley. “Fok, this thing is laanie,” Kraber murmured to himself as put on the armor. It felt almost like a well-tailored suit. He just finished putting on the last of it on when he felt it warm up to keep out the cold sea air. Give him long enough, and he might not even notice wearing it. It included a mask. A Crowe Laboratories Eel-type to be exact, with seven micro-cameras in place of a visor. A good gas mask... uncomfortable as hell, but worth it. Plus, it’d look funny when he stared at people while wearing one. They’d be unnerved, they wouldn’t be sure where to look... He knew what to do now. Most of all, he had to do it fast, before he could tell himself not to, or realize just how stupid it all was. If this could get him killed, second-guessing absolutely would. “There are no bad choices,” Kraber remembered his dad saying back on the beach. “There’s only what you do with a choice.” It had sounded profound to Kraber. Then again, his dad had been drunk at the time. With the gas mask secured, he put on the helmet on over it, making sure to line up the seals and latches that mated the two together. ‘First order of business, get off the rig. Best idea would be get to one of the nearby boats, blend in, say nothing…’ Flipping open a service hatch in the floor, he climbed down into a reeking, steaming vertical space, a series of descending catwalks threaded with creaking staircases, strung with hissing pipes and humming conduits. And then he heard it. Down, almost at the bottom, low, just above sea level. He rushed down the stairs, quiet as he could, and found his shotgun’s barrel pointed at the face of a redheaded child, her hair curly, smeared with unidentifiable muck. ‘Oh, balls.’ She pointed a cheap 9mm back at Kraber. Several other children were present as well, huddled together atop a rust-stained ballast tank: a girl that might have been the first kid’s sister, a youngish teenager in a jacket and ill-fitting kevlar, holding a 10mm. They were guarding ponies. Mostly colts and fillies, sporting every color of the rainbow beyond the dull tones seen on Earth-born equines. ‘Well Vicky, hear they are. The Enemy! Aren’t they evil! Look at them, breathing like that! Where do they get off, huh? BREATHING?!’ Except, these didn’t look like the destroyers of the world. Nor did they look like they were anyone’s salvation, or what have you. They didn’t look like they were ready to ponify anyone. They didn’t look like they had no regard for human life – well, though little love for him burned in their eyes, and Kraber found he could understood that sentiment. They didn’t… His finger closed around the trigger and abruptly stopped. His will failed him. They just looked like scared children that had given up on everything. Not fillies. Not colts. Children. Their eyes were full of an innocence betrayed, one that transcended species. Even if… even if they were the same as those kontgesigs that had destroyed his home and murdered billions, he didn’t have it in him. The little girl with the 9mm shook. Her gun trembled. “Becky, put it down!” hissed a blue pegasus colt with gray eyes. “He’s PHL, look at the armor!” ‘What?!’ Kraber thought. ‘That makes no fokdamn sense, I–’ “Ja, I’m PHL,” he said. ‘That makes perfect sense. It’s the best way to get off this madhouse. Before…. Before whatever it is I’m afraid of happens.’ “I’m new here. Those bastards shot Imbeault, so I took his armor. No idea how to work any of it, but… shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.” The little girl, whom Kraber assumed was Becky, lowered her 9mm, and Kraber caught a good look at them. The blue-gray colt, Becky, a little dark-skinned boy with a buzzcut. A pale white boy with chestnut-colored hair, buzzed into a mohawk to look almost like a pony’s mane. A yellow earthstallion with an orange mane, who could’ve been either someone’s big brother or father. The oldest of all of them. a… well, what was that? A pegasus? It was definitely colored like an Equestrian in unnaturally bright cherry-red and pink. Except it had talons, not hooves, and a beak instead of a horse’s snout. Its wings were much bigger, too. It definitely wasn’t a griffon, there was a light-purplish griffon standing next to her, and it was definitely not whatever that last thing was. He could see more hiding behind girders, behind strange little protrusions on the underside of the Sorghum. “The, ah… the peg–” Kraber caught himself before saying ‘Peggie,’ which probably would’ve given him away. “The pegasus is right. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you get off before the rest of the PHL start shooting.” “But… what if the bad men see us?” asked a green earthcolt. “And the PHL won’t shoot us!” the not-quite-pegasus, not-quite-griffon said. “They… they don’t, they wouldn’t. We’re foals!” ‘She believes this kak!’ Kraber thought, surprised. Which was strange to him, seeing as – going by what he remembered from the past few months since Algernon Spader’s death, movie by reknowned pony director Reel Action coming soon – nobody had given him or the HLF nearly that same level of faith. ‘Not like I’ve given em much fokkin evidence to what with shooting a family, and oh God, oh Fok, I’m a BAD PERSON–’. “Mister?” asked a small foal wearing a grey hoodie. “Are you okay?” “No,” Kraber said. “I haven’t been for years. Now, anyone know a boat? I know which one the HLF took, and it’ll be too big a target.” “There’s dad’s Coffin Ship,” says a light brown girl with a head scarf. “The… the Bin Pişman. It’s the one on two oil tanks. The one with the red paint, covered with eye symbols.” “A thousand regrets, huh?” Kraber asked. “I can relate to that. Aweh, “Isn’t that also going to be a target?” “It’s not the one that caused the attack,” the girl said. Kraber shrugged. “Doğru kabuledilebilir.” “...How do you speak Turkish, anyway?” the not-quite-a-pegasus-or-griffin asked. “You don’t sound Turkish.” Kraber shrugged. “A man needs a hobby.” December 24, 2022 Dancing Day “Wait,” says Vinyl Scratch, “So you just left their escape tug there?!” “It made sense at the time!” Kraber protests. “Anyone on the rig would be able to recognize it was the boat that was responsible for all this, and I prefer not getting shot at by HLF and PHL at once.” “Why would you assume Lovikov would shoot it?” asks a green unicorn. They’re new, they’ve just come in to hear the story. “Why wouldn’t he?” Heliotrope asks. Kraber nods, a knowing grin on his face. “Heliotrope, she gets it.” “Also, when did Verity get back there?!” you ask. “You can’t just have characters teleport for no reason!” “I walked back when we’d secured the rig,” Verity sighed, rolling her huge eyes. “The idiot over there just forgot to mention it.” “Hey, fok you! I was having a fokking mental breakdown!” Kraber yells. “... And probably withdrawal symptoms, too.” “Wait, withdrawal from-–” Astral Nectar starts. “ANYWAY! Escape,” Kraber says. “I found a little spot where one houseboat was just a little too close to the pillars…” July 25, 2022 Kraber “Have you seen my Heliotrope?” Kraber asked, tapping Redd on the shoulder. “What?!” Redd gasped. “She’s here?! Where is sh-–” Kraber drove his fist into Redd’s face, feeling something not so much crack as give, like pressing a thumb against an apple that’d been left in a fridge. Then, well, of course there was a crack. ‘Damn,’ Kraber thought, ‘That would’ve been a great time for a pun.’ Redd sprawled against the deck of the boat bonelessly. ‘Huh. I may have just given him brain damage,’ Kraber thought. He dragged the Thenardier Guard into a nearby alcove, and hid in a corner. ‘Aweh, now how do I distract–’ Wait. Kraber thought for a second about just where he was. ‘So I’m going to be evacuating them from a rig that’s under guard. In plain view of an armed rig. And several armed boats.’ A pause. ‘What was my plan again? The kids will probably be fine, even if–’ Everything went white, and time seemed to stop. In the future, Kraber will claim that he must have thought, ‘Okay, if I didn’t have a plan then, I sure need one now’. But if that’s true he must have thought of that within the space of a second, or barely even used words. There came an explosion that vibrated every single bone and muscle in his body. ‘Well, fok. Lovikov, you fokdamned kakhuiskriek, you DIDN’T–’ Heliotrope “Except,” Heliotrope will say, months later in December of 2022, “Lovikov totally did.” She tumbled backward through the air, thrown back by the shockwave. For a moment, she hung in midair, open-mouthed, hooves hanging lank, ears pulled back against her head in fear. “Oh, SHIT!” she yelled. “Leonid Lovikov,” Heliotrope heard Northwoods breathing. “What have you done.” Heliotrope stared at the muzzle flash of the cannon, mentally plotting its trajectory as the shell arced towards the city nearby. “Well, shit,” she said. “Yael! Lovikov just-–” * * * Yael “I told you,” Lovikov said, with an unsettling certainty. “I. Told. You. That. I. Would. Do. It.” “You bastard!” Gardner yelled. Through one of Samson’s windows, Yael saw a plume of fire from Portland. Quiette Shy stared through it, open-mouthed – or Yael assumed she was open-mouthed – under the bandanna covering her snout. ‘I fucking knew it,’ she thought, surprising herself with her own calm. “No,” Quiette Shy said, this time using the automatic voice. The faux-upbeat tone of the voice had never seemed quite as out-of-place as it did then. “Oh No.” “I saw,” Yael said. “He fired!” Heliotrope yelled. “He shot at a fucking city!” ‘I… didn’t want to think he’d do it,’ Yael thought. ‘But… I  knew this would all go wrong. God dammit. Why do I have to keep being right about this?!’ In the background, she could hear Lovikov. “You acquiesce to my demands, and there’s no reason for this to get any more out of hand!” She stared at the screen. There was one woman (who Yael would later learn was named Mariesa) one with a large mop of decidedly nonregulation curly hair, who had a look of unmistakable horror on her face. Another one, a black man that Yael vaguely recalled as Hakim Jones, looked utterly aghast. But the two were definitely in the minority. Should’ve guessed you’d do it, Yael thought distantly. Why, what’d you expect? Some of Lovikov’s soldiers were cheering. Laughing. Mocking. Some, like Sullivan - the giant man that’d been restraining Kraber - were stonefaced. Unreadable. Verity didn't seem to care at all what she'd helped to do, looking almost satisfied. One of them, an HLF man standing by Lovikov, had a huge smile on his face. Like a kid in a candy store. But it paled in the shadow of Lovikov's expression - a ghoulish, self-satisfied grimace of victory. One that chilled Yael to the bone. "Obey our demands," Lovikov said, quietly, "And nobody else deserves to die. How many else will you let me kill to make a point?" They don't care, Yael thought dully. Bastards... they don't care at all?! “It Already Is Out Of Hoof,” Quiette Shy said. Somehow, the electronic voicebox sounded weary. “You Were Right, Yael. It Is A Powderkeg.” “One hundred and ten percent,” Gardner said, nodding. Then, pressing on a button that engaged a mute symbol on the screen, he turned to Yael: “I’ve requested permission to attack. It’s almost certain that they’ll give it to m-” There was a buzz from Gardner’s earpiece. He nodded. “Ready to fuck some shit up?” “Absolutely,” Yael said, her voice steely. “This is what I came here to do.” ‘I stayed in America to stop HLF from doing anything like this ever again. Gardner’s going to let me do what I’ve wanted since the beginning of the war. Heliotrope was right, we were lu–’ “That’s what I like to hear,” Gardner said, grinning. And for a second, Yael’s resolve faltered ever so slightly. ‘You were looking forward to this, weren’t you?’ she wondered. ’No. Nobody would… what kind of man would look forward to hostage negotiations failing? He can’t possibly... But as she said to herself earlier: ‘Why do I keep being right about these things?’ Which meant that maybe, just maybe, she was right. But she brushed that off. It was time to get to work. ‘I can’t second-guess myself,’ she thought. ‘Not when lives are on the line.’ Time to save Portland.