//------------------------------//
// 9 -- Patient zero 
// Story: A Method to his Madness 
// by Luna-tic Scientist 
//------------------------------//

Doctor Glass was one of the few ponies still awake when they brought Equilibrium back. He'd been spending the time in an almost meditative state, compulsively preening what was left of his wing feathers, his subconscious mind trying to arrange the remaining secondaries into a workable flight surface. He knew it was futile, of course, but let his body follow its instincts; in some ways it was more restful than sleep.

With the normal lack of ceremony the door was slammed open, causing all the ponies to snap to wakefulness, then Equilibrium was thrust back inside. Lost in the deeply satisfying state, Glass' head had been buried muzzle deep in his secondary coverts near where the wing joined the torso, and didn't even have his eyes open when the light flooded in. Eyes still closed he twisted his ears backwards, following the sound of hooves and claws on wood, but still preening like he hadn't noticed anything.

There was no talking, just a watchful silence from the ponies and a similar lack of communication from whichever gryphons were outside. A few seconds later the cell door boomed again and the light filtering through the combined shields of his eyelids and wing feathers vanished. Lowering his wing he spat out an errant feather and stared at the silent unicorn, standing head bowed by the door.

There were no obvious signs of trauma, but there was something about Equilibrium that seemed... broken. The other ponies could sense it too, making them shy and edge away. For an instant, Glass was outraged at the behaviour of ponies that had once stood up for the mare, but then analysed his own emotions. There was something there, a desire to look away, to crawl away on his belly and put some extra distance between the two of them.

What the hay? he thought, then mastered his feelings and walked over to her. "Libi," he said gently, "what did they do to you?"

She glanced at him sullenly, then returned her gaze to the floor. "Nothing that you could help with, featherbrain," she said bitterly. "What makes a pegasus become a doctor, anyway? How do you expect to help anypony with only your stupid hooves is beyond me."

Glass recoiled, stung by the venom in Equilibrium's voice. It was a school-yard insult and really should have passed over him like a patch of cloud. He'd heard far worse before, mainly from patients in distress, but somehow this comment struck home. She's right, I am useless, he thought, then caught himself. Nonsense! How many ponies have you saved-- he started, but the thought was interrupted by that same element of doubt. But you can't save these ones, can you featherbrain? He stared at her open mouthed, unable to formulate a coherent reply.

"Thought not. Now why don't you go back to feeling yourself up, or whatever it was you were doing, and leave me alone!" As she spoke her voice grew louder, ending up in a shriek.

"S-sorry," he mumbled, clumsily backing away, only to bump into another pony.

"Why don't you watch where you’re going, idiot?" the pony snarled.

Glass recoiled and fled to the corner of the room, pressing himself into it as if it could swallow him up. Almost numb with feelings of self-doubt, he nevertheless watched the herd with the mind of a trained psychologist, watched as the once unified and supportive little herd become hostile and argumentative. Equilibrium was the worst; now he was attuned to it he could feel the anger and despair radiate from her like the heat from a fire.

It almost makes sense... there is a pattern here, he thought. The ponies nearest to Libi became hostile first, then passed it onto their neighbours until the whole room was affected. It's like she's carrying a diseas-- Then his thoughts broke off, overwhelmed by a wave of futility and self-doubt. Oh, so now you're an expert shrink, are you? Just how much psychology training did you have; three months wasn't it? his internal voice jeered.

===

"Celestia really dealt you the losing hand, didn't she? Can't fly, no magic, just a vague 'connection to the land,' " Equilibrium sneered at Rheostat when the earth pony had stared a little too long at her.

Rheo looked affronted and stepped closer to push his muzzle up against Libi's. "How's your magic working for you these days? I can't even call you a bonehead now!" he spat.

Libi smiled evilly back. "In six months I'll be fine, colt. You'll still be a useless mud pony. Tell me -- what do door knobs taste like?"

Rheostat's eyes widened and he hissed in rage, jumping forward to shoulder barge Libi and knock her back against the wall. In doing so he kicked the foreleg of a pegasus stallion who'd been watching the argument, making him yelp in pain, then flick open one wing and catch Rheo on the back of the head.

"Watch it, mud pony," he snapped.

This diverted Rheostat from Libi and onto the pegasus, resulting in a general shoving match that rapidly spread through the ponies who weren't -- like Doctor Glass -- cowering against the stone walls.

Libi watched the developing brawl with interest, smiling when a particularly sneaky blow was landed. It was all so clear now. I've been played for a fool for far too long, she thought darkly, well no more. That bastard Neighmann, leaving me with his spawn then shacking up with his assistant. I'll make him suffer if I ever get back to Equestria. Then there was the Fancypants corporation, sending her out to this primitive hell-hole and abandoning her amid these disgusting carnivores. I wonder if any of the Zebra states need any inside information on their latest projects?

She was still musing over her plans for revenge when a painfully loud alarm rang and the cell door flew open, gryphon guards pouring in to break up the fight with characteristic efficiency. When it was all over, a sullen silence settled over the herd, every pony keeping as much distance from their neighbour as possible and nursing their wounds.

They came for Equilibrium two hours later; this time nopony stood up for her.

Kicking and screaming, cursing them all for cowards, she struggled and tried to bite her captors until they slapped her into passivity. When she was quiet they put the hood back on her and dragged her from the cell.

Ears still ringing from the slaps, she was half dragged, half marched back through the populated areas of the prison, past the concentration of gryphon prisoners and out onto the cold, windy landing platform. Here she was pushed up a disturbingly flexible walkway and into a space that thrummed to the discordant howl of turbines. Talons shoved her against the wall and roughly tightened another set of restraints, pulling her against the cold surface. There was the sound of a door sliding shut and the mechanical howl died to a low grumble, the air suddenly becoming still as the outside world was cut off.

"If you'll behave I'll take the hood off," Reaper Of The Weak said.

"I'll be good," Libi said sweetly, then scowled as the restraint was pulled away. "Now let me off this primitive death trap," she said, glancing around the spartan interior of the aircraft with disdain. She flinched when a set of talons struck the metal wall just in front of her muzzle with enough force to make the whole panel vibrate, then glared back at the gryphon. "You don't scare me, you obviously want me alive."

Reaper leaned back on his haunches, beak opening and closing in shock, then chuckled weakly. "I would never have believed it," he said. "The change is so profound I almost thought the guards brought me the wrong pony."

"What are you talking about, you stupid barbarian? You're just like a pegasus, the only way you lot could possibly fly is if your brains are half the normal size. Why are you here anyway, too lazy to fly yourself?" Libi said this spitefully, knowing it was one of the worst insults possible for a gryphon. At least that idiot Stoops was good for something, she thought. I wonder if they know she lied for me on that first day? She filed that thought away, just in case she needed it later.

The gryphon frowned at that. "That hood comes with a gag, you know. I can spend the rest of the flight in silence with or without your cooperation."

Libi gritted her teeth, but kept quiet. Outside the howl of engines rose in both volume and pitch, the little patch of ground visible through the porthole dropping away to show a brief view of mountains, then only blue sky and clouds.

===

Echelon was in the shower when his 'scramble' alarm sounded. Cursing, he stuck his muzzle under the stream of warm water to wash the soap out of his eyes, then kicked the spray off and jumped out of the cubicle. Heart racing, he swept the warbling machine up from where he'd dropped it, then snapped the strap around one fetlock, pausing only to acknowledge the alarm. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the back of the door -- little clusters of soap bubbles still clinging to his indigo mane, lighter blue fur looking matted and still dripping wet like the rest of him -- Echelon grimaced and yanked it open to leap into the corridor beyond. 

Leaving a damp patch on an ensign unlucky enough to be trotting past at that instant, he apologized quickly and dashed down the corridor. "Pilot coming through!" he shouted, scattering the ponies in his way, then flared his waterlogged wings and fanned them rapidly. The resultant spray of soapy water raised howls of complaint that only got louder when he lost enough water to get airborne, leaving a trail of fat drops as he zipped along the upper level of the corridor, just above the heads of frantically ducking unicorns and earth ponies.

Within sixty seconds he'd reached the hangar deck, swerving around a slow-moving loading crane as he took a shortcut through the 'no fly' section of the crowded space. The Friendship Express' number two hangar was a cavernous volume, or at least it would have been had it not been full of Loup-Garou deep strike fighters.

The needle shapes, with their variable geometry wings and a set of spellcraft levitators capable of an enormous payload, were part of Equestria's limited rapid response arsenal. Levitators would only neutralise weight, of course, forward thrust was provided by a pair of borane-fuelled multimode engines that were good all the way up to Mach 3.8. At the moment those wings were folded like those of any pegasus, wing roots clamped to the launch cradle that held the ready flight.

Barrel-rolling to shed the last of the moisture from his shower, Echelon dived towards the open cockpit of his bird, Red One. Hovering for a second he dropped his hooves into the captive shoes on either side of the pilot's stall, pushing downwards until he could settle into a comfortable prone position on the padding, neck in the angled groove made for it.

"Ya made it then?" came a voice from behind him.

"Eventually, Willow," Echelon replied. "Why are we on call, I distinctly remember being told that Green One and Two were the ready flight?"

"Green Two suffered a thaumic quench of its port side levitator. As it wasn't a super priority launch they pulled both Greens and put the Reds up instead."

Echelon turned in the limited space and scowled at what little of his unicorn weapon's officer he could see. With her head and its all important horn buried in the padded slot in her console, all that was visible of the lightly-built mare was her pale green mane -- this tied into neat plaits -- and a strip of dark green back fur. "And how did you manage to get here so early?" 

In the corner of one eye he caught sight of the crew of Red Two, Chicory and Anabatic. The pair -- he'd flown with them for years -- were leaning on the edge of their cockpit, watching him with poorly suppressed grins. The pegasus mare, Anabatic, gave him a little wave. He smiled back and flicked a wing in greeting. They're all in on it. You'll get yours, Anabatic.

"Sorry, Lonnie, you didn't answer your comms, so I told them to trip your alarm. Didn't you read the message?" she asked innocently.

Echelon ground his teeth, then grinned. "I will have my revenge, just you wait." Turning to his own instruments he settled back down into the shaped padding, opening his wings and pushing the bony joints into the padded clamps on either side. Stretching them carefully, he felt the paired armatures flex and twist with his movements, the metal bars sitting comfortably against his leading edge. Leaning forward he slid his muzzle into the control slot, wriggling slightly to get his eyes lined up with the display panels.

The world around him bloomed in full colour, like the Loup-Garou had disappeared and it was he himself sitting on the launch cradle. Echelon folded his wings then tripped the release toggle with his teeth, gently moving each wing joint in turn through a small fraction of its range of motion. Outside, on a much larger scale, the metal and composite wings of the fighter mirrored his movements, the ponderous motion fed back seamlessly through the armature.

"Control, Red One. Preflight A-OK," Echelon whispered into the microphone by his jaw, then wriggled his back and neck to try and get his damp mane to settle somewhere a little less itchy. "Willow, can you give me a little help here? I didn't have a chance to tie back my mane."

"Sure thing... now don't move, I need to test the kinetics."

Echelon's eyes widened and he froze as he realised what his copilot was saying. Willow was hooked directly into the spellcraft transducer/amplifier rig that laced the belly of the plane, magically coupled to the much larger spellcraft units that jutted like oversized unicorn horns from Red One's wing roots. In this it was much like his own mechanical coupling with the flight systems, such that she couldn't easily disconnect from those systems to use her telekinesis on his mane, so instead she was going to use the weapon system to route her power.

Preflight did call for a test of the magical systems, but this was against an inert target hanging from shock absorbers next to the hangar door, a target built to take the ten-fold enhancement the spellcraft amplifier was able to supply. Holding his breath he felt the static tingle of a telekinetic field caress his back and pull his mane into a crude braid, then the sensation moved lower down to do the same with his tail. His skin twitched at the touch, which seemed far more gentle and sensuous than it should have, given the tremendous forces available to the unicorn. Echelon opened his mouth, but didn't say anything; he really didn't want to distract Willow at this stage. Make her jump and you'll lose every hair from your tail, he thought.

After what seemed like an age she was finished and the tingle subsided. Was that harassment or a come-on? he thought. He always got on well with the mare, but she'd never said or done anything before to arouse his personal interest. Something to think about later, he thought with a twinge of regret, if she's serious it will mean reassignment for one of us. Clearing his throat he spoke out loud. "Um, thanks Willow, that's much better."

"No problem, chief, anytime." she said silkily, then in a more formal tone, "Control, Red One, spellcraft amplifier fully operational."

That was definitely a come on, Echelon thought, grinning. "Shoot me the mission pack, will you?" he said, ears twitching as the opaque canopy closed over them both. There was no need for windows in a modern fighter; the cockpit, such as it was, was buried deep in the centre of the plane and surrounded on each side by engines, levitators and the complex arcane systems of the amplifier rig. His view was purely electronic -- although there was a fibre optic backup in case of a disaster that killed the multiply redundant electronic and spellcraft systems -- and pretty much as good as it got for a pony.

Echelon read through the sketchy mission brief, listening with half an ear to the rattle and clank of the automatic loader delivering the physical weapons. His was a long range, high speed fighter, designed for distant interceptions rather than ground support or slugging it out with one of the flying battleships that seemed popular with the gryphon kingdoms. Not that it had ever come down to a shooting war, of course, Equestrian economic might held the world pretty much in a stranglehold. In physical war everyone would suffer, but it was Equestria's competitors that would come off worse. Highly cooperative and efficient, pony industry supplied large amounts of... everything.

Trade sanctions were a far worse threat than mere force, and to this end Equestria didn't have much of a military. There was just no need.

"Razorclaw Embassy offline yesterday, clairvoyant recon shows fires, blah, blah. Looks like someone wanted a change in government," he muttered to himself. "Oh, here we go. Contact established with airship 'Canterlot Dreaming,' Captain requesting an escort to international airspace." Echelon would have shaken his head in disbelief, but in the confines of the control slot had to settle for rolling his eyes. He dimly recognised the name; they paid pilots pretty well, but there was no way he was going to blow half a year's salary on being carted around like cargo. Who the hell wants to go on a sightseeing cruise over that part of the world, anyway? he thought.

The rest of the briefing held the threat assessment, locations and projected vectors, along with the current map of Razorclaw's air defences. From the look of it the Dreaming was just approaching the southern end of what the locals called the 'Dragonsback' range. He shivered slightly, looking at the local conditions. Those are some nasty looking mountains, he thought.

A thump that made the whole aircraft shiver marked the closing of the missile bay, the last amber light on Echelon’s display turning green as Red One's internal systems completed their self-checks and pronounced them fit to fly. A secondary display announced that Red Two was also ready. Echelon saw the hangar boss wave a hoof at his rear camera, then duck behind the barricade that was tilting up behind the fighter. He hit the starters and listened intently to the engines cough a few times then start with a growl that rapidly rose up through the scale to become a teeth-aching whine, before fading into the ultrasonic. All good.

"Red flight this is Control. Launch in ten seconds."

"Roger that," Echelon replied, tripping the restraints into their launch mode and tensing as his gimballed cockpit pod rotated to place him muzzle down. This was always the bit he hated, ever since that one time there was a kinetic driver abort and they'd left him nose down for the best part of half an hour. He hadn't dared move until they'd safed the driver; if it had triggered while he was in normal flight position he'd probably have broken something.

There were no problems this time and the driver fired flawlessly. The breath wheezed out of his lungs as Nightmare Moon reached in and pulled Red One out by its needle nose.

===

Up here the sky was the blue-black of the approaches to space; the horizon of the world distinctly curved and lined with a bright blue band. Red One and Red Two flew at just over one kilometre a second, engines cramming the thin, unbreathable air into their variable geometry innards and spitting it back out two thousand degrees hotter and far faster. At this cruising altitude the Loup-Garou had tremendous range; the Friendship Express was already halfway to Razorclaw when the Canterlot Dreaming had radioed for assistance. They would need a refuel within an hour or two of reaching the airship, but that would be handled by a tanker that was paralleling their course, albeit much lower and slower. They would arrive at the airship in a little over fifteen minutes.

Echelon whiled away the time chatting to the crew of Red Two and Willow; he still wore the armature, but it was disconnected from the flight systems and he used the downtime to relax his wings. The mechanical systems were surprisingly comfortable, even supporting the weight of his wings just like aerodynamic forces would have done, but it was nice to be able to move them. Keeping them in the precise orientation for this kind of supersonic transit was far easier for a computer than a pilot of flesh and blood.

"Coming up on descent point," came Willow's laconic reminder. "Wait a minute, that's interesting."

"What?"

"Something is approaching the Dreaming from astern. Not a fighter, radar return matches one of their Shredder-class gunships or something built on a similar airframe." 

"Crap. How do you rate us against a Shredder?"

"You're kidding, right? I suppose we could force it to retreat if we could hit it hard enough on the first pass. Obviously we'd still be dead."

Echelon closed his eyes for a second and sighed. Shredders were one of Razorclaw's mobile gunships, not very fast, but more heavily built than a flyer had any right to be.

"Funny it's not travelling with the usual escort," he said, inspecting the long range optical/radar plot.

"Here we go, they've just seen us."

Little indicator lights blinked red and his radar started to analyse the Shredder's pulse train, looking for patterns and frequencies it could send jamming signals on if it was ordered to. The Loup-Garou was fairly stealthy as fighters went, but nothing could really hide a thousand-kilometre supersonic transit, at least not for the entire flight. If it did come to a fight, Willow could block or damp down the fighter's electromagnetic signature, but the spell was taxing and would only be good for a few passes. And if one of those passes didn’t somehow find a chink in it’s armor, the Shredder's cannon and extensive magazines were more than deep enough to track them down. They were called 'Shredders' for good reason.

"Heh, listen to this..." Willow said, opening the external radio feed.

"-etion Equestrian fighters, do not open fire, repeat do not open fire. We are returning one of your country..." here the voice, speaking only slightly accented Equuish, paused, obviously hunting for the right term "...ponies. Please respond."

"Are you getting this, Control?"

"Roger, stand by."

Echelon rolled his eyes inside the control slot. What exactly is there to talk about? he thought. His flight couldn't hope to down that Shredder without a lot of luck, and the Dreaming was a big, fat target for the gunship's weapons. One more hostage really didn't make much difference when you had your sights on fifteen hundred.

"Close with the Shredder, we're scrambling the rest of Rainbow squadron, ETA one two mike. Keep them occupied, Red flight."

"Roger that."

Twelve minutes. He'd be dead, but if they could play chicken with the monster and distract it from the Dreaming long enough for the rest of the squadron to get in range... and they'd be loaded with hypersonic breachers, unlike the frags he'd been given. Emptying their bays at altitude in a single salvo would get through even a Shredder's point defences. He nodded, or at least tried to in the control slot. It could work.

"Willow, forget the stealth, configure for point defence. We need to hold them off the airship until the squadron can get to launch distance."

"Sure thing, chief, knowing them it's just a ruse to get closer to the airship," she said in clipped tones, then continued in a quiet, sad voice that was probably not intended to be heard. "Who wants to live forever, right?"

Echelon paused for a minute, trying to decide if he should say anything, then shrugged. It's not like I'll have to go through with it, he thought, remembering the caress Willow had given him through the proxy of the spellcraft weapon systems. "How's about you and me catch a movie or something when we get back to base?"

"I'd love that, you featherbrain," the mare said, voice back to its normal bantering tone.

Echelon grinned inside the control slot, then folded his wings into the correct posture for his high speed dive onto the target. A tap of the control key with his tongue and the armature tightened and began to vibrate, the machine gradually handing over full control of the wings to him. After so long being helpless it was a relief to actually be in control of his environment once more; a pegasus just wasn't built to be carried like cargo.

Together with Red Two, he tilted his metal and composite wings and fell towards the gunship.