Chief Firebrace sat cross-legged at his familiar desk. After the invasion, he had been among those to flee to the caves in the surrounding mountains for safety, and had been most glad to return to Canterlot, and to his post.
As a Battalion Chief in the Canterlot Fire Department, Firebrace had been, before the invasion, responsible for fire protection within a geographical area that encompassed half of the royal quarter of the city. A proud organisation, the CFD was established long ago by royal decree, To protecte the ponies, buildings and civic landes of Canterlot from malice of fyre and smokes, according to its own official charter. It had a nominal total of twelve hundred emplyees in peacetime, operating on a two-shift system, day and night, twelve hours apiece. Each quarter of the city was protected by two battalions, each operating several pieces of equipment. That was in peacetime.
The invasion had seen a crippling of the force and its capabilities, with many trained fireponies dead or missing, numerous firehouses destroyed and much of their equipment damaged beyond the point of usefulness. The 1st Battalion, however, in the royal district, was relatively lucky. Their main firehouse had, by some coincidence or miracle, escaped with only minor damage. The enemy had broken in, as they had with almost every building in the district, but had only damaged some of the more ornate fixtures and fittings. They had left the vehicles alone, perhaps not recognising their purpose or perhaps distracted by other things that would prove easier to mindlessly break. Nor had they damaged Firebrace's desk, where he sat smoking his usual pipe.
With much of his workforce presumed or confirmed dead, Firebrace and the units under him were operating with a mixed force, half trained fireponies and half military, soldiers detailed to their unit. A few, very few, had previous experience either in a military fire crew or from previous jobs in other cities, but mostly they were untrained except in the very basics. Restoring the fire service to some semblance of a working order had been a top priority for the princess and the military brass, as the city was vulnerable to fire. Many water mains were damaged, hydrants too. Damage to buildings meant a potential for more rapid spread of any blaze. Military forces, including the Guard, lacked either the training or equipment for firefighting or rescue duties, and it would go a long way, it was hoped, towards improving flagging civilian morale to know that they were protected.
Firebrace puffed on his pipe, as he had done each night watch for the past five years as chief. It was his vice, and despite his wife's insistence and the quiet irony of a firepony lighting a small fire several times per night to keep his own mind at ease, he had no intention of stopping smoking now. A map of the city on the wall of his office showed the scale of the fire department's problems. Red crosses had been drawn through inoperable stations, or those where no equipment remained intact. There were but a hooffful of uncrossed black dots that represented operational firehouses, with only two in his district instead of four. Not an ideal situation, but the department had managed in the past, through strikes, storms and avalanches, and they would continue to manage the best they could.
A sudden shrill bell began ringing downstairs. Firebrace leaped to his hooves, pipe quickly snuffed out and discarded. Unlike larger cities such as Manehattan, Canterlot did not have a modern telegraph-type system linked to a central dispatch office. Instead, each quarter of the city had its own alarm office that would receive alarms from street alarm boxes that could be pulled by passers by if they spotted a fire. Mechanical connections then rang the signal bells in those firehouses that were due to respond. The number of rings donated the number of the pulled box, and thus the location to which the companies were to respond.
Firebrace left his office and slid down the brass pole to the apparatus floor below. Other ponies were already there; those of his department, at least. The untrained soldiers were rather slower to arrive, some forgetting the pole was even there and taking the stairs instead. The bells rang out three times rapidly, then seven times, then a break, then four times, another break, and then once.
'Box seven four one!' the firepony on house watch duty, in charge of the recording of all incoming alarms, shouted. 'Both companies and the Chief. Everypony goes!'
The firehouse held two companies; Engine Company 1 was the oldest established firefighting unit in the city, and consisted of a four-wheeled steam pumper unit, pony-drawn, pulled by three ponies and crewed by a total of seven. One of the crew, the engineer, clambered onto the large apparatus. Using her horn, she ignited a supply of coal beneath the large wrought-iron boiler as the rest of the crew climbed aboard. The soldiers assigned to the unit slipped into the harnesses at the front. They would pull the engine; far better to have the inexperienced ponies pull and get tired out, leaving the professionals fresh to fight the fire.
The other piece of apparatus was the hook and ladder truck. A long vehicle loaded with equipment, primary among which were the selection of ladders that adorned either side. Also pony-drawn, the hook and ladder required another pony in the tiller position to the rear, to counter-steer the back wheels in order to make the tight turned required in Canterlot's old and narrow streets. It had a total crew of seven.
Firebrace, as the Chief, had a choice. He could ride with the pumper, the hook and ladder, or he could gallop ahead of both to arrive first due, getting a good view of the fire before the arriving units, enabling him to direct operations. As the only Chief assigned to the royal quarter, that was what he decided to do.
'Chief goes first!' he called, as the house watch pony opened the doors. The soldiers slipped into the harnesses, the crew were aboard, and Firebrace was gone, hooves clattering on the cobbles. He had no need, as the seconded soldiers did, to consult a map of the city to find out where the alarm box in question was located. He knew his district inside and out, and he had no problem finding his way. Neither would the two units following behind, he noted, because there was a sickly orange glow in the sky, and a notable amount of smoke in the air.
After less than a minute's gallop, and less than two minutes since the alarm was received, Firebrace arrived at the box. In his dark blue uniform and peaked leather helmet, he could not be mistaken for anything other than a fire chief, and a Guardspony rushed up to him.
'There's a fire in the alley at the back!' he informed the Chief. 'It's really going!'
Firebrace trotted around to check out the situation. Sure enough, a raging fire had engulfed a pile of debris, trash perhaps. It had spread to both the ground floor and first floor of the building, the grand old Theatre Royale. The building on the other side of the alley had so far been spared, as it was a sheer brick wall rising for three stories, and the fire had not spread its way. Firebrace galloped back to the front of the building just as Engine 1 arrived, the hooves of the soldiers pulling it clicking and clacking on the cobbled streets as they came to a halt. The crew jumped down from the engine as the ladder truck pulled in behind them, stopping in front of the fire building. Firebrace moved to address the crews.
'We have a fire in the alley to the rear,' he shouted. 'Get some lines back there! Exposure three needs protecting.' The crews rushed to obey, as a second engine company arrived from the other intact station within the 1st Battalion's area. A hose line was pulled and stretched from Engine 1, into the alley to the rear of the theatre, the location of the seat of the fire. Firebrace ordered the second engine company on scene to stretch a line into the building itself. The ladder company was to enter and search the building. A brief discussion with the Corporal who had approached him revealed to the Chief that there could be potentially three soldiers inside the building. None had been witnessed exiting the structure, and the potential existed that they could be trapped within, overcome by smoke. Potentially more worrying was the fact that the building, in use as a store and an armoury, contained both ammunition and explosives.
'Watch out in there, Chief!' the Guard corporal shouted. 'There's dynamite and a bunch of other stuff in that building.'
'Where exactly is it stored?' Firebrace asked. Normally, units would conduct building inspections of potential hazards in their area and would identify such dangers and their locations themselves, but with the Changeling alert, security had been tightened at all military installations across the city, and even the fireponies were not allowed inside.
'On the ground floor, and there's some down in the basement, too,' the Corporal replied. 'There's ammunition on the other floors, too!'
Seeing the danger of the fire extending to the other building, and the possible involvement of explosives, Firebrace hurried to the fire alarm box. The simple device would sent an alert to the alarm office if it was pulled once. A Chief or other officer on scene could use it to send more detailed signals. Firebrace did just that. He pulled the handle twice in rapid succession, followed by a short break, and then two more. He followed with his badge number to confirm that it was a legitimate call and not some vandal turning in a false report.
The 'two twos' followed by the badge number informed the dispatch office that the Chief was requesting a second alarm for the box. A regular second alarm would result in six engine companies and four hook and ladder trucks assigned, but the war meant that was an unrealistic demand. Instead, a second ladder and one more engine would be assigned, as well as the Chief of the other battalion covering the royal quarter, and the Quarter Chief, the next rank up the chain who was in charge of operations across the whole quarter, as his name suggested. Only the royal and old quarters still had their Quarter Chiefs; the others were dead. As the two engines on scene stretched their lines as ordered, Firebrace returned to check out the alleyway.
The fire was raging, and clearly spreading along the whole rear wall of the fire building. Though primarily made of brick, the exterior of the theatre building had many wooden features that were mere kindling before the flames, catching them as they rose up the ear wall and spreading the fire up to the next floor. Smoke was wafting down the alley and billowing up into the clear sky. Royal Guardsponies, who had been patrolling the building and guarding its interior, were leaving the main entrances, aided by the 'truckies,' the members of the ladder company, some with soot-streaked faces and bleary, reddened eyes. That meant that smoke was already pushing into the building.
Firebrace shouted his orders. The hook and ladder's engineer was instructed to raise the main aerial ladder to the roof, which he accomplished in a few moments, using the mechanical gears to turn and lift the ladder. Meanwhile, the first hose line had been laid into the alleyway by two of the soldiers assigned to the engine. The engineer was standing by, while another of the fireponies opened up one of the fire hydrants alongside the road and connected a supply hose to it. The steam boiler mounted on the engine was bubbling away nicely, having been heated by the fire beneath during its short journey from the firehouse. The water would flow from the hydrant, through the supply hose and the engine, where the steam from the boiler would power the pump that would provide pressure for the operation of the hose onto the fire. It was a simple system, and a lot more elegant than the proposed, though still far-off, mechanisation of the fire engines that was intended to supply Manehattan, in the not too distant future, with self-propelled vehicles that used the same kind of internal combustion engines employed aboard the airships, albeit on a much smaller scale. Then, there would be no need for the crew to pull their own apparatus, meaning they could arrive faster and fresher, ready for duty.
'Ready for water!' shouted the nozzlepony, holding the brass contraption in his hooves as he stood at the head of the length of leather and rubber hose.
'Start water!' the engine's officer ordered, and with a quick twist of the hydrant key, water began flowing from the mercifully intact street water main below the cobbles, through the engine, and down the hose line. The nozzlepony aimed the initial spray at the floor to make sure the water coming out was clear and not full of debris or dirt which might have accumulated in the pipes, before taking aim at the large body of flame that had completely engulfed the pile of rubbish. A few seconds of spray and he then turned his attention to wetting down the wall of the building opposite. Protection of the exposures had been the Chief's priority, to stop the fire from spreading. With fire protection across the city so diminished, a rapidly spreading blaze in the tightly packed buildings of the royal quarter could be disastrous and unstoppable.
A second line was quickly stretched from Engine 1, while the other pumper, under the Chief's orders, pulled a hose into the interior of the building. Firebrace followed them in. He needed to know what conditions were like inside, and he left the Captain of Engine 1 in charge of the exterior operation, with orders to pass on to the other units when they arrived.
Inside the lobby, there was but a light haze, and no real indication of the large blaze burning merrily to the rear. Here he found the Lieutenant in command of Hook & Ladder Company 1.
'Everypony out?' Firebrace asked, referring to the Guardsponies who had been protecting the building. Fire Lieutenant Coppertop nodded.
'Yes Chief, the Guard officer has accounted for everypony. The building's ours, but we've got fire coming through the rear wall, ground floor, back in the dressing rooms.'
'In you go, boys,' Firebrace addressed the crew on the hose line behind him. 'Straight ahead and to the back wall. Stop that fire cold.' They nodded and proceeded on inside, where the smoke was thicker, into the main auditorium. 'Any sign of these explosives yet?' he questioned.
'Not yet, Chief. There's a bunch of crates of all shapes and sizes back there. I don't know which ones are dangerous and which ones aren't,' came the reply.
'Then you'd best start moving everything you can away from that rear wall,' Firebrace ordered. 'We'll do our best to stop the fire from spreading to the interior, but it's already got a hold of both the ground and first floor in the rear.'
'Right.' Coppertop nodded. 'We'll get those explosives moved, Chief.' He trotted into the main auditorium, and Firebrace followed for a better look at conditions. The theatre was grandiose, the auditorium rising the full three-storey height of the structure, with gilded walls and beautiful frescoes above the proscenium depicting the royal sisters. It would be a shame for the structure, which had survived the enemy occupation mostly unscathed, to fall victim to a fire now, but of greater concern was the possibility of an explosion if the flames were allowed to progress too far.
The dressing rooms to the rear were heavily charged with smoke, which was seeping through the rear wall. Only a little fire was visible, fairly high up the wall, where a couple of the wooden beams were burning through from the outside. One of the members of the ladder company was spraying the pockets of fire down with water from a pressurised can, like an oversized fire extinguisher, while others got to work carrying the crates that were most in danger away from the rear wall, in search of the dangerous explosives.
With things well in hoof inside, Firebrace exited the building and returned to the front to check on things. The second alarm assignment had arrived, and gone straight to work. The second ladder company had climbed to the roof up the prepositioned aerial ladder of H&L 1. The third engine had pulled another line inside to protect the second floor from the fire still blazing in the alley, their leather coats and helmets hopefully providing sufficient protection from the heat, but not protecting them from the smoke. Gas masks would be of no aid, and so the entry teams were equipped with specialist self-contained breathing equipment, developed from old emergency packs provided for mine workers to provide air in the event of a cave-in or collapse. A flexible tube connected the mask to a cylinder of pressurised oxygen worn on the back. Each cylinder would provide twenty minutes' worth of air, enough time to knock down most fires.
The soldiers attached to the units were being kept busy with the less technical aspects of the job, including straightening the lines, while the fireponies operated the nozzles. The ladder company on the roof were hastily ventilating the structure by cutting into the roof itself, opening it up and creating holes through which heat and smoke could escape. By ventilating the building from the roof, it was hoped that the heat would rise and help to protect the explosives located on the lower floors of the building while they were moved to safety. If the fire spread too quickly, and the explosives were to ignite...
From his position at the head of the alley, Firebrace could see that, even if they extinguished the blaze in the pile of trash, which was proving surprisingly resilient to their water jets, the fire had spread and taken good hold on the structure itself, reaching the rafters of the mostly wooden roof and igniting them. Despite the efforts of the two hose streams set up there, it was still gaining headway up the side of the structure, proving to be stubborn. With all three floors involved in fire, more firepower would be needed to try and douse the blaze from the outside.
Firebrace returned to the front of the building, where the other Chiefs had arrived. A quick conference with them, and the handing over of command to the Quarter Chief, and Firebrace was directed to take charge of interior operations within the fire building itself. He returned to the inside, this time wearing his breathing apparatus, making his way through the auditorium. It was steadily filling with smoke now. The rear rooms were thick with the stuff, making it dark and hard to see. Helmet-mounted flashlights cut through the gloom. They were making progress with moving the crates away from the wall, but there was more fire visible coming through. The hose line splashed it with water every time it flared up, but it was burning behind the wooden interior wall partitions. The truck company would normally be opening the walls up with their hooks and axes to try and expose the hidden fire for the hoses, but the priority was protecting the explosives. With more personnel on scene, both tasks could have been accomplished, but with the heavy losses to the firefighting forces, tough decisions had to be taken with the limited resources available.
Firebrace spoke with Lieutenant Coppertop, who lifted his mask to shout out above the crackle of the flames and the roar of the water. 'They need to get the fire under control on the exterior!' the Lieutenant informed him. 'We can't open up the walls, not enough hooves to spare, Chief.' He coughed and replaced his mask, sucking in fresh air.
'Just clear those boxes away and then get that wall opened up,' Firebrace ordered, lifting his mask to speak also. 'Try and keep that fire in check if you can. I'll try and get you more ponies to help out.' Coppertop nodded and Firebrace trotted back out, climbing the stairs up to the second floor. Another line had been stretched here and was located in a doorway. The room beyond was a mass of flame, the fire from outside having evidently broken through the wall in such quantities as to have ignited most of the contents of the room.
'How's it looking?' Firebrace asked the engine's officer, in charge of the hose line. He shook his head in reply as black smoke billowed out of the room.
'Not good, Chief. We can't get in there, it's too hot, plus there's ammunition in there.'
'Any sign of explosives, or just bullets?' Firebrace asked. The Corporal outside had told him only ammo was stored on the second floor, but he could always have been mistaken.
'No Chief, just bullets. They're gonna start cooking off any minute,' the Lieutenant warned. 'Can't we get a water tower up to knock it down from the outside?'
Firebrace shook his head. There was only one operational water tower apparatus left in the department, and while he had a feeling it would be assigned to the fire at some point, there was no room for it to operate behind the fire building. 'No space for it, there's just an alleyway back there,' he pointed out. 'If that stuff starts going off, then just take cover and wait it out. Don't try and get in there and extinguish it. I'll go make sure there's proper ventilation above.'
The Chief left the building again, taking off his mask, finding himself coated with sweat and daubed with ash across his equipment and uniform. Quarter Chief Misty Morning was his target.
'Chief, we need better ventilation in the southeast corner,' Firebrace informed her. 'There's a roomful of ammo up there that's about to start cooking off, and...'
A sudden crackle of gunfire cut him off. At least it sounded like gunfire, but nopony was pulling the trigger. The flames had reached the crates of ammunition and begun a dangerous fireworks show inside the store room on the second floor. 'Too late...' he added. 'The fire is breaking through on all floors. We need more resources.'
'I've already called for a third alarm,' Misty Morning replied. 'But they'll all be coming from the other quarters. Can we hold this fire with what we have now?'
'I don't think so, Chief,' Firebrace shook his head. 'The second floor is pretty much a lost cause with all of that ammo going off, and we can't open up the first floor wall and move the explosives out at the same time. We don't have anypony in the basement at all.'
'Well, get yourself down there if you can,' she ordered. 'Get me a report on the conditions down there, if we need to stretch another line. Once we get more ponies here, I'll have them assist on the ground floor.'
Firebrace nodded and hurried back inside. He returned to the stairwell and descended into the basement level. Smoke in the staircase was minimal, but worryingly, as soon as he opened the door to the basement, choking grey smoke wafted out at him through the crack. He proceeded with caution, his helmet torch lighting the way. The basement was full of boxes and crates. Some were marked with the names of various theatrical productions or departments, but the further in he got, the more military markings he saw. There was an elevator that descended, he knew, from the stage into the basement for the easy transfer of props and equipment, and as he approached it, every crate he saw became a potential threat. They all had military markings, and had obviously been transported down the hoist. Of the greatest concern was the fact that some of them were marked as explosive, plastered with danger signs. Even more worryingly, there was fire, a sinister glow in the far corner of the room. Evidently some kind of grating, vent or duct had admitted fire, either from the alleyway outside or the pipe chase inside the walls, down into the basement.
Firebrace approached the glow. With such critically short staffing, there had been no ponies available to check things out downstairs, as they were hard pressed to fight the fire on two floors, even though, with the basement, there were four levels, as well as the alleyway. Around the corner of a large stack of crates, he found the fire, burning merrily among the boxes. His torch played over the crates.
And he turned and ran.
As fast as he could go, Firebrace climbed the stairs, rushing into the dressing room where Coppertop and his ponies were at work. 'Out, get out!' he roared. 'Everypony out, right now!' The ponies hurried to obey, dropping their tools and the hose and filing out of the room. Firebrace sprinted back to the stairs and climbed again, heart pounding. He found himself sucking on nothing, as his air tank was empty. He ripped off his mask and hurried to the ponies manning the hose, who were taking cover beside the doorway as ammunition continued to pop off inside the room. He repeated his urgent shouts, and they abandoned their posts too, following him out.
Firebrace galloped back downstairs, and out into the lobby. He left the building calling out. 'Take cover! Everypony get back!' As he shouted, he felt himself being lifted from his hooves. Something struck him, he tumbled, and slammed into the cobbles. Everything went black.
Twilight slept like a foal, soaking up as much rest as she could under the orders not just of the doctor and both princesses, but also her mother, who, before leaving with the rest of the family, had embarrassed her by fussing over her with her friends still present, much to their amusement. She had told Twilight to sleep, sleep, sleep, and worry about the rest some other time. Twilight had taken her advice to heart, and slumbered dreamlessly for hours.
Her rest was shattered by a loud crack and a deep rumble that shook her, quite literally, awake. She blinked a few times, her face half buried in the pillows. A dream? No, she had definitely heard something...and what was more, she was still shaking, or rather the bed was. An earthquake! She quickly sat up, rather groggily after so long in dreamland. Wait, an earthquake? She wasn't in the volcano Hive any longer, she was in Canterlot, not exactly renowned for seismic disturbances. But something had shaken her awake. The windows rattled, and something smashed into them with a thunk.
The room was dark, though a faint glow shone through the curtains. Luna's moon, no doubt, . Twilight climbed out of bed, feeling unsteady on her hooves. She had suffered almost two weeks of immobility, followed by a brief spurt of movement during her rescue from the Hive, and then another two days lying down, and her legs were not exactly in the best shape. She tested them out gingerly before staggering over to the windows. She leaned on the windowsill for support and took a peek through the curtains. She gasped.
A great plume of smoke and fire was rising above the palace walls, billowing skyward in the bright moonlight. It was in the royal quarter, somewhere around where the Theatre Royale was located, a place she had been many times with her family as a foal. Something terrible had happened. The window had a large crack in it, having been struck by something. There was an orange glow of fire, visible at the base of the smoke cloud. What new disaster was this that had befallen the city? She could not see exactly what had happened, as the palace walls blocked her view. She could see Guardsponies hurrying along the walltop, and hear shouts. Lights were coming on in the palace outbuildings as ponies, awoken by the explosion as Twilight had been, roused themselves from their beds.
It was clear from the rising cloud of smoke that something had exploded. Were they under attack? Had the Changelings returned, or had the human enemy struck from orbit? Surely not again, their fleet had been shattered, and the Changelings were fleeing. Twilight felt a sudden stab of fear once again, more from confusion than anything else. She didn't know what was happening, and that was never a condition that she wanted to suffer from. Knowledge was her currency, her desire. Something had happened beyond the palace wall, but what?
Chief Firebrace could see. He could see, but not hear. Not entirely accurate; he could hear, but only a ringing that filled his ears, like the shrill of the alarm bell in the firehouse, but constant, unceasing. His view consisted of the cobbled stones of a street, littered with dust and debris. Bodies were lying on the ground. He struggled to look around, but a sharp pain shot through the back of his head.
Somepony grabbed him by the forelegs and started to pull him roughly over the uneven cobbles that sank into his back. Firebrace was able to look around. He could see no injuries on himself; his uniform coat and boots were intact, but, he suddenly realised, his helmet was missing. One of the Guardsponies was pulling him; he could see by his armour. He tried to speak, but no sounds came out. Or perhaps they did. He couldn't hear either way, only the ringing in his ears. The Guardspony laid him down onto the pavement at the side of the street opposite the fire building. Firebrace tried to sit up, but the pain in his head and the top of his neck prevented it. Instead he settled for rolling slightly onto his side for a better look across the street.
The Theatre Royale was no longer recognisable as such. Most of the ornate frontage had vanished, strewn across the street along with much of the roof. An explosion, most likely emanating from the basement and the crates of explosives that Firebrace had seen with flames licking at them, had erupted out through the floors above and torn a great chasm in the structure. The remains of the auditorium were open to the sky and to the street, with the rear left corner of the building completely gone. That was where the explosive had been located. The wall of the building across from the rear alley was missing also, crumbled to dust by the force of the blast and exposing the metal skeleton of the building, and a dozen or so apartments contained within. Beds and bathtubs hung precariously from the damaged floors.
The carnage was not limited to the fire building and the structure to the rear. As he looked around, Firebrace could see ponies lying unmoving. Some were being dragged to safety as he had been. One of the engines lay on its side, overturned by the explosion. The aerial ladder of Hook & Ladder 1, which had been in place at the roof, had been ripped free and snapped off, and now lay across the road junction. The truck itself, with the remains of the ladder, had been shoved bodily back into the building across the street, causing a few large cracks to appear in the brickwork where it had been struck. Bricks and wooden beams were everywhere, all across the ground. Broken glass lay like a carpet across the street.
Firebrace managed to sit up slowly, holding the back of his head which still throbbed. There was pandemonium on the street, where moments earlier there had been a studious, calm determination and swift but practised movements. The firefighting force on scene had been shattered as surely as the structure they had been fighting to defend from the menace of the flames.
Firebrace's hearing was slowly returning, and he could hear the clatter of hooves and wheels upon the cobbles. A glance to his left showed that the third alarm companies were arriving, as another engine hove into view around the corner, a trio of fireponies from one of the fully-manned companies galloping hard at the head of their machine, sparks and steam flying from the boiler. There were others coming, too, ponies trotting rapidly down the street, Guardsponies from the palace coming to investigate the blast, rifles at the ready. Other units already on scene assured them that it was a result of fire, rather than any direct enemy action.
The engine came to a halt clear of the blast zone, and the crew set about quickly stretching a line to a clear and intact hydrant down the street. The guardsponies set about helping the wounded and reforming a cordon around the scene, the original fire lines having been undone by the devastation that had incapacitated many of the guardsponies present. One of the new arrivals approached Firebrace, seeing him sitting in an apparent daze.
'Easy, buddy. We've got the medics coming,' he assured the Chief, but Firebrace shook him off, rapidly recovering his senses and bearings.
'Forget it, I'm fine,' he assured the pony. 'Just help me up, will you? And find my helmet!' He looked around as the guardspony helped him clamber to his hooves. His helmet was lying some distance away in the gutter. He pointed it out to the helpful stallion, who trotted to fetch it, examining it in his hooves as he brought it back over.
'Sorry Chief. Looks like it got bent up.' He passed the helmet over. There was a large dent to the back of it where something had evidently struck it with some considerable force. That, at least, explained his headache. Firebrace tried it on, and found that it still fit, despite the deformity. With his identity as a Chief restored thanks to his conspicuous white helmet, he looked around for Chief Misty Morning, to obtain new orders.
She was found nearby, sitting dazed on the back step of one of the intact pumpers. He trotted up to her. 'Chief! We've lost the building...I don't know if there's still fire in there, or what. Orders?'
After a moment, she responded. 'Headcount, Chief...account for all the members of your companies, take a roll call. There might still be undetonated explosives in the rubble so for Celestia's sake, be careful. Tell everypony to be careful...careful...' she repeated. He nodded.
The companies under his direct command were those that operated as part of the 1st Battalion. Every operational company had been in attendance, and Firebrace quickly set about checking on their status. He located the officers of each company where he could, and asked them to account for all of their ponies. Each company in turn reported everypony present, except for Hook & Ladder 1. He could not find Lieutenant Coppertop to question him, but several members of his company sat on the kerbside with soot-blackened faces.
'Where's the Lieutenant?' Firebrace asked them, getting mostly blank stares in response. 'Don't know...' one firepony replied. 'He was behind us, making sure everypony got out, but...' He trailed off, the unspoken inference being obvious to all.
'Everypony else accounted for?' he asked the company engineer, who nodded. Firebrace returned to Misty Morning with the information.
'Chief, the Lieutenant of Truck 1 is unaccounted for,' he informed her. 'The crew said he was behind them checking if everypony got out. We might have an entrapment.'
'Damn it...' she muttered. 'What about injuries?'
'At least a dozen,' Firebrace replied. 'The Guard say they have medics coming in from the palace.'
'Call in a fourth alarm, if that damn box is still working,' Misty Morning ordered, picking herself up. 'Special call the rescue, the water tower, and the searchlight unit if anypony's crewing it. Looks like we might need them.'
Firebrace trotted to the alarm box, checking it over for damage. It seemed to be in working order, and he called in the alarm and the special call signals. Each signal, consisting of a certain number of pulls of the handle, alerted the dispatchers that a specific, specialised unit was being requested to the scene, in addition to the engines and ladders. A collapse was a very different proposition to a fire, and a collapse with fire still burning inside the rubble was different still. Which scenario they faced needed to be established.
Firebrace conferred with the other Chief on scene as to the course of action. There was still smoke rising from the ruin of the theatre, but that did not mean there was active fire. Chances were the blast wave from the explosion and the collapse of so much brick and wood had probably snuffed out anything that was actively burning, leaving just smouldering ruins. FIrebrace checked out the theatre. There had been significant collapse both at the front and the rear of the structure, with the only exterior wall still standing being that on the south side. Part of the top of the auditorium was intact, with, miraculously, the murals of the two royal sisters still surviving, and now visible from the street, a sign that the princesses were watching over their efforts.
The royals had always been big supporters of the fireponies, not only in Canterlot but all across Equestria. Every firehouse in the country had a portrait of Celestia above the house watch desk, and many also had one of Luna. Seeing their patrons catching the moonlight from above lent heart to the fireponies who might have been flagging or feeling fearful after the sudden explosion from within the building. A rapid search around the perimeter brought no sign of Lieutenant Coppertop. Chief Firebrace knew that, if any search of the interior was going to be needed, that the arrival of the rescue and searchlight companies that he had requested would be crucial in the success of the operation.
'Chief, it looks like the fire is out,' a firepony informed him. 'There's some residual heat still down there and it's smouldering, but we can't see any active flames.;
'We need light,' he muttered. 'Get those unicorns to give us some light!' He gestured to a group of royal guardsponies nearby who were helping with the injured. Without sufficient light it would be impossible to see into the morass of rubble to try and locate Lieutenant Coppertop, alive or dead. His body would have to be recovered either way, but if he was alive, it might well require an enormous effort to rescue him.
A few unicorns were able to light up their horns and illuminate the devastated structure. There was not a lot left standing, and most of the building had collapsed into a pile of broken timbers and crumbled brick. The thick concrete floor that topped the basement at ground level had been shattered where the explosion had occurred, but much of the rest of the floor slab was intact, which at least had the benefit of keeping the majority of the rubble at street level, rather than below it. That would, hopefully, make the Lieutenant easier to find and recover.
A team of medics from the palace arrived on the scene, laden down with first aid kits and medical cases. They set about treating the wounds of those caught in the blast, which ranged from superficial cuts and bruises to broken legs and possible internal injuries. Firebrace ordered the crew of the newly arrived engine into the smoking rubble, carefully, gently, using their flashlights and the illumination from the unicorn horns to try and search for the trapped Lieutenant. He had to be somewhere among the debris.
Care had to be taken by the searchers, as there were any number of potential dangers lurking. Parts of the surviving structure towered above them and might collapse at any time, weakened by the loss of so much structural support. Debris that had already fallen could shift and crush either them or the victim they were trying to reach. There could be hidden holes in the floor through which they could plunge into the basement. Undetonated explosives could go off without warning. There could be hidden pockets of fire that had escaped detection. But one thing was certain, and that was that there was a fellow firepony in the rubble, trapped. Perhaps he was dead, perhaps he was uninjured. Perhaps he was barely clinging to life; it did not matter. They would not leave one of their own behind, no matter how long they had to stay on the scene, no matter if a rescue turned into a recovery.
They called out to him, but received no reply. Even if he was alive, there was no guarantee he would be in any position to shout, and no guarantee he would be heard. As the fourth alarm assignment arrived, Firebrace directed them in to search. They were fresh and unspent, uninjured by the blast and not exhausted from the heat and smoke of interior operations. There was a torturous wait for the special units to arrive. Any major extrication operation could not be carried out until the rescue company with its tools and equipment was available. The water tower was the first to arrive, tugged along by four ponies. It combined the appearance of a electrical transmission pylon with the functionality of a pumper, being normally erected beside a fire building and used to direct multiple water streams into the upper floors or through the roof, with several nozzles positioned up and down its wooden structure, including a powerful one at the very tip. It was, in practice, of limited use in a rescue operation, but Chief Misty Morning had ordered it called in as a precaution in case there was any deep-seated fire still remaining within the building that could not be fought safely by teams on the ground.
The search teams conducted a preliminary investigation and found nothing. Finally the rescue truck arrived, pulled by three ponies and with a full crew of seven, all fully trained fireponies due to the specialist nature of their role. The rescue unit was a large box-like carriage that contained a huge variety of tools; axes, saws, jacks, pneumatic lifters and spreaders, airbags that could be inflated to lift heavy equipment, a winch, and most importantly, shoring and cribbing material, timbers for supporting damaged buildings during a rescue attempt.
Firebrace ordered them into position and to stand by to shore up any debris that might threaten the search team, or the victim once he was located. But time dragged on. The searchlight vehicle arrived and was set up, its lighting mast providing a blaze of illumination for the scene, aiding the rescuers in their grim task of sifting through the debris, slowly, carefully, agonisingly.
Every few minutes, Firebrace called a halt and blew a whistle, signalling for silence. Everypony listened closely, straining their ears for a faint cry, a muffled call, or even a simple tapping on some metal pipe below the debris that would signal that Coppertop was alive. They heard nothing. Half an hour passed. Still nothing.
Then, suddenly, one of the digging ponies shouted for quiet. Firebrace blew his whistle and a silence descended. The searchers listened hard, and the pony who had cried out did so again.
'I can hear something! Definitely something...tapping. It's regular...can you hear it?' He urged one of his fellows to listen, and she pressed her ear to the bricks that lay underhoof.
'I can hear it!' she exclaimed, and an excited murmur ran through the emergency crews. Something was definitely making a regular tapping sound, rhythmic and intermittent, repeating the same sequence. Water dripping out of a pipe would not sound like that, it would be continous, not have gaps in between.
The pony who had heard the noise first found a protruding piece of metalwork and called for quiet again. He gave three taps upon it; loud, clear and distinct. After a few moments he repeated his action, and then stopped, listened. He heard three answering taps, then silence.
'He's alive!' he shouted. 'The Lieutenant's alive down there! There's no doubt about it!'
Firebrace ordered the rescue company to prepare their gear and get ready to move in. With the lighting rig and unicorn horns shining, the fireponies and their soldier assistants managed to narrow down the location as to where the noise was coming from. The Lieutenant was trapped somewhere below the collapsed auditorium roof, almost directly underneath the proscenium arch where the motifs of the royal sisters still stood high above. Some frantic digging was conducted through the bricks and wood, being careful not to move anything too large in case it caused a collapse. When all the loose rubble was cleared away, a tiny portion of the Lieutenant's body could be seen beneath a tangle of metal and wooden planks. He was there, and he was within reach, but trapped a mere few feet from salvation.
The rescue company was called in. There were several thick wooden roof beams, not directly entrapping Coppertop, but in such positions as to threaten to crush him if the wrong cut or movement was made. The rescuers would have to cut through the metal, either with welding gear or with the rescue company's pneumatic cutting equipment, both of which were fetched from the wagon and brought to the scene.
They called out words of encouragement to the trapped Lieutenant below. He was in mortal danger, something that the fireponies experienced every day of their working lives, but most would never receive the recognition or the fame of the soldiers or guardsponies who fought living enemies. The fireponies fought the flames, ponykind's oldest nemesis, and her most insatiable, and many times they had paid the ultimate price. The crews were determined Lieutenant Coppertop would not join the long list of the fallen.
Into the early hours they worked, cutting and shoring and digging away. The rescue company made sure the fallen roof beams were properly shored up as the ladder companies tried their best to reach the Lieutenant. Celestia's sun was almost rising above the mountains by the time they dug a proper access route down to him. Coppertop was trapped, half crushed beneath a mass of brick. It had to be removed, carefully, very carefully, one piece at a time, like a surgeon performing a delicate surgery. Only one pony could fit into the space, and the smallest member was chosen, operating upside down, suspended from a harness attached by a rope to the tip of the aerial ladder of the truck company which had responded on the fourth alarm signal, swung out into the interior of the building to act as a belaying point. The firepony first, under direction from one of the Guard medics, administered several drugs through syringes, with the intention of keeping his heart rate from dropping too low, and to help prevent the symptoms of both shock and crush syndrome from setting in once he was freed. The firepony then had to pass one brick at a time up to the other rescuers, but finally, after infinity had passed, Coppertop was freed from the rubble which had bound him and crushed him. Now the problem turned to how to get him out of the hole.
It had to be widened, sufficiently for a stretcher to be lowered. One of the Royal Guard medics passed down more drugs, in the hope of keeping Coppertop alive. He was then withdrawn and the rescuers got to work once again, cutting and pulling and moving, widening the tunnel they had created as best they could. The huge, thick roof beams could not be cut or disturbed for fear that they would slide down and crush any life that still remained in the Lieutenant, or worse, that they undermine the structural integrity of the debris pile upon which a dozen rescuers stood by necessity, resulting in a potential catastrophe.
Now the sun was well and truly risen, not just in the sky, but on the ground as well. Princess Celestia herself, roused by the initial blast but remaining inside the palace at the behest of her security detail until the nature of the explosion could be determined, had made her way down to the scene of the incident, which was now swarming with soldiers, guardsponies and firefighters. Apparatus lined both cross streets that met at the fire building. The vast majority of the department's surviving units were at the scene, including the acting Chief Of Department, the highest ranking officer still alive, a mare by the name of Starfire Storm, keeping solemn watch over the rescue attempt. Celestia joined the Chief, being filled in on what had happened and what was going on.
As the morning wore on, starting to approach a vaguely civilised hour of day, the hole was deemed wide enough to proceed with the rescue. A stretcher was lowered down, along with the same firepony who had cleared the bricks from atop the victim. He managed to slip it beneath the form of the comatose Lieutenant. After strapping him in, he switched the connection of his harness to the stretcher, and gave a raised hoof signal. The crew above started lifting, and the stretcher rose up, free of the debris. They brought it to rest in a safe spot, and the medics immediately went to work on the unfortunate Coppertop.
To the observers outside of the building, it was not immediately apparent what was happening. However, it soon became clear that the medics were trying to perform CPR. The drugs and the speedy efficiency of the rescue had not been enough; there was no heartbeat, and the Lieutenant had slipped away before their very eyes. The medics tried their hardest, straining themselves to the utmost to revive him. They used magic, drugs, and an uncountable number of chest compressions. Almost another full hour passed before they gave up.
A blanket was drawn over the Lieutenant's ashen features. His face was not contorted in pain; if anything, he looked peaceful. The stretcher was carried out of the building, past rows of fellow fireponies, who lowered their heads and removed their helmets. One of the city's two surviving mortuary wagons had been summoned, and stood waiting. The stretcher was halted in front of Celestia, who bowed her head and intoned a short prayer of salvation for another lost soul, resting her hoof upon the chest of the departed Lieutenant for a few moments before taking a step back.
His body was taken to the mortuary wagon, and loaded aboard. The rescue had been a success, and also an abject failure. With heavy hearts and tired eyes, the fireponies left the building, returning to their apparatus, and returning to their firehouses. One of their own had been lost, a heavy blow, but they had, at least, prevented any other deaths or serious injuries to civilians. It was small consolation, but such was the life of a firepony, and such was the life of everypony after the human invasion.
Death was no longer just a possibility, but an inevitability.