“Let us in!” Emerald hissed, knocking on the door again. “I’m using the stupid special knock and everything!” She grabbed the handle and rattled it, frustrated.
I watched Emerald struggle with the door for about two seconds before stepping in and putting a solid hoof to it, knocking the bar’s front door in and shoving back the barricade behind it all at once.
“Sorry,” I said.
Quattro raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“I’m just used to apologizing after breaking things,” I said with a shrug. “It’s actually kind of nice not having ponies screaming at--”
A pony ran screaming at me with murder in his eyes. His skin was swollen and red and already starting to show silver where it was splitting around his mouth, his jaw wide open with fangs scraping against my armored throat before I even had a second to react.
I screamed, he kept screaming, we both had a bad time.
I threw him across the room and he hit the jukebox hard enough to make it lurch into action, playing that same annoying tune by Fire Bomber that it had been the last time I was in the bar.
The noise alerted the others. Two of them turned to get up, the last one lying still in a puddle of blood. They staggered to their hooves, less coordinated and more equine than the ponies I’d seen in the city. They’d only just started to change. I could see it in their eyes, clouded with confusion and agony and desperate for any way to make the pain stop, even if it meant attacking another pony. They reached for us plaintively, but the fangs filling in their jaws and popping their normal teeth out of socket said they didn’t want the kind of help we could give them.
“They changed this quickly?” Emerald asked.
“Between being prisoners, the hard work, the travel, the stress…” Quattro trailed off as they staggered closer. “Their bodies might have just been more vulnerable.” She raised her rifle, taking aim. “The least we can do is put them down.”
It made me think of Mom, holding that gun to my head.
“Maybe-- maybe if we just try, they’ll listen,” I said. I held up my hooves. “Guys, come on! I know it hurts. You have to focus, and fight it, and we’ve got plenty of stuff from the hospital--”
I don’t know if they were just too far gone or the mention of drugs that might help with the agony set them off and had them running at me fangs-first. Laser bolts from behind me took both of them down, a cloud of dust rolling to the floor where they’d stood.
“I really hate this,” I whispered.
“I know,” Emerald said. “It’s not something anypony should have to deal with, much less a civilian.”
I ignored her and looked at the fallen pony they’d been gnawing on. He was torn up, and with all the blood I couldn’t really tell the coat color with the bar’s awful lighting. I swallowed. I had to know. I stepped closer. Was it my dad?
“Even if we’d had the Enferon, I don’t think it would have done any good with how quickly the infection progressed,” Destiny said. I could almost feel her hoof on my back trying to console me. I couldn’t answer. I was still halfway through a panic attack, and even if the pain in my hoof was fading a little, it was still bad.
I struggled to catch my breath. I swear every minute I wore that armor it got heavier. It wasn’t just heavy, either. It covered every part of my body, so every motion was slower and heavier and harder, and it had been so long since I’d gotten decent sleep that I was starting to really feel it.
“Dad?” I asked, quietly.
I grabbed the corpse’s shoulder and gently tugged, rolling him over. I felt the panic welling up. If he was gone...
It was the last chef.
“It’s not him!” I panted between deep breaths. My heart felt like it was beating a hundred times a second. “We have to find him!”
I didn’t see him anywhere.
“Dad!” I shouted.
The patch of floor I’d broken popped up, and Quattro snapped a beam shot at it, narrowly missing my Dad.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Are you trying to get me killed?!”
“You’re alive!” I gasped. “Thank goodness.”
“Of course I’m alive! The second the one that got bitten started acting strange I told them I was going to go looking for a first-aid kit and locked myself in the basement,” Dad said. I helped him out of the hole. “I decided I’d wait out whatever was going to happen down there.”
“You could have locked the infected pony down there instead,” Emerald said coldly, glaring at him.
“Maybe, if the others were thinking clearly!” Dad scoffed. “If it was up to me, we would have put him out on the street. It might seem heartless, but look at what happened!”
“Yes, you’re quite a hero for saving yourself,” Quattro said. “We should put these two bodies down there and put something heavy on top of this floor panel. They’re not going to stay down forever and I don’t want to waste the ammunition if we can help it.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. I needed a distraction. Doing a little physical labor might help. “Can you fix Dad’s wings?” I saw the looks they were giving him. “If all of us can fly it means none of us have to carry him,” I said.
“Fine, but I get to pluck him,” Emerald said.
Dad looked worried. “Pluck me? What?”
I ignored him and moved the cloud panel out of the way, trying to at least be a little gentle with the ponies as I put them down in the basement with the stills and boxes full of bottles. It wasn’t their fault they’d gotten infected. I didn’t want to think it was Dad’s fault, either. Still, it did kind of feel nice to hear him yelp while Emerald tore out his broken primaries so the healing potion would let new ones grow in.
“So what’s with the ship outside?” I asked.
“It’s a Garuda-class ship,” Emerald said, spitting out a broken feather. “That means they’re not part of the standard military. They’re black-sky operations, and with my radio broken--” she tapped the side of her helmet. “--I can’t tell them not to open fire on us!”
“It must be terrible, being in the same situation as a mere civilian when the Enclave military is out in force,” Quattro said mildly from the door, cracking it open to look outside.
“Why don’t you call them?” I asked. “Your armor has a radio, right?”
“This suit was made before the Enclave even existed,” Quattro said. “It’s been refurbished a few times, but one thing it doesn’t have is modern military encoding.”
“Without the transponder codes they’ll either ignore you or fire on you, depending on their orders,” Emerald said.
“I’d rather not risk the latter.”
Dad grabbed one of the healing potions and chugged it. “So if the radio gets fixed, you might be able to call them off?”
“I can at least confirm their orders,” Emerald said.
“Fine. Get your helmet off. Chamomile, get the main board out of that jukebox. And be careful with it! We’ll need the amplifier circuit from it.”
“Right,” I said. I walked over to the jukebox and knelt down. I wasn’t very good with tech stuff, but even an idiot like me could figure out how to take something apart, right? It was putting it back together again that was hard. I found the front panel and opened it up.
“Disconnect the battery first,” Destiny whispered gently, just before I touched a wire.
“Oh. Right.” I blushed and disconnected the battery, the music and lights cutting off.
“I think next you want to unscrew the fans here,” she continued. I let her guide me through the process, removing the cooler and disconnecting wires and very gently with the help of her telekinesis easing out the main circuit board.
I carried it over to the bar and Dad motioned for me to put it down next to him. He was poking around inside Emerald’s helmet with a plastic fork and a drink stirrer.
“This should only take a moment,” he said. He glanced at the board. “Oh, good. This has the right kind of amplifier tubes. Thank you, Chamomile.”
I blinked. That was dangerously close to praise. I wasn’t used to that from him, but he had just been shot up with a bunch of Med-X, so maybe he was feeling better than usual. I made a mental note to get him more drugs if it meant he’d scream at me less.
“How’s it look out there?” I asked Quattro, sitting down heaving at the other side of the door.
“The outlook is foggy,” she said quietly. “I’m trying to decide if I’m more worried about artillery or monsters.”
“If you’re worried about artillery, maybe you shouldn’t have worn something so flashy,” I snorted.
Quattro scoffed and pretended to buff a mark off her golden armor. “You can’t inspire ponies wearing scary black armor that gives them nightmares. When the military is already trying to paint us as terrorists the least we can do is try not to look the part.”
“There!” Dad said, stepping back and closing a panel. “That should do it. Good as new, practically.”
Emerald smiled and put the helmet back on, the eyes lighting up briefly. “You fixed the HUD too?”
“That was just a loose wire. Thank me later.”
“Alright, let’s see if I can get this called off before it turns into a problem,” Emerald said, holding a hoof to the side of her head.
“I’ll loop us in,” Destiny said.
“This is Lieutenant Emerald Sheen, calling unknown Garuda-class ship. Please respond immediately!” Her voice echoed strangely for me, coming through the radio and from right in front of me.
“Garuda-class ship Juniper responding. Transmit your security code immediately.”
“Roger, transmitting.” Emerald took a deep breath and waited.
“Code verified, Lieutenant Sheen. This is a Code Caseclosed operation. You do not have clearance to be in the area.”
“I’ve got civilian survivors--”
“All of your clearances have been revoked. According to the testimony of Lieutenant Rain Shadow you are a deserter and your rank and privileges have been revoked until you appear before a formal disciplinary tribunal. You’re ordered to surrender and report for debriefing.”
Emerald’s expression fell. She lowered her head, her voice becoming an angry hiss. “I don’t know what Rain Shadow said, but--”
“Report your location immediately.”
Emerald muttered something under her breath and cut off her transmission with a sharp snap. “Okay,” she said. “Looks like Rain had to be a jerk even though I saved his stupid life. Next time I’ll just let him bleed out.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“Code Caseclosed means this never happened,” Emerald said. “No witnesses, no survivors, no official reports.”
Quattro looked at Dad. “You ready to fly?”
“Yes, but do we have anywhere to go?” Dad asked.
“We grab the transport we left at the charging station and go,” Quattro said. “Unless you’d rather stay here and find out what happens when there are inconvenient survivors getting in the way?”
“I changed my mind! I liked the bar better!” Dad yelled.
Having working wings gave us a lot more in the way of tactical option on the way back to the transport. In the interest of speed, we’d stuck to rooftops and snow, low flights. The rooftops meant the infected couldn’t reach us, and staying low hopefully meant staying out of sight of anypony else.
We were less than a block away from the charging station and our transport, and naturally things had gone wrong. There was plenty of flat ground around the station, to give skywagons of all shapes and sizes room to maneuver. And the infected had decided that made it a great place to hang out.
There were dozens of them around the transport. It was only a matter of time before they spotted us, and even if they weren’t very dangerous individually I didn’t think we could take out that many.
“Quiet,” Emerald hissed, her voice low. “Keep back from the edge.”
She was looking up at the sky.
The Garuda-class ship had started doing something. I wasn’t sure exactly what, exactly. There were a bunch of ponies working, but they were setting something up in the sky above us, white pillars maybe three or four times as long as a pony and shaped like something that should be swimming instead of flying. The bulbous ends pointed down, and each one hovered in a ring of miniaturized rotating stormcloud.
“I’m having trouble identifying those,” Destiny said. “My memory is spotty, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before.”
“I think they’re lightning rods, but at a smaller scale,” Emerald said.
“The things they use to keep monsters from the surface away?” I asked.
Emerald nodded.
“This time they’re locking us in with the monsters,” Quattro said. “That’s pretty on-brand for the military.”
“We’ve got movement,” Destiny warned, an arrow pointing it out at the corner of my vision.
Two ponies -- I couldn’t tell who at this distance -- took off from a rooftop halfway across town. They bolted for the edge of the valley, holding hooves, wings beating furiously. Even from here, I could feel the static charge in the air change. There was a hum in the air that made me think of an engine starting up.
The world turned white, and a bolt of lightning cracked from one of the lightning rods, blasting the ponies out of the air. They fell back to the streets, trailing smoke and charred feathers.
I put my hoof down. I’d been reaching out to them without even thinking about it, like there would have been something I could have done.
I turned to Emerald. “How do we stop them?” I demanded.
“They have a battleship,” Dad said. “We can’t stop them.”
Emerald sighed. “Technically it’s a cruiser, but he’s right. We’re outnumbered, outgunned, and exhausted. We can’t stop it.”
“If we don’t do something, everypony in town is going to die!” I snapped.
“You’re right,” Quattro said. She pushed my wing down. Until she did, I didn’t realize I’d flared them out like I was going to lunge at them or take to the air or… something. “There have to be survivors out there. What can we do to help them? If you’ve got an idea, tell me, because I don’t see any way out of this.”
“We can… we could…” I looked up at the ship. “There has to be some way to talk sense into them. We’re all in this together, right? The military is supposed to help civilians!” I looked to Emerald for help.
She just shook her head.
“I’m not gonna let more ponies die,” I said. “Even if I have to go up there myself, I have to do something!”
“Now you know how I feel all the time,” Quattro said. “Here’s what I’m thinking -- that ship is hovering right near the cloud wall. If we stay at ground level, we might be able to get directly under it without being spotted--”
Another voice cut in. “If you didn’t want to be spotted, having an argument in brightly colored powered armor wasn’t the best choice. I mean, really? Gold?”
A shadow fell over us. I looked up to see a flight of armored ponies pointing weapons at us.
“You gave me an alert for two ponies across town but you missed them sneaking up on us?” I hissed.
“I really need to get that augury system online so we stop getting surprised like this,” Destiny whispered. “Sorry. Their armor must have some rudimentary ECM.”
The five soldiers hovered, not landing on the roof. Their armor was subtly different from Emerald’s. Instead of flat black, it was dark blue with delicate golden detail around the armored sleeves and collar. It was fancy enough it almost seemed like a dress uniform, but the guns they carried made sure we knew it was serious.
“Stand down,” the leader ordered. “I presume one of you is the deserter?”
“I didn’t desert!” Emerald snapped.
“I will take that as confirmation. According to the General Order regarding dereliction of duty, you are ordered to report for debriefing and judgement before a military tribunal. If you resist, that will be construed as a confession of guilt to all charges and we are authorized to use lethal force. Do you understand?”
“All I did was--”
“I wanna talk to the pony in charge!” I shouted. My whole body was aching from stress, and my hoof was throbbing. It was getting worse with all these infected ponies around. Something about just being near them made my own infection respond, like magnets pulling at each other.
All the guns turned to train on me.
“Chamomile…” Dad warned slowly.
“You all came here for a reason, right?” I demanded. “So you must know a little bit about what happened here and at the Smokestack! Well we know more! And if you shoot us, you won’t find out anything! You get the pony in charge and tell him we’ve got valuable information!”
That made the fireteam of ponies hover silently for a moment. I could tell from the leader’s body language that he was listening to the radio and quietly responding, but I couldn’t make out any of what he said.
“Turn to frequency 115.73,” the stallion finally told me.
“I’ve got it,” Destiny said. My radio crackled.
“Hello?” I asked tentatively.
“I assume I am speaking to the pony who demanded to speak to the one in charge,” the voice said. It was a smooth voice, something that belonged to a singer or politician. I tried to picture the stallion behind it. “My name is Polar Orbit. Might I ask the name of the pony I’m speaking to?”
“Don’t give him your real name,” Quattro whispered.
That made me wonder what Quattro’s real name was. “Sugar Cane,” I said, after a moment of hesitation.
“Well, Sugar Cane, I am told you claim to have useful information,” Polar said. “Forgive me, but I’d want proof of that before I was willing to begin negotiation. According to the information I’ve been given, your little group consists of a deserter and a number of escaped criminals, and it’s difficult to imagine you have information vital to this operation.”
I wasn’t stupid enough to just tell him everything I knew, but I could understand where he was coming from. He just sounded so reasonable about things. He needed proof.
“This is a bad idea,” Dad hissed. “You’re making things worse!”
“Worse than certain death?” Quattro asked lightly. “Unless you’re hiding a megaspell or a small army, we’re backed into a corner. Maybe she really can talk some sense into him?”
“I am not going to put my life in the hooves of an idiot!” Dad snapped. “You!” He pointed at me. “Put me on the line.”
“Um--”
“And don’t say another word!” Dad sounded angry, but there was something in his eyes. He was pleading for me to just do what he said with the way he looked. I nodded silently. “Can you hear me?” he asked.
“I assume you’re the pony with information I need?” Polar asked, through my armor’s speakers. I was starting to get used to hearing other ponies’ voices coming out of me.
“That’s right,” Dad said. “My name is Red Zinger. The others are trying to protect me and doing an awful job at it. I’m the one you really want. I’m sure you have the kind of clearance you need to look at what my wife was doing at the Smokestack?”
“Ah. Lemon Zinger’s operation?” Polar asked. “Yes. I do have some records regarding that.”
“You should be able to verify that there was a special warrant out for me,” Dad said. “They called me in to assist with the last stage of the operation. We unleashed a monster.”
“If that’s all you have to tell me, I’m afraid Commander Ohm already informed me about the nature of the creature involved,” Polar said.
“He should have told you it was after me,” Dad said. “It wants me. When we were retreating, he abandoned me so he could escape with his soldiers and I’d distract it, and then it came here because it was still looking for me.”
“Now that is interesting,” Polar said. “It sounds almost like we should eliminate you to keep everypony else safe.”
“If you do that, you don’t know what it’s going to do next,” Dad countered. “As long as I’m around, I’m like a lure for it.” He swallowed. “And if you let these three idiots go, I’ll surrender quietly. They got caught up in this because of me, and it’s my responsibility to keep them safe.”
He looked very significantly at me. I shook my head slowly.
“D--” I started. He cut me off before I could even finish the syllable.
“Don’t tell me not to do this,” he said. “It’s best for all of us.”
“You realize my soldiers could simply detain you by force?” Polar asked.
“Maybe they could, but maybe they’d slip up and shoot me,” Dad said. “I’ll tell you right now I’m a bleeder. If I took a stray bolt I’d probably die just from the shock. All it costs you to have a chance at tracking down the monster that did this, and all the information I have on the creature, is letting three ponies run away.”
Polar laughed. “You are a bold pony! I admire that. I have the upper hoof, but there is nothing worse than a poor winner. I will accept your offer. I have no real interest in prisoners who would no doubt make life difficult for me. If you cooperate fully, I might neglect to mention them in my official report of the situation here.”
“Thank you,” Dad said, looking down.
“I will have my soldiers escort you to me, and your allies may leave freely. I look forward to meeting you.” The radio channel cut off with a snap.
“But-- everypony else--”I sputtered.
“Chamomile,” Dad said firmly, getting my attention. “As your father, my first duty is keeping you out of trouble. I’ve never been good at it. You’re better at getting in trouble than I am as a caretaker. You need to leave.”
“But…” I swallowed. My throat felt dry.
“I’m not a strong pony, but this is something I can do to keep you safe. Let me do one thing right as a father, will you? If you’re somewhere safe maybe I can focus enough to talk some sense into the stallion in charge.”
I nodded mutely.
“Good,” he said, sighing. He sounded exhausted. I hadn’t realized how tired he was until then. “Now, I suppose I should get going.”
Dad reached for me for a moment like he was going to give me a hug, but it just turned into an awkward shoulder pat before he turned on his hooves and faced the soldiers hovering over us.
“Shall we?” he asked.
The lead stallion nodded. “We’ll make sure you arrive safely. The rest of you… get going. I don’t like criminals and I especially don’t like deserters. You’re getting better than you deserve. If I see any of you again, I’m shooting you on principle.”
“We’ll try and see you first,” Quattro said.
The lead stallion snorted and took off. The other four soldiers waited for Dad to take off, then surrounded him. He didn’t even look back at me.
“Chamomile,” Emerald said quietly.
“I just need a second,” I said, watching him go.
“We might not have a second,” Quattro warned. She was looking up. The nearest lightning rod was starting to glow. I felt the electric charge in the air, a hundred times stronger than when they’d aimed the array at ponies on the other side of town.
“Take cover!” Emerald shouted, throwing herself down.
I was looking for cover when the lightning struck. It was so close and so bright and so loud that I really thought it hit me for a second.
The bolt tore through the crowd of infected around our transport, carving through half of the crowd in one fell swoop. It had been that far from me, but it still felt like I’d been hit with a shock baton. The display in my helmet had turned to static around the edges, the whole thing blinking on and off as it tried to recover.
The second bolt was even stronger than the first. I could feel every hair in my coat standing on end, and that was through the armor. When the echoes had faded, I was blind, the helmet’s display having given up entirely. When I got it off, I could see what had happened. The entire mob of zombified ponies was down. Most of them didn’t look like they’d be getting back up.
“Well that was unpleasant,” Destiny said.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “I know you’re in the armor, and…”
“I’m a ghost, not a machine,” she reminded me. “Half the systems just flatlined, but we didn’t have the power for them anyway.”
“He cleared the way for us to get to the prison transport,” Emerald said.
“I guess he intends to keep his side of the bargain,” Quattro said. She peered over the edge cautiously for stragglers, then hopped down. “You two get in back. I’ll pull the transport first.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I’m stronger than you--”
“And I’m faster than you, and we want to be out of here as soon as possible,” Quattro countered, already starting to strap herself in. “Emerald is exhausted and you’re not in great shape either. You can argue with me later.”
“Come on,” Emerald said, grabbing my hoof and leading me like a child to the back of the transport, making sure I got inside before she unplugged it from the battery charger. I put the blue, horned helmet down on the bench and sat down heavily next to it.
“I’m sorry about your father,” Destiny offered. “He seemed like…”
“An asshole?” I asked.
“I was going to say he’s trying to do the right thing for you.”
Emerald got onboard, closing the door and sliding open a panel at the front of the compartment so she could look out at Quattro.
“We’re good to go,” she said.
I felt the transport lurch into motion, almost throwing me from the bench until I got my balance. Emerald sat down across from me, looking about as bad as I felt.
“Hold on to your flanks!” Quattro warned. She took us up at a steep angle, acceleration increasing until I could tell we were going faster than I could fly on my own. I had no idea how she could manage it while pulling the transport.
Behind us, I heard thunder crash down. Then again. And again.
“What are they doing?” I asked hoarsely.
“It’s not aimed at us,” Quattro evaded.
“They’re leveling the town, aren’t they?” I asked.
The silence was enough to tell me I was right.
“Are you going to be okay?” Emerald asked.
Part of me wanted to say yes. Part of me wanted to say no. Maybe it was the brain damage, maybe it was just because I didn’t know what I was feeling. My dad was gone. My whole life was gone. And on top of everything, my hoof was itching and hurting worse by the moment. I let the question linger a lot longer than I should have.
“I have to be,” I said. “What else am I going to do? Curl up on a cot somewhere and cry about it?”
“I’d suggest getting mad,” Quattro said from up front. “It’s a lot more useful than tears. They won this time, but we’re getting away alive. Next time, we’ll be the ones coming at them, and we’ll have a plan.”
“Coming at them?” Emerald frowned. “We’re not rebels.”
“Whether you wanted it or not, you’ve stepped into a war against the military oppression of the Enclave. Emerald, you’re a deserter. They’ll shoot you on sight. And Chamomile? You’re a civilian who knows too much. Do you really think they’re going to forget about us?”
“No,” I said. “And I won’t forget either. They’ve got Dad. I need to figure out a way to get him back, and to make them pay for what they did.”
“That means getting equipment, a team, and information,” Quattro said. “You know the best way to get all that?”
“Join your rebellion?” Emerald sighed.
“Like everypony keeps saying, we’re all in this together.” Quattro glanced back at us through the small window. “If you want revenge, you can’t get it on your own.”
“Fine,” I said. I was hurting too much to argue. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally. “Just… leave me alone for a while.”
“Rest,” Emerald said quietly. She helped me lie down. “You’ve had a worse day than the rest of us. I’ll wake you up when we get where we’re going.” She looked to the front of the transport. “Speaking of which--”
“We’ll head for the Thunderbolt Shoals,” Quattro told her.
“That’s a military depot,” Emerald said, raising an eyebrow.
I could practically feel the smirk. “It’s also the largest black market in the Enclave.”
“I should be surprised, but I know how ponies are,” Emerald said. “Will they even let us in?”
“I know some ponies there,” Quattro promised. “They owe me.”