The fireworks were almost mesmerizing, especially the way they seemed to attract the lightning from the storm, sparks and bolts crackling across the sky like the whole world wanted to add extra emphasis to the fire flowers and sparkling stars exploding in the sky. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Unfortunately it had also put an entire military base on alert. A military base I was currently in the middle of.
“I’m so sorry!” Emerald pleaded. “I didn’t know! They must have jenny-rigged it into the system, and the titles were obscure and I couldn’t figure out what it did--”
“What’s done is done,” Quattro said. She checked her weapons. “Look on the bright side! Maybe Governor Fuse will be so distracted by these birthday wishes he won’t expect trouble.”
“There are a lot of ponies down there,” I said, looking out through the window at the dock. Most of them were watching the fireworks, but an increasing number of them were starting to look less mesmerized and more alert.
“We need to get down there too,” Emerald said. “Our only way to Governor Fuse’s ship is through the docks. The Shiranui’s dry dock is next door to this cargo port.”
One of the doors started sliding open. Quattro spun and fired, a ball of foam and glue splatting against it and holding it closed.
“I think we’ve worn out our welcome,” Destiny said. “I don’t think it’s going to take them long to figure out a way through.”
“This way,” Emerald said, pointing at the other door. She ran ahead, popping it open and looking both ways before motioning for us to go through. I ran into the hallway, and she waited for Quattro before closing the door and pulling open a panel, yanking a red handle. “That’s sealed the pneumatics,” she said. “It’ll buy us another minute or two if they have to crank it open.”
I ran forward, more or less on three legs, holding my right forehoof up to avoid the tugging, pulling feeling under my skin every time I took a step.
“Stop, stop, stop!” Emerald hissed, just before we could run outside. I skidded to a stop, bumping into the wall. She looked around the corner.
“What’s wrong?” Quattro asked.
Emerald pointed wordlessly. I could hear engines over the storm and crowd, getting louder as the fireworks died down and somepony found a way to turn off the music blaring over the speakers. A machine swooped down, hovering on tilt-rotors in front of the security room windows with the menace of a hungry bird of prey.
“Vertibuck,” Emerald said. “We don’t want to be out in the open while it’s hanging around.”
“Good call,” I whispered. “I don’t think I can chuck a stapler hard enough to take it out.”
Quattro peeked around the doorframe to watch it. “Looks like Tilt Fuse has a lot of hardware to play around with. If I could get my own Raptor-class ship and toys like that I’d think about running a salvage depot myself...”
“That vertibuck could be out there all day,” I whispered.
“I don’t think so,” Emerald said. “The engines overheat really quickly when they’re hovering. They’re already pushing it.”
The vertibuck turned slowly, the pilots inside obviously trying to get a look inside the security room. After a minute, the armored transport took off, engines whirring. The sound faded, and I saw Emerald relax.
“See?” Emerald said. “Let’s go. They’ll have to circle around before they come back, so it buys us a few minutes.”
“A lot of ponies out there,” Quattro muttered. “We need a plan. They’re starting to get organized.”
“I have an idea,” I said.
Quattro and Emerald looked at me, deeply skeptical. I rolled my eyes.
“Look over there.” I pointed. “They’ve got big cloud battery banks for recharging machines, like the ones back in Cirrus Valley we used to fuel up the prison transport. The ones back home had warning labels all over them, and ponies told me they’d explode if they were all charged up and something breached the casing.”
“Yeah, they’re basically huge capacitors,” Emerald agreed. “If they get damaged, they could go off like bombs.” She smiled. “Good plan.”
“Really?”
“They’ll be more sound and fury than a real danger,” Emerald said. “But they’ll also be dangerous enough to make ponies evacuate.”
“I got this one,” I said. I guesstimated the range and angle, accounted for wind, and fired. There was a dull thwomp from the Junk Jet. A sandwich hit one of the big capacitors and left a streak of mustard when it bounced off.
“Was that somepony’s lunch?” Quattro asked.
“In retrospect that wasn’t the best thing to load,” Destiny admitted.
“Why don’t you sort out your ammunition and let me?” Quattro offered.
“Is a glue gun going to do any better than a sandwich launch?” Emerald asked.
“A glue gun won’t, no, but I made sure I had some live ammunition. In case of emergency.” She grinned and the rocket launcher made a solid, mechanical sound a lot like a transmission dropping into a new gear. “I never doubted we’d find a way to be an emergency.”
Emerald rolled her eyes and gestured for Quattro to go ahead. “Ladies first.”
“Why thank you,” Quattro said, stepping into the doorway and snapping off a shot. The rocket streaked loudly across the dock. Every pony out there turned to see what was going on, and the fastest and smartest immediately took to the air and bolted for cover.
Quattro’s rocket hit the refueling depot and tore the stations apart. Each one was a compressed, enclosed thunderstorm held under pressure to store electricity, and when the pressure was released, they reacted exactly the way you’d expect.
There was a huge, wet explosion of arcing energy, blue streaks cracking everywhere like the sky whipping the ground. Mist from the sudden pressure change washed over everything like the tide.
“Move!” Quattro yelled. We ran outside, and the pressure change rippled through the air and left a visible trail in the sky. Ponies were fleeing in all directions, and with the smokescreen and confusion we were just another part of the herd.
“Stay low!” Destiny warned. “It looks like whatever is happening, it’s not reacting well with the storm that’s already here.”
I looked up. The blue bolts from the broken capacitors were making almost continuous arcs up into the sky, and yellow-white bolts from the storm were coming down to answer them.
“I’m starting to think the ponies that work here need to get hazard pay!” Emerald shouted over the increasing din. “This is even worse than the Smokestack!”
“Do we get it too if we’re the hazard?” I asked. I slowed as we got to one of the walls dividing up the port into separate docks. “Which way?”
“We can’t go over,” Quattro said. “Not with that lightning.”
“Under!” Emerald pointed. “This way!”
An opening led under the wall and to the other side. It was just big enough for a pony to get through.
“They must use this to connect pipes and wires from one side to the other,” Destiny said. A few hoses were already running through it. “Good thinking!”
“The way looks clear. Same order as before. If Chamomile gets stuck, you know what to do.”
Quattro nodded and gave Emerald a salute. “Wish her luck and leave her.”
“Thanks girls, you’re the best,” I said, going in after them. It was a lot like the vents, obviously bigger than it really had to be. Now that I was thinking about it, though, I could see railings, real flooring, valves… maybe it wasn’t stupid to have the openings big enough for a pony if you expected a pony to have to squeeze into them to do maintenance once in a while. Whatever pony they were expecting was a few sizes smaller than me, though. It was a tight squeeze, and carrying a battle saddle was making me feel twice as wide and clumsy. My head slammed into a low pipe and I swore loudly.
“Are you okay?” Destiny asked.
“Just more brain damage,” I said. I wiped at the injury and felt wetness on my hoof. I’d busted my head open. Wonderful. The one thing my armored coat didn’t cover.
“I know you’re joking, but be careful, okay?” Destiny sounded worried. “You’re my friend, and I don’t like seeing you hurt.”
“I… thanks, Destiny,” I said. I felt a little humbled, being so easily called a friend. Now I felt like I had to live up to her expectations.
“If it helps, I think you damaged the pipe worse than your head. It’s dripping everywhere.”
“It is?” I stopped and sniffed at my hoof. I thought the wetness had been blood, but it had a sharp, chemical smell. A little like the really bad batches of booze Sloe Gin had made sometimes.
“Hey! Stop right there!”
I looked back. A few ponies in uniform were looking into the maintenance tunnel, and they didn’t seem happy to see me.
“We’ve got company!” I shouted. I fired, hoping for something a little more dangerous than a sandwich. A glass bottle smashed into the first pony. He swore and backed up, cuts opening up all over his chest. He fired, the shot going wild. A bolt careened into the wall, raising sparks. And then the stuff from the broken pipe caught on fire.
“I think that was a fuel line!” Destiny shouted.
I squeaked and shoved backward, bumping into Quattro, who’d turned to see what was happening. She pulled my tail and yanked me back, and I could hear the power armor straining with the effort. A wall of flames erupted just where I’d been, cutting off whatever ponies had been trying to get after us.
“That was close,” Quattro panted. “You were almost a roasted chicken.”
“At least they can’t follow us,” Destiny said, her voice weak. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack, and I don’t even have a heart anymore!”
“We’re almost there,” Quattro promised. “Emerald, how’s it look?”
Emerald was crouched at the edge of a cargo container just ahead of us. She was looking around the corner, looking pensive. “We need to get through this drydock, then we’ll be able to board the ship,” Emerald said. “Even with the base on alert, Tilt Fuse should still be onboard. Standard procedure would be to keep him there instead of moving him, since it’s a secure location.”
I shrugged. “So what’s the problem?”
“There’s a lot of open ground between us and the Shiranui. I don’t see anything, but there’s no cover at all. If somepony onboard that Raptor gets smart and starts opening up with the Close-In Weapons System…”
“I’ve been working on a shield spell,” Destiny said.
“Can it stop a rotary cannon?” Emerald asked.
Destiny was silent for a moment, then levitated out of my bag. “I won’t know until I try.”
“I like that confidence!” Quattro said. She punched my shoulder. “You cover Emerald. She’s more fragile than usual without her armor.”
I nodded.
“Everypony stick together, okay?” Destiny said. “If I have to bring up the shield, the smaller I can make it, the better.”
“When we go, we break right for the base of the ramp,” Emerald said. “Fly low, fly as fast as we can without breaking formation.”
“Got it,” I said.
“Do you hear something?” Quattro asked. I looked around like I’d spot whatever she was hearing before I saw it. The low rumble of the captive thunderstorms supporting the Shiranui were a constant white noise that almost blocked it out until I caught it. The electric whine of props cutting through the air.
“It’s the vertibuck!” Emerald yelled. “Fly faster!”
The gunship dropped down, swooping low and opening up with its guns. The deck sparked and exploded with the bolts, the gun swinging around to come to bear on us. A wall of red light cut it off, shots ricocheting off the magical barrier.
“Hurry! I can’t hold it off for long!” Destiny shouted, her voice distorting into static the more she strained herself.
“Up the ramp!” I yelled.
We only needed a few more seconds. We were practically there. Destiny’s shield shimmered and wavered. Shots ripped through the curtain of light and between us. A bolt caught Quattro, and she flinched to the side. The whole shield tore apart, and--
And the shots stopped as we flew into the shadow of the Shiranui. The vertibuck swooped past us, unable to get a firing angle on us with the Raptor-class ship in the way. I skidded to a stop on the ramp, losing my balance and ending up on my knees for a second before shaking it off.
“That was too close,” I said. “You okay?”
Quattro shrugged and rolled her shoulders. She brushed a scuff mark on her side. “It didn’t penetrate, but the anti-beam coating is going to need to be retouched.”
“Tougher than it looks. That gun could have put a hole right through you,” Emerald said.
“That was a bigger strain than I expected,” Destiny groaned, floating uneasily. Her telekinesis cut out, and I caught the helmet before it could hit the floor. “I’m going to need a few minutes before I can pull off anything like that again.”
“No problem,” I said. “We’re inside the ship. There shouldn’t be anything too dangerous around here, right? Otherwise he might wreck the place himself.”
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Emerald sighed. “Tilt Fuse probably has at least one fireteam in power armor protecting him, but more likely two. So that’s at least eight ponies that are going to be better armed and armored than we are. We need a plan.”
“Blow up the ship?” I suggested.
“Not everything can be solved by turning the venue into a crater.” Emerald rolled her eyes.
“Most things can be,” Quattro shrugged. “I’d like to avoid it while we’re on board. Emerald, you’ve served on board one of these before, right?”
She nodded. “Of course. Even if they’re serving on a Thunderhead just about every soldier started out on a Raptor.”
“Tilt Fuse is going to wait for us to come to him, so let’s make a stop along the way. This ship should have an armory. I’m sure we can find something useful there.”
“It’s going to be guarded,” Emerald warned.
“Better than the Governor?” Quattro asked.
“I hope not,” Emerald said. “Otherwise it’s one step forward and two steps back.”
I turned the corner to the hangar, and bolts ripped into me. I raised up my hooves to protect my face and threw myself back, my armored coat already cut to shreds and the ballistic plates burning hot against my coat. I caught a glimpse of what was inside before Quattro yanked me further into cover. It was a boxy metal monster, engine rumbling deep inside thick armor plates, and even at a glance I could tell it wasn’t a problem I was going to be able to punch to death.
“What in Tartarus is that thing?” I demanded.
“I think that’s a Goliath medium tank,” Destiny said. “Or maybe a Grizzly? I know it started with the letter G.”
The rapid-fire bolts cut out for a moment, and the whole deck rocked under the force of an explosion, the bulkhead between us and the hangar bowing outwards and almost breaching.
“Whatever it is, it shouldn’t be onboard a ship!” I groaned. My armored coat was ruined, but the holes punched through it weren’t punched through me, so I’d take that as a win.
“Drink,” Quattro ordered, pulling out a healing potion and forcing it to my lips.
“I’m okay!” I said, trying to stop her. “Really! The coat took the hits.” I took the ruined coat off. It was just tangling me up now and I didn’t need the extra weight if it wasn’t protecting me. My coat was singed in a few places, but I was okay except for being crispy around the edges.
Emerald poked her head around the corner and took a few shots. She swore and ducked back into cover just before the next barrage. “My pistol isn’t doing anything to it!”
“Does anypony else think we might be dealing with a crazy person?” I asked. There was a second explosion, the tank firing again to remind us it was still there. “He’s going to blow holes in his own ship!”
“He’s running scared,” Quattro said. “He must think the whole city is rising up against him.”
“He might be scared, but we’re the ones pinned down,” Emerald said. “If we try to go back outside, that vertibuck will be waiting.”
Quattro nodded. “If we have to pick between flying into two thunderstorms, let’s choose the one that gets us closer to our goal. How do we take out the tank?”
Emerald shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never trained with one. I’ve seen pictures, but it’s not like anypony has needed to do a ground assault in almost two centuries!”
“How many rockets do you have left?” Destiny asked. “You’ll need heavy firepower to bring it down.”
“If I had any rockets I would have tried using them on the vertibuck before we even got in here,” Quattro said.
Destiny hovered at my side for a moment, then turned to face me. “Chamomile, do you trust me?”
“Yeah? Why?” I asked.
“Somepony told me a long time ago that if you wanted to beat an impossible opponent you had to take an impossible risk because playing by the rules is why you thought of them as impossible in the first place,” Destiny said. “I have an idea but it’s dangerous and could get both of us killed.”
“It’ll only get me killed,” I corrected. “You’re already dead.”
“Let’s not split hairs! Are you in?”
“What’s the idea?”
“If I tell you, you’ll say no.”
I smiled. “Sounds like my kind of idea. What do I do?”
“Wait for when I tell you and run right out into the open,” she said. “You want the tank to have a clear shot at you.”
“Sounds good,” I said. Panels fell from the ceiling when another cannon shot knocked them right out of their frames. “If the ship doesn’t fall apart around us first.”
The shelling was followed by another barrage of rapid-fire laser blasts like clockwork. I could even count down until it started to peter off and then--
“Go!” Destiny shouted.
I shoved any hesitation aside and put my trust in whatever she was planning. The last few bolts sprayed around me, one hitting my left shoulder like a burning lash. It should have hurt more, but I didn’t have time to think about that. The turret turned to fix on me, the main cannon pointed right at me like somepony about to swat a fly with a sledgehammer.
It fired, and I saw red.
“I wasn’t sure it would work!” Destiny yelled.
The shell was hovering right in front of me, caught in a shield spell. Whoever was inside the tank seemed as surprised as I was. It stopped moving entirely and I could practically see the pony inside trying to figure out what I was doing.
“This was your plan?!”
“Part of it!” Destiny said. She opened the hopper on the Junk Jet and shoved the tank shell inside. “This is the other half!”
I bit down on the trigger. There was no time to aim. The ponies in the tank were going to remember they could gun me down any second now. The borrowed shell thumped out like the world’s deadliest cloudball pitch, going low and hitting in the tank’s treads, going between the wheels and finding its mark somewhere deeper inside.
There was a dull thump of flame and light. The tank rocked from side to side. Vents exploded out, throwing smoke in every direction. The turret popped off a second later, the seal breaking and the whole assembly lifting into the air before crashing back down on top of the tank at an angle, fire leaking from the seam between it and the armored body.
I stared at it, half-expecting it to rumble back to life somehow.
“That was the stupidest, most harebrained--” Emerald started.
“Good work, Chamomile,” Quattro said, slapping my back. I winced. The longer things went on, the worse I felt. It was like a bad case of the flu looming over me, but the itch under my skin told me what it really was. “How’s the shoulder?”
She took a look at the burn.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m starting to think I’m more beam-resistant than your fancy armor.”
“You might be,” Quattro said quietly. “Anyway, that was quick thinking.”
“Thank Destiny, it was her plan,” I said.
“We couldn’t stay pinned down there all day,” Destiny said. “We needed something fast. Eventually Tilt Fuse is going to do something smart like send soldiers to flank us. I’m surprised we haven’t been swarmed already!”
Emerald sighed. “The ship is in port and under repair. You don’t keep soldiers onboard when you’re in port. They get bored and start causing trouble. Most of his troops are probably in town. Since I took out the base transmitter, they might not even get orders to come back before we’re finished.”
“I was wondering why it felt too easy,” I said. “I mean just one tank? If it was me, I’d have a second one ready to go.”
“Having one at all is a waste of resources,” Emerald said. “What would he even use it for? He can’t drive it in a cloud city!”
“Sometimes a pony just needs a personal project,” Quattro said. “Most ponies pick something like building ships in bottles or collecting stamps, but I try not to judge.”
Emerald shook her head. “It’s not at all the same. He had to divert military funds for this.”
“Nothing is better than getting work to pay for your hobbies,” Quattro continued, walking casually up the ramp to the door. “So how do we get to the armory from here?”
“This way,” Emerald said. She stepped into the corridor and pointed. “That way goes to the bridge. You take the ramp up, then turn around and go up another level and you’re there. They’ll probably have that last stretch defended as much as they can.”
Quattro nodded. “And the armory?”
Emerald nodded the other direction. “That way. It’s between the marine bunks and the hangar.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “I’ll--”
“You'll stay back and let Quattro go first,” Emerald said. “Your armor just got shredded and left in a pile on the floor, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed, trudging along behind the others. I didn’t like feeling this way. Not just the pain, but the sense that I was unwell in a deeper way, like they had to take care of me. It made me think too much about how bad I felt. If I was doing something, I could pretend I was okay. Being taken care of meant I couldn’t even tell myself the lie that I was doing fine.
“I think I see the armory, but we’ve got a small problem,” Quattro said. She’d stopped at a junction and was looking down the hallway. “It looks like the Governor decided to install some automated defenses. I count two turrets.”
I peeked out to have a look at the two quietly-turning machines, painted bright red and black and scanning back and forth. They were right in front of a very secure looking door that was clearly and helpfully labeled as the armory.
“I see them,” Emerald said quietly. “They don’t look like standard beam weapons.”
“I heard a rumor that the Governor likes to ignore the rules of engagement with weapons,” Quattro said. “I think those are flame turrets.”
“Flame turrets?” I asked.
“It’s one thing to see your friend shot, it’s another to see them get set on fire,” Quattro said. “It’s a terror weapon. Just the kind of thing you’d have around if you were worried some workers might decide to rise up and kick you off your throne.”
“If you need a shield, it’s going to be a while,” Destiny said. “I’m just about out of magic. If I had a horn it’d be aching like crazy.”
“If they fire, they can turn this whole hallway into a little patch of Tartarus,” Quattro said. “They’re not as well-armored as the tank, but it’s still going to take a few shots to be sure they’re down.”
“You hit them with those riot-control rounds,” Emerald said. “That should keep them from firing for a few seconds. Chamomile and I can get on top of them and disable them.”
“I’ll take the right turret,” I said, lowering my head and getting ready to sprint.
“One,” Quattro said. “Two… three!” She popped out and fired, launching glue rounds across the deck. The turrets spotted her, turning to take aim and getting expanding foam splattered across them and getting into the mechanism, jamming it. Emerald burst out of cover and I followed, jerking to the side when one of the turrets managed to let out a spurt of fire that arced wildly across the hallway, bathing half of it in flame.
I took wing to go over the fire, getting the weight off my bad leg and came down on top of the turret, trying to figure out what to do.
“Got to be something…” I muttered.
“Break the targeting talisman!” Destiny shouted. “That’ll disable it!”
“Destiny, I’m not a technical pony! I don’t know what I’m looking at!”
“Just open the casing--” The turret jerked a little, already starting to break through the foam. I opened the first panel I saw, spotted blinking lights, and had to think fast.
“Load one of the beers!” I said.
“What?”
“I trusted you, so just trust me!”
I took a step back and fired, launching the can of beer right into the open mechanism of the flame turret. The can exploded on impact, throwing beer and suds everywhere. The deadly turret sputtered and died, smoke rising from every vent.
“Oh wow,” Destiny said. “That was more effective than a spark grenade!”
“I worked in a bar,” I said. “I know nothing does damage to electronics like a spilled drink. We had to get the jukebox fixed a bunch of times because ponies would spill beers on it.”
“Good thinking,” Emerald said. Her turret was lying limp with a few precise holes in it from her laser pistol. She checked the charge, then shoved it back into the holster under her wing. I saw the spurt of fire before she did.
“Down!” I shouted, shoving Emerald out of the way.
The flame turret in front of her exploded. Fuel splashed onto my right foreleg, soaking into the bandages and erupting into searing heat. It was the second time I’d been hurt so badly that the sense that things had gone terribly wrong hit me even before the pain. I was screaming and rolling on the ground and I didn’t even feel connected to my body. The pain was so overwhelming it was shoving me out of my head.
Other ponies were yelling. I don’t know what they were saying. I couldn’t hear anything. My ears were ringing and everything was in a black tunnel.
I was flowing in and out of awareness. A needle stabbed into my neck and I barely noticed it.
“Stay with us, Cammy!” Emerald yelled. “Give me another one!”
“That’s two Med-X already,” Quattro said.
“She’s a big pony, she can handle more!” Emerald snapped. “Damnit. Chamomile, are you with us? Drink this.”
I drank what was put in my mouth. I was vaguely aware it was a healing potion. It took the edge off. I felt some of the smaller aches and pains start to fade, but my hoof was… I knew it was bad. It was numb from the elbow down. Above that was hot torture.
“We need to find some clean bandages,” Emerald said. “Why isn’t the healing potion doing anything?”
I probably shouldn’t have looked, but I couldn’t stop myself.
My hoof was wet, steaming silver, like a steel butterfly tearing its way out of a cocoon. I was distantly aware of my heartbeat, and I could see it in my hoof. It was like the muscles and tendons had been dipped in molten metal.
“That’s not good,” I mumbled.
“It’s the SIVA infection,” Destiny said quietly. “There wasn’t much left of your hoof except the skin. It’s advancing faster than I thought.”
“You’re going to be okay,” Emerald said. “We’re abandoning this mission. I don’t care what the Union does--”
“We’re not quitting,” I groaned. I forced myself to sit up. “Give me another healing potion. It isn’t that much worse than it was.”
Quattro knelt down. I think she wanted to try and get on eye level with me, but she ended up looking up at me. “Chamomile--”
“Were you able to get into the armory?”
Quattro gave me a look for a few silent seconds, then stood up and composed herself. “Yes. It’s where we got the Med-X.”
“Okay, good. Anything useful?” I asked. Emerald gave me a second healing potion and I chugged it down. This one was grape-flavored, and I grimaced at the taste. “I’d love to hear that you found a balefire bomb and instructions on how to arm it.”
“I thought you’d want something a little less lethal and more useful,” Quattro said. She held up a rounded shape with a blue band around the middle. “Spark grenades.”
“That would have been nice to have with the turrets,” I groaned.
“We’ll go as soon as you’re ready,” Quattro said.
“This is a bad idea,” Emerald whispered, like I wouldn't hear her even though she was right in front of me. “She needs medical attention. Real medical attention, not just potions and first aid.”
“The fastest way out is through,” Quattro said. “She got hurt protecting you, so it’s her decision, not yours.”
I forced myself to stand. I don’t know if it was just being shot full of drugs or because I was stubborn and stupid, but it actually started to feel better. “We’re finishing this fight.”
“Right,” Quattro agreed. “Next stop, bridge.”
What I quickly learned, and retained despite the fact I was flying so high I was practically in orbit, was that the bridge of a Raptor-class cloudship was a very secure location. Especially if the pony in command of the ship was some kind of paranoid tyrant.
Beams and plasma bolts splashed the walls with suppressing fire. My sense of time wasn’t doing so great, and I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if we’d been pinned down for a few seconds or a few minutes. I could barely even remember leaning on Quattro’s armored shoulder and being helped up the ramp towards the bridge until we’d found ponies who didn’t want to let us near the door. Lying on the ground there, using one of the support ribs of the hallway for cover, it made me really appreciate how much work went into keeping the ship clean. It was absolutely spotless. I bet they even had a red carpet somewhere they’d roll out if they had visitors.
“Let’s try asking them to surrender,” I said.
Quattro was on the other side of the hallway. She gave me a look that said she was thinking about that advice through the lens of it coming from somepony badly injured and on a lot of painkillers. Emerald had gotten a little closer, but that just meant she was trying to flatten herself against the wall enough that the junction box in front of her was more than just a suggestion of protection.
“I’m not sure they--” Emerald flinched when a beam hit the edge of the junction box and bit into the metal, spraying sparks everywhere. “--I’m not sure they’re in a surrendering mood.”
“We could ask,” I said. I looked around the corner, senses just a little too dull to notice that a bolt went right past my ear until a full second after it had passed. “Hey! Stop shooting! We want to discuss terms of surrender!”
The beam shots slowed and stopped.
“No terms!” yelled one of the members of the armored fireteam pinning us down. “Unconditional surrender!”
“If that’s what you want!” I shouted back. “We accept your surrender!”
“What? No, you’re the ones surrendering!”
“Why would we do that?”
The shooting started back up, and for some reason it seemed twice as annoyed now.
“I guess that didn’t work,” I sighed.
“Shut down your armor,” Emerald hissed back to Quattro. Quattro nodded and slumped when the weight reduction talismans cut out. Emerald waited for her to signal that she was ready, then pulled out two spark grenades and tossed them down the hallway.
There was a sharp electric pop, and purple seventeen parfaitsssssssssssssss.
Emerald slapped me. “Chamomile! Hey!”
I felt like I was waking up from a long nap, that disorientation where you don’t know if it’s today or tomorrow and if somepony tells you it’s always today no matter when you are you don’t have enough brainpower to understand.
“What was that?” I asked, my tongue feeling strange.
“You had a seizure when the spark grenade went off,” Emerald said.
“Oh right, half my brain is a computer…” I groaned.
“When I was putting your head back together I didn’t think it would make you vulnerable to spark weapons,” Destiny said. “Sorry.”
“I’ll invest in a tinfoil hat,” I said.
“I’ll personally be your tinfoil hat next time, I promise,” Destiny said, nudging into me like a floating metal cat.
“I’m surprised you weren’t fried,” I said, patting her and still feeling a little slow. Maybe I was rebooting? Did I need to reboot? Did I need software updates? They needed to make a manual with a lot of simple words and instructions so I could avoid making things worse for myself.
“I’m a ghost, not a robot, remember? I don’t short out.”
I sighed. “Right. Lucky you.”
“Is she up yet?” Quattro asked. She was dragging a very annoyed-looking pony in power armor with her.
“I’m not dead!” I yelled.
“Great! Next time stay awake for the part where we need heavy lifting!”
Quattro shoved the last member of the fireteam into the janitor’s closet. They landed in a heap, the locked armor keeping them from doing more than glaring at her. The glares turned to fear when she took aim at them.
Riot-control foam exploded between their tangled limbs, tying them together. A few more shots and the room started to fill, yellow sponge surging up into the shelves and shoving mops and buckets aside as it flooded everything. Quattro slammed the door shut, and the hatch groaned in protest, foam pushing out from the cracks between it and the frame.
“For a second there I thought you were going to shoot them,” Emerald said.
“It was tempting,” Quattro admitted. “Maybe next time, if they’re not quite as helpless and pathetic.”
“This goes to the bridge?” I asked, knocking on the armored hatch. It looked tough enough that it would be easier to break through the wall than the vault-like security door.
“The security codes I picked up will open it,” Emerald said. She tapped on the panel next to the door. “The Governor’s final line of defense is going to be inside. We need to be ready. As soon as this hatch opens, they’re going to open up with everything they’ve got.”
“Think they’ll have more flame turrets?” I asked. “I don’t want more flame turrets.”
“I really want to say he wouldn’t set his own command center on fire, but the stallion had a tank firing live rounds inside his own hangar bay,” Emerald muttered. “Be ready for anything.”
“The door is ray-shielded, right? Let’s crack it open and roll in a few spark grenades to lead the way,” Quattro suggested.
“We’ve got three left,” Emerald said.
“Pitch two in and save the last one for an even bigger emergency?”
“You think we’re going to find a bigger emergency somewhere?”
Quattro tilted her head.
“Good point,” Emerald conceded. “I’ll unlock, you throw, Chamomile slams it shut.”
She held up a hoof, waited a moment, then jabbed at the controls. The heavy door beeped, and a red light flashed green. I pulled the door open just a little. Bolts hit the other side of the hatch. Somepony was shooting with the same kind of accuracy I usually had. Quattro tossed the two grenades in, and I slammed the hatch shut, bracing myself against the wall, ready to fall over in a dumb heap.
The lights flickered a little, and I could feel a wave of pins and needles, but I stayed up.
“Anypony in power armor should be regretting it now,” Emerald said.
I pulled the door open, the light completely dead. It swung open limply. “Let’s get in there before they start getting themselves back together!”
We charged onto the bridge, guns ready. There was a distinct lack of groaning marines trapped in armor, or sparking flame turrets, or anything at all.
I looked around the bridge and the rebooting, static-filled displays. “Where is he?”
There was a total lack of ponies in power armor, disabled or otherwise. I heard a squeak from under a console and knelt down to find a mare in a tweed suit, cowering and covering her head. Technically, she was armed with a laser pistol but didn’t resist when I gently kicked it away.
“Don’t kill me!” she squealed. “I’m just an executive assistant!”
“Where did Tilt Fuse go?” I asked.
“He evacuated and ordered me to stay here!” she said. “He said he’d have me fired if I went after him!”
“Fired from your job or out of a cannon?” I asked. From what I’d heard of the stallion they were equally likely options.
“I don’t know! Both?!”
I gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder. “You stay here and if anypony asks I’ll tell them you fought like a crazy berserker.”
“He seems like a great boss, abandoning his secretary to hold off an armed uprising,” Quattro said. “Is that in the standard military operations manual, or did he come up with it himself?”
“He couldn’t have slipped past us,” Emerald said. “He must have…”
She turned around and pointed to a ladder leading to a thick hatch..
“The fire escape!”
“You stay here,” Quattro told me. “You’re down a hoof--”
“I can’t be beaten by a ladder,” I said. I forced myself to put all my weight on my infected leg. It didn’t collapse. It felt strong. Or at least it was too numb to feel weak. It was more like I was piloting it than using it properly.
I gave Quattro a sheepish smile.
“Just in case, could you wait at the bottom in case I fall?”
Emerald helped me out onto the deck. The storm was rolling back over the dock, and conditions were getting worse by the second.
The rain was a cold slap to the face that knocked the shock out of me. My mane was plastered to my head almost instantly, and everything came into sharp focus. An older stallion in an elaborately decorated suit of power armor was getting onboard the vertibuck right in front of us. He turned to look at us just before the hatches slammed shut and the armored transport started rising into the air.
“Get back here!” I shouted.
“Down!” Emerald yelled, pouncing on me and forcing me into the shadow of one of the fins dotting the Shiranui’s hull. A burst of machine cannon fire tore through the air above us, burning red-hot holes in the stabilizer.
The vertibuck kept firing as the props spun up, throwing a wave of wind and spray from the rain at us while the engines came to full power.
“Damn,” I muttered. “He’s gonna get away!”
Beam shots cracked against the vertibuck’s hull, scorching the paint and doing nothing at all to the armor. Quattro emptied an entire spark battery before taking cover behind an antenna mast and reloading.
“They really built these things to last, didn’t they?” she asked.
“Vertibucks were developed for transport into the middle of battlefields,” Destiny put in. “They were expected to hold up to anti-tank weapons. Even if you had rockets, you’d have trouble cracking the hull.”
“If we can’t go through it, we’ll have to be clever,” I said. “I’ve got just the thing. Give me that last spark grenade.”
“There’s no way you’ll be able to hit it with a thrown grenade,” Emerald said. “It’s moving too quickly!”
The vertibuck swept over us, slowing to a hover and turning around, forcing us to run for different cover. I threw myself behind a weathervane and waited for the laser blasts to stop pelting the hull around me.
“I know!” I shouted back. “But I can launch anything out of this Junk Jet, right?”
Emerald looked at me from where she was hiding. “You’re only going to get one shot.”
“I’ll make it count,” I promised.
She passed me the grenade and I shoved it in the Junk Jet’s hopper. I wanted to jump out and take the shot right away, but I knew it wasn’t going to work like that. If I fired while it was moving, there was no way I’d hit it. My aim was pretty good with the heavy weapon, but it wasn’t good enough to hit a moving aircraft with a single slow shot.
I had to make the vertibuck come to me, and be where I wanted it. I knew it wasn’t going to be able to hover for long. I mentally braced myself and stepped out into the open when I heard the engines shift their pitch, changing from hover to flight.
It circled around. If Governor Tilt Fuse was smart, he’d just leave and order a few dozen ponies to storm the place while he watched from somewhere safe. The pilot was probably telling him that right now. I could almost feel it in the way they flew. It felt like a delaying action, that slow loop back towards us.
Then they spotted me. Standing right there on deck. He wasn’t going to leave when there was a target right there, would he?
I took careful aim, forcing my shaking body to cooperate and still. We only had the one spark grenade left, but that was all we’d need. The vertibuck swept down low for another pass with the autocannon. It was just like facing down the tank. I had to make a big play if I was going to win. I had to let it get closer.
It opened fire, stray shots hammering the deck around me.
Closer.
The whine of the rotors shifted, the crew keeping the swoop from turning into a crash.
Closer.
I could see the pilot inside the cockpit, her face illuminated by the glowing displays.
Now!
I bit down on the trigger, and the grenade launched in a perfect arc, right into the vertibuck’s nose, exploding in a wave of sparks and chaff. The spark grenades were powerful enough to knock out a suit of powered armor from across the room. They were deadly to machines.
The vertibuck flew through it like I’d thrown a water balloon. I felt the wash of static and sparks freeze me in place, my brain locking up.
“Oh buck,” I swore, or wanted to swear. My mouth wasn't cooperating. Emerald yanked on my battle saddle, jerking me into cover before the transport’s guns could converge on me.
“It’s got ray shielding!” Destiny said. “They must have installed it as protection against lightning strikes since it has to operate in the storm!”
“That’s just not fair!” I complained, still feeling that pins-and-needles. “Now what do we do?”
“I’m willing to take suggestions,” Quattro said, with a shrug. She took a few snap shots with her beam rifle. “I’m starting to think there’s no secret weak spot!”
“What do we have left?” Destiny asked.
“Plenty of beam pistol and beam rifle shots,” Emerald said. “Medical supplies.”
“I have a couple beers and a desk lamp,” I offered.
“I’ve got one riot control round left,” Quattro said. “I might be able to blind the pilot.”
I listened to the whine of the overstressed engines and got another brilliant idea. “What if you fire it into the engine? I bet propellers don’t work so well when they’re full of gloop!”
“If this doesn’t work, you realize we’re basically going to have to fly up to that monster and try kicking it to death, right?” Quattro said. “When we get back the first thing I’m going to do is tell Herr Doktor I need heavier weapons.”
“Do all the missions you rebels go on end up like this?” Emerald asked. “Because I’m sort of regretting defecting.”
“It’s funny, most weeks I don’t have ponies shooting at me at all!” Quattro laughed. “Here goes nothing.”
She pointed her launcher straight up and waited. Her aim was about a dozen times better than mine, because she hit the vertibuck just as it swooped over us to get around our cover.
The expanding foam splattered against the engine, and the whole ship dipped a little, losing a little altitude before the powerful rotors could chew through it. When they did, they pulled apart service panels and yanked doors open where the glue had adhered, the engine’s housing raining down around us.
“That was my last glue round,” Quattro warned. “All I’ve got left is a beam rifle, and that’s just about as effective as harsh language against that thing!”
“I really thought that might work,” Destiny said. “Those engines have a ridiculous amount of torque!”
The vertibuck tilted and turned, abandoning the maneuver it was doing and going back out to circle around again. Emerald looked up at it and narrowed her eyes. “It wasn’t useless. Look at the engine -- it’s throwing out a lot of smoke. Breaking free while in-flight must have damaged the transmission!”
I watched it circle around. “It’s moving more slowly than before.”
“I bet the pilot’s not happy,” Quattro said. “The wind is already getting too strong for him to hover, and now he’s got to fight uneven thrust!”
“Can they stay up on one engine?” I shouted.
“They’re overbuilt hogs,” Quattro shouted back. “They barely stay in the air even with two engines! That’s why they overheat so quickly!”
“So all we need to do is a little more damage to that bad side, huh?” I checked in my bag, then grabbed something and jammed it into the Junk Jet. “I have just the thing.”
Destiny looked at the weapon hanging on my side, then at me.
“There’s no way that will work,” Destiny said. “You know that, right? The spark grenade didn’t even touch it!”
“Do you have a better idea?” I retorted. “Half the cowling is torn off and I can practically see its vitals!”
With the slower speed and the careful turn it was making to favor its damaged engine, it was taking a lot longer to get back to us. I bolted across the deck. I tucked my legs in, spreading my wings and catching the wind, letting it help me to where I needed to go. I wasn’t going to be able to stay in the air long in this weather, so I had to make it count.
The vertibuck turned back towards us, and I banked, sweeping up and into its path. I could just imagine what the pilot onboard that transport was thinking, seeing me pop out into the open. He was slow to open fire, struggling to get the nose up and the gun pointed in the right direction.
“Let’s see how you like the taste of this!” I said, the Med-X giving me just enough confidence in my bad plan to feel like it couldn’t possibly fail. I stood my ground right in the face of oncoming death and fired.
The beer can exploded into the engine. The sputtering prop backfired, belching smoke. The vertibuck was already too low over the deck. It might have recovered if it had been flying higher. Instead, the power loss tilted it to one side, brought the still-spinning ailing engine down too far, and the tip of the blade hit the hull of the Shiranui.
All that torque and power turned into a giant lever and slammed the vertibuck into the armored warship under it, instantly transforming it from fearsome scourge of the sky into a flaming wreck. Shrapnel sprayed around me, metal splinters digging into my neck and chest. I just barely shielded my eyes in time.
My landing was almost as graceful as the transport’s. I landed on four hooves, immediately regretted it and remembered the pain I’d felt in my leg at the same time I started putting weight on it. It was almost all numb like it wasn’t part of my body, and I tried to look at it to see where it was, get my weight off it, and flinch all at the same time.
I slammed face-first into the deck and skidded to a stop when my good foreleg collapsed.
“That was dumb,” I groaned, rolling onto my back and letting the rain hit my face.
“If it’s dumb and it works, it’s not dumb,” Destiny said. She levitated in front of my face and looked me over. “I don’t see any broken bones. How do you feel?”
“Am I allowed to pass out yet?” I asked.
The wreckage of the vertibuck groaned and shifted. I sat up to look at it.
“That had better not… explode…” I said slowly. The vertibuck had collapsed in on itself, the wings twisted and broken where the engines had fought against the framework and won. The fallen, broken wing moved, groaning as it was lifted up and out of the way.
Governor Tilt Fuse, his elaborate armor looking only a little worse for wear, stepped out of the wreckage, tossing the broken panel aside and fixing me with a hate-filled gaze.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned. I started getting up. Destiny spun around in midair and started charging up some kind of spell.
Tilt Fuse batted her away with one hoof, slapping the helmet out of the air and looming over me. For a pony who played around with so much tech, he’d saved the best for himself. He grabbed my neck and lifted me up off the ground like I didn't weigh anything at all.
I tried to say something clever, but I was having problems getting words out without any air.
“I’m going to take you apart piece by piece and sell the parts,” he growled. “You have no idea how much you’ve cost me!”
I tried to pry him away from my neck. His grip tightened, and things started to go black. My bad hoof twitched. I couldn’t even start to list the number of things that felt deeply wrong about it, but a new one came to the forefront, a feeling like my bones were trying to move on their own.
“When the rest of your Union friends see what I did to you, they’ll--”
He didn’t get to finish.
My infected hoof slammed into his face. I barely felt in control of it, like I was punching him on reflex. Whatever he was going to say, he stopped. Blood sprayed into the air. I pulled my hoof back and saw what was at the end, a long curved blade coming right out of what had been my flesh.
It twisted and slid back inside, nestling somewhere between the bones of my leg.
“That’s not normal,” I mumbled.
Tilt Fuse let go. Both of us fell to the ground. I heard Quattro and Emerald yelling something, but I wasn’t feeling up to answering them.
I closed my eyes. I needed a nap. The darkness closed in on me, and I went out like a light.