At Raemor’s suggestion, as well as his promise to carry Blake with him to the gate after retrieving his own gear, I left the church and immediately took to the air, winging away to the south end of the base. Outside, it was still as quiet as it had been before, and thankfully, there were no signs of mobilization from Buckley’s own forces along the runways or by any of the buildings. However, as the front gate itself came into view, I saw that a small group of guards had already assembled by it.
And as I descended, the gate was coming open.
Standing at the front of a half dozen guardsponies, Archer stared out along the concrete road joining the base to the highway to the west, periodically looking back over his shoulder towards the base interior. As I angled in towards him, he spotted me from his place on the ground only to point with a hoof to the south, instead drawing my attention to the crater-filled fields in that direction. Even without looking, I knew who I’d find out there, but when my eyes fell upon the area and my pace in the air slowed, that hunch didn’t keep me from becoming immediately apprehensive. Four ponies were on approach from the road, already near the gate but moving slowly… only three of them were walking, the fourth member being bodily carried atop the largest of the group.
With a beat of my wings I picked up speed and lowered my altitude as I passed the base perimeter, quickly closing the distance between myself and the group… and confirming that it was indeed my four friends. They were close together as they walked, Shore in the lead with Gunny’s riot shotgun and LMG strapped to his own security armor. The bigger unicorn to which the weapons belonged was walking behind him, carrying a motionless Blossom on his back, and Grace walked beside Gunny on his left side, the first to spot me as I came in for a landing in front of them.
“Nova! Come down here!” her voice echoed up to me as she gave a quick wave.
“Grace! Guys, what happened??” I called back, lowering myself back down to the surface and quickly landing to trot the rest of the way to the group as they came to a stop, Grace then immediately closing her distance to me and pulling me into a hug that I heartily returned. But now, as I was standing right next to my friends, I saw with a start that Blossom was still very much awake, hitching with suppressed sobs as fresh tears trailed down her cheeks. Her dirtied face was streaked with those tears, her mane lightly matted with sweat, her back near her flanks dressed with red-stained healing bandages, and her eyes bloodshot when she occasionally tried to open them; she looked like an absolute emotional train wreck. “What happened out there?” I asked again, Grace releasing me as we locked eyes.
My friend only shook her head though, then looking at Gunny who took a step forward, an alarming limp in his left hind leg. “We need to get back to the clinic.” the armored unicorn replied. “I’ll tell you what happened on the way.”
“Sure… okay…”
Without further hesitation, I fell in by Gunny’s right side, and we began back to the gate. Up ahead, fortunately, the guards were clearing a way for us to proceed without trouble, even Archer stepping back and out of our path as he called a quick order to the others. “Clear the gate. There’s nothing else coming.” At the steel blue pegasus’ command, the guards turned about and trotted off back into the base one by one, only Archer himself remaining along with the tower ponies. “Hey, are you all alright?” he called.
“Please, if Doctor Preston would allow them, I’d like for Gunny and Blossom to rest in the clinic for a while.” Grace answered him. “They’re injured and need rest.”
“Could you go and find him and ask if they can?” I asked the pegasus, to which he gave a nod.
“Yeah. I’m sure he won’t have a problem with that. I’ll be back in a second.”
In a flash, Archer was in the air and zipping back into the base as we passed by the watchtowers, and with a familiar rattle, the gate rolled closed behind us. “Now, can you please tell me what happened out there?” I asked gently.
Gunny was the first to respond, sighing. “When we started, we merged onto the highway in the shortest time we could.” he explained. “At first, there was nothing out there but the occasional wrecked passenger carriage or cargo wagon coming from Marefax. But as we continued ahead, we began finding evidence of skirmishes along the road - empty bullet casings, broken weapons, bodies. We’d been out there for a fair amount of time before we found another one of the southeast’s intact farmhouses.”
“Shamrock Farmstead.” Grace explained from her place by Gunny’s left side. “It was standing, but already looked near collapse when we got there.”
“When we found the place, it looked empty.” Gunny continued, Blossom giving a whimper from her place on his back. “Grace’s pipbuck didn’t register any threats or even friendly contacts. But when we investigated it, we found Blossom’s friend. She’d been chained to a wall, rigged to a trap…” My friend sighed heavily then, my ears pinning back at the pain in his voice. “I… I disarmed the first trap trigger… I thought I’d saved her. After the trap went down, we went to work to free her… and then those Talon fuckheads attacked.” My friend shook his head. “They had Jenny rigged to die from the start. They made a trap with two different triggers, and I only found one. The other was in a different part of the house… and I didn’t see it until it was too late. They sprung the trap…”
Oh no… “Goddesses…”
“It was a fucking nail gun, Nova.” Gunny growled, a slight shake in his words as Blossom hitched with another sob. “What kind of monster would use a nail gun out of all things?”
“Blackhawk would.” came Blossom’s rough reply, the mare clearing her throat best she could.
“Blackhawk?” I softly questioned. “Who’s that?”
“We were ambushed at that farmhouse by a Talon Legion squad, only six soldiers. And a griffin led the attack.” Shore explained, falling in by my right side as he added, “That griffin was the very same one you fought in Hopeville when the Talons knocked on our door.”
I cocked an eyebrow in bafflement. “The same griffin? The… wait… you mean…” My mind swiftly fell upon the memory of that fight in Hopeville, and I remembered it down to the smallest details, causing my words to fall away as realization hit me like a sack of bricks. The griffin at Hopeville - he’d been the commander of the invading force that had attacked us on that day. And when we had engaged each other in our aerial dogfight, he had been fast, agile, and durable, an opponent that I hadn’t been able to beat outright. Now that I looked back, I remembered that I had hardly scored a mark on him, and he had barely tired at all in the air. He was very tough, and in the end, our fight had been a draw. But throughout the fight itself, he had spoken to me about how he’d been looking for me, searching after my engagement at the town of Plainwell. “You’ve got my attention, Nova, and make no mistake, I will be back for you.”That’s what he had said to me, the last words he had spoken when we had first faced off. But hearing now that he had engaged my friends out on that highway… sprung a trap on them and murdered Blossom’s best friend in cold blood… that put me on edge. “He had the scar across his eye, and he had the white revolver… everything?” I asked in shock. “I mean, what are the chances that he’d see us again out in this wide open region??”
“It was him, Nova.” Gunny answered with a grunt, his left hind leg staggering him as he kept his weight off of the injured limb. “He kicked my ass today… could’ve executed me out there. He disarmed me of all my weapons, he was quicker and more agile than I was… he wanted me to come back in this condition. That’s why he let me live, so I’d come back like this. Grace patched me up just fine, but my leg and side are plenty sore when I move the wrong way.”
“Goddesses… He was… he was looking for me, wasn’t he?” I asked, nervousness meshing with rising anger as Gunny gave a bitter nod. “Damn it!” I stopped to stomp my right forehoof into the ground hard as I could, glaring hotly with clenched teeth at the concrete under me as my friends halted just ahead. This griffin had attacked me first back home, and though he had clearly shown the hatred he had held towards me, he had never spoken as to why he was looking for me, other than that it had to do something with my presence in Plainwell during his mission to occupy the settlement. First he had attacked my home, ordered the strike that killed twenty of Stable 181’s survivors, including the father of one of the foals that I cared for. And now he had attacked my best friends out in the open upon their arrival to this farmstead on the highway, and he’d nearly killed Gunny out there; this griffin’s eyes were fixed on me, and more and more, he was making things personal. “I should’ve been there with you…” I seethed, then sighing as I fought to keep my anger from further escalating to a boil. “I could’ve fought him instead. I should have.”
“You couldn’t have known that he would’ve been there.” Grace spoke comfortingly. “None of us could have known.”
“But even then,” I protested, glare softening as my voice lowered. “I could’ve kept him distracted, kept him from pulling that trigger…”
“They had concealed themselves inside that farmhouse, hidden themselves away in the farthest rooms and boarded up all the windows.” Shore put in.
“But my pipbuck-”
“My pipbuck malfunctioned.” Grace interrupted me, raising her computer for me to see. “The compass is working just as it should now, just like everything else. But when we got there, Eyes-Forward Sparkle hadn’t registered anything, and before then, my screen was nothing but static… I have a feeling yours would’ve done the same.”
“But how?” I asked, perplexed.
“We don’t know. My guess is that the Talons must’ve used some sort of jammer or scrambler, a magic interference device of some kind.” Gunny answered. “Though I’ve never even seen a device that could tamper with a pipbuck, let alone heard of one, it’s the only logical explanation as to how they fooled us into thinking that they weren’t there. E.F.S. picks up all hostile and friendly targets, and pipbucks hardly ever act up.”
“Well… I could’ve done something!” I snapped back, my mind swimming through the possible outcomes that would’ve resulted from my own guns lending a hoof to the mission… if I had made better decisions over the past few days… if I’d been smarter, more persistent.
“It’s not your fault, Nova.” Blossom suddenly voiced, her soft and pain-streaked words halting my train of thought, making me ease back my temper; for her sake, especially after her latest and most terrible loss, I needed to be composed. “Blackhawk rigged the trap to two triggers, and Gunny disarmed the only one he saw… it was just bad luck…” I looked over to see the violet mare, our newest companion adjusting herself on Gunny’s back to stare back at me. “Your group’s taken me in and willingly helped me… and even though Jenny’s gone, I can still thank you all for everything you’ve done for me.” Slowly, her eyes narrowed at me, her tone rising in strength as she added, “None of you killed Jenny… Blackhawk did, him and his Talon soldiers… and I promise you now that the Legion will pay for what they’ve done.”
“We’ll see to that together.” Gunny put in as he continued forward, Shore and Grace following after him as Blossom slumped on his back and let out a tired sigh. “Right now, you need to lay down and rest for a while.”
Trotting to catch up, I drew back up alongside the group as we continued towards the Buckley hangers. But just ahead, Archer was already flying back to us, angling in low and closing the distance before he back-winged, halting his momentum to land just off to our right. “Preston says you’re free to use the clinic.” he explained to Grace. “There’s still some free beds available.”
“We won’t be there long.” Gunny spoke up. “I’ve just got to get off my hooves for a bit. My side’s killing me.”
“Don’t worry about how long you’re there.” Archer replied with a shake of his head. “When you’re feeling better, then you can leave.”
“I was supposed to say that.” Grace remarked with a half-smile, to which Archer politely bowed his head. “I’ll go ahead and take them to the clinic, make sure they get comfortable.” she added, turning to look back at me. “Because as I understand it, that meeting you want to go to is coming up soon, Nova. Am I right?”
“I actually don’t know.” I replied, glancing over at Archer. “Is it?”
“In a few minutes, actually. Fifteen, tops. Mother Shimmer just gave the call for the leadership to start making their way to the ATC tower.” the steel-blue pegasus answered. “But truthfully, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. If you want to stay with your friends, then do so.”
“Well, I don’t know. I mean… I should-”
“You should go.” Gunny interrupted, startling me out my conflicting thoughts; he was smiling faintly when I met his eyes.
“But you and Blossom are hurt…” I protested.
“This is something that you wanted to do.” the big unicorn replied, eyes flicking to where Blossom lay atop him… she looked to be sleeping now. “Don’t let us get in the way. When we get to the clinic, I’ll look after Blossom… Even though I’ll be resting there for my own recovery, I need to be with her either way. I owe it to her… and I have to ask her forgiveness.”
Beside him, I saw as Gracie’s ears pinned back at his words. “But… Gunny, Blossom…”
But the big unicorn only faced forward and continued towards the hangers ahead, leaving us at his back. And when I looked to Grace for answers, she let out a light sigh. “He’s taken this pretty hard, too.” she explained, tone soft as she and Shore grouped up beside me. “He blames himself for what the Talons did.”
I shook my head in worry. “I know it just happened, but… I really hope he doesn’t glue himself to the guilt.”
“It’s something psychological that isn’t going to go away for some time.” Grace responded. “We just need to be there for him, and for Blossom too.”
“It’s really all that we can do.” Shore agreed.
Farther off to my right, I heard as Archer politely cleared his throat. “Pardon, but your other friend is coming.”
When I looked, I saw Raemor heading for us at a steady gallop, his combat armor, duster, and weaponry organized and reequipped. Blake was with him, clinging to his back by holding secure straps on Raemor’s armor as the older stallion ran. “Hey, Archer. I’m going to walk to the clinic with Gunny and Blossom and see that they’re settled in and comfortable.” I explained to the pegasus buck. “After that, I’ll meet you up in the tower.”
“Sure thing.” he replied, fanning out his feathered wings and giving me an understanding smile, a gesture that I, truly, very much appreciated. “And I’ll let Mother Shimmer know that you’ll be a little late. So please, take your time.”
“Thank you.”
“Certainly… and outsiders,” he added, looking over my other friends. “I’m sorry things didn’t go well for you out there. I really am.”
“Thanks for the sympathy.” Grace replied, giving a dip of her head that Shore and I copied. And with that, the pegasus sprang skyward, flying back up towards his sniper nest at the top of the ATC tower as my friends and I started moving again. And waving Raemor over to join us, we headed towards the hangers together to catch up with our guilt-ridden friend.
*** *** ***
Horn glowing alight with magic, Raemor turned the handle of the door in front of me and pushed it inside, stepping aside for me to enter first.
After helping Gunny and Blossom settle into Doctor Preston’s clinic, proceeded by a quick discussion, we had decided that Raemor and I would attend the meeting regarding Buckley’s mission to Marefax while Grace, Shore, and Blake would remain behind to keep the others company while they recovered. Once the meeting was over, it was agreed that I’d share Buckley’s plan with the entire group, whereupon we’d decide who would be leaving where the next day. “As long as Mother Shimmer will let us,” I spoke to Raemor as I entered the building. “I’m hoping that we’ll be able to secure a spare shack or a few beds in one of the residential sectors once the meeting’s over with.”
The older buck nodded as he stepped inside after me. While making our way there, we had been discussing the matter of lodging in Buckley for the night, before which he had outright expressed his interest in participating in Buckley’s mission to me. “After all you’ve been doing for her people today, I’m sure it won’t be a problem.” he assured. “Besides, you’re to be part of the mission. With the level of organization and the diligence of leadership I’ve seen here, they’ll be wanting everypony going along to be in top shape for the trip.”
“I know.” I replied, briefly stopping as the door closed behind us, craning my head around to look back at my friend. “Just so long as everypony can get a place to sleep in relative comfort tonight.”
He flashed a small yet heartening smile. “I think you’re worrying too much. Right now, just focus on giving your undivided attention to this meeting. As Gunny said, you’ll most certainly have your own part to play in its success. I’m sure of that, too.”
I gave a smile back, letting out a breath. “You’re right.” I replied. “Let’s find our way to the ATC tower.”
Facing forward, I found myself staring down a single long hallway, with a dozen worn yet intact wooden doors, six on each side, marking the entrances of individual rooms. As we started forward along its aged and cracked tile floor, I looked along each door to the left and right, all of them sporting a label plate that marked the function of the rooms they concealed. There were office centers closest to the entrance, logistics sectors after that, and computer rooms for base operations nearer the end of the first hall. Within half the rooms, I could hear muffled voices reaching out to us as we walked by, likely members of Buckley’s guard personnel as they went about their errands. Up ahead, the hall ended at a T-intersection, two mares dressed in light variants of Buckley’s Stable security armor rounding the corner and trotting casually towards us.
Stepping against the wall and out of their way, I exchanged a polite nod with the pair, the leftmost then saying, “You two must be the outsiders going to that meeting. We heard Mother Shimmer talking about it with Archer.” Nodding back behind her, she added, “Take a right turn at the end of this hall and follow it all the way to its end. It passes around all of the ATC building’s terminal chambers and the mainframe itself, but the stairway to the top of the tower is right there at the end of it.”
“Thank you.” Raemor replied as the two continued on their way.
“Sure thing.”
Joining me at my side, we followed the Buckley mare’s directions and hooked a right into the next hallway. This hall was marked by a series of turns, containing a number of their own entrances into the same rooms before it leveled out into a straightaway deeper into the building. This hall was likewise spaced with multiple doors on both sides, and members of the building’s personnel moved back and forth among them as they went about their errands. Past the straightaway, the monotony of the hallway was broken by a small antechamber that led to a different sector of the building. A steel blast door awaited at the far side of the side-room, closed and locked up tight. Above it, an electronic label sign read, Buckley AFB Defense Array Mainframe. Level 5 Authorization Required, and in the same side-chamber, a wooden door sealed another room, a similar label above it reading Base Commander’s Office.
Past the side-chamber, the hallway led into one final series of turns, home to several other offices and the occasional janitorial storage room before we finally came upon the entrance to the stairs, also marked with a label - Air Traffic Control Tower Access. Authorized Systems Personnel and Traffic Monitors Only. The staircase itself was a series of spiraling metal steps that hugged the large circular diameter of the tower walls, and the passage was wide enough for two ponies to ascend comfortably at any time. Even as Raemor and I made our way up, we could hear voices echoing down from above, and when we reached the top of the stairwell, we stepped out onto a small, level lobby chamber. Beyond the short distance to its far end was an open door, past which I could see a short but straight set of stairs that ascended to the top of the tower. Two guard stallions were standing nonchalantly on either side of the open entrance, assault rifles holstered as they conversed with an unarmed and unclothed unicorn mare with a brick red coat and a cerulean mane and tail.
“The director has planned this out.” the red mare explained to the guards, both of whom wore small yet approving smiles. “It’ll be worth it in the end. Besides, while I may not be a guard myself, my time going through basic training with some of our current guards a couple years back has given me the knowledge to safely say that you jarheads are looking to put your skills to the test.”
“Well you’ve got us there.” the guard on the right replied with a chuckle. “Still, whatever this is that the artisans are cooking up, I just hope that it won’t cost us any lives.”
“Believe me, the director doesn’t want it to either.” the mare replied. “But what we found in Marefax, it has to be saved. Buckley has to protect it just like everything else that we safeguard.”
“Hey, it’s the outsiders.” the left guard suddenly announced, spying us first as he stood straight.
“Hello. We’re here to join in this meeting.” I explained as the other two turned to us as well.
“Oh yeah, I remember.” the mare replied, trotting towards us with an easygoing smile. “I saw Mother Shimmer lead your group into the concert hall during my rehearsal earlier today.”
“Hey, you’re that mare that was playing the violin solo I heard!” I exclaimed, recognizing the mare now that I stood face to face with her; she had been at center stage when Shimmer had first shown us Buckley’s concert hall. “It’s hard to forget a sound like that… I mean… it’s an honor to meet you in person.”
“Oh, well, that was just an introduction melody, and a simple one at that, nothing too special.” the music mare replied with a little laugh, raising her right forehoof to me. “But I’m flattered that you thought so either way. I’m Saharra, Buckley’s concertmaster.”
I gladly bumped my own forehoof against her own. “I’m Nova.” I replied. “And I’m a major music enthusiast myself.”
“Is that right?” she asked, likewise bumping her hoof with Raemor’s and exchanging a quick yet cordial greeting.
“Back where I came from, we had an old radio and some recordings.” I explained with an energetic nod. “Largely, they were from Octavia and Sapphire Shores, but there were a couple that Sweetie Bell and even Vinyl Scratch had made as well. I always listened to them when I had the time to do so.”
“Those mares are the greatest sources of inspiration for our artists here. It’s refreshing to know that music lives on beyond our own walls, even if only in some small portion.” Saharra replied with approval. “Just out of curiosity, do you happen to play your own instrument or sing?”
“Well, we didn’t have instruments back in the Stable, and we still don’t now in Hopeville.” I answered. “But I’ve sang a few times, really only for my parents and for the foals I cared for. That, and my baby brother sometimes likes to be sung to sleep.”
“Aw, that’s cute.” Saharra remarked back, to which I lightly blushed. “You know, I’m glad that you’ve got your own interest in music. I know that you’re coming here per Mother Shimmer’s request, but musical passion is going to be much more valuable on this mission to Marefax than simply obliging a request for help.”
“If your musical culture is involved in the framework, I’m certain that admiration for the arts will be the prime source of motivation for the desire to complete this mission successfully.” Raemor spoke up in response, to which Saharra nodded.
“That’s exactly right, outsider.” she agreed with a smile, turning then to the entrance and motioning for the two of us to follow. “And speaking of the meeting, Mother Shimmer’s already up in the control center with the rest of the leadership, so she’s about ready to kick this off. I’ll take you both on up.”
“Lead on.” Raemor replied as I gave a nod.
“See you later, boys.” Saharra spoke to the guards, both then passing their own farewells before resuming their duties.
A quick walk up the short flight of steps later, and the three of us emerged into the very top of the ATC tower. A wide open chamber made the main floor of the control center, and spaced around the edges of the chamber was a whole array of inactive terminals that made the tower’s monitoring systems – radars, radio relay terminals, communications devices, and other various machines that I couldn’t make head or tails of. In open spaces between the old computers that provided window access, placed at opposing positions, were four unattended sniper rifles set on bipod attachments set atop the window sills, three of the weapons .308 models like my own, and the other one that I recognized to be a .50 caliber rifle - Archer’s rifle.
At the center of the room, a large metal table was built into the floor, and was currently home to a small number of documents and file folders; all around it was the assembled leadership of the community. Mother Shimmer was standing at the left side of the table, the far end and the presumed head seat of the gathering. She was currently speaking in low tones to Commander Tracer who stood by her left side, listening back to her with an attentive ear. Beside Buckley’s commander and facing us, I recognized Amber Dawn, presently silent and patient at her place while beside her, and Archer himself sat looking over a thick folded up document on the table in front of him. There were only two others present in the room, the first a hazy blue earth pony stallion with a brighter green mane and tail. He was strongly built and physically fit, garbed in medium-weight combat armor whose chest plate was adorned with four medals, two bronze and two silver, that marked a position of headship. The last member of the assembly wore no armor and carried no weaponry, just like Saharra, and was a skinnier albino unicorn stallion with a blond mane and tail, only wearing a pair of reading glasses at the bridge of his muzzle.
“Ah, Saharra.” the white unicorn spoke with a friendly smile. “We’re just about to begin, and I see that the outsiders have held to their word yet again.”
“I told you all that at least one of them would come, and now here we are with two of them.” Mother Shimmer’s aged voice replied, and I looked to see the ghoul smiling at me. “Welcome to our meeting, outsiders.” she said, approaching us as Saharra and the others made themselves comfortable at their places. “Archer told me about what happened to your friends out there.” she then added, smile fading. “I’m sorry that things turned out the way they did for your group, as I assure you that I was ready to harbor the pony you sought to rescue as well.”
“Thank you, Mother Shimmer.” I replied. “I’m grateful for that, but I’m just more grateful that my four friends who went out there came back, even if they didn’t bring back Blossom’s companion. It was the Talon Legion that took them by surprise, sprung a trap on them out on the highway.”
“Indeed.” Shimmer nodded understandingly as we stood face to face. “The Talons are just as ruthless as most any raider.”
“They’re just much more coordinated and skilled.” the new blue stallion voiced with a nod of his own.
“We’ve had multiple run-ins with them in the past.” Commander Tracer added from his seat at the table. “We understand what you’ve been through today.”
“It’s Blossom that’s taken the worst of it, not me.” I replied to him. “She’s had it very hard the past two days.”
“Well, you and your group have done a great deal for us already, and considering this, your latest ordeal, the least I can do is offer her and the rest of you safe haven while you all rest and recover.”
“I know she’d really appreciate it. I do, too.” I replied, to which the elderly ghoul mare’s smile returned.
“We can discuss the details after our meet.” she said, to which I nodded my agreement. “For now, it’s time to start planning our first move into the outside world. If you and your companion will take a seat anywhere around the table, we can begin.” At her instruction, I made my way over to the table with Raemor as Mother Shimmer returned to her own place. I took my own seat across from Archer, the pegasus buck giving a small smile and nod that I returned as I sat down on my haunches, and as Raemor joined me at my right side, I saw as Shimmer gave a nod and cleared her throat. “As everypony in this room is aware of, I’ve been expressing my thoughts regarding the outside world for some time now.” she began. “While we’ve grown and developed under seclusion and secured everything that we need to survive, I’ve become concerned as to how further isolation might affect the safety and stability of Buckley.”
“Many of the civilians have disagreed with Mother Shimmer’s unease because of Buckley’s defensive measures and offensive might.” Tracer spoke after, looking amongst each pony present individually. “And I know that we’ve all had our own doubts about going outside in the past. But more and more, the signs are becoming clearer from the reports that Archer brings in from his periodic ventures outside.”
“For the benefit of this meeting, sir,” the sturdy blue earth pony spoke. “perhaps you could lay the primary issues out on the table again, just to remind us.”
“There are two issues that have become the focus of our attention, the first a minor subject, and the second a much more immediate matter.” Tracer replied. “The first is a local issue, and is that of genetic diversity. Like I said, it’s minor and very simple in comparison with the other, but it’s still something that needs to be taken into consideration.”
“When Buckley’s first generation left Stable One ninety-two and the white noise experiment behind,” Amber Dawn took over. “there were roughly two hundred and fifty survivors in its aftermath. In the seventy years that we’ve lived here, we’ve risen to over triple that number. We’re still growing… but to put it simply, it’s not enough to last forever.”
“But there’s surely enough unique blood to last for some time yet, correct?” the white unicorn buck put in curiously.
“Yes.” Tracer nodded. “The only family bloodlines in Buckley are those that had originally been selected to enter the Stable. There was more than a fair number of them, of course, but the point still stands. It’s better to get this out and into everypony’s head now instead of twenty-five or fifty years later when it might become a much more serious problem.”
“And while this will be revisited later, it still serves as something to back Mother Shimmer’s opinion on the matter of seclusion.” Amber Dawn added to the white unicorn. “It’s important to keep in mind as the meeting progresses.”
“That brings me to the second topic before we go into the Marefax mission itself.” Tracer then continued. “As the leadership and much of Buckley’s guard detail knows, things beyond our walls have been growing increasingly disconcerting. A war’s going on out there in the southeast, and Archer’s reports have made it perfectly clear that it’s affecting the entire Equestrian southeast. We’ve seen those black and red armored raiders on the move through our scopes, and we’ve had our own skirmishes with them when they’ve tried to send raiding parties to the fences. But what’s worse is that the Talon Legion has returned from Hayward in force after they were beaten out of the region ten years back. Since we had kept them at bay on multiple occasions ourselves, there’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll be setting their sights on us again somewhere down the road.”
“Last time, they sent smaller companies and platoons against the southeastern settlements, scattering their forces across the region like jacks. This time, though, they’ve come to the southeast with an entire brigade that’s setting up shop north of the town of Ashton, and they’ve been sending even more troops farther southeast to the region’s mapped out border in that direction.” Archer firmly explained. “We’re talking about three to five thousand troops at a minimum, and that number is rising every day.”
Goddesses…
“Challenger only has around four thousand residents, and maybe only half of them are soldiers, as far as I know.” I remarked nervously, exchanging a look with Raemor; even he looked a little taken aback. Though their initial attention had been focused on the Black Blood’s presence near Ashton, Challenger would have clearly noticed the Talons marching onto its sister town by now, especially with such a large force. If Archer’s observations were truthful, and I had no doubt that they were, the situation in the southeast had taken a very serious and dangerous turn; it had become exactly like what Raemor had said to me the previous night near the radio station - a literal three-way war with all sides fighting against one another.
The pegasus nodded. “They’ve brought enough soldiers to easily combat the entire region, and the fact that Challenger’s own assembled forces and the new raiders fighting against them are just large enough to keep the Talon brigade focused on Ashton brings to light the very real threat that the Legion poses to us. They’ve got the forces needed to launch attacks on Buckley should they gain solid ground in Ashton, and remember, they don’t care that we’ve isolated ourselves from the rest of the southeast and its new conflict.”
“So what are our options in response to the return of the Legion?” the blue earth pony asked the group.
“We’ve knocked the Talons back time and time again when they first arrived at the region’s doorstep.” Commander Tracer answered the buck. “Largely, your artillery crews are the ones that kept them at bay, them and Lily. And when they breached the perimeter, our guardsponies followed their training by the book and drove them out. I have every iota of confidence that we can repel them again now just like we did ten years ago. However, should the Talons become too aggressive, or bring in a brigade like the one at Ashton, we’ll have needed to create a dialogue with the southeast well in advance.”
“Are you suggesting an alliance?” Saharra asked the commander, words doubtful and hesitant.
“No. Absolutely not.” Tracer immediately answered, shaking his head. “While there are a few of us that are beginning to warm up to the possibility of opening our gates to the outside world, an outright coalition with outsiders is still very much out of the question. It wouldn’t sit well at all with the rest of the community.”
“But Challenger is a very organized city.” I put in, the assembly turning to me in unison. Despite the bit of uneasiness I felt at the sudden attention, I kept going, adding, “It’s responsible for sustaining the smaller settlements that have sprung up around it through trade with regions of Equestria further north of here. If Buckley was to lend aid to the war in Ashton, Challenger would have a much greater chance of success in holding its ground.” Much to my discomfort, silence was all that followed my words as the stares of the Buckley leadership lingered on me. “I… I understand,” I added with a awkward smile. “that what I just said was sudden and rather straightforward, but it’s the truth. Buckley is very well-equipped, and you’re all prepared for a fight-”
“No, outsider.” Tracer interrupted, raising a hoof to silence me. “Letting your group in and giving you our trust was one thing, but an alliance with the outside world, one that would drag us bodily into a war that we want no part of, is quite another. It would draw away too much of our resources and personnel, leaving Buckley itself much more vulnerable. Plus, the last thing anypony wants is a riot, and that’s something that would likely spring up within our perimeter as a result of a sudden partnership.”
“But-”
Tracer, however, shook his head at me, stopping me once again. “We’re ready to take our first steps into the outside world after nearly seventy years of isolation. We are not ready to plunge headfirst into the affairs of the southeast. That would place Buckley in a very delicate situation.” he reiterated, silencing any further suggestion to the opposite. “However, there is a way that we can possibly make contact with the outside world without us having to dive headfirst into it, and that’s something that can come to fruition if the mission to Marefax is a success.” Turning then to me, Tracer added, “But before that, we’ve got one thing that we need from you two, outsiders.”
“Sure. What is it?” I asked.
“I’m glad that a couple of you decided to come, because it was Mother Shimmer’s hope that you could present to the meeting your perspective on the wasteland.” the commander explained. “You’re from the wastes, and not only that, you’ve been living in it and personally experiencing the southeast’s current state of affairs.”
“While I’ve begun to support going outside, I felt that it would be very beneficial to my youngers if they heard for themselves what an outsider had to say about the world.” Mother Shimmer added on. “If you could oblige us and describe to us your time in the southeast, about your home and what life is like, I feel it would give us all some new perspective, something to keep in our thoughts as we go over our expedition.”
“Well… I’ve only lived on the surface for just over two weeks now.” I began. “Really, there’s not too much I can say about the southeast. As far as I know, the Black Blood Raiders - the red and black armored ponies you’ve been seeing - are an entirely new threat to the region, never encountered before because of their Hoofington origins.” I paused long enough to pass a glance at Raemor, who nodded in confirmation of the authenticity of my information. “Of course, there’s the Talons right now, but they’ve only just come back after ten years in hiding. Other than that, there really aren’t too many threats that the region deals with. From various ponies I’ve met during my time on the surface, including a traveling weapons merchant and Challenger’s military general, the common problems that exist in the southeast are merely the presence of ghouls from Marefax, the occasional bandit crew hiding out by the roads or in one of the old farmhouses, and various wasteland wildlife that make nests in the barren fields. But even then, I’ve hardly encountered anything of the sort when I’ve been out and traveling, other than the Black Blood and the Talon Legion themselves.”
After what I had said, it was certainly surprising… yet very interesting to see how quickly open curiosity bloomed on the faces of the Buckley leadership; just by looking among each of Mother Shimmer’s subordinates, I could tell that I had given an answer that they did not expect. “The lesser number of natural dangers around the southeast has to do largely with the very sparse placement of pre-war structures and towns.” Raemor added. “For example, the Equestrian heartland is composed of three major Old World cities, at least three larger towns, spaced pre-war structures and installations, and other various landmarks. The southeast, however, was largely uninhabited meadowland and plots of farm country before and during the war, and because Marefax is a city, it houses the majority of the region’s dangers.”
“So there aren’t many structures or locations out there?” Amber Dawn asked the older unicorn.
“In my short time here, I’ve traveled across much more open field than I have through Old World ruins.” Raemor replied. “From what I’ve seen, there isn’t much that would draw the attention of other threats to the region.”
“Other threats?” Saharra inquired.
“Yes. I’ve lived in multiple regions of Equestria throughout my many years, and there are far fouler things in some of those areas than there are here.” Raemor answered the music mare. “But primarily I speak of other factions, one of the most prominent being the Steel Rangers. They are deep-rooted in the heartland and have often ventured to The Hoof, perhaps elsewhere as well. Technology harbored in metropolitan ruins, along with corporate facilities where the ministry mares and their organizations operated from during the war is what draws their attention, and they’re often more focused on saving that technology than the denizens of the wastes. From what I’ve seen of them in my past, they only seek to keep Old World technology out of the hooves of wastelanders, and if the technology is advanced enough, they’re more than willing to fight and kill for it.”
“There’s the Grand Pegasus Enclave, too.” Archer put in, a thin frown forming on his face.
“You know about the Enclave?” I asked him curiously.
The pegasus laughed a single mirthless note. “I know that you never see them unless you’re around something that they’re interested in or something that they’ve deemed a threat. On some of my trips out into the wastes, I’ve seen fighter wings and scout parties out by the big city ruins. That’s where some of their own cities are built, closer to Old World population centers that might carry the greatest potential to threaten their secluded existence. That way they can monitor those regions and identify any threat quickly, whereupon they’ll either ignore it or eradicate it at a moment’s notice.” Then looking over at Mother Shimmer, he said, “It’s kind of one of the reasons why I’m leaning towards exposing Buckley to the outside world, perhaps eventually interacting with the southeastern settlements. I’d hate to see it turn into another Enclave, only going outside when we find something threatening or something that we want to have.”
Another moment of silence took over the meeting, long enough that Commander Tracer exchanged a glance with the pegasus stallion near him. “Well, that brings up another question.” Tracer said though, quickly swinging his gaze back around to meet mine. “What exactly are the settlements in the southeast like?”
“And your home.” Mother Shimmer put in, a polite reminder to me that drew my focus away from Archer and back into the conversation.
“Like I said, Challenger is the settlement that tends to the supply needs of the smaller communities around it. My home, Hopeville, is one of the settlements that it sends supplies to, and there are… I think… three others that have also been established around it. In the absence of the raiders and Talons, Ashton would likewise be inhabited, making a total of five settlements outside Challenger’s walls.” I explained. “Challenger itself is a big place, and has its own devised system for trading with the northern regions of Equestria, bringing supplies back, and distributing them amongst itself and the other settlements. Back home, we’ve begun trading with merchants that stop by on their way to Challenger, and we’ve even started integrating travelers that come looking for a quieter home. There’s a good number of ponies that come to live in the southeast.” A smile slowly grew on my face as I spotted Shimmer while she listened, the ghoul still patiently waiting for her promised description of my own home. “And Hopeville itself - it’s a quiet little town, and rather lovely in terms of wasteland standards. It’s a smaller place with all of its buildings, two-story houses and shops and a couple of others, forming a square perimeter around an open courtyard. The foals and I always like to play there, whether it be kickball, tag, pretty much anything. We once transformed Hopeville’s south side into a giant drawing canvas thanks to the artistic talent of the children… oh, how easy it is to get lost in memories.” I heard as Mother Shimmer joined me in a small laugh, even Saharra uttering a giggle alongside us. “When we found it, it was abandoned because of the Black Blood who killed off its former inhabitants. For the past two weeks, we’ve been doing everything in our power to make a new home out of it, and we’ve gotten to the point now where we’ve solidly placed Hopeville back on the map again. We get supplies from Challenger, we trade with another settlement closer to us, and ponies from the north have been coming in to live among us. Most recently we took in a married couple from the Equestrian heartland, looking for a quiet place to bring their baby into the world.” To that, Shimmer nodded in approval. “In summary, I really don’t think we could’ve found a better place to live in on the surface. All things considered, raiders and Talons aside, it really is a good home.”
“When you first came here, I noticed the combat armor that two members of your group were wearing.” Mother Shimmer remarked. “You and some of the others came from a Stable, too, am I right?” When I nodded, the ghoul turned to glance at her second-in-command. “They came from a Stable, and they’re building a new way of life on the surface.” she said to him, a smile touching her lips. “It seems that, in that regard, Buckley is not so different from this group of outsiders after all.”
Commander Tracer himself looked to already be deep in thought when he nodded. “Yeah… I guess not.” he softly replied. “Who’d have thought, huh?”
“Well, I for one thank you for sharing that information with us.” the white unicorn heartily put in, dipping his head to Raemor and I. “Mother Shimmer was definitely right in that it’s helped to shed a new light on things, and I will definitely be thinking it over again.”
“As will I.” Saharra agreed with a smile.
I bowed back to them. “Well, you’re welcome.”
“Now then, I think it’s time to get down to the primary objective of this meet, yes?” the white unicorn asked to the general audience. “Shall we dive in to the Marefax expedition?”
Commander Tracer nodded first as the others shifted in their seats. “Yes. Archer, let’s see that map you finished yesterday.”
Looking back in front of me, I saw as the steel-blue pegasus nudged the folded up document before him to the center of the table, whereupon he, Tracer, and Amber Dawn begun to unfold it together. Quickly, the previously compacted piece of paper expanded into a map, a very large and surprisingly detailed atlas that came to lay across the entire width of the table. By the name placed in bold black letters, the vast mesh of black squares, parallel lines, and other shapes displayed before us made a neat and orderly representation of the city of Marefax as seen from up in the sky. By simply looking at the map, with its drawn markings and figures encompassing the entire page, I could tell that Marefax was a large Old World city. Smaller squares were drawn in expansive and organized clusters closer to the right side of the map, spanning across its entire width, and a number of red and brown splotches decorated several small areas within; all of this took up roughly a quarter of the page. In front of those, a trio of twin parallel lines, each pair spaced far apart, led through a wide pink gap, connecting the smaller squares to larger ones at its opposite end. These larger squares of varying sizes took up the entire remaining three-fourths of the page, and the greater majority of it was colored over with red, brown, orange, and green shades.
“This is an overview of the city of Marefax.” Archer began, standing on all fours before placing his forehooves on the table, looking over his creation. “On this page, I’ve drawn a layout of the cityscape down to the very street, and I’ve calculated the best and safest route to take to reach both of our objectives.” Pausing to look back up among the assembly, he added, “Before I show you the route outright, there are some things that should be drawn to your attention.”
“Like what?” I asked, leaning forward to look closer at the map.
“The biggest thing to understand is that Marefax is a big city, and that there is no possible way to avoid every danger the city holds.” he explained. “On the map, you’ll find five colors placed at various positions.”
“There’s a lot of colored in positions.” Amber dawn remarked beside him.
“Yes, because the different colors represent different threats, and their positions mark the many hotspots of these dangers.” Archer replied, moving his right forehoof over one of the closer red splotches. “Red indicates the location of raider nests, and they’re present in both the downtown area and the outskirts, planted much more thickly in downtown.” he explained. “I’ve seen these ponies in action, as the different groups tend to fight with each other on the streets, and while I won’t go into detail, I can tell you now that they’re absolute psychos. They use both melee weapons and firearms, but tend to prefer fighting at close range. Plus, they’re always on the move, which is why the red markings are a lot larger than the other colors.”
“And what about the other colors?” Tracer asked him. “What do those represent?”
“Next to red there’s orange.” Archer continued, gesturing to the closest splotch of the designated color. “Sand hornets have made nests all around the Marefax suburbs. The route I’ve drawn out weaves around most of them, and they typically don’t attack unless you’re close enough to their territory that they spot you. They’re not the kind of predators that go out and hunt. They wait for their food to come to them.”
“At least we have that on our side.” Saharra remarked, rolling her eyes.
“The third color here is brown.” Archer continued. “Brown is the most common color to mark the most common danger, and that’s the presence of feral ghouls. Those zombie things are literally everywhere in the downtown sector, and I’ve seen plenty of them in the outskirts as well. Truthfully, I’d be surprised if there were less than a few thousand ghouls strewn across the entire city.”
“I can see the route you mapped out for us in the downtown sector.” Tracer observed, peering closer at the map from his seat. “There’s a lot of brown that it crosses through.”
“I’m afraid that a few skirmishes with ghouls is going to be unavoidable.” Archer replied to him. “There were just too many nests downtown to make a route that bypassed every single one.”
Tracer, though, shook his head. “That’s not a problem. That just means that all my time training the guardsponies won’t go to waste. What else is there?” he asked. “My guess is that green stands for radiation pockets.”
“That’s right.” Archer replied with a nod. “There aren’t many concentrated areas of radiation, but some still exist. The biggest pocket I discovered was in an area called the Marefax Southside Industrial Park. There’s an old pharmaceutical plant with vats of decayed product that have been spilling out radiation, and there’s a couple of other irradiated sites that didn’t have any source of identification.”
“What about the first target building?” Amber Dawn asked. “Is it irradiated as well?”
“No, that building’s clean.” Archer assured her. “The route I charted takes us around the radiation entirely, so we shouldn’t encounter any problems with that.”
“Good.” Tracer spoke in approval. “Now what about this last color?” he then asked, pointing to the wide curving line of solid pink that stretched along the width of the map.
“This area in pink used to be a channel, but according to some pamphlets and posters I dug up from a tourist information center in the suburbs, the channel didn’t hold water. Instead, it was a massive garden that ringed around the entire downtown sector, dividing it from the suburbs. During the war, it was called the Garden of Marefax, packed with thousands upon thousands of the most exotic flowers from every corner of Equestria. Hell, even flowers from the zebra lands were planted in it back during the days of peace. It was one of the top tourist attractions in all of Equestria back in its time, and I’ll be perfectly honest, it was actually very pretty when I saw it on the poster board. Right now though, it’s the home to a massive expanse of pink cloud, perhaps the deadliest toxin out of any in this wasteland.”
Well… that didn’t sound good. “What is pink cloud exactly?” I inquired.
“Pink cloud is a necromantic gas, Old World stuff deployed by the zebras on the Last Day.” Archer answered. “If you come in contact with it, it seeps into your flesh and your internal organs, causing near immediate rot and potentially liquefying you. Even slight exposure to it can cause organ failure, and prolonged exposure can fuse equipped gear to your hide. There’s no protection from it, not even breathing masks or filters, and it’ll kill you in seconds, minutes if you’re lucky.”
I leaned back from the table in disgust. “Oh my Goddesses…”
Archer cocked his head in a shrug, apologetic. “Sorry for grossing you out, Nova. But that’s what it is.”
“Your route takes us right through it, though.” Amber Dawn observed with a frown.
“No, look again.” Archer retorted, raising a hoof to point at the pink stretch. “See that pair of lines that I’ve drawn the route through, the lines crossing the channel?”
“Um… yeah, there.” the amber mare nodded.
“That’s a bridge, still intact, that can carry us over the gap.” Archer explained. “It was the sturdiest of the three that I saw. That, and it leads right to the industrial park where the first target building is located.”
“Hm… so your route takes us into a range of suburbs before we cross this bridge and head into the city industrial park.” Tracer observed, drawing over the map with the tip of his left forehoof. “And that’s the first target building you’ve circled there… then we continue ahead into the downtown area.”
“There’s a lot of turns we’ll be making to get to the second target once we cross to the heart of the city.” Archer put in. “A lot of the streets were blocked by rubble.”
“All that matters is that we carry this thing out with no casualties, and that we kill anything that tries to kill us.” Tracer stated back, leaning back and away from the map and looking in good and confident spirits. “This route’s good. Nice work, Archer.”
“Now then,” Mother Shimmer spoke up. “as we know, there are two buildings in Marefax that we hope to scavenge through on this mission. Commander, would you please share with the outsiders the first target to fill them in?”
“If you’ll look on the map, outsiders,” Tracer began, Raemor and I leaning in closer to the table. “you’ll see one circle here, just past this bridge.” At my nod, he continued. “This is the location of the Cirrus Communications building. Records that Archer salvaged from the building site have described the Cirrus Corporation as a local outfit during the war, building broadcasting and communications equipment that ranged from anything to telephones and short-range radio transmitters for the city to full-spectrum broadcasters and portable and even mobile communication units for the military.”
“I see where this is going.” Raemor voiced in understanding.
“Tech Sergeant Lela, who couldn’t attend the meeting because of her own duties, has assured me that our ATC tower can hold machinery that will convert it into a wide-range broadcast system.” Tracer explained with a nod. “If all the parts we need are there, that would allow us to contact any settlement or facility in the southeast that has a working radio without us having to go and meet them face to face.”
“That seems like a bit of a long-shot to me.” I replied, freely expressing my uncertainty as to the chance of acquiring that technology. “After one hundred and seventy-five years, I feel like most everything of use would’ve been scavenged out of there by now.”
“The entire building was committed to the production of broadcasting equipment, and it’s a big facility.” Archer remarked. “It’s a gamble, sure, but there’s still a fair chance of finding what we need.”
“And what’s the second objective?” I asked after a pause.
“Well, that’d be where Saharra and Ludwig come in.” Shimmer answered, turning and giving a nod to the white unicorn and the music mare beside him.
“Right.” the white unicorn, Ludwig, facing me with a bright and eager smile. “Before the decision had been made to scavenge through the Cirrus building, we at the concert hall had already come up with an idea backing Mother Shimmer’s new intent on opening up to the outside world. You see, just before the day that Equestria went up in flames, Stable One ninety-two took in all sorts of residents with musical backgrounds, and they all held their own connections with national music centers and performance halls, them being performers and teachers and the like. Now, about a week ago when Archer first begun scouting out the city, he discovered that one of those music centers had remained almost entirely intact, even after one hundred and seventy-five years of wear and tear!”
He spoke with such energy that I quickly found myself smiling with him. “Yeah?”
“Yes. It’s called the Moonrise Symphonic Theater, once a place for the musicians of the southeast to get together and perform their works for the public.” Ludwig answered cheerily. “It’s our second target on this expedition, and according to the map, Archer’s route ends right at the theater itself.”
“We intend to scavenge the building for any instruments that might still be intact and functional. Anything that we find, we bring back here and refurbish so that we can use them in our concert hall.” Saharra added with a smile. “Tell me, outsiders, have either of you ever heard of a bassoon? Or perhaps an oboe? A euphonium or a tuba?”
Passing a glance at Raemor, I saw the older buck shaking his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t.” he replied.
“Are these instruments perhaps rarer than others like the string instruments I’ve seen in your concert hall?” I asked.
“Oh much more so, outsider.” Ludwig answered. “You see, while we have many instruments of our own, the concert hall is still missing a few key additions to its orchestra, additions that, if we were to find them, would allow us to perform the more complex and most spectacular music of the Old World - symphonies, suites, sonatas and concertos, genres of music that date all the way back to Equestria’s pre-war days and beyond.”
Wow, now that would really be something. An actual symphony with a full orchestra… I could only begin to imagine the power of the sound, the purity of the music. If given the opportunity to come back to life, such a thing, rare as it would be, would truly be a treasure of great beauty upon the wasteland.
“Spoken like a true musician.” Ludwig remarked with a chuckle.
…Wait…
“Did I just say that out loud?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Oh Goddesses I did, didn’t I??
“You most certainly did just say that out loud, outsider.” the white unicorn happily replied, with Saharra nodding beside him. “And I am most pleased that you, as a wastelander, hold such high respect and appreciation for music. I truly did not expect it.”
With a thud, my head fell to the table, and I made absolutely no attempt to hide the furious blush spreading along my cheeks. “Ugh. How did that happen?” I asked myself, only then realizing that I had said that for all to hear, too.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Archer remarked, letting out a light laugh of his own. “Although, now that I think about it, it is kind of funny.”
Oh thanks! “Not helping, Archer!” I snapped, shutting my eyes tight as I fought to recompose myself.
“Leave the poor girl alone, Archer.” I heard Tracer speak up, similarly amused at the temporary detour the meeting had taken. “Let’s get focused back on the mission.”
“Yes, sir.” The commander’s intervention gave me the time I needed to wipe the red from my face, and I passed a glance at Archer as I recovered only to see him smirking as he shook out his wings.
Well, he seemed to be warming up to me quick enough.
In a moment, things quickly settled back to normal, and the commander took up the mantle and moved the meeting forward. “There’s only a couple of small things I need to go over before this meeting concludes, and the first thing is to go over what assets will be needed for this trip.” Turning then to the blue earth pony, Tracer added, “Since we’ll be covering a wide operation sector, we’ll be needing some extra firepower. From you, captain, I’ll need two howitzers - the spares from the munitions hanger - and crews to operate them. Who you pick to crew them, I’ll leave up to you, but we’ll be needing the artillery support if we run into any serious complications out there.”
“Yes, sir.” the artillery captain replied, peering once again at the map. “You know, looking over this map, I’d imagine that we’d be able to dig the howitzers into a solid and defendable position in or near the suburbs to cover your entrance into the downtown sector. Though… getting solid hits on targets in the city streets between any taller buildings would be pretty difficult, at least without us knocking down towers around you.”
“The howitzers would be able to cover us even past the industrial park.” Archer voiced, looking over the map and drawing a hoof over the area in discussion. “Most of these buildings aren’t that tall at all, and those that were have been crumbled down by natural weathering. Only when we get about a couple blocks past the I.P. is when the buildings reach over eight to ten stories, and they just get taller from there. Marefax still has a good number of standing skyscrapers left after all these years.”
“Well, what about Lily?” the captain asked. “The tank may be big, but she could easily fit through the city streets and wipe out anything unfortunate enough to cross her path.”
Tracer, though, shook his head at the idea. “Lily’s purpose is to defend Buckley against any threat that might make it by the howitzers. That, and I’m not ready to risk sending her outside for something to damage her. No. For the downtown sector, we should have everything covered with the rest of what I want to bring on this trip.” he explained. “I’ll be gathering an infantry group of around twenty-five or thirty guards, and I’ll make sure that each one has a primary and a secondary weapon, grenades, tactical gear, etcetera.”
“We should still make sure to pack a few heavy weapons while we’re at it. A couple of grenade machineguns, a missile launcher, and a fifty cal ought to do it.” Amber Dawn added, to which Tracer agreed with a nod.
“And we’ll be bringing out all four of our wagons too, along with their own teams to pull them. The wagons can serve as cover and support vehicles if things get hairy.” the commander explained, eyes then widening as a thought came to him. “And actually, going back to the subject of artillery - captain, do you have the Eagle Eye repaired?”
“Actually yes, sir.” the blue earth pony answered. “I just finished it this morning.”
“Excellent.” Tracer replied, then turned his eyes to me. “In that case, I have your first task for this mission, Nova. I think that I’ll be assigning you as the spotter for the artillery crews during the first leg of the expedition, marking targets for them to cover our advance into the city.”
“Oh… um, well, if that’s where you want me, then I think I can manage that.” I answered back to him, though hesitant as I forced the words through my surprise. “It’s just that I was already assuming that I’d be on the ground with the rest of your guards. That… and being an artillery spotter sounds like a big responsibility.”
“Well, you’ve got to know what you’re doing, of course. But it really isn’t that hard, outsider.” the artillery captain spoke up in assurance. “The Eagle Eye unit is a two-part camera and terminal system that combat pegasi used on the front lines to call in artillery strikes on fortified enemy positions during the war. The camera establishes an uplink to its partner terminal and provides a video feed of the area from its place in the sky above. Simultaneously, the camera is controlled from the terminal remotely by the assigned artillery coordinator while calculating the range and grid location of a target relative to the position of the companion terminal. If a target is marked with a smoke grenade from the infantry on the ground, then that data is relayed to the gun crews by the coordinator, and the crews destroy the target. Similarly, the coordinator can chose their own target by locking the camera onto it themselves and then relaying coordinates to the gun teams. It’s simple really.”
Uh… no.
“That still sounds like a complex process to me.” I replied, shaking my head.
“All you’ll be doing as an artillery spotter is making sure that the coordinator can see enemies with the camera.” Archer clarified. “Usually, that just means that you’ll be flying at high altitude in slow, wide circles around the operation area. If a threat comes up and it’s marked with smoke, the coordinator spots it through the camera, relays the data to the gun crews, and the howitzers do the rest of the work.”
“Huh… well, alright.” I gave the pegasus a thin smile, feeling just a little bit of my previous apprehension dissipate away. “I guess even I can’t mess that up.”
“You’ll do fine.”
“As for the rest of your group, outsider, you can all decide who among you will join us.” Tracer continued. “Any or all of you are welcome to help out, but the one thing I’ll be asking of you is that you follow orders whenever they’re given. I don’t know how things are done out where you come from, but in Buckley, we work together as a single unit, and everypony is a vital and indispensable asset for the success of the mission. If one pony is needed at a certain location in order to complete the objective, he goes without question. If he’s told to take a shot and kill an enemy, he does it without hesitation. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Teamwork and compliance are key to the success of any and every mission.” I replied with a nod. “That’s how we do things in Hopeville, too.”
My words brought a thin smile to the commander. “Good. I’m glad I’ll be able to trust you on this. Now,” Passing his gaze over the assembly one last time, Tracer rose to all fours. “I think we’ve discussed everything on the list. By nightfall, I want my two howitzers out on the runway, inspected, and ready to go along with their assigned teams.” To this, the artillery captain voiced his confirmation. “Sergeant Dawn, I’m going to put you in charge of readying our cargo wagons and assigning each to their respective objectives. We’ll need one for carrying howitzer ammunition, we’ll need one for the Cirrus Communications building, and we’ll need two for the Moonrise Symphonic Theater. Gather the pulling teams, fill them in on the mission, and make sure the wagons’ spark batteries are primed and ready.”
“Yes, commander.”
“And while you’re all doing that, I’ll be rallying up the infantry, issuing their equipment, and going over the directives. Everypony who’s a part of the mission is to meet at the front gate, fully equipped and ready to move, before sunrise. And that includes you, Ludwig.” At the last of his words, the commander cocked an eyebrow at the white unicorn.
“That means no late night practicing your conducting tonight.” Saharra added teasingly with a smile
Ludwig rolled his eyes in response. “Yes, yes I know. Besides, I’ll need my rest if we’re to have a celebratory concert tomorrow night.”
A concert??
“Anyway, yes, we’ll be there when the time comes, commander.” Ludwig continued. “Saharra and I will be the only ones from the concert hall to join you, though. We don’t want to get in the way of your guards.”
“I’ll be carrying my own weapons, put my time in basic training to use and make sure Ludwig stays safe in the streets.” Saharra put in. “And he’s only coming along to oversee the extraction of any instruments that might be left in the theater.”
“That’s fine.” Tracer replied, nodding as he wrapped up, saying, “Then we all have our tasks, and the mission begins tomorrow in the morning. I expect everypony to be on their game tomorrow.”
“Eat well this evening and rest tonight, children.” Mother Shimmer spoke after, passing a smile around at the assembly. “This mission is important, but your lives are twice as such.”
“And make sure everypony that’s going remembers that.” Tracer added sternly, letting the proceeding pause settle within the tower as he looked among each of his fellow leaders, nods going around; it wasn’t hard to understand Tracer’s firm approach on the subject, especially considering the simple snatch-and-grab nature of the mission to Marefax. “Alright. Everypony’s dismissed except for our fliers. If you two have a moment, I’ve got something that needs to be done.”
“Yes sir.” came Archer’s simple reply as the artillery captain took his leave, Saharra and Ludwig following him out.
“Well… I’d like to help, but I was kind of hoping to go back to my friends after this meeting.” I voiced uncertainly, Raemor stepping up beside me as I turned to the commander. “Two of them were hurt when they went outside earlier today.”
“Yes, I know. I’m sorry about that.” he replied with a thin frown, a small gesture of understanding.
“Nova,” Raemor spoke up, leaning in by my left ear. “Gunny and Blossom will both be resting by now.”
“I know that, but Shore and Grace and Blake will still be awake.” I retorted back. “Even if it was just to tell them that Tracer wants my help, I wanted to stop by.”
“If you stay with Tracer, I can tell them where you’ve gone.” my old friend offered in response, lowering his voice to a soft whisper. “Besides, as far as I know, you’re still working to gain Buckley’s full trust, and this is the settlement’s commander you’re talking to. This might be a very important task.”
I hummed in thought, Raemor’s words putting my options up onto the scale. “What’s the job you need help with?” I inquired to the red commander.
“I need scouts.” he replied. “There’s a location out there that I’d like to have a closer look at.”
“What location is that, child?” Mother Shimmer inquired curiously, even Amber Dawn passing a quizzical look to her superior officer.
“Well, not a specific location, but a specific area.” Tracer answered the ghoul. “After hearing Archer’s reports, the Talon threat has been making me think. I want to see if they’re already moving west towards us, maybe setting up camps and outposts along the way. If they’re clearly setting some of their guns on us, we might very well have to take the fight to them in order to catch them off-guard.”
“Are you sure that they would be marching on Buckley already?” Shimmer asked. “Like Archer said, Challenger’s been occupying their attention over in Ashton.”
“That’s true, but with the numbers they have, the risk is too high for us to simply sit back.” the commander replied with a shake of his head. “They can expand quickly, cover greater distances at greater speed, and because of that, we’ll be needing to monitor the area surrounding Buckley constantly and scouting out at farther distances to make sure we catch them in advance if they send an attack force our way.”
As she thought, Mother Shimmer eventually began to nod as comprehension came to her. In truth, Tracer’s argument made perfect sense, especially considering that Buckley and the Talons had been enemies ten years ago during the Legion’s first attempt at conquering the southeast. A force of thousands could cover a lot of territory, and factoring into the equation that the southeast’s smaller settlements consisted of no more than two hundred ponies apiece, the Talons could split its force into an adequate number of smaller companies to attack the settlements, all while still maintaining a solid position near Ashton with its main force. This in itself put Hopeville at just as much risk as Buckley or any of the other settlements in the region.
“You’re right.” Shimmer spoke, then looking back at me. “Outsider, if you could please help Tracer and Archer with this, I would be grateful to you. From what it sounds like, it’ll simply be a mission where you fly high above the surface and look for any sign of movement from the Talon’s forces.”
“That’s basically all it is.” Tracer assured. “And Archer here’s been on missions like this many times. You stick with him, do what he says, and you’ll be safe. That, and this shouldn’t take you any longer than a couple of hours at most. You two do your best to avoid any confrontation, then you’ll be back well before nightfall.”
I nodded. “Yes, I’ll help you. It’d actually be better for me to see for myself if there’s any Talon movement out there because some of my friends are leaving back for our own home tomorrow sometime. If there’s any activity out there, then it’ll be up to them to take that information to our own leaders. They’ll want to know about it.”
“Very well. I’m glad you’ll lend a hoof.” Tracer replied in clear approval, a tinge of relief dotting his words that I could just barely pick up.
“Thank you, outsider.” Shimmer added with a smile. “Since you’re doing this, I’ll show Raemor where you and your friends can stay for the night. There’s a pair of vacant shacks out in the residential quarter that I can lend to you for the night, and when you return, your friends will be able to show you where they are.”
“Thank you for that, Mother Shimmer. I really am grateful.” After a bow to the Buckley leader as she turned and made her leave, I turned back to Raemor. “Hey, Raemor, could you do me a favor and tell Blake that I’ll be back soon? Tell him not to worry about me?”
“Of course.” the old buck nodded. “And I’ll fill the others in on what we’ve learned in this meeting as well. That’ll allow us to decide who will come with you tomorrow morning and who will leave back for Hopeville while you’re gone.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. You just watch yourself out there.” At my nod, the old buck turned and left the control room, following after Mother Shimmer who beckoned for him outside of the door, and leaving Tracer, Archer, and Amber Dawn behind around the table; the latter of the trio was looking back at the commander with suspicion.
“What are you up to?” she asked, I myself noticing the rather casual tone that she used for addressing her superior officer.
“Everything I spoke was the truth of my concerns. But there’s more to it than just scouting out for the Legion.” Tracer replied, looking back between Archer and I. “I’ve got two things that I want done on this mission, with scouting out for the Talons being one of them.”
“Two things?” Dawn inquired. “What else could you possibly need to do outside?”
“Amber,” Tracer spoke, leaning his head down by hers. “Do you remember over the past couple of days when I’d come home after Mother Shimmer summoned me for a private meet between just the two of us?” At Dawn’s nod, “And do you remember what I told you about why she brought me into the missile silo? Do you remember what I told you about what she was talking to me about?”
Again, she nodded. “Yeah, you said that she was having some sort of memory deterioration… that she was trying to remember her less recent past and couldn’t, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But what’s that got to do with anything?” Dawn asked.
With a light sigh, Tracer sat back down at his place by the table, placing his forehooves from him. “I suppose you should listen in as well.” he replied to her, nodding for her to take her seat. “Especially since I’ve told you everything Mother Shimmer’s told me.” Across the table from me, Archer likewise took his seat again, giving me a prompt with his hoof to follow suit. As I did, Tracer looked right back to me. “As you’re well aware of by now, outsider, there’s a lot of speculation and hesitation among Buckley about going outside. Many support the notion, and I feel that more will come around after fully understanding the reasons behind the choice. But while many already support Mother Shimmer on the subject, just as many are not as willing to welcome the outside into our community. There’s nopony out there that outright hates her for pushing us in this direction we’re taking. Those who dislike the notion are simply nervous, hesitant to welcome such a big change into their lives, especially when solitude’s kept us safe for so long. That’s why we’re taking this step by step, treading very slowly and very carefully.”
I nodded at that. “I understand.”
“We all know that Mother Shimmer put’s the safety of Buckley and its residents before everything else, even when making difficult choices like the one she makes now. She loves this community with all her heart and soul, and she’s put a lot of effort into helping us build it into what it’s become today.” the commander continued. “That’s why she’s doing this, because she firmly believes that letting the outside world in will make us stronger as a whole. And like she said, you and your friends definitely proved that with the help you’ve given us today.” At my thin smile and nod, he added, “Because you’ve been to this meeting, and because you personally saw her upon your arrival, you know about her reasons why she wants to go outside, her concerns and her hopes for our future…… but she didn’t tell you all of the reasons.”
Silence.
In the quiet of my unspoken thoughts, I knew that I would’ve naturally been surprised at such a remark, even if only moderately so. But this was not the case after learning of Buckley’s secrets one by one over the course of just one afternoon, of their great importance and, in regards to the concert hall, church, and club building, their fragileness. Though we had only stayed in Buckley for so many hours, Shimmer had felt comfortable in revealing these secrets to us because we had upheld our word to help the community. Had we done anything else, anything different, and I knew that we would have never known about the concert hall, the Buckley armory, Lily, or much anything else. As such, Tracer’s words came as more of an understandable remark, one that still caught my interest, but one that reflected the importance of whatever information Shimmer had withheld. “I’m listening.” I replied with a polite nod for the commander to continue.
“Like Mother Shimmer said, her primary concerns are for the safety and the stability of Buckley Air Force Base. She loves her home and everypony in it, and that makes her just as equal to Celestia and Luna in character of heart as far as I’m concerned. But like every noble leader who spends her days looking out for those who look to her for guidance, there comes a time where she deserves to think about her own health, her own desires.” Tracer explained. “This is one of those times for Mother Shimmer, and her desire, her single wish for herself, is to remember. One of the main reasons why she wants to go outside again, is because she’s from the outside world.”
What?!?
Of course, out of the four of us, I was the only one whose shock clearly showed, though I was certain that it was more than enough to cover everypony left in the room. “You mean to tell me that Mother Shimmer, the very leader of a community that viciously defends its borders and kills anypony from the outside that gets too close to the fence, is an outsider??” I exclaimed, wondering right after if Buckley would eventually pop up with other mysteries to further melt the fuses in my brain.
“Well, no, not exactly. She wasn’t from Stable One ninety-two is what I should say.” Tracer replied, much more calm than I. “When Mother Shimmer first entered our lives, she had been found in Buckley itself. The complex was overrun with feral pegasi ghouls, the former personnel of the base before the Last Day. They’d all been so irradiated that they’d became walking conduits of radiation… glowing ones, as they became known to be. Our predecessors found her living in the service tunnels when they set about purging the base of the ghouls that lived there. She was already a ghoul then, living amongst the ferals who left her alone. She looked the same way then as she does now.”
“And how did your forbearers know she wasn’t feral like the others?” I asked, easing myself to a more civil level for the sake of learning what else there was to learn.
“Because she didn’t instantly jump up and attack them, would be my guess. Or she simply talked, or both.” Tracer replied with a shrug. “Either way, she was spared from the extermination, and after that, she begun to gradually integrate into the group, sharing her knowledge of the region to our Stable survivors in thanks for being spared from a bullet to the brain pan. According to her, she’d been out and exploring Equestria as far back as when radiation was still flowing freely over the plains, way before we showed up in Buckley, and so she had a treasure-trove of information to give.” Here, the commander let out a chuckle. “That added with the seventy-five years she’s been around Buckley, that makes her well over a hundred years old… hard to imagine… Anyway, she freely shared all of her knowledge. You can imagine the apprehension that our original Stable dwellers felt towards letting a stranger into their midst, especially with the white noise experiment still on their minds and considering that Shimmer was a ghoul. But more and more, she was becoming their guide in the wasteland, and quickly proving herself to be a valuable addition to the original survivors.”
“Like I told you before, she was the one who revealed the location of Fort Volker.” Archer chimed in. “She told the original survivors where in the fort to find the weapons that we have, and she told them about the neighboring regions like the heartland, all of the major Old World cities and towns closest to the southeast, the regional threats, everything. She became the roadmap for the revival of Buckley.”
Tracer nodded his agreement. “Over the course of five years, the base became a fortress, and Shimmer played the largest role in it, describing how the base systems worked, showing us where to find supplies outside. Once we had accumulated the howitzers and the ammo, the food from the replanted Stable orchard, and a secure source of fresh water, she even gave the order to launch the base’s balefire missile to destroy Fort Volker so that nopony else could have an easy chance at matching the firepower we have. And soon after that, she ordered the sealing of the base, our leaders agreeing to it without hesitation.”
“So that’s pretty much when she became Buckley’s official leader, right?” I asked, leaning forward as Tracer nodded. “And you said that she’s been trying to remember her past, thinking about it… was that the case way back then, or only recently?”
“She only begun to talk about it when she started weighing out the option of reopening the base and going outside.” Tracer answered. “But she’d lay down for hours in her silo just thinking about things, remembering her time on base and how she helped us to make Buckley our new home. She remembers all of that, and she remembers some of her exploration as well, walking the southeast and such. But beyond that, she’s tried again and again to recall any memory without success.” Shifting in his place, he added, “Because of her long life, her oldest memories eroded away with the passing of time, and though it might seem like a trivial thing to get worked up over, that’s what’s been weighing on her mind for some time now, months really. It’s gotten worse over the past couple of weeks.”
That was definitely different… fighting for the reclamation of memories, to remember things. But then again, the fact that Mother Shimmer was as old as Tracer said was, in itself, a unique aspect to the situation. It was obvious to me that Shimmer wanted these memories again, but the why of it didn’t really matter. For seventy-five years she had been here in Buckley, maybe even far longer than that, living in the body of a ghoul for most of her life; I had no idea as to what kind of psychological effects emerged from being a ghoul, practically a walking corpse, but it was clear that Shimmer’s hunt for memories was a part of that particular field. “I think there’s a lot of factors playing into all of that.” I replied. “Her great age is probably most prominent. That, and her being a ghoul might very well be tied in with it. If nothing else, it draws down to a basic desire to know who she was before changing your lives. It’s important to her.”
“Indeed, and that’s why I’ve come up with this mission.” Tracer replied, then looking over to Archer. “Nopony in Buckley knows what kind of pony Mother Shimmer used to be before becoming a ghoul, but Archer’s tracked down something that might reveal some of that history.”
I cocked my head towards the steel-blue pegasus. “Really?”
“Yes. It’s a farmhouse about two hour’s flight southeast of here, still standing. While I never went up close to search it over when I discovered it, I did see an old designation signboard on what was left of its barn. It’s called the Shimmermist Farm.”
“Interesting…” The simple correlation of this location to the situation was something I swiftly caught on to, making me raise a hoof to my chin in thought. “The name of the farm itself is enough to draw one’s attention to it in regards to this.”
Tracer nodded. “I’ve been looking into it over the past few days, always coming to the same conclusion. I think that Mother Shimmer once lived on that farm, and that she was even alive before the apocalypse itself took place.” I felt that, as a rule, a scenario like this would’ve been extremely rare to come across, but somehow, the pieces clicked together into a perfect image. Of course, there was no guarantee that Tracer’s theory was correct, but at the same time, the possibility of the truth of this connection made the farm very much worth the effort to explore; for Mother Shimmer, this was very significant.
“Have you brought this up with her?” I asked the commander.
“I have. But every time I asked about it, she’s insisted that it wasn’t important and that I not waste effort on looking more deeply into it.” came his reply. “But for a long time now, she’s been talking to herself when she’s alone, asking herself questions about a former life, if she was different from what she is now. I know, despite saying again and again how her history isn’t important to the present, that she wants to remember, dearly.”
“It sounds to me like she’s just refusing to believe that there’s more than enough room for both Buckley’s safety and her own memories.” Amber voiced, a light smirk crossing her face. “Gives a lot and takes little. Crazy old mare.”
“That she does. And I think it’s about time that Buckley gave her a little something back, something hopefully a little more personal and long-lasting.” Tracer responded, turning back to me. “So what do you think outsider? Now that you know the whole of what you’ll be doing, do you still want to help me out?”
“This is important, for both Mother Shimmer and you.” I answered with a small smile. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you and Archer to fly out to that farmhouse and investigate it.” Tracer explained, returning my smile with one of his own. “If it really does hold any connection to Mother Shimmer herself, then I want you two to search for anything that might bring back some of her memories, whether it be a diary, a trinket, anything.”
“I’m just curious, myself,” Archer put in. “if we do find anything out there, how do you think Mother Shimmer will take it?”
To this, Tracer was silent for a long moment, thoughtful. “Really, I don’t know. But what I do know is that even if Mother Shimmer doesn’t want us focusing on bringing her memories back, I still think that she deserves to know who she was before becoming a ghoul.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” I assured, rising determinedly to my hooves, Archer standing with me as he gave a nod of approval.
Both Tracer and Dawn followed us, the former giving a grateful bow of his head to me. “Thanks, outsider. You do this for me, and more importantly, for Mother Shimmer, then you’ll have earned my trust.”
“We’d better head out.” Archer voiced, quickly trotting over to where his .50 cal sat on its bipod attachment, folding the stand before grabbing its stock in his teeth and swinging it around to his back, fitting the rifle and its bipod into their secure place on his armor. “We’ve got a bit of ground to cover out there before we’ll reach the farm.”
“I’ll follow your lead, Archer.” Quickly, I checked over my rifles on their saddle, and likewise looked over Blue Fire’s Torch at its place on my back, glancing over all of my armor and gear to make certain of its secure state before I joined him out by the open windows.
“Good luck you two, and be careful.” Dawn spoke up, raising a hoof in farewell.
“Yes, ma’am.” With that, Archer snapped out his wings and sprang out through the window, quickly righting in the air and racing ahead out over the base.
Crouching, I tensed my limbs and let my own wings come unfurled before I leapt, one single jump carrying me past the window and over the left side runway. A short fall later, and I beat my wings to catch the wind, rising up and following after Archer’s trail as I made my way out to new unexplored territory.
*** *** ***
Flight.
Flight has a funny way of making you think about some of the little things in life. Over the course of two weeks, I had taken long flights only once before now. But even though this was the case, that time in the sky had allowed me to piece together a philosophy, one born of my own senses, of my own mind and sight. I believed that, for a pegasus, it never mattered how far one’s walked on the earth, how many steps through the dust one’s taken on his or her own hooves. No. Regardless of the distance, I believed that the land always carried a different face when looked at from the sky.
And to me, it was a face that carried just a sliver of the spirit of the Old World.
I was coming to understand that flying provided an escape from the wasteland life, from raiders and soldiers and mutated creatures, thus allowing me to see the surface with new eyes… to see it for what it had once been. If you allowed yourself the chance to seek it out, you could find tranquility up in the air, and at the same time, see it on the ground itself. And if you tried real hard, you could see the pre-war world itself, see the lush green meadowland and the healthy crops, the blue skies and the fluffy white clouds, and see the idea that was pre-war Equestria hiding under the mask that was this wasteland. That idea that had created so many a prosperous generation for my ancestors… more and more I came to embrace the optimistic belief that it wasn’t dead, but merely hiding. And it was hiding because it was fragile, oh so fragile… so much so that it could only be whispered about, only mentioned with the utmost care and respect, lest it disappear entirely.
Harmony.
A mile below me, the land slept in silence. There were no ruined landmarks to dot the dusty fields, no raiders or Talons on the move to mar the land with their hooves and claws, not even a gunshot echoing on the wind. Without things like that, the image of the Old World had a chance to peek out from its veil, the idea of harmony able to emerge and greet my thoughts, to remind me of the peace that once was and the chance to bring it back to the southeast again. It’s what Challenger fought for, it’s what Hopeville and Proudspire wished for, and maybe, just maybe, it’s what Buckley would soon be there for as well.
Easily matching pace with me at my left side, Archer nodded as I expressed those sentiments to him. We had been flying southeast for well over an hour so far, steadily nearing the two hour mark of our travel. Throughout that time, we had been making easy and flowing conversation spaced between our search for any hostile movement, revolving largely upon our observations and opinions of the wasteland, our various treks and missions undertaken, and our own lifestyles. With the free time we had in flight, Archer had reminded me of his curiosity towards Stable 181, and in exchange for answering his many questions about life in an Old World underground bunker, I had come to learn that he was quite the explorer, even flying out close to the border of Hayward to complete various reconnaissance tasks assigned to him by Tracer; interestingly enough, he had called the northlands in which Hayward was located ‘The Halo’, with Hayward itself sitting in the center of a vast circular plot of canyon and actual living forestland.
After this, things shifted towards the more personal, such as interests and favorite activities. We had come to return to my previous attraction to music that I had first expressed to him during his history lesson regarding Stable 192, and he had paid undivided attention as I had described my love of the musical arts and how it had accompanied me through my childhood and my years growing up in the Stable. Following that was talk of guns, during which time I had told him about the history of Cross’s rifle, my mother’s pistol, and Blue Fire’s Torch. At the same time, Archer had explained that, as a firearm aficionado himself, he had likewise bestowed a name to his .50 caliber sniper rifle. The heavy steel rifle was called the Longbow, and he had found the lethal semi-automatic rifle in a disassembled state in a raider den out north on one of his reconnaissance missions. Because of its formerly poor condition, he had installed a forged receiver, a refurbish chamber, and a new barrel and telescopic sight to make the rifle serviceable again. Ever since that time, roughly a month ago, it had become his preferred rifle, agreeing right with me about preference of conventional firearms over fancy energy weapons.
And then, eventually, I had come to take a turn for the philosophical. I didn’t know how, but flight had a way of shifting my mental gears onto the road of the dreamer, and though it wasn’t really the first impression I wanted to lay down in front of the pegasus male, I had a feeling that, judging by his faint yet visible smirk, he was pegging me down as such even as we flew. “I agree with you to an extent.” came his reply to my sentimentalisms on harmony and the Old World. “While there aren’t many, there’s been a couple ponies throughout the history of the wasteland who’ve had the courage to believe that the Old World ideals hadn’t completely died, to try and keep their own connection to it. It’s been through my own experience that I’ve come to believe that one needs simply to look for the signs of its preserved existence.”
“Signs?” I inquired.
Archer nodded. “Well, one example - during one of my recon flights into Hayward territory, I came across a tribe that lived in the forest who believed that the souls of pre-war and wartime ponies had the ability to manifest themselves into chosen mortals, thus keeping the spirit of the pre-war Equestria alive. A very select few of them even painted themselves the respective colors of some of those ponies, and they were highly revered and looked after amongst their tribe.”
“Wow, really?”
Archer let out a chuckle. “Oh yes. My first time there, the tribe chieftain introduced me to Twilight Sparkle reincarnated. I never knew if the unicorn mare was originally a wanderer who stumbled upon the tribe or was actually a tribesmare herself, but either way, they believed she carried the soul of Twilight herself. The mare nearly looked like and fully behaved like the purple unicorn in the books, too. She had Twilight’s cutie mark, mane colors, even eye color. She was even-tempered, studious of her surroundings, loyal and true to the tribe, book-smart, and alarmingly potent with magic. I’ve never seen any unicorn raise and fire five rifles at once.”
“That’s… bizarre.” The whole concept of a reincarnated wartime pony that Archer explained was something I couldn’t wrap my head around. Truthfully, it seemed a tad disrespectful amongst other things. “Why would anypony try to recreate another pony like that?”
“It’s kind of out there, true, but if it’s what the tribe believes, then that’s what it believes.” Archer retorted.
“I guess…” Though I was dubious towards the notion, I supposed that in the end, it came down to a different faction’s way of connecting itself to the Old World, keeping it alive. Besides, I’d never seen such a thing myself, taking away my right to criticize it. It was their way, that tribe, and it was a part of them - simple enough… though now, I was curious… “What other signs have you seen, Archer?” I asked.
“There’s a couple.” he answered with a single nod. “You already know how Shimmer views Buckley’s music as a line to the past. And while I’ve never integrated in with Challenger society, I like to think that they’ve got a real appreciation for Old World values and its way of life. Despite being a fight for survival, that desire is in there.” Here, he paused as he passed another look down along the surface, scouting out the terrain with a quick and expert eye before looking back ahead, continuing with, “You yourself and your group, your history - I think that’s another sign right there, with your Stable having committed itself to living by the virtues that were the Elements of Harmony themselves. But in truth, I think the most… motivational signs are the ones that haven’t been tainted by the influences of our modern world.”
“Like Buckley’s music?” I asked.
“Yes, that's one of them.” Keeping himself level in the air, the steel-blue pegasus then turned his head my way, looking me in the eye as he added, “But I’ve actually got a question for you, now that I think about it.”
“What’s that?”
“Have you ever watched the moon rise over the wasteland?”
I gave a slow shake of my head. “No, I can’t say that I have. I imagine it has to be quite something to see though.”
A small smile adorned his face then, one that I found myself sharing as he replied, “It really is. Hell, there’s really no words you can use to describe it. If you fly above the cloud cover at night, at just the right time, you can still see the moon pure as silver, with untainted light spilling all across the vast fields of puffy clouds. Even as a colt, I was always fascinated by the full moon, and I make it a point of watching it whenever I get the chance to.”
I let out a polite giggle at his enthusiasm, craning my head up to look upon the cloud ceiling above us, perhaps only a mile or so up from our current altitude. “What’s it like above the clouds?”
“It’s definitely something else.” he responded, the two of us facing forward again. “Walking on the clouds feels like your walking on a bunch of throw-pillows, and above the cloud ceiling, there’s not a single other cloud that blocks out the Equestrian sky. During the day, you can still see the natural blue that it’s always been, and at night, the stars are so close that you feel like you could just reach up and touch them yourself.”
“And here you were calling me sentimental.” I remarked with a grin. Oh, did I catch a blush there? Wait… no… darn it…
The pegasus buck only let out a chuckle of his own. “Maybe it’s a pegasus thing.” he replied, looking back down to scan the surface again. But this time, out of the corner of my eye, I saw his turning head stop as he focused on a certain location below us, and as I looked down with him, he said, “There’s our target coming up on the horizon just to our left. See it?”
As our pace slowed slightly in the air, Archer jabbed out a foreleg to point ahead. Below, the fields and gentle hills continued forward unchanged to the east. But sure enough, at the end of it, I could just make out a trio of structures taking shape. The first was a single house, at least two stories tall, nearly concealed by a brownish-grey haze rising from the ground itself. Off to the house’s left and just to its north, the framework of what I assumed to be a barn was still standing, with the majority of wall boards and roof tiles having long decayed and fallen off. At its front, bolted to the remaining beams, a large billboard sign still remained intact, black cursive writing set against a pale background revealing the farm’s name as the Shimmermist Farm. To the west of the barn, closer to our current position, a single tower stood, short, thin, and made of simple steel bars. But as we drew steadily closer, I could make out something else at the tip of the tower, looking to be some sort of mechanical array built into the metalwork. “So this is the place?” I asked over to Archer.
“Yeah, this is the place.” came his focused response. “When we get there, you’re going to need to be careful where you step. Like I said, I never went in closer than three hundred yards to the place when I first found it, but that haze you see there is irradiated.”
“Radiation? What’s causing it?” I inquired, squinting my eyes to peer closer.
“Just filth water and muck.” he answered. “The farm probably had a fair share of livestock that died here when the radiation from the balefire missiles spread to the region after the Last Day. That, and any liquid product, animal medicine, fertilizer - any of that might be a source, though I really can’t say with any kind of expert opinion. Still, just be careful where you walk, and keep an eye on that geiger counter of yours.”
I nodded in understanding. “Right… what about that tower there?” I asked, pointing ahead for Archer to see. “What is that?”
“Hm… judging by the antennae, it looks like it might be some sort of radio tower.” he observed. “I’ll need a closer look at it to tell for sure.” As we made our approach, Archer begun to lower his altitude and tilt to bank away to the left. Copying his move, I adjusted my wings for the drop and followed him in as we came upon the farm’s old fields, eventually falling into a straight dive towards the surface. As we drew even closer, I could pick out the scattered remains of what had once been a wooden fence, only spaced sections of it still standing to mark the large perimeter that was once the cropland belonging to the farm. But despite the large plot of former farmland, there was not even an ounce of plant life here, not even the dried and dead grass that tended to dot the rest of the region; perhaps it was a result of the radiation that lingered around the farm.
Suddenly, through the sound of the wind, I heard as my pipbuck gave a chirp. But the bleep was followed by another sound - the brief yet clear buzzing of static, making my ears perk up at the new sound. “Hey, hold up a second!” I called ahead, fanning out my wings full to halt my momentum and bring me to a hover. Below, Archer brought himself to a stop as well, turning in the air to look at me as I raised my pipbuck to my eye level.
“What is it?”
My computer had flicked over to its radio screen, the bright L alight with activity as it detected and measured the strength of an incoming transmission. On the top left of the screen, just below where the channel list showed the Stable 181 Security Channel in dark letters (showing that I was far out of range), another signal had come up, this one labeled in bright white letters as Radio Signal Oscar Tango, Channel 1790. “My pipbuck’s detecting a radio transmission.” I answered, looking down at the farmhouse below. “I think you’re right about that tower.”
Beating back up, Archer drew level with me and hovered in beside me. “Can you hear anything?”
To his question I pressed a hoof to the appropriate key on the terminal’s frame, tuning in to the signal; my speaker only projected a steady stream of static. “No. No good.”
“We’ll have to get closer to the tower to hear it then.” Archer replied, turning his attention to the farm below. “Right now we’re about a half mile away. I figure we can land about a hundred yards or so north of the farm and be able to hear it.”
“You’d think that the signal would be stronger.” I observed, turning off the radio and lowering my pipbuck away.
“Not necessarily. If that tower’s deteriorated enough over the years, then the signal will be weakened. Each of those antennae boosts the signal. Lose one and it loses strength.” Archer explained. “But I’m also seeing some movement around the site… I’d have to say that it’s probably feral ghouls with all that radiation around there. Follow my lead. I’ve got a plan.”
As Archer veered to a northerly direction and continued to drop towards the surface, I banked down as I flew after him, looking to my right to analyze the farm, now much closer. Yet through the cloud surrounding the actual farmhouse, I couldn’t see anything that presented a threat. We were flying by the site from the west, currently putting about two hundred yards between us and the farm… but when a break in that haze presented itself as we begun to veer right, I could just make out a pony shape by the house itself, head bowed and standing motionless in the smog; if it wasn’t a ghoul, then I didn’t know who would’ve been crazy enough to be standing in an irradiated zone like that. “What’s your plan, Archer?” I called, facing eyes forward.
“I want to scout out the farm and see how many hostiles are there, and then hopefully, we’ll be able to take them all out without any trouble.” he answered as he led. “After that, we can listen to that broadcast, and look in the house and the barn to see if there’s anything that might prove a connection between the farm and Mother Shimmer.”
“I hope we won’t find too many of those ferals. There’s bound to be more than just a few.”
“Don’t worry. That’s what the sniper rifles are for.” came Archer’s confident answer to my concern, briefly craning his head around to look back at me as he added, “You’ll be able to put your skills behind a scope to some use here, and I’ll help you out if you need it.” At my small nod, he faced forward again, gesturing shortly after to a position just ahead and to our right. “Let’s land over by that rise in the ground there and get set up. It’ll give us a good field of fire on any targets around the buildings. Follow me in.”
Winging forward, I copied Archer’s flight path as we passed into the north side of the farm and came in for a landing. Now fully lowering our altitude to just above the ground, still drawing closer to the farm itself, I could clearly make out some of the finer details of the site. The first thing I noticed was that the radioactive haze was emitting from multiple spots on the ground, around a dozen shallow pits and ditches that contained… well, only Celestia knew what. These were spaced all about the farmhouse and even beyond it, and I could now see at least four targets close together out around the house, with two others shambling around the barn and another standing by the metal tower; my guess was that there were more hiding within the toxic clouds themselves.
Up ahead, Archer slowed and back-winged to land solidly upon the ground, tucking his wings back against his sides as I hovered in beside him to land on my own hooves. Now on the ground, I could see why Archer had chosen this location, because while we stood at the top of only a very slight incline, it still presented an adequate height to provide us with the high ground, bringing with it a full view of the farm’s yards behind the wreck of its old fence. “Alright,” To my right, Archer was looking out at the yard, eyes scanning left and right with calm concentration. “go ahead and get your rifle out and set up right about there where you’re standing. I’ll set up next to you.”
Craning his head around, Archer bit down on the stock of his larger rifle and pulled it free of its place on his armor to set it in front of him, whereupon he laid upon the ground on his belly to ready his weapon and its attached bipod. With no time to lose, I did the same, reaching around to pull Blue Fire’s Torch from its straps before setting it on the ground in front of me. The rifle was already loaded with a full magazine, one round already in the chamber, and stepping into position, I lay down on my belly at Archer’s left side, tucking my rifle up under my foreleg to pull back the folded bipod under the barrel. Like back in Hopeville during my first combat scenario with the Torch, the bipod swung down and snapped closed perpendicular to the barrel, and I remembered the two legs of the attachment, reaching forward to separate and guide them into their locked positions to complete the bipod’s assembly.
“How many times have you used that thing?” Archer asked as I set the rifle’s bipod firmly into the dirt.
I scooted back to align the rifle butt with my shoulder. “Only once.” I answered, brief as I raised a hoof to switch the safety lever just in front of the stock to the off position.
“Have you scored any kills with it?” came his next question, to which for a moment, I didn’t answer as I pulled the Torch back, tucking the rifle butt firmly into my shoulder as I finally situated myself into a proper prone firing position. When I looked over at the pegasus stallion, I saw that he had already set up his own weapon’s bipod, and was now loading a large box magazine into the bottom of the Longbow. With a low and solid click, the magazine holding the much larger fifty caliber rounds locked into its place. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” he added, lower and more sensitive as his eyes met mine. “I understand if it might be a more personal question.”
“No, no. You’re okay.” I assured him, giving him a small smile. “Just one kill, one injury. Both of them were Talon soldiers who attacked my home.” Looking back ahead at the farm, memories of that battle in Hopeville faintly resurfacing, I added, “It still feels kind of different doing the work behind a scope though. You know?”
“I hear you. It takes a lot of getting used to.” Archer responded. “I guess I was just asking that to make sure that you know, for our present purposes, to make sure that you don’t hesitate. Remember that we’re only dealing with feral ghouls here. I know you’ve had a run-in with them before.”
“Yes. I promise, you won’t have to worry about that from me.” Focusing ahead, I took in a long breath and exhaled, lowering my muzzle down to the firing bit.
“Alright.” Beside me, I heard as Archer pulled back his rifle’s cocking handle, then letting it snap forward to load his first cartridge into the chamber. “Take aim, and let’s see what we got over there.”
Taking the firing bit in my mouth, I brought my right eye to the scope’s rubber eyepiece, peering ahead through the red crosshairs straight at the farmhouse. Haze greeted the scope lens first, the brown cloud emerging in a lingering and unending plume from the mucky pit of its origin. But through the scope’s magnification, I could now clearly see the corpse-like feral ghouls that stumbled about the premises, some pawing at the dry earth beneath them, and others mindlessly standing and staring… with eyes long dead and emotionless. “I’m seeing a total of nine ghoul.” Archer spoke up beside me. “There’s four by the house, one by the radio tower, two to the barn’s right side, and two more inside the barn itself.”
“Yes…” I could see the ghouls that Archer had indicated, all of them thankfully oblivious to our presence. “I see them. Should we take them out?”
“Yeah. When you’re ready, pick a target.” he replied. “I’ll wait for you to take the first shot.”
“Alright. I’ll take the one by the radio tower.” Swiveling the Torch on its bipod, I adjusted my position and swung the crosshairs onto my chosen target. The decayed pony was staring vacantly ahead at the base crossbeam of the radio tower’s foundation, head occasionally cocking from one side or the other as if it found something interesting written into the metal.
“On you.”
The ghoul’s back was turned to me, standing straight and presenting the back of its head to me for a perfect killing shot. Then, I squeezed my jaw on the bit, taking the shot, and with a sharp crack of sound, the feral dropped dead as the bullet punched through its skull.
BOOM!!!
Archer’s rifle fired off right after mine, with a painful blast of sound that echoed louder on the air and a force that kicked up a wisp of dust into my view. I saw the impact of the shot as it hit a second ghoul, blowing its head clean off in a shower of rotten goop as the corpse toppled to the ground. Right away, the seven remaining ghouls begun to howl, hiss, and scream at the disturbance, hectically looking left and right for the source as I brought my crosshairs over the third ghoul. Even before I lined up my second shot, Archer’s .50 erupted again, stinging at my ears as another bullet smashed into the brainpan of one of the ghouls by the house. But I kept my focus as the remaining ferals begun to move, galloping every which way as they searched for their attackers. For a moment, I lost my second target as the creature ran for the radio tower, but I quickly brought the ghoul back into my sights as it stopped to look over its dead companion where it lay.
BLAM!
My second shot struck the ghoul square in the side of the head, splattering the metalwork with flecks of gunky blood and gore. Then, a third shot from Archer’s .50 sliced through the air, drawing my attention to the barn as I swiveled the Torch back around. He had killed the fifth ghoul of the cluster, but I saw with a jolt of shock as the four remaining ghouls charged away from the barn, directly towards our position; they’d seen us!
“Archer, they’re coming right at us!” I called urgently.
“Don’t panic!” came his response. “Stay focused on guiding your crosshairs to your targets, and pick them off before they reach us! One shot, one kill!”
The urge to at least stand and bring my battle saddle into play was tugging hard at my mental strings, but still, I kept my eye glued to the scope and brought my crosshairs down to follow the ghouls’ paths as they drew closer. They were running straight for us, not attempting to weave or jump from side to side, making it easier to bring the sights to my next target. In unison we fired, and two more ghouls dropped, one from a headshot while my third target toppled to the ground from a shot to the chest. That left two more ghouls as they drew in no more than forty yards away, their gurgling howls racing to my ears as I quickly sighted in my next shot. Archer’s next round blasted out first, catching his fifth target right in between the eyes. Then, as the last ghoul came to twenty yards in front of me, it’s hideously corroded face nearly taking up my entire scope, I chomped down on the bit. The bullet struck right through the ghoul’s upper jaw, exiting through the back of its head in a spray of black as it tumbled to the ground, then lying motionless as the last dead member of the pack.
For a moment, silence lingered in the wake of my shot’s echo, even my breath holding back as I let the crosshairs linger on my latest kill. Then, “Clear… nice shooting.” Archer’s words of commendation let me exhale as I drew my eye off of the Torch’s scope. Looking over at my teammate, I saw him looking back at me with a small smile, giving a nod as he caught my attention. “I’m glad you stuck with your scope, as I’m sure you now understand, sniping has its moments. Sure, there’ll be times where you’re caught in a situation that requires you to be moving and shooting at the same time, but I prefer to use precision whenever I can make the situation call for it.”
“You were a really good shot there yourself, you know.” I complimented back in reply. “I don’t think I saw you hit anything other than the head.”
The pegasus buck chuckled. “Well, with everything I’ve done for Buckley over the years, I’ve had a lot of practice.” Pushing his rifle aside, Archer rose up to his hooves before compacting the bipod and picking up the rifle stock in his mouth, swinging the weapon around over his back and securing it to its place on his armor. Following his move, I rose to all fours again, taking a quick moment to brush off the dust on my kevlar vest before folding up my rifle’s bipod and returning the weapon to its own place on my back. “Just out of curiosity, Nova, do you have any other clips for that rifle? I only saw you set up with one clip.”
I looked back over to Archer, cocking an eyebrow at his question. “Of course I do. They’re in my saddlebags.” I answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, just looking over your armor, I’d recommend that you look into getting an ammo sash for your extra clips, or at least getting some pockets for your kevlar vest.” he explained. “They’d make it a lot easier to reach for a new magazine when you’ve got to reload, and that might just make all the difference if you find yourself sniping again. Just a little tip for future reference.”
Looking over my armor, was he? Was that all? “Hm… I never thought of that.” I replied to him, keeping the sudden materialization of my less appropriate thoughts in silence; where’d they come from anyway, seriously? “I got this armor from Hopeville’s leader, since he was insistent that I wear armor for my trip to Buckley. The vest itself is adequate protection… but I was just so used to autoloaders and using my battle saddle that I didn’t think about extra pockets for the Torch. I don’t really use it too much… but still, you’re probably right.”
“Understandable. But just remember that for firearms by themselves, without a saddle, you always want your ammo to be as easily accessible as possible, like your sidearm there and the little belt you have for your clips.” he explained. “Just an observation.”
Well, he could observe all he wanted to… okay, moving on.
I gave a nod as I turned back to the farmhouse. “I get it.” Pausing, I lifted my pipbuck and reactivated my radio, once again bringing to life the static of the farm’s radio tower channel. “Ready to head in?”
“Yeah. Let’s see what we can find.” Motioning with a hoof for me to follow, Archer took off towards the farm at a solid trot that I quickly copied. But not even a few steps in, and a change in the level of static on my radio speaker caught my ears. It was becoming thinner, less noisy as we advanced… but then…
A stallion’s voice…
“can hear me, this is Lance Corporal Macon broadcasting on all frequencies.”
“Hey. Archer, are you hearing this?”
He was already looking back at me, the both of us coming to a stop as I brought my startled eyes to my pipbuck screen. “Let it play.”
The message continued with, “My family and I have taken refuge in an emergency cellar due east of Buckley Air Force Base, and due northwest of Ashton.” The stallion in the broadcast sounded middle-aged, perhaps around the same age as Shore’s father, or Melody’s. But the tone of his voice… he sounded tired, weakened. “We have enough food and water to last us for a little while yet, but we don’t have any medicine of our own.” There was another pause in the message here, the stallion letting out a light sigh. “My daughter is very sick with a heart condition and needs urgent medical assistance. If you’re hearing this message, please come help us if you can. Look for our farm, Shimmermist, with its name written on a large signboard…… we’re listening for any response, tune channel one seven nine zero to reply… Message repeats.” And so the message played once again from the beginning. “If anypony out there can hear me, this is Lance Corporal Macon broadcasting on all frequencies.”
I looked back toward the farm again, searching for anything that might resemble an entrance to this emergency cellar; I couldn’t see anything yet. “Is somepony in there?”
Archer turned back to pick up his pace again. “I’m not sure… but we can find out. Come on.”
Continuing forward, I drew up beside Archer as we proceeded past the fence and into the farm’s backyard. Crossing the perimeter caused my pipbuck to bleep once again, but this time, as I stopped to look, the computer’s larger map was displayed, having created a new icon that read Relay Tower KX-B8-11 even as the distress message emitting from it continued to play on my speaker. Without a word, I lowered my leg and hurried to catch up to Archer, who stopped just in front of the first of the radioactive pools; when I drew up beside him, my pip buck’s geiger counter begun to tick.
“How bad?” he asked.
After checking my pipbuck, “Only one rad per second. I guess these pits aren’t too lethal.” Still, that didn’t keep me from grimacing at the disgusting brown and green muck that gurgled and bubbled within.
“Before we leave, remind me to get some Rad-Away for the both of us.” he said, nudging my side with a hoof. “I always keep a couple of pouches on me for emergencies.” At my nod, he turned to the house. “I’m going to look over the house and see if there’s anything still intact. Would you mind checking out the barn? We can meet back in the yard when we’re done.”
“Sure. Be careful, though. E.F.S. isn’t reading any other hostiles around here, but some more ghouls might be in that house.” I warned.
“I’ve got it.”
With that, we went our separate ways for the time being, and I skirted around the first pool of radioactive goop, drawing far enough away from it and the others that the ticking ceased. The barn was just ahead, the wooden beams of the framework already working towards deteriorating to the point of collapse. What had been a set of large double doors lay on the ground before me, their large rusted hinges still attached to the frame, yet lacking any bolts or nails. The entrance was simply a wide gap left behind from their collapse, and inside the barn itself, already visible due to the lack of wall boards, was entirely empty, with only the framework of what had once been animal stalls remaining… but then I saw…
Another chirp drew my attention to my pipbuck, and I halted to look over the terminal. Again, it had displayed another icon on my map, this one sitting right next to the relay tower marker and labeled as Shimmermist Barn Cellar.
I looked back up to the entrance of the barn, my eyes drawn to the back of the crumbling structure. Whether it had been because of the near collapse of the old building, or because of some quirk in the system, my pipbuck had not discovered and mapped out the barn itself, but rather the rusty pair of iron doors fixed into the debris-covered wooden floor. “My daughter is very sick with a heart condition and needs urgent medical assistance. If you’re hearing this message, please come help us if you can.” The message was on its fourth loop now, the tired stallion still broadcasting his plea for aid. By now, the static had disappeared down to a very dull buzz, allowing for the voice to project much more clearly through my radio. And as I stepped into the barn itself, even my light step creaking the ancient floorboards, the signal continued to grow in strength and clarity; it had to be coming from the cellar itself… the stallion had to be in there, and his family.
Cautiously, I approached the cellar doors and glanced them over. They had hoof-sized handles built into the metal, likely intended for earth pony use, and neither of them looked to be locked or bolted down. Slowly, I hooked my right foreleg around the handle and gave a short tug. Though the hatch budged, there was resistance from the rust that had accumulated on its edges. Still, I adjusted myself, still keeping my grip on the handle before I tried again with a sharper pull. Again, the door moved, but didn’t come open… then I tried one last time, and with a grunt, I yanked on the handle, the hatch finally coming open. With a groan, the door swung up and back fully on its hinges, and I let it come to rest on the ground before peering inside the cellar. A dark entryway greeted me, ratty wooden steps descending down into the cellar itself.
“We have enough food and water to last us for a little while yet, but we don’t have any medicine of our own.”
Raising my pipbuck again, I looked among the numerous buttons along the frame, finding and pushing down on the button that brought my lamp to life. As bright as any candle, the lamp showed me the full expanse of the entrance hall as I shined the light inside. It was a short descent to the bottom of the cellar, only ten steps leading to the dirt floor below them. “Hello? Is anypony in there?” My voice was met with no reply when I called into the cellar, making me raise my pipbuck to check over the E.F.S.; there were no friendly or hostile contacts inside.
Ears alert, I stepped inside the cellar, past the one closed door and onto the first steps. I could feel the boards bend underhoof, the worn nails and screws barely keeping the constructed staircase intact as I descended. Thankfully, there were no incidents as I passed the stairs, stepping hoof onto solid dirt again. Now, my lamp illuminated a single chamber, a homemade shelter with stone walls and a ceiling of wooden crossbeams with iron reinforcements; the room carried multiple signs of desertion. Dust had accumulated thickly within the cellar, lingering in the air and coating the furniture and other items inside. At the center of the shelter, a single wooden table, aged and fragile, stood on six legs. Atop it was an array of empty and bent tin cans, small and crumpled up cardboard boxes, and vacant plastic bottles, all the remnants of what had once held pre-war preserved food and drink. To the right, along the wall, were three sets of iron shelving units with an assortment of damaged mechanical parts, old tools, scrap metal, and other miscellaneous items. Against the left wall, the only item on that side of the chamber, was a single metal hooflocker, bereft of items and likewise dust-coated with a completely detached lid sitting on the floor in front of it. At the back of the cellar, I spotted a pair of large cots resting on frames bolted into the stonework, the beds largely useable aside from the accumulated dirt and dust. Atop the highest one was the remains of a pistol, stripped of most of the interior parts, sitting next to an overturned and looted ammunition box.
The room was otherwise very empty, with no visible trace of occupation… no sign of any wastelander who may have been hiding out here and broadcasting the message still cycling through on my pipbuck. But this left behind questions, making me curious as to just why this looping message was playing with nopony around. As I walked into the room itself, passing between the old wooden table and the broken hooflocker, I begun to think of just who might’ve been hiding here. Travelers, perhaps… lost on their way to Challenger?… Raiders… trying to trick ponies into coming into their lair? The latter thought made me pause in my stride, tension beginning to well in my belly. But then, as I lowered my poised foreleg to the floor, I felt as it brushed against something solid… and flaky.
What I saw sent a bolt of shock through me, drawing a sharp gasp from my throat as I hurriedly stepped back and away, bumping into the side of the table with my flank, several of the discarded food containers clattering to the floor, before I finally snapped to a stop… wide eyes glued to the floor.
Two pony skeletons, stripped entirely of flesh and cloth, lay side by side before the cots. Their bare bones had become sensitive and brittle to the touch and were likewise coated with dust, just like the furniture around them. As I took a step forward, looking more closely as my eyes softened after the passing of my initial scare, I noticed that their skulls touched together at their muzzles, the bones of their forelegs intertwined where they lay, and…… “Oh my Goddesses…” Ears pinning back, I raised a forehoof over my muzzle as I spotted the final accessory of the room. Just in front of the skeletons’ heads, nearly tucked away and hidden underneath the bottom cot, was a rectangular metal device, about half as long as my foreleg. A small microphone on a flat pedestal was connected to the main device by a cable, and on the right side of the device, a speaker box sat silent. And finally, amidst a series of large knobs, dials, and buttons, a yellow light glowed dimly on the front of the main device, illuminating a red arrow that sat over a number… 1790. It was a communications radio, still actively broadcasting and awaiting any form of response to its repeating distress message; these skeletons, whoever they had once been, had been trying to broadcast for help, using this device to talk to the outside world while the relay tower outside amplified the message… which had been on a loop ever since their deaths.
“Nova, are you down there? You okay?”
Archer’s voice drifted down from the entrance of the cellar as I stood staring at that radio, and the skeletons that lay in front of it. The message was on its… well, I lost track of how many times it had played up to this point, but as Lance Corporal Macon announced his name through my pipbuck speaker once again, I raised the computer to eye level and nosed the button to shut down my pipbuck’s radio, blocking out the distress message. Before I turned to join Archer once again outside, I passed one more look around at the active radio as thoughts pieced themselves together into a plan of action; I’d go see what Archer needed now, but if I had my way about it, I’d be coming back to this cellar one more time.
For now, I crammed the image of those skeletons to the back of my head, calling back up, “Yeah, Archer. I’m alright.”
When I made my way to the exit, I found the steel-blue pegasus pulling open the remaining door, swinging it fully open just as I begun to ascend the stairs. “Find anything down there?”
“A radio of some kind.” I replied, gladly remerging into the cleaner air. “It’s the source of the distress message.”
Archer gave a nod, peering back down into the cellar. “A HAM radio probably… find anything else in there?”
“A couple skeletons.” I answered him lowly, turning off my pipbuck light. “Two of them.”
“Just two?” I looked back at the pegasus, giving a short nod. “I think I might know who they were.” Turning around and trotting away out of the barn, he called back, “I found a terminal in the farmhouse’s second floor, and I looked through some intact video logs on its system.”
I walked on out after him as he stopped outside the barn’s collapsed double doors. “And?”
Slowly, a sad smile formed on his face as he fanned out his wings, motioning towards the house. “You’ll just have to see them.”
Oh…
Spreading my wings, I took off side by side with Archer, and we made the short flight to the farmhouse itself, collecting a miniscule dose of the radiation that hung in the air above the property. Unlike the barn, the house was largely intact, and aside from the natural wear and tear - peeled paint, chipped wood, and missing roof tiles – it actually seemed rather sturdy. But like the barn and the radio tower, my pipbuck designated the house on my larger map, and as Archer slipped in through an open second-story window on the house’s north face, I glanced long enough at my screen to see the name it had given - Shimmermist Farm.
Facing ahead, I carefully glided into the house through the open window, landing inside what appeared to have once been a bedroom of considerable size. However, like the cellar, most everything of any value had long since disappeared. Placed within the room’s four cracked and crumbling walls, a large bed frame, devoid of a mattress, sat next to me, tucked against the farther corner of the room from the open doorway at the southeast end of the room. An old three-drawer dresser sat on its side along the west wall close to the bed, cracked and emptied of all of its contents. At the opposite end of the room, leaning against the middle of the east wall, a large nightstand with the oval frame of what had once been a mirror leaned precariously to the left, one of its four moderately long legs having snapped clean off. At the south wall, an integrated closet unit, likewise completely empty, sat with its shutter doors open, one of the two having fallen off one of its twin hinges. But between the closet and the bedroom entrance, an intact metal desk with a single closed drawer held atop it a familiar box-like computer, the silver frame built with two steel bars, one on each side, resembling mouth bits for carrying, and the screen flickering the same green hue as the others I had come across before. Along with the terminal, I also saw a heavy steel safe sitting underneath the desk itself, the solid teal light on the front door showing that the safe was indeed still locked… and given the presence of at least a dozen broken bobby pins scattered around at its base, it was right to assume that the safe was a tough one to pick open.
Archer was already at the terminal, briefly typing away at its built-in keyboard before stepping aside, motioning for me to join him by the desk. “I pulled up the list of saved video files.” he explained as I approached. “Most of them are corrupt, but there’s still two recordings that are accessible.”
Stopping before the terminal screen, my eyes scanned over the display of words. According to the terminal, there was a total of twenty-two video logs that had been recorded onto its memory. Of them, only logs one and twenty were available, the others displayed with the word corrupt at the end of their titles; a blinking cursor hovered over the first video log. “You said that you saw these videos already?” I asked, sitting down on my haunches as Archer gave a nod. “What exactly are they?”
To this, Archer reached over and tapped a key with his left forehoof, accessing the first video. “Proof.”
The screen briefly went dark at the strike of the key, then swapping out for a hazy hue of grey. Then, I found myself face to face with a fit and handsome vanilla-colored earth pony stallion with a dark orange mane and tail, his image hardly blemished by the light visual static that came from the aged computer. Behind the buck was the bedroom window, a square of solid and untainted blue visible through the clear shining light that was the sun, and all around him was the same bedroom that Archer and I now sat in. Except in the video image I saw, the bed contained a plush mattress, the mirror on the nightstand was polished and gleaming, the dresser was intact, and the walls were clean and cared for.
This was not the wasteland… not at all.
The stallion’s brown eyes flicked up, momentarily eyeing something above the desk before he faced me once more, his forelegs sliding off of the table as he cleared his throat. “This is Lance Corporal Macon, Marefax Third Battalion, Bravo Company.” he began, speaking slow as he looked me in the eyes. “I-”
“Macon.” A giggle suddenly sounded through the video feed, causing the stallion to look to his left as a mare entered the bedroom. She was likewise an earth pony, her coat a shiny copper and her mane and tail a brilliant sapphire, her emerald eyes carrying with them a loving look as, with an amused smile, she said, “You don’t have to say that kind of stuff anymore, remember?”
“Yes, dear… old habit.” Macon replied, watching as the mare stopped by the nightstand and looked herself over in the mirror. “I’m just testing out this camera hardware we got from the Lightning Brothers in Marefax. I guess it’s working alright.”
To this, the mare looked away from the mirror and walked up behind Macon, gently wrapping her forelegs around his neck and resting the side of her head against his own; the both of them now faced the camera. “I know. But I also know that you’re having a hard time leaving the war behind you.” she tenderly retorted, nuzzling along the side of the stallion’s face.
Macon, however, only frowned. “Well… when you’ve seen things like the Battle of Hayward, or Operation Harvest Moon… it gets a little difficult to put it all behind you. Sometimes I don’t know if I can at all.”
“I did.” the mare softly countered, leaning forward to try and make eye contact with the reminiscing stallion. “And you and I were in the same battles together. I have every confidence that you can, just like me. That determination you have is one of the main reasons why I married you in the first place.”
Macon let out a short laugh, finally turning to the concerned mare, his wife. “I am trying, Misty. I really am.” he said after an exhale, ears pinning slightly back before the copper mare leaned forward, pressing her lips against his as they locked together into a loving kiss.
When she broke her embrace, Misty released her hold around Macon’s neck and returned to all fours, holding that same smile as she said, “You’ll get there with some more time.”
“Well, at least for now, I don’t have a choice.” Macon responded with a chuckle. “Those watermelons aren’t going to pick themselves… and the crops really do a good job of taking my mind off of certain things.”
Sharing in his light laughter, Misty trotted over to the bedroom window, looking out over what must’ve been their vast plot of cropland. “Did you ever think that we would eventually come to own all this?” she asked. “Two ponies, born and raised in Manehattan, brought together in the fires of war, purchasing their own farm to live on together?”
“To be honest, no I didn’t.” Macon replied, craning his head around to face his wife once again. “I figured that if I’d returned at all, I’d either end up in a hospital learning how to walk again, or I’d be back in Manehattan working in that old police station.” At his words, Misty looked back over her shoulder and smiled once again. “I’m kind of glad that I managed to keep my limbs and follow your advice at the same time.”
“I’d like to think that I made the right call once we left Hayward. After all, eight years in the service is a good chunk of time, and the southeast is becoming a refuge for Equestrian veterans.”
To this, Macon nodded, looking back at the camera. “I can’t argue with you there. Most every day I go out to Ashton or Plainwell, I see more familiar faces, even some from what’s left of the battalion.”
“I think the region’s doing its best to stay out of the thick of the war.” came Misty’s reply. “I know that we’ll be seeing officers on our doorstep now that the harvest is around, looking for their cut of the product for the stallions and mares on the frontlines, but that much I’m willing to do.”
“And I think that the region’s doing more than its part because of the supply of food that comes from it to feed the troops.” Macon added, rising to all fours and walking away from the active camera to join his wife by the window. “Other than that, I think the region deserves to stay out of the fighting. Besides, the peace and quiet of the southeast is what makes it the perfect place to bring our little miracle into the world.”
Miracle?… Oh…
The silence between the two lovers in the recording spoke all the words I needed to understand, as Macon raised his right forehoof to touch against Misty’s belly… her very large belly…… Misty was pregnant.
For a moment, the two only shared a loving nuzzle, the soon-to-be mother leaning her head against her husband’s neck afterwards. Then, “What do you think, Misty?” Macon’s question carried open curiosity upon its words, but was laced with a tone of happy anticipation. “Colt or filly?”
“Oh, I don’t know… but not knowing is one of the most exciting parts about the whole thing.” Misty answered, smiling all the while. “I do know that I really don’t have a preference between a son or a daughter. The fact that I’m going to be a mother soon, and that you’re going to be a father, makes me happy enough. But I think I’ve come up with a name for each gender, just so that we might be ready when the time comes.”
The two looked eye to eye, still leaning against each other. “Yeah?”
Misty nodded at her husband. “Yes. Should we have a son, I like the name Forge. I think that a name like that represents a strong heart, great courage and skill, and unfaltering determination, just like his father.”
Macon chuckled at that, giving a nod as the two bumped their muzzles together again. “I’ll think that one over. But what if we have a daughter?” he inquired, nuzzling along the copper mare’s neck. “What characteristics would she have that are alike to her beautiful mother?”
“Well,” Misty spoke thoughtfully. “if we have a daughter, I think that her name should be one that resembles caring and compassion, a name that speaks of helping others through the good deeds of a kind heart and an intelligent mind. For a daughter, I want her to be Shimmer.”
Shimmer……
“I like the sound of those. They make excellent naming possibilities for the farm, too.” Macon replied, approving without pause as Misty let out a light laugh. “I’m serious. Some farms out there have been named after specific members of the family that it belongs to, and even others are named after things like family icons and prized possessions, like the Shamrock Farm or the Searchlight Farm or the White Mane Dairy Farm. While we bought our farm together and raise it together, live on it together, I plan on bestowing it a name dedicated to both you and our future child, my two greatest gifts in life.”
“And you’ve already come up with two names?” Misty asked amusedly, shaking her head slightly against her husband’s shoulder.
“For a son, I can see… Mistfire Farm, a symbol of strength just like the name Forge.” came Macon’s thoughtful answer. “I like that one. And for a daughter… something that speaks beauty… Shimmermist Farm.” Misty let out a giggle, shaking her head, but with no sign of displeasure.
The pieces clicked together.
But then, my senses returned to the present as I caught sight of Archer’s hoof, pressing down on a key that stopped the video feed and returned the computer display to the flickering green of the main menu. Slowly, I turned to my wingmate, the stallion already staring back at me with a knowing look; there was no second-guessing what we had just seen.
“I guess the commander’s hunch was right.” Archer spoke, to which I nodded.
“What about that other video?” I asked after a moment of silence, turning back to face the computer screen again.
Wordlessly, Archer reached over once more, scrolling the cursor down the list of corrupted video logs until he came across the second and final accessible log, then pressing the key to play it. Like before, green faded to black, and black turned to grey. Then, a new face appeared on the monitor, a face with wide blue eyes that belonged to a young blue-grey colt with a two-toned grey mane and tail. The child stared right into the camera with a mix of hesitation and curiosity, silent as he observed the recorder. But then, his eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement before he called, “This doohickey is plum confusin!… Whadya do with it?”
The colt’s accent immediately reminded me of Auburn from Challenger, the energetic caravan guard recruiter mare I had met back when I had stayed in that city; they actually sounded very alike, if my memory served right.
“It records everything you say and do once you push that button. That’s all, child.” The voice that met the baffled little colt in response was the exact opposite. The mare’s words were smooth, voice clear and silky with its tone amused, yet warm and friendly.
“That’s it?” The colt didn’t sound so much disappointed as he did perplexed, as if he were expecting it to explode into a spectacular blast of confetti like some sort of instant party cannon instead of simply sitting there and recording what it saw. “Ah think city folk make some weird gizmos.”
“You sound just like your father.” the hidden mare replied, lightly laughing as her voice grew slowly louder. “While that might be true, those gizmos are a part of our ever-changing world. Like my parents have been saying, ponies have been rapidly developing new machines and devices ever since the middle of the war, from the mundane to the advanced. It’s hard to escape the spread of modern technology nowadays, even in farm country.”
“Muh pa’s been sayin the same stuff.” the colt remarked, trotting away and exiting the camera frame as the device continued to record. “He said that Equestria’ll be forever changed once this tussle with the zebras is over.”
As silence took over the video, the camera now recording the entirety of the bedroom, I took note again of the blue and white beyond the closed window. The curtains were drawn back to let in that same pure sunlight to illuminate the chamber through the clean glass, showing clearly just how tidy and cared for this room was; it made me want to see what the rest of the house had once looked like.
But then, the colt remerged into the camera feed, about-facing to stare back at the bedroom entrance where a young mare came into view. Though she stopped partway into the screen, only her head, chest, and forelegs visible, I could still clearly see all of her colors as she swiveled her head to the camera. The mare’s coat was gold in color, striking when compared with her flowing sapphire mane and her green eyes, colored like polished emeralds; this mare was, in all honesty, very pretty.
“Is it true that the war’s been goin on fer nineteen years?”
At the colt’s question, the newcomer mare’s eyes briefly widened in surprise before she turned to her young friend. “Aren’t you a little young to be asking questions like that?”
“No!” the colt defiantly answered; I saw the mare crack a smile at his stubbornness. “Ah’m a young a-dult!”
“Indeed you are, child.” the mare agreed with a giggle.
“Ah read them newspapers that we get on the farm with ma an pa.” the young pony continued, bolstering his own defense. “The Hopeville Press place’s always talkin bout the war, so Ah know a little bit bout it.”
At this, the mare’s face dropped into a thin frown. “Yes, I know they are…… The truth is that the war really has been going on for nineteen years now. But from the sound of things, Equestria’s coming out on top with the technology it’s been putting out. Maybe this thing will end soon.”
“Ah hope it don’t end before I grow up.” the colt strongly voiced. “I wanna be able ta be a soldier like muh pa was!”
“You want to be a soldier when you grow up?” the mare asked, lowering her head down to the colt’s eye level. At the young one’s vigorous nodding, she said, “Well, I think that the new Equestria’s going to need every soldier it can get for a long time once the war passes by. Once you grow up and become big and strong, I think that you’ll have your time to wear one of those uniforms.”
“Ya really think so, Shimmer?” the colt asked, a broad and rather adorable smile spreading across his face.
The golden mare, Shimmer, gave a nod. “I think so, young one.”
Now glowing with pride, the colt proceeded to prance happily about the bedroom, transitioning into a goofy sort of march before he completed one full circuit around the room, stopping at his former place in front of Shimmer. “Hey, why d’ya keep callin me stuff like ‘young one’ an ‘child’ an… stuff?” he then asked, smile swapping to a look of genuine curiosity. “Besides, Ah already told ya that Ah’m a young a-dult.”
“You might be a young adult, but like it or no, I’m still older than you are.” Shimmer answered warmly. “Besides, you’re not the only one I call things like ‘child’ or ‘younger’ or ‘young one’. I call Sadia that, too, and every other foal I take care of. It’s grown into a habit of mine over the past couple of years.”
“But that’s like old pony stuff.” the colt remarked, cocking an eyebrow. “You ain’t that old.”
“Ha! Oh no, words like ‘younger’ are not just for old ponies, Trent.” Shimmer countered. “I see them as the words of a guardian, which is like what a foalsitter is, second only to parents and relatives. Since I care for ponies like you and Sadia when your parents are out on longer errands, I feel that those words are a proper and respectful address.”
To this, the colt raised a forehoof to his chin, humming in thought before he merely shrugged. “Well, if y’all say so. Ah actually kinda like it. It sounds like somethin muh ma would say.”
All of a sudden, the camera begun to vibrate, the image shaking lightly yet rapidly, and in unison with Shimmer and the colt with her, my attention was drawn to the window as rapidly brightening sunlight glowed at the top of my vision. For only a moment the light lingered, nearly blinding in brightness before it faded away… only to be replaced with a light yet bone-chilling shade of green. That color remained at the window, blanketing the outside world in its hue as the camera continued to shake. And outside the room, my ears could just make out a steady rumbling within the camera feed.
“S-Shimmer… what is that?” the colt nervously asked, the gold mare herself likewise glued to the floor. “Why’s the house shakin?”
“I’m… I’m not sure.” came her hesitant reply.
“SHIMMER, TRENT, GET DOWN HERE NOW!!”
The shouting and urgent voice was instantly recognizable as Macon, the stallion calling up from farther away into the farmhouse. “Dad?? What’s happening?? What’s that green light??” Shimmer demanded, her own voice now tinged with swiftly accelerating anxiety.
“A balefire weapon just went off to the southeast! Gather up Trent and Sadia! We’re going to the shelter, right now!”
“Oh Goddesses… come on Trent, we have to go!” A look of dread materialized on Shimmer’s face as she snapped her eyes toward the camera again, the young colt in her company immediately bolting out of the room behind her. But before anything else could was said or done, the golden mare wheeled for the terminal, and her left forehoof frantically snapped up over the camera, blocking the view of the entire room before the log abruptly ended.
The computer once again returned to the main menu, the green glow covering my face as I was left staring. There were two things that left a solid imprint in my train of thought from that last video, both of them weighing equally as heavy. The last video had provided us with every bit of proof to show that the golden mare in the video was the Mother Shimmer of today. Their personalities were exactly alike, a perfect reflection in both the past and the present. And with that, I remembered those eyes. The green eyes I had seen in the video were the exact eyes I remembered when I had first arrived in Buckley. Those eyes carried a bright flame with them, showing great strength with their natural shine, and they were the only eyes that had ever gotten me to actually fear a pony, a fear out of respect.
But the second impact that the video had left behind was something much more spine-tingling, something that didn’t draw another connection to Mother Shimmer, but had instead drawn a connection to my own memories of the wasteland. Though not directly catching sight of it, the video had captured the exact moment of a balefire strike, and had shown just enough afterwards to show the reactions of those who had been witness to it with their own eyes. There was no doubt in my mind that, during the wartime era, much of the southeastern region had begun to gather supplies, seek shelter, and for some, even proceed to evacuate to the region’s Stables, after seeing that explosion. But others, like the Hopeville Press, would’ve remained in order to spread the word about the explosion to the heartland and other territories of Equestria.
My Hopeville Press cover page that was tucked away in my saddlebags, with that picture of the trio of balefire mushroom clouds on the horizon, was all the proof I needed to confirm that.
“So that’s it.” Archer voiced beside me, returning my attention to the situation at hoof. “I think that’s pretty ample proof, don’t you?”
I nodded in wholehearted agreement. “Yes. But what should we do with this terminal now?”
“We’re taking the whole thing back to Buckley.” Archer answered, reaching over to place a hoof on the left side of the terminal’s frame. Giving it a gentle shove, slightly shifting its position on the table, he nodded. “It’s not too heavy, so I don’t think it’ll be a burden. But first, I want to explore the rest of the house and see if there’s anything else we can take back to Mother Shimmer that’ll jog her memory.” Turning away and trotting past me towards the bedroom exit, he briefly stopped in his stride to look back at me over his shoulder. “In the meantime, would you be willing to take a look at that safe and see if you can get it open? I’ve got a couple of bobby pins and a screwdriver with me if you want to give the lock a try.” But to this, I refused. Unlike him, I knew of my complete lack of knowledge and understanding towards lock and tumbler. That, and I had absolutely no clue how anypony other than a unicorn was to use such tiny tools to successfully pick a lock on any safe or trunk. While there might have been a way, I was absolutely clueless, and this was what I told my wingmate. “Well… if that’s the case, how about looking for a key. The safe is still locked up tight, which means that the key still has to be around here somewhere.”
“Are you sure?”
“If it wasn’t here, then I think that would’ve meant that some other wanderer would’ve gotten the safe open a long time ago.” Archer replied.
“Hm… alright, I’ll look around the bedroom and see if anything turns up.” To this, we exchanged nods before he departed deeper into the farmhouse, leaving me to scour the bedroom.
By itself, the room already looked empty of anything of use, let alone a key. Having been picked clean over the many years between now and the war, I was left with only the remaining furniture of the room to look over. The desk upon which the terminal sat upon held its single drawer closed, the hoof handle still intact, and hooking my left foreleg around the grip, I pulled the drawer back and peered inside… empty.
Moving on, I made my way to the closet unit, searching along the room’s ruined carpeting up to the broken shutter doors of the closet itself; this was empty as well, exempting the disgusting evidence of what was left behind after somepony had made a personal bathroom out of it some time ago.
Eagerly whirling away from that little bit of nastiness and putting it behind me, I made my way across the west wall to approach the toppled dresser. All of the shelves had been removed and scattered, leaving the dresser open and hollow. This however, also turned out to be vacant, with no items hiding in place of the drawers, and leaving me to turn my attention to the bedframe. Lacking its mattress, I could clearly see all parts of the rusty frame and the floor beneath it; the entire corner of the room was void of any items; that left just the nightstand with the mirror frame.
Even as I approached, trading glances between it and the aged carpet as I continued to scan the floor, I could see that the nightstand also carried no items atop its counter. However, the piece of furniture also lacked drawers, the only place a hidden item could be being under the nightstand itself. With this in mind, I stopped at the front of the stand and crouched down low, nearly lying flat as I attempted to see through the dark space underneath the nightstand. The remaining legs held the rest of the bulky piece of furniture at a high enough height to allow me a full view of the floor below it… but similarly, this also turned up empty; this room was as barren as the southeast itself.
With a light sigh, I rose back up to full height and trotted back to the computer and its desk, ears perking as I heard sifting coming from a nearby room. “Find anything, Archer?” I called.
“Just an old frisbee so far.” he answered. “I found it in an old toy box. I think this might’ve been Shimmer’s bedroom back in the day…… How about you? Did you find anything that might get us into that safe?”
“Sorry, but I couldn’t find any sort of key up here. This room’s empty.” Looking back at the black safe underneath the desk, a feeling of disgruntlement begun to inch its way into my mind, a surprising mood for me considering my general lack of interest in acquiring loot. Every material item I had needed or wanted in the wasteland was not for myself, but was supply for Hopeville, something simply to add to my home’s collection of resources. Only in special cases had that ever changed, such as the instance of finding that toy ball in Proudspire during our first visit to the town. But now, I was becoming more and more curious as to what exactly was in this safe, this safe that hadn’t been cracked open by at least a dozen lock pick attempts… maybe it really would be worth a shot to try and pick the lock myself.
With that in mind, I raised my right forehoof to close the desk drawer. But when I did, my ears twitched as I heard a muffled rattle echo from within the drawer itself, keeping my hoof glued to the handle as I registered the short noise. It had definitely come from inside the drawer… but then… that didn’t make any sense, especially since there hadn’t been any items inside. Was it just some side-effect of the aging material?
Curious, I opened the drawer once more and looked inside, and again, I was met with an empty space, not even a loose screw inside. Baffling as it was, I couldn’t help but look a little closer at the bottom of the drawer. Natural wear had weakened the metal considerably, but it still held together in a solid sheet to make the bottom of the unit… except for the bend in the back right corner. The metal had folded down considerably in that area, as if a hoof had punched down on it. But when I lowered my head down to pass a glance at the bottom of the drawer itself, I found that there was no blemish on the bottom that resembled the warped metal.
Looking back up, I raised my right foreleg up and over to place it inside the drawer, pressing down at various points to see if I could copy the same effect. Though nothing came of the effort, the gears in my head were turning, guiding my actions as I once again lowered myself to the floor to look over the bottom of the drawer. Something was off about it, something that I couldn’t quite figure out.
Partly crawling under the desk itself, inching my way between the desk and the right side of the safe, I reached up and begun to feel around the edges of the drawer, the bottom, the sides, and finally the back.
And that’s when I felt it - a button, just large enough to distinguish itself from the metal screws still remaining in place, sat at the center of the drawer’s back panel, completely undetectable from any other angle of sight. This had to be a sort of opening mechanism… perhaps the safe was electronic, and this opened it? With nothing to lose, I placed my hoof properly on the button and pressed it down. With a click, I heard as something unlocked and swung open, followed by something lightweight dropping onto the carpet with a soft thud.
Success!
Quickly, I scurried back out from under the drawer and sat back on my haunches to turn my attention to the safe… which hadn’t unlocked. The blue light was still glowing, the reinforced door still latched up tight. But out of the corner of my eye, I saw that something had indeed opened - it was the entire bottom panel of the desk drawer, now opened like a waiting mouth, and on the floor below that was what had been hidden within the entire time. The safe’s key, darkened with age from its natural brass color, had been hidden in the drawer. But what I hadn’t noticed before was that there had been two bottom panels in the drawer, creating a false bottom within which the key had been stashed… clever.
In triumph, I pawed at the key to nudge it across the carpet and bring it to me, then carefully clasping both hooves around it to bring it to my eye level. Finally balancing it on one upturned hoof, I could see that the key was very intricate in design, relatively long with multiple metal points and cut indents creating a complex pattern, revealing just how sophisticated the lock was; the key’s design certainly helped explain the casualties of former lock picking attempts.
“Hey, Archer! You were right. I found a key in a hidden drawer compartment.” I called.
“Told you so.” came his reply from farther away, to which I smirked. “You get that safe open?”
“I’m going to right now.”
Turning to the object in question, I could see that the safe was not all that complex in design. The only additions to the front of the box was the lock itself and the blue light above it, showing it’s locked status. Still, that didn’t keep me from wishing for my own unicorn horn as I fumbled around with the key, attempting to get the trinket situated at the right angle to place it in the lock. Eventually, this led me to clasping the back tip of the key with the ends of both my forehooves, whereupon I nearly fell forward and bashed my head into the desk trying to fit the key into the lock. While not my most graceful act, I still managed to fit the key all the way into its place in the lock, and scooting closer to the safe, I gave the key a turn to the left, a satisfactory click sounding from the locking mechanism as the blue light flickered away.
With a smile, I gladly set my forehooves back to the ground before pulling the door away. Within the safe, I found seven items, but nothing that I had expected to find. In place of simple scraps of food, a few bottle caps, and maybe a small box of ammo, was a slotted plastic tray holding six unblemished crystal orbs, perfectly preserved. And with them, making the seventh item in the safe, was a polished tiara of black metal, a single circular slot built into the front of the otherwise undecorated headpiece. But regarding first the headdress, then the crystal spheres, I couldn’t recall seeing or reading anything that described just what these items were. Nothing in Stable 181’s Hall of Records had even made mention to artifacts like these, not even providing a diagram… as far as I knew, these were simply knick-knacks for the house.
“Archer, are you about done?” I asked, looking away from the safe to the entryway to the bedroom. “I need you to come see this.”
Only a few seconds later, and the steel-blue pegasus reemerged, trotting back into the room carrying two items in his mouth. One of them was the frisbee he had mentioned before, a dusty yet intact plastic disk, with its blue color still visible after so many years sitting unused. The second item was something that I hadn’t expected at all, watching with a raised eyebrow as Archer dropped it and the frisbee to the floor. It was a stuffed animal, a foal’s toy doll resembling a small and incredibly adorable purple puppy. The fuzzy puppy had four stubby limbs, its hind legs stitched with dark purple on their lower back half to resemble paws… or perhaps shoes. The doll’s head was larger, complete with two floppy ears that were likewise colored dark violet. It had two solid buttons for eyes, painted in black and white to resemble near-perfect representations of real eyes, which were partly covered by an added fold in the fabric. There was also a round area of black fabric that had been worked into the doll, resembling a large nose at the end of its face, and finally, a slit had been opened at the front of the head to resemble an open mouth, complete with a dash of red within to create a tongue.
But alas, time had not missed its mark on the cute toy doll either. Tiny bits and pieces of the doll’s fur had fallen away, one on the end of its nose, another on its right forearm, and a third just above its eyes, revealing the stitches underneath. There was also a significant tear in the toy’s right ear, creating a sizeable hole in the fabric. And thirdly, unlike its stumpy limbs, the doll’s torso was flat, all of the stuffing having been removed; whether this had been because of the passing of the years, or because of the foals who had once owned the toy, I didn’t know.
Just by looking at it, I wanted to scoop up the doll and give it a big hug, snuggle up with it… and maybe take a nap, too. “So, what did you find?”
But alas, the matter at hoof pushed my foalish desire aside.
“Um… well, I actually don’t know what these things are.” I answered, refocusing my thoughts to the present as I nodded over to the safe. “I was hoping you could tell me, because I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
“Let’s have a look.” Then stepping up to me, Archer peered into the safe with me, the both of us looking over the crystal orbs inside. “Oh wow… I know what these are.” Archer’s voice was hushed when he spoke, and I watched as he reached a forehoof over to the tray, tracing it over each crystal orb inside. “These are memory orbs.”
“Memory orbs?” I asked curiously.
“They were arcane devices built by wartime unicorns to record events with moving picture and sound, like a camera recorder except much more complex and very rare.” Archer explained, pulling the tray to the edge of the safe. “These orbs allow the viewer to see a memory through the eyes of the pony who made it. The spectator relives the memory to its fullest, and is able to see, feel, and hear everything that had taken place in the memory while still retaining their own consciousness. You basically feel like you are the host’s body, executing its actions, all while becoming unaware of your own body and surroundings.” At my silence, my rather awestruck silence, he added, “In their original design, only unicorns were able to use them, because magic was needed to interact with the memories contained within. But eventually, there came a way for earth ponies and pegasi to see them as well. That’s what this is for.”
With a hoof, he nudged out the metal circlet, bringing it next to the tray of memory orbs. “What’s it called?” I inquired, reaching out to touch the tiara for myself.
“This is a recollector.” he answered. “The headgear allows non-unicorns to access the memories in the orbs, because the recollector itself establishes the magical uplink to the memory that unicorns can do naturally.”
“Wow… that’s really something.” I remarked with a slow shake of my head.
“That’s arcane magic of the Old World for you.” Archer replied with a light chuckle.
But I wasn’t laughing. Looking over the memory orbs again, the pieces begun to fit together. “These memory orbs must’ve belonged to Macon and Misty.” I observed. “Or Shimmer herself.”
Archer nodded. “Yes. That’s why we’re taking them with us, and the recollector.”
But as he set the tray and the recollector on the floor, a new question came to mind. “Should we look at these memories ourselves?” I asked him, watching as he pulled the contents of the safe up next to the two toys he had salvaged. “We did watch those videos after all.”
To this though, he shook his head. “To be perfectly honest, I think these should be for Mother Shimmer’s eyes only. We only watched those video recordings for proof of a connection between this farm and Mother Shimmer, and we found it. These memories are much more personal, especially now that we know the truth of the matter.”
Though my curiosity bump itched like crazy, urging me to try and argue for a chance to see what exactly memory orbs were capable of, I knew that Archer had a point. If these orbs held actual memories created by Macon and Misty, Shimmer’s parents, then those memory orbs were, in truth, a part of those ponies. And in turn, those ponies were family to Shimmer, a part of her. These memories were very valuable under the circumstances of their discovery, and thus my mind settled that if anypony should get the right to see these memories first, it was Mother Shimmer and nopony else. “So how are we going to carry it all?” I asked instead.
“I’ve got plenty of pockets on my armor.” Archer replied, swinging his head left and right to look himself over. “It’ll take me a bit to properly secure all these items down for the flight, and I’ll probably have to get out of this armor to do it, but I should be able to carry most of it myself.”
“Are you sure you don’t need help carrying the stuff… or putting it away?” I inquired; was it weird hoping for both a yes and a no answer at once… I mean, with Archer getting out of his… yeah, stopping now.
“No, I think I can get it.” Archer answered me, thankfully oblivious to my hidden (and much less appropriate) thoughts. “I should be able to fit everything into my rig. It’ll just take a little thinking on my part to pack it all down. Of course, the terminal is something I’ll have to carry by hoof, but that’s not a problem. In the meantime, I don’t know if there’s anything else you want to do here, but we should be able to get moving again shortly. I think our work here is nearly done.”
Actually… yes… there was something else I could do, something that I needed to do before we left the farm behind.
After an exhale, I wordlessly raised my pipbuck leg and looked over the terminal frame before nosing the button that activated my radio speaker. “My daughter is very sick with a heart condition and needs urgent medical assistance. If you’re hearing this message, please come help us if you can.”
As I lowered my pipbuck leg to the floor again, letting the repeating distress message play for the both of us, Macon’s voice brought me back to the real world in full, albeit in a much more dismal fashion. “For one hundred and seventy-five years, this message has been playing.” I said to Archer, solemn as I lowered my eyes to the floor. “Those two skeletons I found down there… I think that’s what’s left of Macon and Misty… it just has to be. They’d been waiting for help that may or may not have come. I don’t know for sure, but I feel that if they had received help, they wouldn’t have died on their farm, hiding away in a cellar until their last breath.” Letting out a sigh, I looked away to the open bedroom window. “I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for them, just lying there, letting that message loop endlessly, and waiting day after day for help as the world burst into flames around them and their farm…… That’s not something that any decent pony deserves, and those two were an honorable family just trying to make a life for themselves and for Shimmer. They were just one of so many families that had everything taken away from them by the war, by destructive balefire.” I shook my head at my own melancholy moment; in all honesty, Archer could chuckle if he wanted to… I wouldn’t stop him. “While I can’t do anything to atone for that, to restore what the war took from Equestria and its citizens, I can at least do something for this family, to honor their names and their lives.” I declared. “I’m going to shut off this broadcast once and for all. If I do that, then maybe Macon and Misty… and even the Goddesses themselves if they could hear that message from wherever it is they are… maybe they’ll all be able to rest a little easier.” Even though those last words had sounded better in my head, I knew what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it. If nothing else, it was something I could do for Mother Shimmer, something as a token of respect to her and her lineage. Through technology, her father was still speaking, and not even to his own world. This wasteland was a totally different place, one that didn’t care for his voice, and had no room for his plea for help that he was trapped in… but I had an easy way to release him from that, to let him rest, and all I had to do was return to the cellar and turn off that radio.
Looking back at Archer, I was slightly surprised to see as a small smile spread on his face as he gave a nod. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“You… you don’t think that was cheesy or anything?” I asked, slightly suspicious of the matter. “What I said, I mean?”
The pegasus buck brought a hoof to his chin in thought, looking up at the old bedroom ceiling. “Well… maybe a little.” he replied, making me deflate as the timid bit of pride worming its way to the surface was curb-stomped back into its hole… that was until he looked back at me and passed me a wink before turning his attention to the terminal and getting to work.
Oh Goddesses… where’d that insta-blush that slapped itself to my cheeks come from?
Though thankful that he really didn’t see my own words as a great mess of tacky weirdness, it was more the fact that my face was boiling red that I promptly about-faced and sprang out the window, gliding away to the barn. However, I was also grateful that by returning to my newest objective, landing at the barn’s entrance to see the open cellar doors at the far end, I quickly fell back into the state of focus to remember the importance of my own personal goal, to me, to Shimmer, and to the spirits of the Old World family that had raised her. And as I made my way back to the cellar, I sent up a short prayer to the Goddesses, and to my parents, hoping that Macon and Misty could see their daughter now, as the noble leader of Buckley who held great virtue and light in this world of uncertainty around her.
*** *** ***