The entry ramp to the airship lowered with a grinding creak, hitting the dusty ground of Sul-Menthar. The ship had been landed down on the desert dunes outside the city walls, close to a dirt road which led around its walled perimiter. Small armoured cars, trucks with covered backs and large vans transporting equipment rolled down the heavy gangplank, roving out onto the desert sands and lining up in rows. Finally, the front car of the convoy rolled out, bearing Roughneck and another senior officer. Dust rode in the back of one of the armoured cars, sitting among some lower-ranking officers. She had dressed well for the occasion, wearing her thin but protective duster coat, dull brown pants, a battered khaki shirt, a dark bow-tie and of course, her mother's pith helmet. One in particular took her interest, though. A scrawny, gruff-looking stallion. While the others wore standard khaki uniforms, he wore khaki pants on his hind legs, a pale shirt with a brown necktie which looked rather too short, and what looked to be belts of ammunition wrapped around his torso.
"Nice hard-hat, lady." He commented, barking with laughter as the car they were on set off, rumbling along the dirt road as part of the convoy. "So, what are you here for, anyway? What, are you the mascot or somethin'? I could swear you aren't part of this team. Bein' totally and absolutely serious there." He rambled on. Dust raised her eyebrow at him.
"Thanks.. But I'm here because I was the one who called for this expedition. We're off to find an ancient artefact and, hopefully, my mother. So there." She huffed.
"Hey.." The officer put his hooves up in the air, grinning. "I was just messin' with you, lady. Name's Short Fuse, I'm the excavation expert and uh.. Chief joker around these parts. As you should so rightly know." He winked.
"I see.." Dust nodded slowly, smirking. "I'm Desert Dust. Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise." He nodded, and then turned his attention to the road. "You got any idea how far this place we're goin' to is, Dusty?" He asked.
"Dust.." She corrected, haughtily. "And it's around two kilometres." Fuse sighed.
"This is gonna be a long road trip.. I'm hungry, I'm already sweatin' like a pig, and the dehydration means I got problems takin' a-" He was cut off, thankfully, by the unmistakable cracking and banging of gunfire. The officer to the left of Fuse dropped over the side of the car, a bullet smashed through his head. The officers, Fuse and Dust all ducked down, trying to hide from the gunners. The convoy rolled faster, breaking formation and attempting to locate the attackers en-route. Officers loaded up rifles, leaning out of the trucks and spotting the attackers on the sandy ridges to the sides of the trail. Sand-coloured figures, barely visible against the landscape. They clutched rifles, which had been stained cream-coloured to blend in with the sand. The aggressors melted into view as their skins faded back to jet-black.
"Changelings!" Roughneck roared from somewhere up ahead. "Everyone, get down and get shooting, I want these scum put down!" The armed officers aboard the convoy began firing, the hammering of heavy gunfire echoing out across the ridges and surrounding desert. Two changelings fell back, fatally wounded and bleeding, bullets puncturing their bodies. Black blood sprayed out onto the sand.
"I hate these things." Fuse muttered. The officer to his right, turning to face him and aiming his rifle, melted away into an unmistakable black figure. "Oh, for the love of.." Fuse began, as the changeling went to fire. There was a loud, popping gunshot, and the changeling stumbled aside, falling off the armoured car. Dust lowered her mother's pistol, whose barrel was smoking softly. She felt sick in the pit of her stomach. But now was not the time.
"Get a rifle, and start shooting." She muttered to Fuse, who nodded silently.
"Th.. Thanks, lady.." He stuttered, aiming the rifle and firing at a changeling as it kicked off into the sky, zooming down and heading straight for him. It fell down, limbs flailing as a bullet cut through its wing. The helpless attacker dropped into the space between vehicles, and was promptly flattened by a truck.
"About half of them down.. Good work, everypony! Keep it up, we're almost at the end of the road!" Roughneck's voice barked again. The gunfight continued, more of the officers turning out to be changeling impostors that had somehow snuck on-board at some point and sought to sabotage the expedition. Dust began to question their motives in her head, while keeping her wits about her and firing off shot after shot at the changelings. Bullets flew through the desert air, richocheting and bouncing off the armour of the convoy vehicles. A lucky changeling gunner managed to hit the gas tank of one of the smaller cars to the outside layer of the convoy, which erupted into a horrific fireball. Only one of the officers on-board survived, though with major burns and missing a foreleg. He was pulled onto a truck to the side of the wreck as it skidded to a halt in a ditch to the side of the trail. Soon, all of the changelings appeared to be gunned down, and the convoy began to resume a smart formation and begin toward Solum. However, this illusion was broken as a main supply truck swerved dangerously, veering out of formation. There was a gunshot, and the officer who had been driving the truck was shoved out of his door, dropping limply to the desert floor as the vehicle sped onward. Obviously, one changeling had managed to remain hidden, picking the most vital of the supply vehicles and remaining well-disguised throughout the firefight. As the supply truck roved forward and beyond the front of the convoy, Dust realised what had happened. Determined to keep the expedition going, she made her move.
"Driver.. Follow that truck, I'm gonna stop it. Step on the gas, if you please." She spoke sternly but with the usual grace and sincerity she displayed. The armoured car raced forward, speeding up to catch the truck.
"Oh, this isn't a good idea.." Fuse muttered, seeing the road ahead. The trail headed around a canyon in the heart of the desert, with sharp corners and roads which had no fences to stop vehicles from dropping to a grisly end far below.
"Well, it's the best one I have." Dust replied, yelling over the racket of the howling wind and rumbling engines. The car caught up to the truck, rolling up alongside it. In the wing-mirror of the truck, Dust could see the charcoal-dark face of the changeling driver who had hijacked the vehicle. Its glowing blue eyes stared back at her as it noticed the car pulling closer alongside. Being on the inside edge of the road, the armoured car was luckily unable to be rammed off into the cliff. However, the changeling driving the car grinned a sadistic smile as he brewed up an idea on the spot.
"I'm not liking this.. Uh, Dusty?" Fuse whinnied as the supply truck began to drive closer in, squeezing the car against the canyon wall. Sandwiched between the truck and the wall which it scraped badly against, the car's sides began to spark and buckle, dents forming in the metal.
"Here goes nothing!" Dust yelped, pulling the pith helmet down onto her head as she leapt from the armoured car onto the side of the truck. She grabbed onto the canvas cover with her teeth until she could get balanced with her hooves, and began to shimmy along the running-board of the truck toward the back. Once around, she shuffled along the opposite side. Since the driver was admiring his handiwork periodically through the opposite wing-mirror, he had no idea that Dust was now moving slowly along the driver's side of the car. There was a mere split-second as he registered the pain when she gave a good solid hoof-punch through the driver's side window, knocking him into the passanger seat, unconscious. Now, the truck began to swerve dangerously along the cliffside road, teetering toward the edge without a driver at the wheel. Thinking fast, Dust yanked the driver's door open and hopped inside, grabbing hold of the wheel and slamming a hoof down on the brake. The vehicle skidded to a halt, stopping just short of a sharp turn. Pebbles crumbled off the ledge as the wheels ground to a halt in the dirt. Heart still beating furiously, Dust relaxed and let out a breath, smiling.
"Well.. That was a close-" A black, cold hoof slammed into her face, mimicing the punch she had thrown. She dropped back out of the driver's door of the now-stopped truck, falling toward the edge of the cliffside road. Trying desperately to find a hoofhold, she managed to grab onto the edge of the cliff, hanging over the hundred-foot drop into the canyon. Her heart sank as the changeling, bruised across its face and enraged, stepped triumphantly up to the cliff's edge. It stomped on her hoof once, crushing down on it in an attempt to get her to let go. Dust whinnied in pain as the changeling's hoof came down again, a second time. It cackled a chittering, insect-like laugh of mania as it raised the hoof a third time.
Bang.
The changeling stopped, dropping its hoof down. It stood for a moment, a wave of cold numbness passing over it. Then the pain hit, and the thing screeched as it flailed around, dropping over the cliff's edge with a bullet lodged in its stomach. There was a quiet thud from somewhere below, as Dust looked up to see Fuse. He held a smoking rifle in one hoof, and outstretched the other to help her up. A smile washed over her face.
"You can thank me later, lady." He uttered, chuckling.
Finally, the convoy reached Solum. As the sun burned down on the desert sands, Dust and the rest of the expedition force beheld the unremarkable but all-too-odd sight of the mostly buried structure's top, poking out of the dirt at an unstable angle like the limb of some long-dead cadaver. Sandy dustclouds swirled around as the troop of officers, led by Roughneck, made their way to the site. Dust climbed onto the slanted stone first, trotting slowly along the surface. The ancient stone was worn and faded, but strong enough to have stood the test of time. As the rest of the officers climbed onto the top of the ruin, she managed to find the entryway into the interior; a huge, thick slab of stone, roughly a foot across either way, laid into the floor like a trapdoor. The thickness of the stone and its weight meant that it took at least ten minutes of easing the heavy slab away with crowbars and brute strength. But when the slab was lifted away and slid to the side, a cloud of acrid, dead dust floated from within the ruin. Peering down into the ruin, Roughneck squinted.
"Get us some torches.. Light the place up." He ordered. Officers carrying large electric lamps shone them down into the open hatch, and Dust stared down into the abyss. It was as she had feared. Around a hundred feet down to the floor of the ruin below. But, at least they had made it this far. She forced a smile, even as she noticed the portable motors, the kilometres of rope, and the harnesses being brought up onto the structure.
"Well.. This should be fun." She murmured.