Railroad Seven-Three

by Defoloce


5. Assateague

And the songs that I have sung
Echo in the distance
Like the sound
Of a windmill goin' 'round
Guess I'll always be a soldier of fortune

-Deep Purple, "Soldier of Fortune"


The two remaining members of Railroad 7-3 had another shift change after lunch, with Melchior taking the wheel for the first time that trip while Balthazar climbed into the back with the ponies. It was turning into a lovely afternoon, and cirrus clouds materializing on the highest vaults of sky promised a cool, pleasant sunset.

Both of the humans were more relaxed, and that in turn helped the ponies be at ease. No longer seating himself on the ammunition crate, Balthazar instead chose to sit on the truckbed itself, down with the ponies and more out of the way of the numbing wind flying over the roof of the cab.

The scenery was trees and grass and open fields now, no more shopping centers or office parks. Gavel in particular found himself invigorated by his surroundings. His legs wanted to stretch out and run. He wanted to see how fast and how far he could go, to just run and run and run until he collapsed, exhausted and happy, to take a nap wherever it was he fell. He thought about the scenes of Equestria that were shown on Princess Celestia's TV broadcasts, picturing them, and his heart leapt with anticipation. Oh, to run there, with his wife and his two sons, over an impossibly green hill made of stuff he could now eat! He grinned at the thought of it.

It was only an hour or so away, he reminded himself. It was so close now. He looked over his two friends, and could see the excitement written on their faces as well. It would be a homecoming for all of them.

Balthazar was making conversation to pass the time, a bit of his gruff edge gone. Sugar Spoon was glad to see it, and more glad to see he was incorporating ponification into the discussion now. She hoped the seed of curiosity had been planted, the first vestiges of interest. After having heard Melchior mention it, she too found herself wishing she could be a fly on the wall of his conversion dream.

"What were you doing, Melody, before you got ponified?"

The pink-maned pegasus looked down at her red hooves, embarrassed. "I was a senior in college."

"Where'd you go?"

"...Georgetown."

"Huh, no kidding! What was your major?"

Melody looked up at him and cocked her head. His features seemed softer than they had before. "Wh-what does it matter now?" she asked. "I'm leaving."

Balthazar smiled just a little and leaned his rifle up against his shoulder. "I was a freshman at Georgetown before taking on my... current position. I was just wondering if maybe I'd seen you before."

Melody let her mane fall over her eyes, ashamed for having questioned him. "Foreign Service in Culture and Politics," she said quietly.

"Oh, so you were the diplomat after all!" he said. "And this whole time I thought it was the senator over here. Maybe you can land a job talking to griffins or whatever."

Gavel snorted. Sugar Spoon giggled.

"What were you going there for?" asked Melody.

The man's eyebrows raised. "Me?"

"Yeah, you!" she said with a laugh. "I told you my major, now you tell me yours."

Balthazar looked over to Gavel and Sugar Spoon, who were smiling at him. "Well, you don't have to declare until your junior year, but I was thinking anthropology. Talk about a program with no future now, huh?"

He chuckled, but did so alone. The ponies looked on sadly at him, a young man with a rifle, black gloves on his hands, kneepads on his legs, and a headset around his neck. Dried brown streaks of blood were on his forearms and smudges of black road-dirt were on his face. He was the strife of humanity given form, anger and resolve and fatigue, the deadliest creature to have ever existed, so fearless and resentful that they even used their own deaths as a statement of defiance.

He saw their looks and let out a breath. "Well, it's true enough, ain't it?" he said with a shrug. "No future. Man, Tasmania's gonna be interesting times. I wonder if ponies will line up along their side of the last bits of the Barrier to see what happens."

Sugar Spoon grimaced in distaste and stuck out her tongue. Balthazar threw up his hands.

"Oh, what, do ponies not even have morbid curiosity now? I'm not saying it'll be a day of streamers and party hats—though the way some ponies have looked at me in the past, who knows—but when there's a car accident, you slow down to look at it. You can't not... right?"

The road hummed by beneath them for a time. Balthazar frowned and looked away to study his rifle.

"Stop looking at me like that," he said quietly.

Three taps came on the back window. Balthazar set his weapon aside and swiveled around to slide open the window.

"Dispatch called," said Melchior from inside the cab. "Sounds like the pegasi are looking out for us on this run. Apparently HLF pickets have been spotted along the entrances to Ocean City. We'll be diverting south. We should be able to drop the ponies off on Assateague."

Balthazar nodded and closed the window, turning back around and leaning back once more.

"More HLF?" asked Gavel.

The young man nodded. "We're not out of the woods yet," he said. "In fact, we'll be entering the woods rather shortly."

"More fighting?" Sugar Spoon's ears drooped.

Balthazar shook his head. "Not this time. On the bridge we didn't have much of a choice; this time we got advance warning." He sighed. "They took Ocean City, though... that was a major ferry point for ponies. I guess after Delaware became uninhabitable the fellas at Rehoboth just shimmied south a ways."

Melody craned her neck up to look over the roof of the truck. The very top of the Barrier was just starting to come into view, seeming to shift out of the stuff of a sky like a mirage, an orange-pink dome with the oily iridescent shimmer of a soap bubble. A rush of excitement shot through her.

"Well, fuck it, let 'em," he continued. "Pretty soon there'll be too much land for them to cov—"

"I see it!" cried Melody, pointing a hoof ahead.

Gavel and Sugar Spoon jumped to their hooves, rushing past Balthazar to stand up on the ammunition crate and look past the truck's off-road lights.

"Wow, it's huge!" said Gavel. "We're still miles from the coast."

"It's a sight for sore eyes, that's for sure," added Sugar Spoon.

Balthazar didn't bother looking; he'd seen it eight times before.

* * *

Railroad 7-3 exited Route 50 and moved south towards Berlin. The ponies in the back were fit to be tied. Melody even risked dancing about on the truck bed.

"Whee, Equestria, Equestria, here we come!" she chanted in a singsong voice.

"It's a little early to be jumping for joy," said Balthazar, his rifle now down in his lap. "The job's not done yet."

"Gavel, get on up and bust a move! You're gonna see your family soon! Doesn't that make you wanna dance?"

Balthazar frowned. "Hey, are you listening to me?"

"Woo! You go, pony! Shake your groove th—"

Her vision suddenly filled with Balthazar's face. His brown eyes flashed dangerously.

"Sit down and be quiet," he said through clenched teeth.

The pegasus's ears drooped and her hind legs gave out from under her, dropping her butt onto the bed. The mood had been effectively killed.

"I'm not gonna have you flying out of the back of this truck this close to the end." he muttered, moving back to his spot on top of the crate. "HLF everywhere and we lose a pony to a broken neck delivered via pothole. Yeah, that'd look great for our track record."

Melody stuck her tongue out at Balthazar. "You're mean."

"No, I'm careful. This is dangerous stuff we're doing, and you ponies are far from invincible. Reputation is—"

"Yeah yeah, reputation is everything." Melody lied down and rested her chin on a foreleg.

Balthazar snorted and shook his head with a smile. "And you're my age? Listen to you."

"Relax, Balth," said Sugar Spoon, taking on a satisfied smirk to see the young man bristle at the nickname. "Things have a way of working out. You just have to have faith in Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They'll take care of us. All of us! Even you."

He fixed her with a glare. "Yeah, it was a great job they did keeping Gaspar from getting his ticket punched."

Sugar Spoon took on an authoritative air, crossing her forehooves in front of her where she lay and holding her head up high. "If only you knew," she said with a sigh. After a moment, she tempered it with a smile, thinking a private thought.

Balthazar looked at her sourly, but said nothing. The pickup rocked a bit on the uneven road.

A pristine cornfield flew by the shoulderless road in a blur, the mighty stalks in full bloom with plump ears peeking out from silky husks. Melody felt her mouth water. They were almost close enough to touch. The young man, too, gazed at the field while he thought to himself.

"I guess he's just going on ahead of us," he said at last. "It's not much of a choice, when you really get down to it. Either you go pony or you die."

Sugar Spoon shrugged. "What can I say? Princess Celestia isn't in the habit of losing." She then gave him a pointed look. "Besides, choosing death is not completely unprecedented, it would seem."

Balthazar held his rifle up to his chest. "Some just ain't cut out for it," he said. "Nothing more to say."

The unicorn's golden eyes twinkled.

"We'll see," she said.

* * *

Berlin came and went without incident, and soon Railroad 7-3 was eastbound once more. Now directly ahead of them, the Barrier grew and grew, seeming to rise like a massive, dim second sun from the horizon. Balthazar had stiffened up again, casting off his relaxed posture and occupying his time more with scanning the road ahead than with conversation. The other ponies chattered excitedly behind him, but none of them could help but marvel at the Barrier's overwhelming presence. Even Melchior, down in the cab, had to keep reminding herself to keep her eyes on the road.

The sight of the Barrier had sapped something vital from the humans. Melchior had slowed the truck, as if to delay their arrival, and Balthazar was grim and taciturn, slouched against the cab, the roof supporting most of his weight.

Gavel sensed it more than anyone else. He took a step toward the young man. "You all right, son?"

The man was breathing slower. "It doesn't care, does it?" he asked, trying to keep his focus on the sides of the road. "It just eats everything up. It's eating up the whole world. Everything will be gone, and it just doesn't care. It's just a big shiny tumor." He laughed once. "And ponies love to say that we're the monsters, even as that Barrier pushes us into extinction. At least the HLF is showing them what loss feels like. Maybe they'll even take a lesson from it."

Sugar Spoon opened her mouth to speak, but she was stayed by Melody's hoof on her shoulder.

"The HLF are fighting a war they can't win, Balthazar," said Melody. "The only thing they're doing is spreading more pain."

"You think they don't know that?" he said, his tone starting to cut once more. "Fucking civilians. You just don't get it. Never did. I thought I explained all this on the bridge. This ain't about winning or losing—for them or for us."

The ponies stared at him blankly. Melody lowered her head and scraped her hoof along the padding beneath her.

"Let's say we could beat back the Barrier. Let's say we could push it back into nothingness and cut Equestria off from Earth completely. Let's say we managed to do this. What then? Do you think the fighting would stop?"

Gavel shook his head. "Of course it wouldn't," he said.

"Exactly! This is what we do. The fighting is the thing, not the winning or the losing. There's only satisfaction in victory if you fight for it. A victory handed to you isn't a victory at all, and that's what ponies are doing: just giving humans an out, a way to duck their responsibilities, no muss, no fuss. Senator? Melody? You're not winning anything, you're escaping, and there's a world of difference. You're refugees, off to live soft lives as soft creatures because it suits you. Well, you're welcome to it, but it doesn't suit everyone. If there's no fighting to be done in Equestria, then we fighters will have to have it out here."

They looked at his back quietly. Sugar Spoon was scowling, and Balthazar seemed to sense it.

"I've been in shitholes, Equestria. Real ones. You think this place is hell? The eastern coast of the United States?" The corners of his mouth tugged up in a smirk, and he shook his head. "Oh no. This place is goddamn paradise, trust me. Live a year or two as a human in a real shithole and these cute concepts of winning and losing you have will start to seem really fucking silly, I guarantee it. You don't know victory and defeat."

The unicorn bit her lip and tried to keep her temper under control. "Then how would I know it, O mighty human soldier?"

"I know you're just being sarcastic, but my suggestion? If you really wanted to know? Get some pony buddies together and go do what we do. Kill some HLF, keep some humans from getting ponified by the PER, turn away a raid by scavengers and looters. Get bloody by stabbing an enemy or closing the wound of a friend. See people live and die by the actions you take. See gratitude in the eyes of those you've helped. Feel the bond formed with people you've fought alongside and lost along the way. You can't pretend or play at it; there must be risk, and you must fight. It's fulfillment unlike anything else, and if it's not to be found in Equestria, then Equestria doesn't have anything for me. Once you've tasted it, that's you. You're done. The white picket fence and the minivan and all the rest of it will be ruined for you forever. You would mourn the loss of Earth like I do."

Balthazar's head dipped for a moment, and they saw his shoulders raise in a deep breath. He lifted his head and stared down the looming wall of magic up ahead.

"I don't care if ponies think I'm a monster," he says. "I do right by them, even as that fucking Barrier takes everything from me and Equestria renders me obsolete. I'm never going to pretend to be someone else just to keep on living. That's what a coward would do."

* * *

The magical radiation from the Barrier had done strange and wondrous things to Assateague Island.

The beaches facing the Atlantic Ocean were gone, replaced by a thriving forest, a maze of conifer and evergreen trees to rival the size of trees primeval, all standing over a carpet of soft rust-colored pine needles. The close canopy blocked the sun, shading the passage of the pickup truck as it ambled between the trees, throwing dust trails into the shafts of light. There, so close to Equestria's wall, and shielded by the sun, everything was instead lit by that warm, otherworldly radiance of pink-orange. Melchior felt as though she were in Equestria already.

At his own insistence, Balthazar had taken the wheel just before crossing the Sinepuxet. Melchior, perplexed, didn't protest, but it still worried her. His eyes had been sunken and bloodshot, and the ponies were ill at ease. Things must have been said; that was the only explanation for it. Usually Balthazar didn't talk much with ponies for that exact reason. They must have gotten to him somehow.

Still, he was alert and professional in his work as always, moving them carefully along through the forest, the roads of men now behind them. After the bridge, they had swing north to meet the curvature of the Barrier where it met the shore, and even as it got closer, both Melchior and Balthazar could start to feel that eerie probing presence of the magic coming off of the Barrier.

The ponies offered no conversation to her there in the bed of the truck, a combination of awe and moroseness taking their chattiness from them. They were already thinking of Equestria, she could tell. They had neither eyes nor ears for anything else. Ponies always got this way at the end of a delivery, especially the newfoals. It was real, it was happening, they were about to leave the place of their birth and never return.

She looked down at her rifle. She wanted to put it down to help the ponies relax, but at the same time the weight of it was a comfort to her, like it was an anchor that would keep her from drifting away. It also helped her center: the magical radiation of the Barrier did strange things to humans, and none of it was for the better. Aside from the mild itching and painless throbbing in the fingers and toes, there could also be hallucinations and imagined sounds, which was usually the signal not to go any further. To approach any closer would result in permanent damage, and less than a couple of minutes in close proximity was invariably fatal. She had to keep her concentration, just in case Balthazar wasn't keeping his.

The itching was already starting up. Melchior tried not to scratch in front of the ponies because it worried them and made them want to part company while still too far away. They were so thoughtful and innocent; every delivery they tried it, just so she could have relief from the Barrier sooner, she and Balthazar and, once upon a time, Gaspar.

Now Railroad 7-3 was close enough for the Barrier's light to fill in directly from the border. There was no horizon anymore, just a wall of shifting, beautiful, glowing iridescence, backlighting the trees and throwing them into silhouette. Her fingertips began to throb. It felt like nighttime.

Just a bit further, and the ponies would be delivered. Another job would be done. Then they would go back and have to do it all over again.

Melchior's shoulders slumped. The thought of it made her tired. She tried not to make eye contact with any of the ponies; she imagined she probably didn't look much better than Balthazar at this point.

Finally, the truck came to a stop. The ponies were quick to dismount with their sacks, but the humans were not. Melchior slowly stepped down from the tailgate rather than jumping off, and Balthazar did not leave the cab at all.

The young woman let out a breath. "Well, this is it," she said. "No ferries, no air-carriages. You can just walk into Equestria from here. I think you know the way." It took some effort to smile, but she managed it. The throbbing was pretty bad—she could feel it in her knuckles, like a strange twinge of arthritis that forgot to bring along the pain.

All three ponies hugged her at once, and Melchior had to fight back tears as she knelt down to receive them.

"Stay safe," said Gavel. "I, uh... I know I'm not in the Senate anymore, but if it means anything to you, I'd like to thank you for your service on its behalf, both to the United States and to the Conversion Bureaus."

"Take care, Gavel," said the woman. "I just hope ponies don't have the same taste for bureaucracy that we did."

The older pony laughed. "Whether they do or not, I'm done with it. I'm going to live a simple life."

It was Sugar Spoon's turn. "Goodbye, Melchior," she said quietly. "I couldn't do what you do. I couldn't stay here and see ponies hurt and humans killed over and over again, so whatever strength you have that allows you to endure it, I hope it holds out for as long as you need it to."

"Me too," said Melchior. "'If not me, then who?' That's what I keep telling myself."

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna never asked for nor assumed there would be humans willing to do this," said the unicorn. "You have their gratitude, and that is not a guess on my part. I know you do, and if I could only tell you..."

"It's okay. Just don't run that line by Balth, yeah?"

The two of them giggled. "But seriously," whispered Sugar Spoon, leaning in towards her, "Do not feel bad for Gaspar. If anything, he's feeling bad for you. Just keep that in mind."

"I... don't understand."

Sugar Spoon smiled, but said nothing more.

"Goodbye, fellow Mel," said Melody. "You're welcome to come help me and Laura paint the town red when you finally join us."

Melchior gave a noncommittal chuckle and patted the pegasus's head. Melody closed her eyes to the pleasant sensation.

"There's one last thing to give you all before you go," said the woman. Three pairs of ears perked up in curiosity.

"What's that?" asked Gavel.

"My name," she said with a warm smile. "My real name. It's kind of a tradition the Railroad has. Where you're going, you don't have any need for code names or radio lingo—nor for keeping secrets from the HLF—so what's the harm, right?"

Sugar Spoon and Gavel both grinned while Melody hopped up and down. "Oh, yeah, tell us tell us tell us!" squealed the pegasus.

"My name is Melissa."

"Melissa!" laughed Melody. "So you're still a Mel even now, after all this!"

Melchior laughed with her. "Yep! Sure am! I'm still a fellow Mel—at least until you figure out your own new name."

Gavel looked over at the pickup. The windows were rolled up, and through them, he could see Balthazar sitting completely motionless, looking ahead, his hands still on the wheel.

"What about him?" he asked. "What's Balthazar's real name?"

Melchior looked sadly over her shoulder. "That's... something he'd have to tell you himself," she said. "I wouldn't take that away from him. The best I can do is give him one last shot at it."

She stood back up and rapped a knuckle on the pickup's window. Balthazar cracked open the door and leaned his head towards her.

"I gotta pee," she said. "Why not take a walk and say your goodbyes, Balth?"

Surprisingly, Balthazar made no protest, instead quietly getting out of the truck and taking his rifle with him. He shouldered past Melchior and nodded once to the ponies. "Let's go," he said, not sounding very enthused, "I'm curious to see how close I can get anyway."

Melchior smiled, putting a hand on his shoulder, then walked behind the nearest pine tree to tend to her business.

The young man led the way east, the glowing getting stronger as they moved closer. His skin was bathed in the orange-pink radiance, his brown eyes looking hazel under its intensity. Balthazar was itching terribly, but, like Melchior, he didn't indulge it with a scratch. He kept his head high, and walked on in silence.

"Anything you want to say to us?" asked Sugar Spoon.

"I'm a soldier, not an ambassador," said Balthazar with a sigh. "I'm not like Melody here." He cracked a brief smile. "Once we're all gone, I just hope that... humans, on the whole, will be remembered fondly. I want to believe that some good comes out of all of this, that's all."

He never looked down at them while he spoke—he only looked ahead, challenging the Barrier with his eyes. Sugar Spoon's ears drooped.

"The newfoals will remember, I'm sure," said the unicorn, "and they will probably pass their heritage on to their own foals. Beyond that... we'll have to find out together." She smiled up at the man, even though he wouldn't see it.

A hollow ping caromed off the trees and met Balthazar's ears. He nodded once. "This is as far as I go," he said. "I'm starting to hear things."

Gavel's brow knit. "Wait, you heard it too? I just heard a little metal-type sound."

"Yeah, so did I," said Melody. "That wasn't a hallucination."

Balthazar's eyes widened and he spun around to look back at the truck.

Melchior leaned over to look past the tree she was crouched behind. She hadn't thought she was close enough to imagine sounds. Balthazar was waving frantically to her, though she couldn't quite hear wh—

There was an earsplitting boom, and Balthazar saw Melchior disappear in a fountain of dirt, wood chips, and dead pine needles. The tree she had been next to began to topple, groaning and crackling as it fell to earth.

"Mortar!" he shouted. He looked back at the ponies, who were frozen in place. The young man gritted his teeth and flailed his arms towards the Barrier, waving them on.

"Go! Go! Run!" he screamed, and from there they ran in separate directions: the ponies towards the Barrier, the man away from it.

Another mortar shell landed, this one nearer the ponies as they galloped for the safety of the Barrier. Balthazar slid to a stop next to the champagne-colored, bullet-riddled pickup, threw open the door, and leapt in, starting the engine and throwing it into reverse.

He looked at the steering column, his hand still on the shifter, the red needle hovering over the "R." A third mortar shell whistled down around the ponies, nearly knocking Melody off her hooves.

"Aw, fuck it," he whispered, and shifted the column down into drive instead. Without even bothering to close the door, he mashed down on the gas pedal, launching the pickup forward, straight for the Barrier.

Sugar Spoon panted, dropping her Conversion Bureau sack to lighten herself and make the mad dash for the Barrier easier. It had seemed so close just a few moments ago, and now it only seemed to be getting farther away...

The horn of Railroad 7-3 blared out in rapid bursts, Balthazar coming up quickly behind them, then overtaking them, skidding to a stop in front of them, cutting deep gashes in the carpet of pine needles.

"Get in, get in!" he shouted, pinwheeling his free hand out the open door. The three ponies leapt into the back, and Melody had barely touched her hooves down onto the truck's bed before Balthazar sped off again, a mortar tearing up the soil where they had been a fraction of a second ago.

The shockwave of it threw the ponies against the cab. Fighting to his hooves, Gavel pawed at the window latch until it finally depressed and the window slid open. Balthazar was headed straight for the Barrier, trees whipping by at hairline distances, and he was still accelerating.

"What are you doing?" shouted Gavel through the window.

"Those are mortars!" Balthazar shouted back, not taking his eyes off his path. "Those sons of bitches had us dialed in. They must've had an FO. They must be some right crazy bastards to be operating this close to the Barr—"

"But what are you doing?" asked the earth-pony again.

Balthazar turned to look at him. The man's left eye had gone milky white, and the iris of the other one had turned orange. The Barrier was starting to undo him.

"I'm doing my job," he said simply, a wild look coming over his face.

Four more mortars tried to find their mark on Railroad 7-3 during its last desperate sprint to the finish line. The ponies willed the truck to go faster. It was hard to judge distances with the Barrier; they were finding it had actually been quite a bit further to go. Balthazar finally stopped the truck thirty feet in front of Equestria's front door. The ponies leapt out, but Balthazar fell limply from the cab, getting to his hands and knees in the soft earth.

Balthazar coughed, hard and wet, and thin tendrils of something pink flew from his mouth. He brought up a hand; blood was collecting around the edges of each fingernails.

"It hurts so much, hah, holy shit, this really hurts bad." He laughed, which only caused another fit of coughing and pink discharge. Hairs fell from his head in a steady shower. He crawled to the rear wheel of the truck and sat up, resting his back against the tire.

The ponies gathered around him, oblivious to the mortars exploding nearby at regular intervals.

Balthazar's voice deepened as his throat began to swell shut. "What're you all doing?" he asked, "The Barrier's right there. Go on, it's what you wanted, right?" His breathing grew rapid. "Don't make us... fail our jobs... like this..." He swatted weakly at Sugar Spoon—or rather, in her general vicinity.

"Nice... dodge," he murmured, his voice now growing truly garbled. A couple of teeth flopped out of his mouth, bloody and whole. One fell, and one stuck to his bottom lip.

Sugar Spoon danced in place in a panic. "Gah, if only I still had the potion with me..."

It was taking Balthazar real effort to both speak and breathe now. "You think... I'd let... you do me... after Mel and Gas... went out like they did?" The right side of his face smiled while the left side hung limp. "I'd never hear... the end of it from 'em."

There was another metallic report from the mortar team hidden somewhere in the trees.

"HLF fuckers! I'll hold 'em off!" he gurgled, his hands closing around a rifle that wasn't there. "I'm gon..." the rest of the sentence was incoherent. Balthazar's head drooped, his chin on his chest.

"Balthazar..." said Melody.

"Josh," breathed the man. "My name's Josh."

"Josh, why did you—"

"Fade to white? What kin' bullsh't is this? I allus thought it'd be a fade t'bl—"

Balthazar's hands relaxed, and he didn't move any more. A mortar exploded so close by that it caused the truck to rock on its springs, jarring the human's body into slumping over onto its side on the ground. Clumps of dirt and fragments of upturned tree-roots fell in a shower on them.

Sugar Spoon hopped away. "Come on, we have to get out of here!" she shouted, and together, she and the two newfoals galloped the last few feet from Earth to Equestria.