The Dawnguard was at cruising altitude, 40,000ft above the eastern plains of Equestria. It was noon, and Celestia's sun was at its zenith, shining down on the silver wings of the jet with a wholly inappropriate cheerfulness. The Dawnguard had been joined by two Mustang escort fighters which bracketed it off each wing. The southern sky was shaded a whitish brown by a cluster of mushroom clouds, rising sharply into the upper atmosphere like tall trees towering above a meadow. Though a quarter of an hour had passed since the explosions that had caused them, the clouds still retained their characteristic shape as they continued to rise, drawing radioactive dirt into the sky.
Aboard the command aircraft, the communications room was abuzz with urgent voices. Reports were flooding in from civil defence posts and surviving military installations. Predictive computer software was already plotting the expected fallout patterns using data obtained from military and emergency ground observers on detonation type and yield. Intensities, spread, radius of contamination, everything was being estimated; if there was fallout expected in a particular area, no rescue or firefighting operations could be safely conducted there.
'Your Highness, we're starting to get confirmations through,' General Charger said, glancing down at a printout a staff officer had just passed to him. 'They've hit all of our silo fields, bomber bases, and every city with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants.'
Princess Celestia hung her head in despair as Charger read off the list of targets that had been hit, a shortened obituary for millions of ponies. Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, Detrot, Hoofston, San Franciscolt. Canterlot. Ponyville.
'Casualty estimates?' she asked with a reluctant, almost timid voice.
'Only very sketchy predictions at the moment, Your Highness,' Shining Armour said, reading from another copy of the same printout. 'Preliminary estimates based on warhead numbers and yields...' he hesitated for a moment. 'Anywhere between twenty four and twenty eight million dead, maybe another thirty five million wounded...'
Celestia gasped involuntarily. The population of Equestria had been about to reach 80 million- now she was hearing that a third of the entire nation could be dead. The majority of Equestrians lived in cities and towns, most of which had been hit in the exchange, contributing to the high casualty projections. Shining Armour continued reading.
'Probably half of the wounded will die without immediate medical care. That's not counting fallout casualties...' Celestia cut him off.
'I don't want any more casualty reports until you have something more accurate,' she said, though she knew the eventual truth could well be far worse.
'What about our own missiles?' she asked. Charger picked up another printout.
'Four hundred sixty eight confirmed launches,' he said. 'The other twelve missiles were out of service for maintenance. Unfortunately our long-range tracking radars were among the first targets hit, so we have no information on how many of them got through at this stage.'
'Most likely they all did,' Air Marshal Typhoon said. 'The USR operate no anti-ballistic missile systems so far as we know. Apart from a few mechanical problems, they probably all hit their targets.'
Celestia didn't know whether to be grateful for that or not.
A beam of light, blinding in the darkness, stabbed into her eyes. Rarity closed them and twisted her head away reflexively. A deathly silence had descended in the shelter, broken only by the occasional sob or cough. The light moved away and Rarity opened her eyes again. Somepony had a flashlight and was waving it around.
'Is everypony ok?' he called. 'Anyone hurt?' She recognised the voice as that of one of the police officers who had been marshaling the streaming mass of civilians at the shelter entrance. He directed his torch beam into the corners of the room, illuminating terrified faces and huddled bodies. The dust that had cascaded from the ceiling hung heavy in the air. Some got into her throat and she coughed, a hacking, entirely unladylike struggle for breath.
'Help!' a strangely distant-sounding voice came from the darkness behind her. The torch beam immediately swung towards it, joined by another as the second police pony switched on his own flashlight.
'Help, please! We need...a-a medic, or a doctor, or something...' The police officers probed their way through the sea of ponies towards the voice. One of them stepped almost over Rarity, and she felt strangely comforted at seeing his badge and uniform, though she knew he was essentially as helpless as she was. At some point she had relaxed her grip on Fluttershy's hoof a little. She did not know exactly how long had passed since the shelter had stopped shaking, but it could not have been more than a couple of minutes.
'Fluttershy...?' she asked questioningly. 'A-are you alright, darling...?' She felt the hoof in her grasp stir a little.
'I...' she heard the tremulous, whispering voice of her friend. 'I think I wet myself...'
Not entirely unexpected in the circumstances...
'Never mind, darling...I'm sure you're not the only one,' she whispered back, gripping her hoof tighter again. 'And you're alive, and that's all that matters.'
The backup batteries kicked in and the dim red emergency lighting switched on, bathing the shelter in a sickly, devilish glow. Rarity could see Fluttershy's tear-streaked face, and she gave her Pegasus friend what she thought was a comforting smile. Ponies lay on either side of them; friends, families, complete strangers holding hooves with each other. Rarity turned to look behind her as she heard raised voices.
'Where are the first aid kits?' one of the police officers asked. 'Are there any doctors in here?' He got no reply. 'First aid kits!' he shouted again.
'I think I can see a store room, at the back,' another voice replied from somewhere in the hot, heaving mass of bodies. Rarity could see the two officers and two other ponies gathered around a prostrate form in one of the side rooms that had been filled with bunk beds. A length of heavy metal piping had been dislodged from the ceiling and had fallen on the unlucky pony. In the red emergency lighting, the blood on his scalp appeared black.
'First aid kits!' the cry made its way across the shelter like the baton in a relay race. Several ponies near the store room at the back of the shelter got to their hooves and began to scrabble through the shelves and boxes.
'Where the hell's the first aid kit!' the police officer cried again.
'Forget the first aid kit,' his partner said in a commanding but somber tone, 'and bring me something to cover him up with.'
The two police officers stood up and removed their caps. Rarity stared in a mixture of horror and fascination. She had never seen a dead body before. One of the other ponies took a blanket from one of the bunks and laid it gently over the body as if he were putting his infant foal to bed. Rarity thought of her family, and a terror suddenly gripped her- her parents lived in Manehattan, and her sister Sweetie was staying with them...and here she was, hundreds of miles away, unable to do anything to help them. What had happened to Manehattan? If Ponyville had been attacked, then surely Manehattan would have been...annihilated. She shuddered at the thought, fervently praying that it was not true, or that her family had somehow escaped the certain destruction.
'Anypony else hurt?' one of the cops asked. Nopony answered, so he picked his way back through the crowd towards the front of the shelter, putting his hoof on the door. He turned to address the room.
'Alright. My name is officer Hawk. I want anypony who is able bodied and feels up to it to step forward. We have a short window before the fallout arrives, and I want anyone who thinks they might be able to help with rescuing others to come with me.' He waited for a response, but nopony moved.
'Anypony who is able bodied. If you're strong, come with me. If you're a Unicorn, come with me. If you want to help, come with me.' This time a dozen ponies, mostly stallions, stood up and moved to the door.
'Anypony else?' Hawk asked. 'Any Unicorns? We will need magic.' Rarity looked at Fluttershy. She could see in her friends' eyes that she shouldn't go.
'Anypony! We need as many of you as we can get.' The other police officer was moving through the crowd towards the door too, a cluster of other ponies in his wake. Rarity looked at them, then back at Fluttershy. If she couldn't help her family, maybe she could help somepony else.
'No...' the yellow Pegasus whispered. 'Please...'
'I...I can help,' Rarity whispered to her. 'I have to help...' Fluttershy squeaked.
'B-but what if there a-are...more bombs...?'
'Then they probably would have hit us by now,' Rarity replied, with far more confidence in her tone than she felt inside. 'You heard what he said...we don't have much time.'
'Please don't leave me, Rarity...' Fluttershy whimpered. The expression on her face was almost enough to change Rarity's mind, but she knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she sat idly by when she could have helped save lives.
'I'll be back soon, darling...' she said, giving Fluttershy's hoof a final comforting squeeze before standing up. 'I promise.' Fluttershy swallowed hard, on the verge of tears, but she nodded. Rarity stepped gingerly through the bodies, glancing back at Fluttershy and giving her a quick smile, moving to the door, where there were now about 40 ponies gathered. She joined them nervously. She felt a little out of place among the gang- most of them were burly Earth pony and Pegasus stallions- but there were several unicorn mares, including Lyra.
'Alright. Everypony ready?' Hawk asked. Some of the assembled group nodded. He turned the heavy metal handle and swung the door open. The shelter entrance was fitted with two doors; an inner one at the bottom of the stairs, and an outer one at the top. The ponies filed through and up the stairs. Once they were all through the inner door, the other police officer swung it closed. He nodded to his partner who stood at the top of the stairs.
'Ok. Here we go. I want you all to listen up,' he said, glancing at his watch. 'We don't have much time, so we need to move fast. When you hear three blasts on this,' he held up his whistle, 'get your plots back here right away. Don't mess around, don't stop. Doesn't matter what you're doing, if you hear three blasts on this whistle, get back to the shelter.' Rarity glanced nervously at Lyra, the only other pony in the group she actually knew personally. The aquamarine mare looked back at her and tried to smile.
'We're splitting up. Half of you are with me, half of you are with officer Arrowhead. We're looking for survivors. Anypony we can round up, direct them to this shelter. Anypony you find trapped, get them out if you can. But remember, we have an hour at most.'
Hawk grasped the door handle, lifted, and turned it. The door swung open and bright, painful light flooded in.
'Alright,' he said. 'Let's go.'
'Pinkie? Pinkie, are you ok?'
Rainbow Dash coughed as she spoke. The air was thick with brick dust, so thick that she could barely see. Her friend was not visible, though she was still gripping Rainbow's hoof. The Pegasus heard a subdued spluttering.
'I-I'm alright, Dashie...' Rainbow sighed in relief. They both coughed again, the dust irritating their throats and reddening their eyes.
'Is...is it over?' Pinkie asked quietly. As much as Rainbow wanted to reassure her friend, she could not lie to her.
'I don't know, Pinkie,' she replied. 'It probably is...but I don't know.'
They wouldn't hit Ponyville more than once- it's a waste of missiles.
'Are we safe down here, then?' Pinkie asked. 'Because it sounded like the whole building just fell down...' Rainbow had an uncomfortable feeling that she was right. Certainly some part of the bakery had collapsed, and it most likely had not been able to withstand the blast. They could be trapped under tons of wood and stone. Luckily, they had shut down the gas and electrical supplies to the building before the attack, so there was little risk of fire in the wreckage. Rainbow shuffled her body backwards in the confined space, probing with her rear hooves. After a foot or so, they made contact with something. She pushed against it with her hooves. It felt like wood, firm and unyielding. Rainbow grimaced, coughed, and spoke.
'We're safe...but we're stuck...'
Ten miles south of Ponyville, a column of bright red vehicles rolled purposefully along the road towards town, strung out along the tarmac like a ruby necklace, a halo of flickering blue lights lining the front and sides of each one. As part of Equestria's emergency preparations in the days before the strike, large numbers of emergency vehicles and their crews had been dispersed from their stations, like jets at an airbase, leaving skeleton crews to act as first responders to everyday emergencies. They had been moved to outlying towns, suburbs or government storage sites, outside of potential blast and fire zones.
The Ponyville Fire Department was no exception. Battalion Chief Firebrand sat in the passenger seat of his car, at the head of the column. There were thirty one vehicles in total, the majority of the Department's fleet. The red Pegasus rechecked the manifest taped to his dashboard. Fourteen engines, the primary firefighting tool with an efficient pumping system and over fifteen hundred feet of hose. Six ladder trucks, which included one brand new tower ladder that had only been delivered a week earlier. There were two heavy rescue vehicles, giant toolboxes on wheels, loaded with equipment for every conceivable type of rescue operation. Then there were a collection of miscellaneous support vehicles- a foam tender, the Department's sole HAZMAT response unit, an all-but-useless water rescue unit towing an equally useless rigid-hulled boat, a collapse rescue unit, a truck capable of refilling spent oxygen cylinders the firefighters used in their breathing apparatus, a high-volume pumping unit and its attendant hoselayer vehicle following close behind, a mobile command vehicle, and his chief's car.
The mobile column had been evacuated to safety in the village of Clopham Junction, fourteen miles south of Ponyville where the rail lines from Canterlot to Baltimare met with those from the western cities as they emerged from the pass in the hills. The village had a large empty lot where they had parked up in anticipation of an attack, well clear of any potential target. They were billeted in the school which had closed for the summer holidays. The village's solitary raid siren had alerted the firefighters mere moments before the southern horizon had flashed white as the missile silos were hit, and they had rushed to their vehicles as the northern horizon did the same. Firebrand had grabbed the radio in his car to get in touch with the frantic voices of the dispatchers in Ponyville. The emergency radio network had been hardened against EMP, so when the Cloudsdale strike knocked out electrical systems in Ponyville the dispatchers continued to transmit orders and information, the only interruption being a loud squealing as the warhead detonated. The warhead that hit the dam produced a similar effect, as did the one that hit the town. A loud squeal of static nearly deafened Firebrand, but the dispatch centre kept transmitting until the end. He heard the rumble, the screams, the hurried final goodbyes and the shattering crash as the building came down before the radio went dead.
Now they were driving into town, into the fire and the smoke to do what they could. Even from their current distance, as they crested a rise in the road the chief could see half a dozen entirely separate conflagrations within the town that, under normal circumstances, each looked like they would have required the attentions of the entire Department. One in particular caught his attention. It seemed to be on the north side of town, probably the oil terminal. There was no way in Tartarus they would be able to do anything about that, even if they could make it there. The terminal, and several of the larger factories, possessed their own works fire brigades, but they would all have been immolated, along with the rest of his own Department who had remained behind. What they had in this convoy was all they would have to fight the fires and rescue survivors, if there were any.
Firebrand glanced around over his shoulder out of the car's rear window. His driver, Cogs, had his hoof to the floor, and they were pulling too far ahead of the leading pumper that was now several hundred yards behind them, unable to keep up.
'Slow it down, Cogs,' he urged, as the flashing blue lights of the engine faded still further in the rear view mirror. The smokey grey pony eased up on the accelerator, and the car slowed enough for the rest of the convoy to close the gap.
'I can't believe this shit...' Cogs muttered to himself. 'This is unreal...tell me it ain't happening, Chief.'
'Wish I could, Cogs,' Firebrand replied, reaching for the radio. 'Task Force One to any units on this channel. Please respond, over.' He had tried futilely half a dozen times to contact any other surviving firefighting or police units on the emergency net, but all he had received were bursts of static, interference from the ionising effects of so many nuclear blasts. This time was no different, and he returned the radio to its cradle and glanced back over his shoulder. The lead engine was right behind them now, its sirens wailing mournfully and its airhorn blaring like a train entering a tunnel. The noise was unnecessary- there was no traffic on the road. They had not passed a single moving vehicle since setting out from Clopham Junction.
Around the next bend, in a shallow depression in the ground, lay the small village of Fillymore, and the convoy of fire trucks came screaming through, making as much noise as the attack had. Anxious faces peered out from behind curtains at the procession. Ponies stood on their doorsteps, urging them on. Foals waved, seeing only the eternally exciting red engines and not wondering or knowing exactly why there were so many of them or where they were going. A couple of older ponies saluted, as if they were a column of soldiers marching off to war. They roared through the village and out the other side, climbing the shallow rise and cresting it, now just five miles from Ponyville.Seeing the town again, Firebrand felt a terrible fire in the pit of his stomach that matched the intensity of any of the flames he could see. It was his home he could see burning.
They passed a service station at the side of the road. The windows of the building were shattered, and a fire smouldered in some bushes at the edge of the lot. A little further on, they passed a small farm. The side of the farmhouse had been stove in. Telephone lines were down at the side of the road. The radio crackled.
'Engine 54 to Battalion 1.' Firebrand picked up the radio.
'Go ahead, 54,' he said. The radio crackled like a popcorn maker. In the mirror he could see Engine 54, the lead engine, rocking from side to side as it rattled over potholes in the road.
'Engine 54, should we send a unit to check that farmhouse?' Firebrand hesitated for a moment. They would need every vehicle they had once they reached the town, but five minutes to clear a farmhouse would probably not hurt them. They would almost certainly run into obstacles before they reached Ponyville, anyway.
'54, 10-4.' He glanced back at the manifest, checking which vehicle was at the rear of the column.
'Ladder 15, search that farmhouse to the left of the road,' he said. The radio grumbled and hissed before he heard the reply.
'Ladder 15, 10-4.'
As the damaged building receded in the mirror, he saw the ladder truck peel off from the rear of the convoy and swing into the farmhouse's driveway. Firebrand returned his attention to the road ahead. Trees were down in places; others were on fire. It would be a simple matter to extinguish most of them; the Department got half a dozen calls every week to burning trees, from lightning strikes or carelessly discarded cigarettes, but today it would just be a waste of water. The convoy rumbled on, closer and closer to the town. Damage was starting to become more evident now; trees were blasted bare of their leaves or smashed to the ground. A tractor in a field lay overturned and abandoned. An entire stretch of wooden fencing alongside a cottage burned with a surprising fury. Three times they had to weave their way around downed power lines that had fallen partly across the road. The radio crackled into life again.
'Ladder 15 to Battalion 1.' He picked it up.
'Go ahead, 15.'
'Chief, we cleared the farmhouse. Nopony inside. We're back on the road.'
'10-4, Ladder 15. Watch for the downed power lines,' he cautioned. The air around them was starting to become tinged a noxious brownish-yellow, smoke and gases from countless fires in and around the town. Ahead, a blanket of smoke was drifting listlessly across the road from a burning house. Cogs slowed down and they probed through. Firebrand peered out of his side window at the building. It was fully involved in fire, bright orange flames leaking through the roof tiles and out of shattered windows. There was no point in stopping; any ponies inside would be dead, and the building itself was a total loss already. They drove on, the flashing lights on the roof and grille of his car flickering inside the smoky envelope like a hellish kaleidoscope. They emerged into clear air, the road ahead littered with leaves from downed trees. Half a mile further on, the road disappeared again behind a banner of thick grey smoke, and Cogs ploughed through it like a ship smashing through a wave. On the other side, he slammed on the brakes and pulled to a stop mere feet from a frantic stallion who had appeared in the roadway as if from nowhere. Firebrand braced for the impact of Engine 54 slamming into their tailgate as it burst through the smoke, but the driver of the heavy pumper somehow reacted in time and it slewed to a noisy halt to the left of the car, its airhorn winding down slowly like a dying donkey. Firebrand grabbed for the radio.
'Task Force One, stop stop stop!' he shouted. The convoy halted, narrowly avoiding any collisions, the ladder truck following behind Engine 54 pulling up just inches from its rear bumper. He breathed a sigh of relief and opened his door. The stallion that had caused the problem was standing in the middle of the road. His coat was a light blue and his mane orange, but both were stained with soot. The right side of his face and his forelegs were a sickly reddish-black. He had been badly burned. He turned to Firebrand, agony etched on his face.
'Thank Celestia! You have to help, please! My wife is in there!' He pointed with a singed hoof at the source of the coiling smoke; another house, flames licking at the rafters. The ground floor was an inferno.
'I-I was working...in the shed, and...' the stallion waved aimlessly around him, at the sky and at Ponyville. He had been burned by the flash, not by the fire. 'W-we never heard any sirens...I-I didn't even notice the first few bombs...please, help her!'
Firebrand knew they could do nothing- the fire had taken hold of the house completely. Even if by some miracle the mare was still alive, the house was an inferno; there was no way for the firefighters to enter the house until they had doused the flames at least partly, and by the time they had done that, using up most of their water in the process, she would be dead anyway. Several of the fireponies on Engine 54 opened their doors and began to climb off their rig, but Firebrand gave them a shake of his head and a quick hoof gesture and they clambered back aboard.
'Sir, I...' the Chief began, but the stallion cut him off.
'Please! For Celestia's sake!' he cried. 'Save her!'
'Sir, we can't...' Firebrand began again, and again he was cut short.
'You're firefighters, for buck's sake! Help her, please!' he begged. Firebrand had been a firefighter for twenty years- he knew when a pony had given up hope inside, and he could tell this stallion already knew that there was no hope for his wife, despite his passionate pleas. The fires of hope had already faded from his eyes.
'Sir,' he tried again. 'Please listen to me. If your wife is in there,' he gestured at the house, 'then, I'm sorry, but she's already gone. Even if we could find her and get her out, she would be beyond help.' He looked into the stallion's eyes as he spoke, and he could see a subtle change in him. Hearing a firefighter, somepony who knew what he was talking about, confirm his own fears, seemed to trigger acceptance in him. Abruptly his shoulders drooped and his eyes welled up with tears.
'No...no...' he whispered.
'I'm sorry,' Firebrand said. His own family sprang into his mind, and he was ashamed to realise that it was the first time he had thought of his wife and daughter since the sirens had sounded. They lived in Ponyville. It was a rare occasion indeed for a firefighter to respond to an incident involving his own family, but Firebrand knew that every pony in the column had someone they cared for who lived in town- wives, marefriends, siblings or parents. This was not exactly a routine call.
'Sir,' he said. 'There's nothing we can do here. I'm sorry. We have to leave. Try and get yourself to Fillymore, you need medical attention.' The stallion sobbed, not listening, consumed by his own grief. Firebrand took him by the shoulder and led him to the side of the road, repeated his message, then returned to his car and climbed in, picking up the radio and getting the column moving again. One by one they rolled past the distraught stallion, sitting on his rump on the embankment at the side of the road opposite his ruined house.
The road wound through several bends before they came to the first obstacle. A truck had overturned, jackknifed across the road, the cab blocking one lane and the trailer the other. The driver was still in his seat, a big bloody smear on the cracked windscreen indicative of exactly what had happened to him. Cogs pulled up short of it and Engine 54 stopped behind, airbrakes hissing loudly. Firebrand climbed out of his car and the fireponies on the engine hopped down, sizing up the situation. The airbrakes of the following convoy sounded like a swarm of angry snakes as they slowed to a stop behind.
The road was completely blocked, and not even his command car could slip through until at least the cab of the truck had been moved. He trotted over to the engine crew.
'Get that cab hooked up to your winch,' he instructed the Lieutenant in charge of the engine. 'Clear the road!' Each fire engine had a heavy-duty winch mounted to the front, and the crew quickly attached it to the truck's cab. The driver keyed the winch and the heavy cable began to wind itself in, dragging the truck's cab, leaving grooves in the tarmac as it moved clear of the right-hand lane, opening up a path for the convoy to take. Once the lane was entirely clear, the crew unhooked the cab from the winch and they set off again, Firebrand's car in the lead, the other vehicles strung out behind.
Firebrand tried again to contact other units on the radio which still crackled with interference. Still he received no response. They rolled on until they came to another obstacle, now just three miles from the edge of town. Here there lay an old bridge across a small stream. Though it was a narrow, shallow brook, the road still needed a bridge to carry it over the water, but this particular span had been unable to withstand the forces exerted on it and had crumbled into the stream below.
Cogs pulled up short of the bridge and Firebrand got out to take a closer look. The bridge deck had collapsed into the water; it looked like a clean break at both ends, a pancake collapse of the entire span. The old structure had not been able to cope with the ground shake that followed the explosion. Firebrand looked up and down the riverbank, looking for somewhere shallow and smooth enough for the vehicles to ford across. The stream was but a few feet wide, but it lay in a shallow gulley. Most of the firefighting vehicles had a sufficiently long wheelbase that they would probably ground if they tried to cross. He looked to his right. Slightly upstream from the bridge was a relatively flat section of the river course; it looked free of boulders, and the slopes on either side could be smoothed out easily enough with the shovels and other tools on board their rigs. A group of hardy-looking trees on the other side of the potential crossing site had been blasted clean of most of their branches and bark. Firebrand turned back to the crew of Engine 54, who had dismounted again.
'Break out the shovels!' he ordered. Cogs climbed out of the driver's seat, and Firebrand turned to him. 'Go tell the rescue companies that we're gonna need their timbers and some of their rope.'
Applejack looked around the shelter, bathed in harsh white light from the bulb in the ceiling that had mercifully survived intact. Her family huddled in the cramped confines of the shelter, their expressions covering the full range of emotions; Applebloom was afraid, Granny Smith was angry, Big Mac was as stoic as ever. Idly she wondered what her own face looked like. It had been a good ten minutes since the shaking had stopped. She locked eyes with her brother, who gave the slightest nod. She picked up her stetson and placed it firmly on her head.
'C'mon, big brother. Ponies need our help.' The farmpony stood up. Applebloom looked on in confusion.
'Where are y'all goin?' she asked, with fearful eyes. 'Ya can't go outside!' Big Mac got to his hooves too.
'We have ta go help,' he explained. 'We'll have about an hour before the fallout arrives. Gotta do what we can.'
'You two go,' Granny Smith said. 'Ah'll look after Applebloom.' Big Mac nodded at her, and Applejack gave her sister a quick hug.
'Don't you fret, sis,' she said. 'We'll be back before ya know it. Just keep this hatch closed until we get back.' Big Mac climbed halfway up the ladder and threw open the hatch with a metallic clang. He climbed a little further, sticking his head over the hatch ring and taking a thorough look around, before continuing his climb and leaving the shelter. After a final glance back at her sister, Applejack followed him up.
'Is that it, Twi?' Spike asked nervously, huddling against the unicorn under the heavy desk. They had ridden out the storm- though the tree above them creaked loudly, it was still standing, and the basement was essentially undamaged. Books and scientific equipment were strewn across the floor, but other than that, nothing untoward seemed to have happened in the microcosmic world of the basement. Twilight peeked out nervously from under the edge of the desk.
'I...I think so...' she answered Spike's question tentatively, half expecting another shattering explosion to spring into life and prove her wrong. Nothing happened. The tree creaked, and she could hear the distant tinkling of glass, but no more explosions. She risked moving out from under the desk, and got to her hooves, looking around the disheveled basement.
'Everything seems alright down here, Spike,' she reassured the cowering dragon. 'I'll go check upstairs...'
'No!' squeaked Spike. 'Don't go up there, Twilight! I-it's dangerous!'
'I won't go outside, Spike,' she replied. 'I just want to check that the library is safe for us to stay in.' Spike swallowed nervously.
'Oh...well, alright...just be careful!' She nodded and trotted up the steps to the basement door. Using her magic, she turned the knob and the door began to swing slowly open. Dust curled in through the doorway. Twilight poked her head through and gasped.
She had been expecting damage, but the library was in ruins. Every window was shattered, and the floor was littered with books, some charred and some still smouldering. The second floor, including her bedroom and bathroom, had completely collapsed, now nothing more than a pile of matchwood. Water spewed from a broken pipe, pooling on the wooden floor. She took a few steps out into the main room. Glancing up, she could see a hole ripped in the side of the library facing the blast, where the balcony had been. Smoke wafted in through the gap in the wall, from some unknown source outside.
Her brain was running on instinct, and she was moving automatically, trying not to think of anything other than accomplishing her task of checking the rest of the library. Twilight picked her way over broken planks and smashed tables. The front door was missing, but one of the heavy bookcases had fallen across the doorway. She trod carefully and made her way to the kitchen, which was in no better condition. The wall-mounted cabinets had torn away from their mountings and their contents lay scattered across the floor and the worktops. Twilight could smell gas, and she nervously but hurriedly reached for the gas shutoff under the sink. Mercifully, there had been no fire. She peered out of the kitchen window, but black smoke was blowing across the street and she could see little.
Using her magic, she quickly gathered up a few useful items from the spilled contents of the cabinets- what little tinned food she had not already moved downstairs, a spare can opener, a roll of paper towels. She quickly trotted back to the basement and placed the items at the bottom of the stairs. Spike had emerged from under the table and was trying to keep himself busy by tidying up some of the books and equipment that lay scattered on the floor. He glanced up nervously as Twilight returned, but his face quickly flashed with relief when he saw her.
'H-how is it up there?' he asked. Twilight remained at the top of the stairs.
'It...it's pretty bad,' she said simply, unsure how to cushion the blow. 'I don't know what it's like outside, though. I haven't been to check yet.'
'Well don't!' Spike replied. 'It's dangerous outside! That's what you said!'
'I know, Spike,' she said. 'I know what I said, but there will be ponies out there who need help. Maybe...maybe our friends...' Spike swallowed.
'From what I understand, there won't be any radiation here for a while after the attack,' Twilight continued. 'I...I won't go out there for long. Just to see if I can help...or find our friends, or...' she trailed off. Spike remained unconvinced.
'But...it's dangerous, Twilight. You said so. You said we would have to stay in the basement for a week, maybe two!'
'I know, and we will, but it'll be alright if I go out for just a little while,' she said softly. 'If I can help somepony, then it's worth the risk.' Spike frowned, then nodded slowly, knowing it was hopeless to argue with Twilight once she had made her mind up about something like this.
'While I'm gone, I want you to collect as much water as you can. There's a leaking pipe upstairs. Fill anything you can use with water; bottles, saucepans, anything, and bring them down here to the basement. The water might stop flowing at any moment, so try and move fast, but be careful. The wreckage doesn't look entirely stable.' She fired the information at Spike and he looked dazed for a moment as he processed it. Then he nodded again.
'Water, right. Gotcha. Just...be careful out there, Twi.' She smiled down at him.
'I will. And you be careful up there.' She gestured behind her. 'We need that water, but we don't need you getting hurt.' Spike forced a smile back at her, and she turned to leave.
The front door of the library was blocked by a fallen bookcase. Twilight enveloped it in a magic field and heaved the heavy unit out of the way with considerable effort. The doorway clear, Twilight took a moment to gather her composure, then stepped outside.
It took less time than Firebrand had expected to get the mobile column across the stream. It had been a relatively simple matter to smooth out the crossing point and lay some of the timbers the rescue vehicles carried to prop up damaged buildings. The vehicles used them as makeshift ramps to get up the side of the gulley and back onto level ground, from where they pulled back onto the road to wait for the rest of the column. Firebrand's car had been the first vehicle across, to test the stability. Every vehicle had made it across, even the particularly lengthy tower ladders, without grounding, and with a quick radio signal Firebrand got the convoy moving again. The closer they came to Ponyville, the more damage there was- trees torn from the ground, overturned cars and shattered buildings, a remarkably intact but abandoned bus. Firebrand saw no signs of life; other than a few dead motorists in their wrecked vehicles, he saw no ponies at all.
They were barely a mile from the edge of town now. Twice Engine 54 had to use its winch to drag fallen tree trunks out of the way. The fires burned brightly ahead of them, a halo of flames turning the sky above Ponyville a rich orange. Firebrand could see that what he had at first thought were half a dozen large blazes were actually each made up of dozens of smaller fires. Though the blast wave had smothered most of the fires that had spawned from the flash of the detonation, some had remained smouldering in the wreckage and had ignited; other had been caused by candles, electrical shorts, and other secondary sources, including what were termed 'sympathetic detonations;' explosions caused by the effects of the blast, from gas leaks, propane tanks and tanker trucks bursting in the heat or ruptured by flying debris. Firebrand knew that things were not as bad as they might yet become. Though there were plenty of fires, it was not yet a firestorm, when self-sustaining winds caused by the flames sucking in oxygen would cause the fire to grow uncontrollably and consume what was left of the town. Most likely, it would not become one- most of the town was rubble, and rubble does not burn. Even in the old quarter, where most buildings were wood and many had thatched rooves, most of the fires had been blown out by the blast wave and falling buildings. There was a light but stiff breeze blowing, ideal weather conditions for a potential firestorm to develop, but Firebrand was confident it would not come to that.
They passed several cottages. None of them had rooves. Electricity pylons and telephone poles had been snapped like twigs. The rail line ran alongside the road here; the Sunrise Limited, the Canterlot-Baltimare express train, had been thrown from the tracks. Its ten carriages lay scattered like dominoes. One of them had passed completely over the road and lay upside down and crumpled in a field on the other side. The heavy diesel power car had been lifted bodily from the tracks and tossed aside, where it had smashed through a small clump of trees before coming to rest. Here, there would almost certainly be some survivors.
'Task Force One, stop stop stop!' Firebrand ordered into the radio. Cogs pulled the car into a short lay by and Firebrand climbed out. Engine 54 was close behind, swinging off the road into the lay by to allow the following ladder truck by. Behind that came Rescue Company 1, the first of the two heavy rescue vehicles. It pulled ahead and stopped near the train car that had been thrown across the road. Several other engines pulled ahead and stopped near to the crash. The rest of the convoy stopped behind, their crews dismounting. Firebrand reached into the back seat of the car and grabbed the portable radio.
'Alright, everypony check the train for survivors!' he said. 'Triage them. Forget about the red tags. Walking wounded only!' Giving the order caused him physical pain in his chest, but he knew it was the only thing that could be done. Red tagged triage patients were those with severe trauma- internal bleeding, broken necks, crush injuries. They were also the ones who would not make it without immediate medical care of the kind the firefighting column simply could not give them. To help ease their suffering would distract the fireponies from rescuing those who actually had a chance of survival; the yellow and green tags, for moderate and minor injuries respectively. It would also use up their precious, limited medical supplies. Each firepony was trained in first aid and lifesaving techniques, but they were not paramedics, and certainly not trauma surgeons. There was only so much they could do.
Firebrand picked up his helmet from the back seat of the car and placed it on his head, fastening the chinstrap as he did so. Ponies from the other engine and ladder companies were cantering past with axes and pry-bars in their hooves and heavier equipment on their backs- chainsaws, hydraulic cutters and stabilising blocks. The crew of Rescue 1 were unloading jacks and inflatable airbags, all of which would take more time to deploy and use than they realistically had. He glanced at the radiation detector taped to the outside of his car's windscreen. Each vehicle had one. Fallout was coming; not from the local explosions, but from those to the south. The winds were blowing north steadily, and looking back Firebrand could see the dust clouds still rising into the atmosphere. It was coming their way, and they would not have long.
'Forget all that stuff!' he shouted to the rescue crew. 'We won't have time for it. Just get anypony out who you can free inside ten minutes, then we're moving on.' He passed the same message over his portable radio. The firefighters got to work, climbing into the wrecked carriages. Firebrand checked his watch. They really shouldn't have stopped at all- their mission, according to the town's civil defence plan, was to get into Ponyville and rescue survivors there, not on the outskirts, especially since they were working on a tight schedule before the fallout arrived. The first hour, the so-called 'golden hour,' was vital in medical and rescue operations, and in this case, an hour was all they had.
Considerably less than an hour now, he thought. Unless those winds change.
The fireponies were swarming over the carriages now, like flies on a carcass, scything through the thin metal of their frames with their tools. Firebrand could hear the groaning creaks as they cut, snipping the metal and then spreading it with hydraulic rams. He checked his watch again. The fallout would be spreading like a blanket across the valley, unless the winds aloft were different to the wind at ground level. The crew of one of the engines bustled past him carrying first aid kits, their nervous faces peeking out from under their helmets. Another glance at his watch, though mere seconds had passed since he last looked, like a foal waiting for school to end. The radiation detector on the car showed no change.
'Medics!' somepony shouted from the wreck of one of the carriages. 'We have survivors!' The crew with the first aid kits changed tack and headed for the source of the shout. Firebrand joined them. They reached the carriage, which had rolled along the rail line and still lay on the track bed, and Firebrand clambered in over broken shards of metal.
The train car was a mess. The shatterproof windows, designed not to spray glass over the occupants in a crash, had been knocked from their frames, spiderwebbed but intact. One of the bogies had been pulled clean off the underside of the car and lay in a shallow dent in the ground some forty feet away, one of the wheels, absurdly, still spinning slowly, as it would in a newspaper cartoon. The skin of the car had buckled and been ripped open in places as it cartwheeled across the ground, and the roof was a foot lower than it should have been, but the framework had stood up to the beating and the passenger compartment had not been crushed. It had, however, been shaken to pieces. Seats had been dislodged from their mountings and luggage and its contents lay sprawled across the aisle like the inside of a young stallion's bedroom. There were not many passengers- the Saturday 11:00 service to Baltimare did not attract many customers in Canterlot, nor did many ponies climb aboard at Ponyville. In this carriage there were eight passengers. Five were obviously dead, slumped in their seats or lying limp in the aisle. The train conductor was also dead, his abdomen crushed between the rear bulkhead and a seat that had come free and pinned him there.
Remarkably, three of the passengers had survived the tumbling whirlwind of the train's derailment. There was a grey-coated stallion trapped by his hind legs where the seats in front of him had buckled and locked him down like a pair of manacles. There was another stallion who seemed to be impossibly unscathed- his green coat was stained with a few minor cuts, but that was all. Lastly, there was a young yellow mare, about the age of Firebrand's own daughter, and her image flashed into his mind again as he saw her. She was alive, though Celestia alone knew how. Four fireponies were gathered round her, squatting or standing awkwardly among the seats. The violent crash had thrown her from her seat and into the aisle, where she lay atop a layer of clothes that had spewed from a crumpled suitcase. At a glance, Firebrand could see that her forelegs were broken, the unnatural angle of the limbs making her look like an artist's poseable mannequin that somepony had been messing with. Something had opened a deep, oozing gash on her stomach, as if she had been slashed with a sword. She was breathing, though barely, and it came in ragged, bubbling gasps.
'She's in shock,' one of the fireponies said. 'Pneumothorax. Collapsed lung.' Her chest was bruised a rich red- Firebrand guessed she had smashed into something that had broken her forelegs and cracked into her chest and broken at least one rib, which had then punctured her lung. He moved closer.
'We have to relieve the pressure!' the same pony was saying. Firebrand saw the black insert on the front of his equally black helmet with a large silver '22' stenciled on it; a member of Engine Company 22. One of his colleagues, newly arrived with the first aid kit, opened the red bag and rummaged inside it, withdrawing a large-bore needle in a sterile plastic wrap.
'Wait, remember her neck is broken!' another firepony, balanced awkwardly between two rows of seats, cautioned. 'Where's that spinal board?' Firebrand picked his way over scattered luggage towards them. He could see the mare's eyes. They were dull, faded, as if her spirit were leaving her, and her face was contorted in silent agony. Her could see a distance in them; she knew she was dying. Firebrand knew it too, and he knew there was nothing the ill equipped firefighters could do about it. They could decompress her chest cavity by puncturing it with the needle, and they could stabilise her neck and spine, but there was blood on her breath; she was bleeding internally, probably in more than one place, and there was nothing they could do for that. All they could do was give her morphine, and let her die quietly.
Firebrand approached the firepony from Engine 22 and shook his head slowly. He looked up at his Chief, confused, then back down at the casualty. Again it hurt him to say what he had to say, but he said it anyway.
'Red tag,' Firebrand said. 'Nothing we can do.' He looked at the pony holding the first aid bag in one hoof and the needle in the other. 'Give her some morphine,' he said, 'and move on.' The group of fireponies looked at him in a haze of uncertainty.
'But Chief...' one of them said. Firebrand shook his head again, more firmly this time.
'Red tag,' he repeated. 'We can't help her, and even if we could we couldn't keep her alive for long. Go and help those guys.' He gestured with a hoof to three other firefighters who were trying to free the trapped stallion. They looked down at the mare, struggling for breath, blood flecking her lips. The pony with the first aid kit replaced the needle and took out a morphine syrette instead. He glanced at Firebrand, who nodded, and then he removed the plastic cover from the needle and stabbed it into the mare's thigh. The expression on her face softened slightly. The fireponies stood up and shuffled through the carriage to the trapped stallion, all except the member of Engine 22 who had been the ringleader. He remained crouching by her, holding her hoof tenderly, as though they were lovers on a moonlight stroll. Firebrand thought he knew why- he recognised the expression in his young eyes. She reminded him of somepony he knew; a sister maybe, a marefriend most likely. Emergency personnel were supposed to maintain a certain detachment from the victims they assisted, but Firebrand knew how hard that was, especially in a situation like this. After all, she reminded him of his own daughter.
He crouched there, with Firebrand standing over them, as she gave her last few wheezing breaths, and then she lay still. He closed her eyes softly with his hoof, then stood up, not looking at his Chief. No doubt he would blame Firebrand for her death; he gave the order. But soon enough, he would have a moment to think, and he would realise that there was nothing they could have done for her anyway, and that he had given her the only comfort they could provide- he had made sure she was not alone at the end. Slowly, he picked his way over to the others. Firebrand followed.
The grey-coated stallion was trapped by both hind legs, crushed beneath the metal frame of the seats in front. It didn't look like they would be able to pull him free; three firefighters had been trying to do so since Firebrand had entered the carriage. The seats wouldn't budge. Perhaps with the hydraulic spreaders they could 'lift' the seats off of him; failing that, they would have to amputate his legs. The stallion had not been trapped for that long, nor was the weight of the seats particularly high, so there was relatively little danger of so-called 'crush syndrome,' where a sudden release of pressure on a damaged extremity caused a sudden release of potassium and other toxins that could cause near instantaneous kidney failure and death in an otherwise healthy crush victim.
'How are we doing?' he questioned the group of fireponies. He recognised Lieutenant Searchlight of Ladder 4, who was attempting to shift the seats with a crowbar. He looked up, breathing heavily from his exertions.
'Not good, Chief. Can't shift the damn seats, not by hoof, anyway.' He wiped sweat from his brow. 'Can we get the spreaders in here? There's no danger of fire.' Firebrand nodded.
'Do it. We don't have much more time. Once you get him out and treat him, get back to your rigs.'
'What do we do with him?' Searchlight asked. 'We can't just leave him here. Where's the medical column?'
The column in question had been evacuated to the village of Maneston, a few miles southwest of Ponyville, and, according to the emergency plan, should have made contact with the firefighting task force and agreed on a rendezvous point to meet up with them. So far, Firebrand had heard nothing from them. The column consisted of most of Ponyville's ambulances, several logistics vehicles stocked with drugs and other medical supplies, a mobile operating theatre on the back of a truck, and a 'mobile treatment unit,' basically a bus with the seats stripped out and blue lights stuck on the roof, used for treating large numbers of walking wounded. There were a group of civil defence vehicles attached to the column too- more ambulances, decontamination vehicles and a communications unit, which should, in theory, have made contact with the firefighters via radio. The fact that they hadn't could mean there was too much interference, that their radios had been knocked out by EMP, or something far worse.
'We'll have to get all the survivors to safety,' Firebrand said, trying to think of a solution. The answer had crossed his mind moments earlier- the medical column's treatment unit. They had passed a bus that seemed mostly intact half a mile back down the road. It had been abandoned, its windows shattered and the driver missing. If they could get it going, they could load the survivors into it and take them back to Fillymore, where there was at least a small clinic that might be able to give them some care, which was better than nothing. Firebrand keyed his radio, which he had clipped on to the lapel of his jacket.
'Battalion 1 to Engine 8,' he called. 'Get back down the road to that bus we passed and bring it back here to the crash site.' A crackle of static, then a curt acknowledgement. Firebrand turned back to the trapped stallion. A set of hydraulic spreaders had been brought in, and the seats were being slowly bent out of shape, buckling their frame and lifting it off the legs of the stallion. They were horribly mangled and bloody, but when they pulled him free it almost seemed like he would be able to walk out on his own. He tried to stand up, but collapsed back into his seat, grunting.
'Whoa, whoa, what are you trying to do?' Searchlight said to him. 'Stay still, we'll get you out of here.' The grey stallion nodded listlessly, and the firefighters lifted him from his seat and carried him out of the carriage. Firebrand looked around. The body of the mare lay still in the aisle. There was nothing more to be done in this carriage. He climbed out of the same empty window that he had entered by, the gravel of the track bed crunching under his boots. The fireponies were crawling over the train cars like a swarm of bees, an image enhanced by their black turnout gear and helmets with yellow visibility stripes. His watch told him they would have to move as soon as the bus arrived.
No sooner had the though crossed his mind than he heard the grinding of gears as the bus rounded the corner, followed by Engine 8. It was not a firepony at the wheel. He trotted over to the edge of the road where the bus pulled up with a hiss of airbrakes. The doors slid open with a sigh.
'Are you the Chief?' the bus driver asked. Firebrand could see he wore the uniform of the bus company- he must have abandoned his charge during the attack and hidden in a nearby ditch or behind a wall, then emerged when he heard Engine 8 pull up.
'That's me,' he replied. 'Turn it round now if you can, then just park it here and wait. When you get the signal, drive back to Fillymore, to the clinic.' The driver nodded stoically, as if this were the most normal route he had ever driven. The bus pulled forward and swung in behind his parked car to turn round. Firebrand gave instructions into his radio, and a cluster of injured ponies were helped towards the bus, which pulled back onto the road facing the other way. Firebrand counted fourteen survivors; not exactly a huge number, but many of those would not have survived without their intervention. The fireponies loaded them onto the bus. When they were all aboard Firebrand gave a signal to the driver, who threw him a quick salute and gunned the engine. The bus groaned away towards Fillymore. Firebrand turned his attention to Ponyville.
The cloud of smoke over the town had become thicker and dirtier, the fires burning out of control. Even if they could make it into the town, they would almost certainly find there was little or no water pressure in the mains, not enough to fight fires with. They would be limited to the onboard supply of the engines, which totaled a few thousand litres, an almost wholly inconsequential amount. They may as well just piss on the flames, for all the good it would do, but at the very least they had to try.
'Mount up!' Firebrand said into his radio as he climbed back into his car. 'Reform the column and follow me.' The firefighters collected their tools and clambered back aboard their rigs. A chorus of throaty roars filled his ears as the convoy started their engines. Cogs pulled the car back onto the road and they set off, the other vehicles following behind, heading towards the fires that used to be their home.