"I assume you are the commanding officer of this unit?" the stallion in front of me asked, the dying winds originating from the council's vertibuck's storm cloud engines made their robes waving in the wind in an awe-inspiring way. Those admittedly aged pegasi looked so... awesome. And one of them was speaking to me! A member of the High Council! If he would have been maybe five or ten years younger I would consider describing him as... scratch that, he was talking to me!
"Hello, young mare, I'm talking to you. Are you this unit's commanding officer?" I nodded hastily, trying to banish any thoughts about... him to the darkest and most chained up place in my mind. I didn't knew a stallion that young – relatively of course - could even be a council member. I had always imagined there was some kind of rule saying only pegasi whose feathers had already started to turn grey were allowed to become members of the council.
"Excellent. What's your name?"
"I'm the Second Lieutenant of this reconnaissance..."
"I asked for your name. Not your rank or any numbers. Just your name."
He wanted... what? Close your mouth, Feather. I really must have looked stupid right now, standing in all those metallic remains, my feathers ruffled in excitement, just staring at the small crowd in front of me. He wanted my name? Better obey the... whoever he was.
"I'm Whirling Feather and I..."
"Whirling Feather you say? I know this name from somewhere... anyway, my name is Nimbostratus of Neighvarro, member of the Enclave High Council. And I have to say, I'm most impressed by what you - all of you of course," he raised his voice so that all of the ponies behind me could hear him too, "just did. Taking on a whole squadron of mechs is really... impressive to say the least. I bet there's one pony who would like to talk to you right now."
Nimbostratus turned around to call whoever he meant be the "pony wanting to talk to us" as a hissing noise cut trough the air above us. Just as we raised our heads towards whatever was buzzing above, but the only thing my eyes could see were flashes of light, followed by the noise of pegasi impacting on the cloud cover to our hooves, whirling up enough cloud dust to take our eyesight for a few moments.
As the dust started to settle again I could see the silhouettes of the... six pegasus shaped show-offs who were now standing between me and the councilponies. Six really bulky show-offs... They had to be the ones behind the attack, I mean, who else would do anything like siccing combat robots on – relatively – defenseless pegasi. I hoped, whoever they were, they had a really good explanation for their doing. Or just an explanation at all, I was just curious at this moment. With a violent shake of my head I reminded myself that two of my friends had been injured because of the attack.
Keep being upset, Feather, keep being upset!
A sudden draft from above blew the dust away and now I could see another pony landing inside the circle its allies had formed. My eyes jumped to the six ponies, who were revealed first. They were... wearing power armor, but not the same black model as my squad mates or the golden ones the High Council's guards wore, these were completely made out of polished silverish metal, reflecting the sunlight in the most awesome way possible. Those were Lunar Rock's Silversih Guards. Pegasus elites, covered in polished power armor from head to hoof, both armed with battle saddles and hoof-mounted guns like Wing Beat on mine. Their high-caliber rounds were visible in the transparent magazines stuffed into the pistol, the rounds that were powerful enough to effectively fight other power armored ponies.
Between those shining soldiers I spotted another stallion, wrapped in a black coat, which had the emblem of Lunar Rock on its shoulders and the signs of the High General...
It was him. Storm Feather, bemedalled veteran, war hero, High General of Lunar Rock. Oh right, and my father too. And he was angry like I never saw him before.
Before anypony could do anything, father stood in front of Nimbostratus, pressing his own hoofgun Squall Line, Wing Beat's counterpart, against the stallions neck. The council guards tried to ready their battle saddles, but were stopped immediately by the Silverish Guards who aimed their own weapons at them. I grinned internally as I saw the non-Lunar Rock battle saddles adjusting much slower to the selected targets than the ones of the Silversih Guards. Lunar Rock battle saddles weren't known as the fastest on this side of the cloud cover for nothing.
"You have got some explaining to do, Nimbostratus." father growled, his grey hide darkened with red anger. Instinctively I moved backwards a bit. Being near angry Storm Feather was never healthy, neither to your hearing nor to your feelings. At least that was what I remembered of him, I hadn't seen father, angry or not, for... longer than I could imagine. A few painful foalhood memories were all I based my attitude on right now.
I couldn't see much the crowd of councilponies behind Nimbostratus, but from what I little I could spot at this moment almost all of them hid behind their golden armored guards. Cowardly on the one hoof, but comprehensible nonetheless. Most likely it would have been my action of choice when I would have been hold at gunpoint by an angry pegasus stallion. The pegasus father held captive tried to maintain his straight face but the 12,7mm barrel on his neck didn't make it easy for him.
"Please calm down, General..."
"Explain! Now! Why were fully operational combat drones attacking those unprepared cadets? Why were they armed with lethal weapons? And why were you so damn close to the battlefield?
"General, watch your language!" Nimbostratus started but was immediately reminded by a clicking noise of Squall Line's trigger that he was the pony who should pay attention to what he was saying. "Alright, alright, we... I think I can give you a.... I can tell you."
"It better be good, because I swear to the goddesses, if your reason doesn't please me, I personally going to brand you. If you're lucky. Did you even talk to the High Command - or to anypony from Lunar Rock before setting this up?"
"Well, I..."
"Please, calm down, Storm." another voice said from behind the crowd of councilponies, a female and calm voice that sounded familiar... somehow. I had heard it not too long ago, but couldn't match it. The crowd divided and made way for an elderly blue mare in a stark but somehow even more official looking robe. She looked familiar too...
"This action took place in consultation with Lunar Rock's military operation base. We were informed, High General."
In unison the Silverish Guards bowed down clutteringly and my father even got of Nimbostratus' face. He still had him collared, but at least his weapon was deactivated again.
"You... you knew about this? And you agreed to it?" he said, but with a doubting undertone. "I'm sorry ma'am, but that seems really... unusual. With all due respect, we talked this through for months and we agreed on letting the maneuver end after the cadets defeated the last remote controlled drone. But this..." he pointed a wing at one of the advanced combat droids to his hooves, "...this wasn't even discussed, it had never been even considered."
"You're right, High General. The idea was born out of spontaneousness as the council watched the maneuver. Councilstallion Nimbostratus here gave the initial idea." I started feeling sorry for the pegasus father glared at as if he was about to eat him alive. "But we came to the conclusion that it was necessary to keep anypony else in the dark to guarantee... unaltered results."
"Unaltered result? I beg your pardon, madam president." Now father sounded just as surprised as the pegasi of my squad – myself included – looked. "May I have your explanation about this "incident"? It doesn't make any sense to me, a victory of the cadets was extremely unlikely. Why would anypony let the mechs attack the unprepared and untrained pegasi? And why did he..." he glared at Nimbostratus again, "had any influence on our training habits. The last I remember Neighvarro asseverated they would stay out our city's business ever since they managed to almost got me shoot down their precious Wonderbolts last year."
"That was you? I swear I..." Nimbostratus started, but quickly went silent again as both father and the the president glared at him.
"That's not important now, councilstallion." Cirrostratus said casually, "The High General demanded an answer and we should be willing to give that to him." the... president, the most powerful mare on this side of the cloud cover. Okay, that was something every last enclave city insisted on for their rulers, but still: we were looking at the president of Lunar Rock! "Actually it's all very simple: we were informed about some outstanding elements inside this group, for example the young mare, who happens to be the commanding officer by now." the mare answered. "So when we saw this cadets taking on the maneuver with ease, councilstallion Nimbostratus suggested to make this challenge a bit more... challenging."
Said stallion tried to smirk as my father glanced at him, his look promising many painful ways of dying. "But lethal weapons? Why? Two of the pegasi were severely injured." father replied and pointed a wingtip at the Sunshine and Cloud Striker, lying on the ground next to us. "Was that really necessary?"
"We simply assumed that the cadets would overcome this obstacle as well and so they did. Or do you want to cheapen your cadets' efforts, High General?" President Cirrostratus answered. "As I was informed, your own daughter is involved in this action and to a not insignificant degree I may add. Do you really want to discuss this matter in front of all of them?"
A collective gasp went through the High Council in front of us. Apparently to them, this was a new information. Nepotism had never been a big problem in Lunar Rock, I wasn't able to say why. Since we were such a small city it would be a predictable issue, but we somehow managed to stay clean from trouble like this. At least I had not heard of anything as long as I could remember. The councilponies of Neighvarro and the other cities however... the seemed surprised, some of them even looked scandalized.
Father didn't flinch or showed any emotion at all. He didn't even care to further go into this subject, he just shook his head. "You are right, madam president. This is neither the right place nor the right time to further elaborate anything. The injured need help and the cadets a transporter. We'll talk about this later. And we will too." he concluded with an angry glance towards the continuously shrinking Nimbostratus.
"Of course, High General. We held the cadets' vertibuck back so itwouldn't get damaged. It's ready and waiting a few minutes away, but..."
"...but you think we should get the wounded to the hospital faster than with a vertibuck. I agree. You there!" father nodded towards his Silverish Guards. "You four take the wounded to the hospital as fast and careful as possible, while the you two escort the High Council back to the academy. Understood? Good, execution!"
With a speed I hadn't thought to be possible for power armored warriors four of the pegasi loaded my wounded squad mates onto their backs and took off, leaving behind nothing but cloud dust, which concealed the members of the High Council as they entered their vehicle again. It was not until the wind created by the vertibuck's cloud engines blew the dust away that we could see something again. In that case, said something was my father, our High General, standing there in silence and with his back turned on us.
"Soooo... what do we do now?" Hurricane asked to break the awkward silence.
"Keep your mouth shut, Hurricane," a female voice from behind hissed, "that's the High General, you do want to leave a good image, don't you?"
I shook my head and shrugged, visible to nopony but myself. Of course they were right, father was the High General, the commander with the highest authority in the enclave military. And as such I didn't want to disturb him while he was... whatever he was doing right now. Maybe just standing there. But as my supreme commander he surely had his reasons for doing that.
A sudden poking sensation in my side ripped my out of my thoughts and as I turned my head I looked into the eyes of Sky Striker. "Feather... uhm... what will we do now?"
"Why should I know? I'm just..."
"...our commanding officer at this moment. And the General is your father, so maybe he won't take offense by you... you know... asking him what's going on. I mean what we should do now. Apart from just standing here of course."
I heard affirmative mumbling coming from the rest of my squad. Great. It was like my first weeks at the academy all over again.
"You clearly don't know my father." I muttered. "The only difference between General-him and home-him is the absence of stars on the epaulettes of his uniform. Believe me, I speak from experience, you don't want to be anywhere near him when you or anypony around you breaks any protocols or code of conduct or anything like that. And his scoldings are able to create black holes inside of ponies. Did Hurricane never tell you?"
Another painful foalhood memory...
The only thing I remembered was that cookies had been involved and that father had been really upset about it. And the following lecture of course. I was glad I didn't remember anything else about it. It had been both frightening and embarrassing back then.
"He gave a few hints, nothing specific, but that doesn't matter now. I think you should ask your father for further instructions."
"But..."
"Lets vote!" Sky Striker said, turning around and facing the remaining eight ponies of our squad. "Who's in favor of having Feather go and ask the High General?" Five hooves were raised. "Countercheck!" One hoof. Mine. Damnit! "Bare majority. You have to go, Feather. The will of the people demands it."
Damn this whole democracy thing and the ponies who had invented it!
Slowly I trotted forwards, bracing myself for what was to come. I was just glad there were nine other pegasi who would pick up the pieces the stallion dressed in black would leave of me. A few meters away from him I wondered if I should raised my hoof to tap his shoulder, but then all of the sudden, father spoke up: "I wondered how long it would take you all to bring yourself to do that."
"I'm really sorry... Sir." I said hesitantly. He didn't like being called "father" - or even worse "daddy" - neither at home nor in public, "But we've been asking ourselves what will happen now. Are we ordered to wait for further instructions or is the exercise finished? Or are there any new orders you wanted to deliver us personally? Is there anything wrong?"
"No."
"So we're allowed to leave?"
"I don't recall saying that." he said in a monotone voice, "The maneuver ends once the soldiers arrive at the hangar again. And while I might be the highest ranked member of the military on the spot, I committed all authority to Lieutenant Colonel Wind Claw. And I think he committed that responsibilities to your highest ranked officer, which is by now you, Lieutenant Whirling Feather." I huffed internally. I really hated it when he used my full name to talk to me. I mean, we were family, that just felt... wrong.
"May I ask why you're here then?" I asked and mentally slapped myself simultaneously. That wasn't the way to talk to him if I wanted to get out of this alive.
"I spontaneously decided to supervise the extraction of your team." father answered in a relatively friendly tone, his back still turn on me. "You did call your vertibuck to pick you up, Lieutenant?"
Of course I... had not. And father knew that well. At what point should I had done this? He wasn't always like that, rubbing in anything I had done wrong, I mean. Only if it was a bad day. Which apparently it was. If his much too calm voice didn't give it away, it was him calling me by my rank's name. Usually he would refer to me as "you". But this wasn't usually.
"No, I didn't..." I started, but was cut off by the light grey stallion who was my father only on weekdays without an "A" in their name.
"Then you should go do it, don't you think, Lieutenant?"
The talk ended right now and I knew that. It wasn't our first conversation that had ended that way. I trotted backwards until I stood next to Hurricane again. Apparently the whole squad had been eavesdropping, because nopony asked any questions as I just shook my head and turned away to phone our vertibuck. Of course they knew my father too, maybe just as well as I myself. It were rare encounters but in a relatively small city like Lunar Rock such were impossible to avoid. And if it were only him signing our competitors' certificate given to us after the annual inner-city sports competition. He had always been taciturn, he preferred letting others have all the spot-light to themselves. Maybe he had been different once, but I couldn't remember it. What mattered now was to get our transport as fast as possible, to get out of this while keeping up appearances as good as possible. And very soon we could hear the vertibuck's cracking thunderclouds coming closer.
""")_x_("""
It was mostly silent as we flew back to the academy's hangar. If somepony spoke at all, it was nothing more than a whisper I couldn't really make out. Hurricane sat next to me in the cockpit, filling the place where Sunshine had been on our way there and I could watch the academy drawing near. After a while, the blue stallion tapped me on the shoulder with his wing.
"You've done a good job out there, Feather. I really mean it." Mumbling of approval. "You know, when Sunshine got shot... I didn't know what to do. But you took command as if it was nothing. And when you, Sky and Cloud attacked those things from above... I haven't seen that before, only in those Old World movies."
And now the silence was broken and every pegasus on board started to chatter in relief.
"That was fantastic."
"I didn't expect anypony to be able to pull off something like this."
Facing all this compliments, I blushed a little. What they were saying wasn't true, both I and they knew that. But after getting out of a exam - as which this maneuver definitely counted, maybe even as two - this was the usual reaction. I was reminded of our first combat maneuver ever, the twelve of us against two dozen cloud target dummies, it had turned out the same. Just without somepony getting shot and thankfully Cloud Striker being the one everypony was heaping praise on. Good times.
"You were like the Wonderbolts!" a female voice shouted from behind.
"Are you out of your mind, Thunder?"
"Sky and his sister did a good job as well.The last one would have killed me for sure if Sky hadn't shot him." I muttered in a low voice. Apparently too low. And the others weren't interested at all, since the focus of everypony's mind was now an argument about if comparing pegasus of Lunar Rock to the Neighvarro Wonderbolts was to be taken as a compliment or an insult.
"That was luck." the buck next to me said. "You could have destroyed the drone just as easy as I did. Luck, nothing more. Well, and that I'm faster than you. But apart from that: luck."
"But..." How could he deemphasise his actions so much?
"But me no buts! You gained your laurels and you earned them." Hurricane interrupted me. "Without you and your plan, I would most likely still sit behind my cover without ammo, throwing cloud dust at them robots. We have to thank you for getting us out of this unharmed. Well, nearly unharmed." the blue buck called out loud and enthusiastically and the whole team agreed by stomping the vertibuck's floor with their hooves. "Sunshine and Cloud will be okay in no time, I'm sure." he added almost silently.
The pegasi not busy arguing about Wonderbolts kept adulating me for some time, each minute passing increased the room temperature I felt and the blood pressure in my cheeks and just as I wanted to scream the vertibuck landed in the academy's hangar. Oh thank Celestia.
Hard to imagine there could be something else to be afraid of apart from the metallic pegasus-shaped and power armored robots that were out to actually kill us, but in the exact moment the tailgate opened and we found ourselfves face to red-face with Wind Claw. Was there anypony not angry today?
"Lineup!" he yelled and neither of us dared to refuse his command. An angry Wind Claw could be... harmful, but different to my father, this violence wouldn't stop at an emotional level. Older soldiers of the academy had told us that our trainer had once gotten into a brawl between him and two other cadets of our age, maybe a bit younger. It was said that afterwards one of the combatants couldn't fly properly for two weeks, another one was almost expelled and the third had to stand trial for unnecessary violence later.
"I was watching you." the stallion said slowly and somehow menacingly as he walked the line of pegasi, past the empty place somewhere in the middle, Cloud Striker's position, and the one at the left end, next to me, where Sunshine should have been. "And I am extremely displeased by what I've seen."
Did I mention Wind Claw didn't suffer the first or the second fate?
I could almost feel the tension of my teammates, but nopony dared to look at the one next to him or her. All of us were thinking about one thing: what had we done wrong this time? Had we broke some kind of attack formation? Was he disappointed by the two mares who got injured in battle against Celestia-damned war machines? No, there had to be another reason! Wind Claw might have been as quick-tempered as a dragon, but never without a reason that was somehow comprehensible to mortal ponies. And I would bet my wings that getting stabbed in the back wasn't entirely our fault. Of course if he had known of all this...
"I'm displeased by..." he made a pregnant pause, "...by how those council chumps treated you. Stabbed you in the back with robots. Robots!" He spat on the ground. But then a strange expression sneaked up into his face, something I couldn't remember to have seen as in... forever. A smile. "But I am pleased by how you handled them. It reminded me of my old training days, when I was still young and kicking flanks. Good days. Of course we will cherish the memory of the ones who fell for glory."
"But... Wind Claw, Sir, Sunshine and Cloud Striker are not dead." I interjected. "They were brought to..."
"Second Lieutenant Whirling Feather, when I give a funeral oration for our brothers and sister fallen in battle, you'll shut up. Understood?" Seeing the confused expression on my face, he smirked to an almost scary degree. I honestly didn't know he had that many teeth.
"What I want to say: I'm proud of you, soldiers, even if it's just a tiny bit. And because you did such a good job, the Council decided to give you some free time for the next couple of days, so you can swagger about the maneuver and lick your wounds."
"Sir?" we asked, distrustfully. Now he started to really scare us. When free time was announced by Wind Claw, that usually meant his next days would be occupied with strangling somepony for not getting their lockers cleaned properly. And even if he would be busy, there seemed to be an uncountable amount of backup officers, just waiting in his own shadow to take his place whenever needed.
"I'm only joking of course. The High Command ordered you to recover for the next few days, for good publicity. They need time to discuss, when who made what kind of mistake and whose wings must be clipped. Not my liking but an order is an order is an order. But I would be damned if I let you get away that easily..." he turned his back on us and gazed at the distant training field and before we could fly away he added: "You'll fly around the academy, twenty-five times."
We looked at each other disbelievingly, but now the stallion chuckled.
"Just kidding." he said, spreading out his own wings. "Only ten times."
""")_x_("""
My wings ached more than usual after Hurricane, Sky Striker and I had finished enjoying Wind Claw's parting gift. Although the number of rounds had been reduced, we all were pretty exhausted. No wonder, since we had just been fighting killer-robots merely an hour ago! But on the bright side, the prospect of returning to our dorms was that much more delightful now. So after we had returned our weapons and power armor back to the armory, the first thing we did was diving head first into our beds. In the Lunar Rock Enclave, the dorms weren't separated as they were in the pre-war Equestria and probably the rest of the Enclave for reasons I didn't knew, but I guessed it was more practical that way. Somehow. Each team's pegasi were divided in three groups, each inhabiting a room with four beds. The inhabitants of "my" room were - along with me - Hurricane, Sky Striker and Sunshine.
"What a day!" Hurricane said, yawning loudly. "And as I said before, Feather: You were great."
Sweet Celestia, not again.
"And as I said before: I don't want to hear this anymore. Can't we talk about something else? About lunch today and why there isn't lunch like this more often? About Neighvarro conspiring against Lunar Rock? Because those are topics I would prefer to discuss. Or Sky having a crush on Sunshine?"
"Hey!" said buck yelled from the other end of the room, where he took off his uniform. "I'm not..."
"Just kidding." I replied to assuage the blue pony, who looked at me with a grim face which passed over to a smile after a short time of silence. Of course he wasn't in love with Sunshine. I doubted anypony would dare to even think of something like that, at least if said pony knew our orange officer for a few days. "Or what about this: has anypony an idea who those unicorns in the back of the council were? I though the unicorns were extinct. I thought we pegasi were the only equine beings left in Equestria." I asked, putting my own uniform into the locker. "And even if there would be somepony left on the surface by now, why are they here? I thought only pegasi could walk on the clouds."
There was a fuzzy noise coming out of the bundle of uniform and wings around Hurricane's head.
"Come again?" I asked.
The same noise, just louder. I approached the mumbling piece of clothing and yelled into its neck opening: "Outside of the uniform!" Hurricane got airborne for a few seconds, then fell onto the ground and his head peeked out of the wrong opening.
"Those were the unicorns of Thunderhead, I assume. It's some kind of pre-war research facility-thing with an awful amount of unicorns in it when the cloud cover was established. They live together with the pegasi over there, since they couldn't just kick them out or something." he said annoyed by the imprisonment, his head disappeared again and was soon replaced by his wings.
"And the whole cloud-walking-thing?"
"Magic, I assume." sounded his voice out of the holes again.
"And now we're on vacation until next week." Sky Striker said, changing the subject while I was watching the blue buck struggling to get out and thereby getting even more tangled in his uniform. "What should we do until then?"
"First thing? Showering." Hurricane answered as he chucked his uniform to the ground, shouting a battle cry. "I don't know what you're thinking, Sky, but I feel the need for a decent ventilation system integrated into those power armors."
Now that he mentioned it... Showering sounded like a good idea indeed.
"Hey, wait for me!" I called out after Sky Strike, who was standing in the door frame already, he turned around and grinned as I caught up with him.
"We should hurry." he said, still grinning. "Twenty minutes from now night curfew kicks in and we..."
"I am at the academy just as long as you are," I answered in annoyance, "I know we aren't allowed to be out there after the curfew starts. The name kinda gives it away. You are the one who got caught strolling around at night several times." I didn't even know what he had been up to back then, the guards had found him sleeping alone and barely dressed, but he had refused to say something about it since then.
Anyway!
"You're coming as well, Hurric... Ah!" I felt pain bursting through my right wing, took off and crashed face first into the wall of the corridor outside the door, which Sky Striker had opened moments ago, fortunately. I heard broad laughter and as I had turned around I saw the laughing Sky Striker and Hurricane just standing there, a primal feather dangling from his muzzle.
"What was that for?!" I screamed while examining my now disarranged feathers.
"You know... revenge and stuff... for yelling at me earlier." the blue buck answered, went over to me and helped me to rebound. "Now we're even."
""")_x_("""
And then... nothing worth mentioning happened. Sure, we visited Sunshine and Cloud Striker at the hospital, only to learn that they would be on their hooves to the end of the week due to to the work of some unicorn doctors flown in from Thunderhead. I wasn't sure if I really wished for some tension in this situation, but getting the two pegasi healed by unicorns felt a bit like cheating. Okay, that was mostly due to the fact that I hadn't believed in the existence of unicorns above the clouds. But that didn't even matter any further, since the councilponies of the other cities quit the field pretty quickly after our combat maneuver. Meanwhile I had lost one of my left wing's primal feathers as well, this time to Sky Striker, either because of my "great plan" and his sisters fate resulting from it or for reasons of symmetry, he didn't make it clear.
The only thing unusual was the nomination of our squad for some kind of honor badge or as Wind Claw - when he wasn't busy smashing other pegasi's heads for sending robots at us - put it: for showing those council chumps whose pegasi were the best above the clouds. From what we heard it was going to be discussed in a sub-committee of the Bureau for Inter-City Relations, meaning it was most likely going to die after a few months of pointless discussions and referendums. But a pegasus could dream.
Hurricane, Sunshine, Cloud Striker, Sky Striker and I spent our free time talking about enclave politics and other cities, training at the shooting range, playing board games - I really liked board games - while watching my feathers growing back and by the time they had reached a acceptable length again, our vacation was already over. And with its end Wind Claw returned as shouting and military-trainer-being as ever. But one day, he brought something else alongside his bad mood with him.
"Line up, cadets!" he shouted, while we stumbled over each other in order get into a proper formation. The world around us was still dark and if I haven't seen my alarm clock showing that it was actually 3 am I could have sworn it was still midnight, maybe even earlier. The fact that both Sunshine and Hurricane had somehow managed to get drunk last night hadn't helped on that account. By bucking down our doors Wind Claw had stated just this morning - or night, whatever you want to call it - that in order to re-accustom us to the discipline and demands of our military life, it would be a great idea to start the drills two hours earlier. To drive out the fat resources we apparently had built up over the last week.
"Are you having fun yet?" Sunshine growled next to me, her eyes bloodshot and her tone sore. Apparently I was looking too okay for her to be confirmed in her hatred for our trainer. "Just say what you always say in moments like this, Feather,. Tell me I shouldn't have done this, just get it over with."
I smirked, but she most likely couldn't see it. She was right, I had prepared telling-offs for situations like this for years. Or more likely had thought of them for a long time, then lost interest and then came up with it again last night when Sunshine and Hurricane hadn't stopped singing what could have been some kind of traditional folk song - or rather what would have become of it after two hundred years of radiation. The lectures mostly resolved around the affected pony's health and/or sanity, while bringing in Sunshine's looks was always my favorite thing to do. It was my way of getting back on her for other things that had happened and would happen to me. It was a doom loop, but as long as everypony had a bit of fun, it was alright.
"You know, Sunshine, I really think you shouldn't have done this." I whispered, "You could've known Wind Claw would be planning something like this, I mean, he has been to kind for the last week. You really should've seen it coming." That was me: a buzzkill for the one, a voice of reason for the others. For Sunshine almost exclusively the former.
To see the orange mare's head growing slightly redder with each word I said made me smirk even more. Those were the looks I lived for, at least after a full night of enduring singing and very loudly talking pegasi.
“Am I interrupting something?” a raspy male voice whispered to our right. The moment I turned my head I became aware of the fact that there wasn't anypony standing to Sunshine's right. Or rather: shouldn't be. At this very moment, Wind Claw looked as if he could bite a robin's head clean off. Not that I had ever actually seen a robin, the only thing I knew was that they were some kind of pre-war singing bird and quite cute on top of it. Nothing anypony would like to see losing its cute little head. And I didn't like to loose mine too.
“Of course not, Wind Claw, Sir! It was nothing!” both Sunshine and I shouted in unison. Stuff like this always pleased the elderly pegasus stallion and maybe we would survive this day.
"Are you sure?"
"Sir, yes, Sir!"
“Alright then, if our two lieutenants say it's nothing I'll have to trust them, don't you agree?” We nodded. “Excellent, now before anypony else looses his or her head in the beautiful clouds the weather station released today, I'll have to make an announcement: due to an attack of a group of griffins at the south-eastern border of Lunar Rock, all the surface-reconnaissance teams are now busy saving your poor flanks. So in order to not letting whatever crawls the face of the old Equestria be unmonitored, the High Command has decided to let you take on this mission. In other words: you're going to take a flight lesson below the cloud cover, while the real soldiers do something of actual value. Any questions?”
Silence, then somepony raised a hoof, luckily it wasn't me.
“And... when do we start the mission?”
“An excellent question, cadet Sky Striker. Today!”
Wait, what?!
Carefully I turned my head around and looked into ten faces filled with both amazement and plain-out fear. I doubted mine looked any better at this moment. We just had gotten the order of... leaving our home for the first time. And to venture into a world of dangers, mutants and invisible radioactive fires. Well, that and there were griffins attacking us. And all of that today?
“Today? Like... for real?” I heard a mare stutter, it was Cloud Striker if I wasn't mistaken. I simply wasn't used to hear her voice shaking like that. “As in: today today?”
“Are you complaining, Seargeant Cloud Striker? To me!?”
I closed my eyes and said good-bye to the cute bird with its red head and chest that hovered there peacefully before my inner eye.
“Well, you're right to do so. What's the time a patrol has to be made public by the High Command before it can be taken on?”
One and a half weeks.
“One and a half weeks.” Cloud Striker said after a short pause.
“And if there's an emergency?”
“Five days”
Damnit
"And if there's a real emergency?"
"Uhm... immediately?"
“Good work, seargeant. If you continue like this, you'll be taking Lieutenant Whirling Feather's place in a month or two. She's growing a bit... plump, don't you think.”
Ponyfeathers! I knew it.
The pegasus mare in front of Wind Claw looked at me with pain in her eyes and took a deep breath. “Wind Claw, Sir, I doubt this is the correct...” she started, but was immediately silenced by a swing of the elderly stallions wing.
“I was just joking.” he smirked. My body shook and all my feathers – at least the ones I still had – stood on end. Whoever this new Wind Claw was, I really wished the old stallion we all knew and... endured back. Really. The thought of a joking Wind Claw really creeped me out.
“About everything but a few details and the fact that the patrol will take place in five days. Your usual schedule has be altered to fit the necessities of a surface patrol and will begin immediately. Well, almost immediately...”
His face twisted to form a smile.
“...there're still a few rounds of training that need completion. You all grew a bit fat over the last week. Now go and don't stop until I say so!”
In silence, we took off. Everypony was still stunned given the huge “announcement” our trainer had made. To see the surface... this was an opportunity not many pegasi ever got in their entire life. And only the most elite and trustworthy enclave soldiers were granted the honor to leave the territory of the Enclave to scout its borders below. And I would be one of them!
“You really have potential.” Wind Claw whispered to Cloud Striker as we flew past him.
Flying ponyfeathers!
""")_x_("""
Usually I would consider it needless to say that our "surface schooling" lessons were boring, but... they were really boring. And that was coming from the pony who considered pre-war ornithology interesting. At least they always had nice pictures in those lectures. But being told over and over again what kind of plant might be edible - if it wasn't extincted by now of course, which they were most certainly - and how to get water that wasn't irradiated - surprise answer: you didn't get it - all we took out the lecture halls basically boiled down to: if you get lost, you're screwed. So don't get lost.
We didn't hear much about the battle between the griffins and the pegasi who were actually used to do this mission, but usually no news meant good news. Nothing really changed in the attitude of the leading pegasi and no further troops had to be deployed, so either things were going just fine or this threat wasn't as big as the government had feared. Whatever it was, it didn't have to worry us. We were going to see the surface - or what was left of it - but hey! it was the surface nonetheless.
The day of our mission drew closer and closer and with each day it became more apparent that our entire "training" was most likely set up to keep us busy. Because apart from the not that encouraging message the lessons delivered, Wind Claw filled us in to our "mission objectives", if one could call them that. As it turned out, when Wind Claw had said "flight lesson below the cloud cover" he really meant "flight lesson below the cloud cover". No surface contact, no engaging with whatever may or may not live down there, just... keeping an eye open in case something tried to built a gigantic tower or anything like that to reach the Enclave by hoof. Or tentacle. Whatever any potential lifeform down there would use to move forwards.
So when the day had finally arrived, most of us were more annoyed than cheerful. It really wasn't that big of a deal. Fly approximately a hundred feet below the clouds for approximately six hours and to forget to flap your wings while doing that seemed to be the biggest threat down there. The same could be said for every day of life in the Enclave. Just because the pegasi could walk on clouds didn't mean we were immune to whatever cloud we were walking - or in that case: falling - on. But why the weather control center would build the biggest part of the cloud cover out of inactive storm and blizzard clouds was beyond me. I guess it made some kind of sense, since those hazardous clouds would be even more annoying up here, after all "inactive" just meant not active on their own. Touching was still going to activate them and therefor equally as stupid as to fly face-first into a wall.
But nonetheless, on that day as I saw the great cloudgate of Lunar Rock open for the first time, I couldn't help but feel kinda proud for doing what we were going to do. I mean, not everypony was going to see the surface. And even if our job was almost danger free - which made our completely geared up soldiers seem kinda unecessary - that didn't make seeing the scorched remains of our former homeland less interesting. Everypony could look at a picture in a book or a reconnaissance report, but we would see it with our own eyes.
The surface awaited.
""")_x_("""
Level up: 50%
Skill(s): --
New Perk added: --