It’s pretty ironic how long you can wait on somepony named Dash. I grumble under my breath and tap my hooves. What’s taking her so long in the laundry room?
Fed up, I decide to go in after her. Knowing Rainbow, she’s probably abandoned all sense of subtlety and is looking for a uniform with a SEAL insignia sewn on it… exactly the last kind of pony we would want to steal from.
Carefully creeping, I move deeper into the laundry room. Behind long rows of spinning washers and driers, I spot Rainbow chatting amiably with a unicorn.
The laundry pony’s mane and uniform, both blue, are just barely in regs. She also seems to be responsible for the pounding music. Due to the outrageous volume, she and Rainbow both have to shout to carry on their conversation. I can hear it from where I’m standing.
“So, Dash… Do you like to bottom or top? ‘Cause I have a lot of different— Wait, who the hay is that?”
Rainbow spots me standing there. “That’s Lightning Dust, my roommate. LD, come over here and meet my friend, Vinyl Scratch.”
“Oh, really... Lightning Dust?” says the unicorn as I walk up. “So you’re the one that’s into roleplay?”
Excuse me? I shoot Rainbow a look. I have no idea what she’s been telling Vinyl, but I can’t risk undoing any lies she’s been spouting in an attempt to weasel some uniforms. I nod. “Yep.”
Rainbow grins but Vinyl positively beams. “Nice. I can just see RD doing LD during RP.”
“That’s hilarious!” Rainbow laughs as I simultaneously attempt to say, “That’s private.”
“So you know, if you could facilitate us…” Rainbow says.
“Sure, sure,” Vinyl says, turning to grab some blue coveralls off a nearby table.
“Where did you learn a word like facilitate?” I ask Rainbow under my breath.
“You know that movie, Uncelebrated Bitches, about killing the genocidal Diamond Dog leader?” she says. “It has that one scene that goes, ‘We got a dog here who wants to die for his country - facilitate him?’”
I nod. Figures.
Vinyl turns around with two jumpsuits. “These should fit.” She winks. “Come back when you’re done with them.”
Rainbow and I stuff the uniforms in our laundry bags and scoot out of the room before somepony catches us. Honestly, the whole exercise went a lot better than I expected. Not bad for my first steal-ex.
Well, borrow. We do eventually plan to give the uniforms back.
Still, I’m feeling kind of exhilarated, the feeling I get when I’m getting away with something I shouldn’t. Based on Rainbow’s grin, she’s feeling it too. When we pass Fire Streak’s door, Rainbow stops in her tracks as if an idea has just come to her.
She pulls a pad of sticky notes out of her pocket. I glance around and move myself into a blocking position to give her some room to work. Whatever she’s up to, it’s going to be good. She puts a sticky note on Streak’s door and writes on it, Do not disturb, jerk-ex in progress..
We walk away giggling like fillies. It’s immature, possibly sexual harassment, and not likely to be nearly as anonymous as we hoped, but totally worth it.
Back in our room, we lay out our pilfered coveralls. Rainbow immediately takes umbrage. Mine has Petty Officer Second Class insignia. Hers is third class.
“Typical!” she rants. “Vinyl thinks that because I put up such a tough front in public that I’m actually the subordinate one. Feathering stereotypes. Who was the pony that decided, 'Yeah, that’s my fetish,' and set the tone for the rest of us?”
While she’s ranting, I put on my best trollface and point out the names. “If you thought the ranks were bad…”
Rainbow pauses long enough to read them. Hers is Pretty Posey. Mine is Rock Salt.
She starts to pout again, but a sudden thoughtful look goes across her face. “Rock Salt is a strange name for a mare.”
The idea that I might get mistaken for an especially svelte stallion who specializes in water softening is super unappealing. At the same time, that would be a pretty darn good disguise for me to go unrecognized.
“I’m secure in my femininity,” I say. “I don’t need any false standards of beauty to feel pretty even if I’m in the military and in a lesbian relationship with you.”
“Yeah, I suppose it must have its advantages.” She laughs and gestures to the uniforms. “Lying to ponies about how I’m screwing my roommate gets us free stuff.”
Before I can respond, she yawns wide enough that I can see her tonsils. “Wow, all that walking around on the lower decks really takes it out of you. Doesn’t help about the salad.” Her mood cools as she remembers the motor oil incident. “We’ve got a flight tomorrow afternoon. We could get down there to find the suspicious ponies in the morning.”
It’s not a great plan, but it’s a plan. And I’m kind of tired, too. We climb into our racks.
The sound of jet engines blasting overhead once again rips me away from my amazing dreams. I sit up in bed, rubbing my bleary eyes and trying to make sense of the room around me. Once my eyes come back into focus, I look over to see my sexy “mare friend” curled up on top of her covers. I can’t believe she’s still asleep…
My hooves hit the deck with a light clop, and I take a moment to stretch my wings a bit before going for the light switch. The first moment of blinding light flooding the room causes LD to roll over and bury her head under a pillow. Odd that I’m the first one up, but we had a pretty big day yesterday, I’m sure she’s as tired as I am. Actually, now that I think about it, the only thing that woke me up was that stupid jet… and a powerful need to hit the head.
With that business out of the way, I hop into the shower to wash off and perk up. The hot, steamy water feels pretty amazing. Say what you want about ship utilities, they have their bright spots.
After taking my time and enjoying the moment, I step out of the shower to see a groggy looking LD splashing her face with water and drying off with my towel. I watch for a few seconds before she notices I’m out of the shower.
“So, you planning on letting me dry off or what?”
She looks up at me, then jumps a little bit. Her mouth opens like she’s going to say something, but no words come out. She just kind of stares for a moment before shaking her head and snapping back into reality and tossing the towel at my face.
She watches me dry off for a moment with a silly smirk on her face, before asking, “So, why did you think it was a good idea to wake up at zero-seven?”
“Because, LD, we’ve got work to do.” I walk over to the uniform and snag it off its hanger. “It’s time to for a little bit of roleplay!”
She smiles at that, then walks up to her own suit. “Oh? You think we have time for that before we go on our recon mission? Rock Salt might just get her first taste of a Pretty Posey.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Yeah, yeah. Seriously though. We’ve gotta find a way to get down there and blend in. A little bit of grease in our mane probably couldn’t hurt.”
As soon as that last sentence comes out, she gives me that look. You know, the kind of look that says, Why didn’t I think of that before?
“Why didn’t I think of that before?! Dash, you’re a genius! That’s how we hide our manes!”
Yeah, I know LD far too well.
“Of course I’m a genius, was there ever any doubt?”
“Of course not,” she says, as she rolls her eyes.
“Riiight, so, here’s the trick. How do we get grease without going into the lubrication storage area? I mean, we’d be taking a huge risk by going down there half-disguised. Got any ideas?”
“Well, we could go to the hangar as ourselves first. I bet we can find a grease gun there and sneak some out.”
“Good call. I think that’s a solid plan.”
“But what if we get some grease on these uniforms?” LD asks.
“No problem. Vinyl cleans them with wubs.”
LD shakes her head and facehoofs. “Seriously?”
“What? She was even working on a design for a sonic-propulsion space hyperdrive. She's quiet around a lot of ponies, but don't let that fool you about how smart she is.”
“You know what? Just... nevermind. Let’s go do this.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear!”
Several minutes later, we find ourselves in the hangar under the guise of inspecting our jets. Looking around, there really aren’t very many ponies around, which is actually pretty good news for us. Even better yet, the grease-police wagon is sitting in between both of our jets.
“Well, that’s convenient.”
“Yeah… Almost too convenient.”
I look over at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, after the whole motor oil incident, I’ve been a bit suspicious of the lube techs.”
“Understandable. But, it’s not like seeing the grease cart is a big deal or anything. I’m sure they’re here just to check our oil.” I wink at LD and push her with my wing. “Besides, this makes it easier for us to get what we want.”
She smiles in response, then baps me on the back of the head with her wing. “I’m not sure what you came for, but all I want is some grease. Now let’s hurry up and get it, we don’t need to waste too much time, and it’s probably better to avoid questions.”
We walk over to the cart and start looking through all the different types of lubricants for us to choose from. There’s at least ten different types of oil and grease on the cart, so I look for the darkest thing I can find. After taking at least a minute or two looking at all the different tubes and checking to see how dark/stinky they are, I finally pick one that seems right. LD gets this big, goofy grin when she sees me sniffing the grease, so I decide to preemptively strike before she has the chance to say something stupid.
“Before you say anything stupid, I’m sniffing the grease because I’d rather not have something on my head that smells so strongly it makes me sick… Or attracts unnecessary attention.”
“What? I wasn’t gonna say anything...” She swats my flank with her tail. “I was just noticing how cute you look with your nose all scrunched up while you sniff.”
I give her a deadpan look. “Seriously? What are you, some kind of filly-fiddler?”
“Maybe I am…”
She locks onto my eyes, and inches closer to my face. Of course, me being me, I don’t even flinch. And of course, because I don’t back down, LD doesn’t back down either. She leans in, just a breath away from my muzzle…
“What are you gonna do about it?” She holds her gaze for just a moment before cracking a huge smile and bumping her nose against mine.
“So, miss beauty queen, did you find the prettiest looking grease you could?”
She always has to ruin the mood. “Yes, dear, I found the grease. You ready to do this? Or are you just gonna keep staring dreamily into my eyes all day?”
LD gives me a huge grin. “I was born ready. Let’s go.”
A short walk later, we find ourselves back in our room, staring at our borrowed earth pony jumpsuits. I guess it’s maybe a bit… politically incorrect to assume that they belong to earth ponies, but statistically speaking, it’s highly likely.
“Well, let’s see how we look as Rock Salt and… Pretty Posey.”
“Don’t worry, Dash, I’m sure you’ll be able to play the part perfectly. I’ve seen the pictures of you in those pretty dresses, I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful Posey.”
“Ugh, can it, Dust. Or should I say, Salt. You are having way too much fun with this.”
“Psh, not as much fun as I could have.”
“If we always had as much fun as we could we’d never get anything done. Now, help me zip this up.”
She gives me her best pouty face. “I thought I was supposed to be the dom here!”
“Dammit Lightning Dust! Fine, you know what? I’ll zip you up first. Just... turn around.”
“Don’t you mean please turn around, Master?”
“I will hurt you,” I threaten.
“Aww, c’mon, Dash, I’m just getting into character! There’s nothing saying we can’t practice for a while just in case we have to go pretend to be in a lesbian, sub/dom relationship. I mean, we don’t want anypony to get suspicious.”
That comment earns her a smack on the flank.
“Ooh, I knew you liked it rough!” she giggles.
“I swear to Celestia…”
“Alright, alright, jeez. I’m just trying to have a little bit of fun… Posey.”
“Dammit!”
After me and LD got each other all lubed up, we immediately plunge into the depths of Celestia’s Ass. We don’t want to get spotted hanging out where we’re not supposed to be, so we make sure to hurry belowdecks and avoid direct eye contact. That always works, right?
“So, what are we gonna do when we get down there, Posey?” Seems like she can’t keep herself from smiling every time she calls me that. Stupid Vinyl and her stupid assumptions.
“Well, aside from the fact that I have no idea what grease donkeys normally do when they’re not checking oil or lubing shafts, I’d say we mostly just need to keep our ears open. Listen for any clues that may lead us to something more useful.”
“Sounds like a solid plan. I guess we can start by watching all the other lubrication technicians,” she shoots me a glare as she says that, “and finding out what it is that they do. It’ll probably make it easier to pull off our disguises if we don’t say things that might offend our fellow technicians.”
“Yeah, it’s a good thing these suits have name tags, otherwise I wouldn’t know what to call other mudponies.” I smile innocently.
“Really? Really?” LD accuses.
“What?” I ask, shrugging my shoulders.
“Just… Try not to blow our cover. Blowing cover is not what Pretty Posey is supposed to be good for.” She looks at me and grins.
“Oh, and what is she supposed to be good for, Rock Salt?” I cross my forelegs and raise an eyebrow.
“Well, how much do you like salt licks?” And there’s the trollface.
Dammit, LD! As much as I hate to admit it, that one is pretty good. I can’t help but smile as I reply, “About as much as I like smart-flanked fliers with lightning-streaked asses.”
“So, a lot!”
“No.” I smile at her and roll my eyes. “Alright, we’re getting close. Let’s just try not to do anything stupid, shall we?” Taking the lead yet again, I start walking down the hall toward the lubrication station… or whatever it’s called.
“I’m more worried about you accidentally being racist.”
“Psh, I have plenty of friends who are earth ponies. I’m not racist!”
“Good, just keep pretending and we’ll be fine.”
“Whatever, lightning-butt. Let’s just go in there, find out what we can, and get out. If somepony really is trying to take us out, it’d probably be best not to get caught snooping around.”
“Yeah… Let’s hope that’s not the case. I’d really rather not have to deal with all that. Trying to prove that somepony is plotting to kill us without substantial evidence will be pretty much impossible. Not to mention, any evidence we may have would have been gotten by breaking lots of rules. The best thing we can do is confirm our suspicions and try to stay ahead of the game. Then it’s just a matter of catching them making a mistake and pinning it on them.”
I look away and curse myself for not thinking ahead. “I actually hadn’t thought about that part… I was more worried about finding the bastards that are responsible and calling them out in front of everypony.”
Lightning Dust rolls her eyes at me. “Of course you didn’t think that far ahead. That’s why we make such a good team, I think ahead, and keep you from doing anything stupid… Well, I try to. It usually works.”
As much as it pains me to admit it, she has a good point. I really do need to start thinking about things before rushing in. That’s... never really been one of my strong points. We see a pony walking towards us, so we both stop talking and keep walking. As the pony in question gets closer, it starts to look more and more like somepony we know. Though, what she would be doing down here is anypony’s guess. I elbow LD in the shoulder.
“Hey LD, does that look like Derpy to you?” I ask, nodding towards her direction.
‘What?” LD squints her eyes and peers down the dimly lit hall. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say yes. What is she even doing down here?”
Okay, now I’m genuinely interested in what Derpy is doing belowdecks. I can’t think of any logical reason she’d be down here. Of course, this is Derpy we’re talking about here, so trying to apply logic may be like trying to figure out how Pinkie does… well, Pinkie.
I lean over and whisper, “Hey, let’s follow her and see what she’s up to.”
“Seriously? Why? Don’t we have more important things to worry about?”
I place a hoof on her shoulder and look her in the eyes. “You never know who you can trust. She may be a double agent… Nopony would suspect it!”
Lightning Dust opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but stops herself and takes a moment to think about what I just said. “That’s completely ridiculous, but you have a point. She would make the perfect spy, being a parasprite on the wall for pretty much every mission briefing we have. Still, there’s no way.”
“Wanna find out for sure?”
“Yes.”
With that decision out of the way, we channel our inner Daring Do and follow our wall-eyed compadre as stealthily as we can. The deeper we go into the ship, the hotter it gets. From the looks of things, we’re headed for the reactor.
I lean over and whisper into LD’s ear, “Sweet Celestia! Do you think she’s gonna sabotage the reactor?!”
“Surely she’s not…”
Just as those words came out, Derpy turns into the hall leading to one of the most dangerous and possibly hottest places on the ship, the reactor room. We stay quiet and follow, giving her a bit of time to get down the hall before rounding the corner. She opens the door to the reactor and steps through, not even bothering to look around and make sure nopony is watching.
“No way…” I shake my head in disbelief.
“Alright, we gotta go see what she’s up to. There’s no way this is what we think it is.”
“Yeah… right. No way.” I say that… but it’s looking more and more suspicious as I think about it. There is no logical reason why Derpy should be here. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Shall we?”
With that, we walk the rest of the length of the hall and carefully ease the door open. Peeking inside, I can just barely see Derpy doing something to the reactor. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on with her back turned, but whatever it is, she definitely shouldn’t be doing it. I see her reach back and snag something out of her saddlebag and set it onto the reactor. Then, without warning, she turns around. I barely have time to get the door closed before she can see us, but in doing so, I managed to make just enough noise to alert her.
“H-hello? Is anypony there?”
The sound of hoofsteps gets closer, LD and I freeze, trying not to make any noise. We can’t run without getting noticed, and we can’t hide anywhere. Our best bet is to stay put and hope she doesn’t come out. Of course, nothing is ever that easy. The door swings open and a very surprised looking Derpy comes out of the reactor room.
“W-what are you ponies doing down here?”
“We could ask the same about you, Ma’am.” It seems like our disguises are working fairly well, they’re at least Derpy proof.
“I have special permission to come here, directly from the reactor officer.” She hoofs over a small scroll saying that she did, in fact have permission to be there. “Now, what are you doing here?”
Just as I was about to make up some totally awesome and completely believable way to get ourselves out of this, Lightning Dust does the stupidest thing I can think of.
“Derpy, it’s us!” She takes off her hat, exposing the un-greased part of her mane.
“L-Lightning Dust? Rainbow Dash? Now I’m really confused…”
“Yeah it’s us!” She puts her hat back on. “Seriously Derpy, how and why did you get special permission to be here?”
“Well, honestly, it’s because he likes my coffee…” She looks away from us as if she’s embarrassed about something. “The chefs in the galley won’t let me use an oven to roast my coffee beans, so I bring them down here and roast them on the reactor instead. In exchange, I always give the RO some of my freshly roasted beans.” She smiles her goofy little smile and asks, “What, did you think my coffee was is so good just because I make it strong?”
“Well, kinda… yeah. I never imagined you roasted them yourself, especially not on the reactor.” I wonder if this stuff is radioactive? Maybe it’ll make me fly faster… I might even be able to do a double rainboom! I stare off into space for a few moments, imagining the possibilities of having super powers, but a punch to the shoulder from LD snaps me back into reality.
“Hey, Derpy… Can you do us a huge favor?” LD puts a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t tell anypony you saw us down here. I can’t explain it to you now, but ponies may be in danger, and we came to gather a bit of intel. You’re a nice, trustworthy mare. I know you won’t tell anypony... right?”
“Y-yeah, no problem, Lightning Dust!” She blushes a bit then looks away. “I wouldn’t have told anypony either way… But I definitely won’t now!”
“Awesome,” I say. “Now, we’ve got to keep moving if we’re gonna find any information that may help. You be safe down here, try not to hurt yourself.” And also try not to accidentally blow up the ship.
We head back the way we came and Derpy goes the opposite direction, probably heading back topside. After I make sure she’s out of earshot I ask the question that’s been bugging me since we saw the magic of Derpy Roast first hoof. “Who in the hay thought it was a good idea to let Derpy anywhere near the reactor? I’ve seen that girl destroy buildings with rainclouds… Rainclouds! How do you even do that? It’s like trying to smash something with a really fluffy bag of water!”
“Yeah I was thinking the same thing… You think she’s porking the RO?”
“You know, you might be onto something there! Maybe she reminds him of a mutant.” We both share a laugh at that, then let the conversation die down as we get closer to the grease pit.
“It is really good coffee, though.”
“Sure is.”
The sound of clopping hooves and clanging metal reaches our ears as we approach the entrance to the grease pit, along with it is the sound of conversation. Perfect opportunity to pick up some information without being noticed.
“Man, you should have been there last night, Bob. We had a blast!”
“Yeah, well, nopony invited me! If you didn’t tell me, how was I supposed to know?”
“What do you mean, nopony told you? You mean… They didn’t tell you?”
“No!”
“Then forget I mentioned it.”
“Wait, what the hay is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I mean… I can’t really tell you.”
“Then why were you telling me?”
“Well… I like you, Bob. I’m gonna go get somepony and introduce you to him. If he likes you, we can talk about it some more. Just hang here for a minute.”
The sound of the unknown pony walking out of the room echoes through the hall. Now’s the perfect time to go in and see if we can get a bit more info on the situation. I elbow LD and snag the door handle, trying my best to avoid making too much noise. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped. The door creaks as it swings open, which immediately grabs the attention of the pony named Bob (what a weird name).
“Hello?”
Well, let’s hope these disguises work out. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Oh, hey. You here to pick up part of the next shipment?”
“Yeah,” we both say in unison.
“Awesome, now I won’t have to pull an all-nighter… Well, not here, at least.”
“Wait, where else would you pull an all-nighter?”
The door opens and in walks two ponies, clad in similar jumpsuits. One stallion looks at us, then back at the other stallion somewhat nervously. The slightly older-looking stallion whose voice I didn’t recognize looked each of us in the eye before taking charge of the situation.
“So, you said you had somepony you wanted me to meet? These the ones?”
The younger stallion’s eyes meet yours for just a moment, then he says, “Yeah, these are the ones. What do you think?”
“Well, they seem alright to me… But you gotta pay your dues, just like everypony else. You in?”
I look over at Lightning Dust, who looks back at me. We make eye contact for a brief moment, then she nods. I guess we’re doing this.
“Yeah, we’re in.”
“Me too,” says Bob. “But what exactly do you mean by paying your dues?”
“Well, if ya wanna be able to join our… club, ya gotta contribute. In order for all of us to have drinks, somepony has to bring the booze. That’s where you guys come in. We all did it. Ya see, I brought the first bottles and shared it with a couple of my buddies. Fine Bitalian Grappa, something nopony around my hometown had ever tried before. My buddies bought a couple bottles of Scotch from Scoltland, and we invited a few more ponies to drink it with. The cycle continued, and and before you know it, we had a right proper speakeasy going on . Now we have a party every night!”
He laughs a little bit and puts his foreleg around the stallion’s shoulder. “And now, you guys,” he looks at us, “...and gals get to be a part of it all. Alls ya gotta do is bring us two bottles each… Big bottles, of the best liquor you can find. Nothing cheap, ain’t nopony here wants deal with shitty booze. You do that, we’ll see how you get along with everypony else. Capiche?”
Well, this went waaay better than I expected. I look to LD for confirmation, she nods her head and gives me the biggest smile I’ve seen from her in a long time. I send that smile right back.
“Deal!”