Chapter 5
Mannett Point Separatist Base, Ord Mantell, Two Weeks Ago
“Aaaaagh!”
The shrill cry bounced off the metal walls of the underground Separatist fortress, echoing down to the lone guard stationed at the door leading to the makeshift prison cells. Turning on his hoof, the pony sentry rushed into the cell room and peered into the locked cage containing the only prisoners in the base. Two pilots, a mare and a stallion, just as he’d left them—except the stallion was lying on the ground and the mare was crying over his body. A small stream of smeared blood snaked across the concrete floor leading to the yellow pony’s neck, where blood was visibly flowing from a carefully made incision.
Without thinking, the guard opened the cell door and stepped inside. The moment his hoof hit the floor, Pinkie lunged forward with her switchblade and thrust it into the pony’s back. She repeated this action a few times before her victim finally fell to the previously stainless steel floor in a pool of slowly escaping blood. Once the guard was on the ground, Pinkie jammed the knife into his head as hard as she could. Tears began to trickle down her face as she slumped backwards, away from the body.
Lemon stood up, brushed his chin with a sweat-drenched sleeve, and cantered out of their cell. “Okay, you’ll have about two or so minutes before they realize the override is in effect. When the alarm shuts off, that’s your cue to punch the elevator button. When it takes you to the top floor, you’ll be home free.”
When no response came, he turned around and saw Pinkie Pie, still kneeling beside the dead Separatist guard, her eyes spilling tears onto the floor. “Lemony, will I ever see you again?” she implored.
“I hope so,” Lemon said with a sad smile. “Just promise me you’ll do as I say. Don’t come back for me, and I’ll make my way to you when I can.”
“Cross my heart, hope to-”
“We’re strained for time, Pinkie.”
She blinked at Lemon and slowly stood up from where she knelt, picking up the blaster rifle the dead guard had dropped. As she walked up to the stallion, rifle at her side, her ears started to droop in sadness. “I... Lemon?”
“Please, Pinkie,” he insisted, tugging gently on her coat sleeve. “It’s now, or we both die.”
All Pinkie could do was muster a weak nod and put a hoof up to his shoulder. Lemon led her through the door and into the hallway beyond. It split into two directions, with the elevator to the surface on one end and a series of doorways down the other. One lead to freedom, the other was a dead end, and Lemon knew which way he had to go.
“That elevator door is locked,” he explained, “so give me a minute to unlock it and jump in the moment it’s open. No hesitation.”
“What if there’s time for you to get here?” Pinkie asked pleadingly.
“Then I’ll run for it. But if things go wrong, please go without me.” As if on cue, a loud siren blared through the base, and red lights began to flash around the hallway. Pinkie Pie jumped in surprise, while Lemon turned toward the dead end hallway. “Get ready, Pinkie! This will be a very split-second escape.”
“Lemon, wait!” She held up a hoof to stop him, but he was already galloping away. When the stallion rounded a corner and disappeared, a tear rolled down her cheek as she, too, turned and went her own direction. It pained her heart that her smuggling companion, and her best friend, was sacrificing himself for her, but she wasn’t going to disobey his wishes. Pinkie trudged toward the elevator door, and just as she arrived, it swung open for her. As quickly as she could, she jumped inside, hit the button that read “top floor”, and poked her muzzle through the door. “Lemon! C’mon!”
Further down the hallway, Lemon emerged briefly from the room he’d turned into. He didn’t look at Pinkie; in fact, he looked back toward the room he’d come from, his face betraying an expression of pain and fear. Then, from the doorway, a large Separatist pony emerged with a rifle held at eye level with Lemon, who put his hooves on top of his head in surrender. Pinkie’s eyes widened in horror.
“Lemon!” she screamed as the elevator door swung shut and began its ascent. Then, beyond the clanking and churning of the decrepit lift rising up to the top floor, all went silent. No gun fire, no screams of pain. Pinkie slid to the floor in grief; even if Lemon was alive, he had just sacrificed himself for her. All she could do now was hope, pray, and escape. Despite her best efforts to see the bright side, like the fact that she was alive and equipped with a weapon, Pinkie could find no happiness in her current situation.
Anger and frustration began to spawn from her sorrow, fueled by her thoughts of futility and despair. If she couldn’t save Lemony, she would punish every Separatist that stood between her and freedom. It was what Lemon had wanted, after all; her escape was his final wish. Her teeth clenched and her heart racing, Pinkie stood back up to her hind legs and leveled her gun with the elevator door.
The tiny room jerked to a halt and Pinkie’s knees gave out and she collapsed to the floor, dropping her rifle and sending her hat across the elevator. When the door didn’t open, she immediately turned to the ceiling and noticed an escape hatch leading into the shaft. After retrieving her hat and gun, she jumped into the air and grabbed hold of the hatch, causing it to fall inward and release a retractable ladder into the confines of the elevator.
Climbing to the top, Pinkie poked her head up and looked around. The door leading to the top floor was just beside the elevator, a flaring red light circling above. It was apparent that the elevator had been intentionally stopped, so Pinkie crawled up through the escape hole and dragged herself toward the sealed door. A panel of buttons, switches and levers was mounted into the wall nearby, serving as an emergency button for when the elevator was broken. A moment of fiddling with the controls in the flashing red light and eerie creaking of the elevator shaft later, and the door swept open.
Two surprised Separatists turned to face Pinkie just as the door opened, but she was much quicker on the draw. She raised her rifle and loosed two bolts into one’s chest before rushing forward and beating the other over the head with the stock. As he collapsed to the floor in pain, she shot two bolts into his body, and the pony went limp.
She rushed down the hallway ahead of her and rounded the first corner. Just ahead was an unguarded archway leading outside, the cool breeze rushing into the building from beyond. Pinkie raced through the archway and away from the building, disappearing into the night under cover of darkness, illuminated only by the bright moon and stars reflecting off the sea surrounding Mannett Point. She had escaped; she had done as Lemon had asked.
=====
“And after that,” Pinkie concluded, “the alarms at the base were all, like, ‘Boooooooooop! Boooooooooop!’ But I was running really really fast, and they never caught me. I went to the Republic to try and get help. They didn’t even listen to me. I’m glad I left before they I.D.ed me, or I might’ve been arrested.”
Dash shook her head in bewilderment. “You stole a ship from a Jedi Master?”
“Yup! It was a real gem of a story, if you’d like to hear it.”
“Later. So this ‘Lemon’ character. You knew him for how long?”
“We’ve been partners for a little over a year,” Pinkie said thoughtfully. She looked up at the sky and put a hoof to her chin. “I met him on Coruscant. He was a petty thief when he bumped into me, but I took him in and fed him. Turned out, he was incredibly talented at smuggling.”
“Yeah. Look, it’s taking everything in me not to file an arrest warrant right now, if you know what I mean.” Dash stood up and brushed her chin, wiping away a dab of saliva that had formed in the corner of her mouth. “Pinkie, do you have any interest at all in locating this dude?”
“Sergeant, it’s... Well, yes. I at least want to believe he’s alright, and find him if he’s alive. But if he’s dead, I want to honor his sacrifice by escaping, like he asked me to. I still haven’t gotten off Ord Mantell yet, remember? That silly stallion made me promise not to go after him, and...”
“Well,” Dash cut in after her friend trailed off, “you don’t have to. I can.”
Pinkie glanced over at Dash and smiled. “You’d do that for lil’ ol’ me?”
“Yes, I would. You’re a friend, and I owe you more than just an apology for how I treated you yesterday. I know how you feel about this ‘stallion,’ but you shouldn’t let your respect for his wishes deter you from rescuing him if he needs help. Now, we’re going to raid that facility over there,” Dash pointed her hoof toward the island, where the Sep compound stood at the other end, “and that was where you last saw him. I can take a quick look around for him.”
“Dashie, that would be... thank you.” Pinkie walked forward and gave her friend a warm hug. Dash, who had not expected the sudden gesture, merely grunted in discomfort. “I do have one request though.”
“Let go of me and tell me, then.”
“Just... if he met his end there, bring something of him back.” She released Dash from the embrace and turned toward the island ahead. “A hat, a boot, a tooth. Something. Anything. I want to give him a burial of some kind. He deserved that and more for all he did for me.”
“Sure, Pinkie,” Dash replied, trotting toward the hill down to the shore, “but remember why we’re here. Deadly bomb first, dead criminals second.”
“Okie dokie lokie, Sergeant.”
The trooper nodded and took two steps toward the island. Fifteen feet below her, a jagged cliff led to a sandy beach where a sandbar connected the mainland to Mannett Point. Using her wings, Dash lept from the cliff and glided to the ground below, slowing her descent enough that her armor dragging her down was almost negated. Her hooves sank into the moist sand beside the ocean and cushioned her fall comfortably, letting her trot into the water a bit to release her remaining momentum.
Pinkie Pie, however, remained at the top of the cliff, her lack of wings prohibiting her from jumping such a long distance safely. “Sergeant, how do I get down?” she called.
Dash put her hooves up in an embracing gesture. “Jump! I’ll catch you!”
“That’s a reeeeeeeally long fall, Sergeant—”
“Just do it!”
Pinkie didn’t hesitate, immediately leaping from the cliffside toward Rainbow. As she fell, Dash braced her rear legs and centered her gravity, and when Pinkie collapsed into her, she expertly crouched into a backwards roll, letting her friend’s momentum travel down her body and absorb into the sand. They both collapsed into the shallow water nearby, temporarily disoriented but otherwise unharmed.
“Good catch,” Pinkie noted happily.
“Yeah, I learned that at boot camp,” Dash replied, the water seeping into her armor from the neck. She pushed Pinkie aside and stood up, letting her head droop down to allow the water to flow out. Trickles of salty ocean dripped down her white armor and back down into the sea. “We used it to get people down from the climbing walls. No harnesses or wings for those exercises.”
“I mean, I knew you were special forces, Dashie, but did you go through the same basic training the grunts at the base camp went through?”
“Oh yeah,” Dash said nonchalantly, waving a hoof in dismissal as she proceeded toward the island. The path was barely visible under the crystal clear water, a few inches deep along the natural sandbar during the low tide. “You get picked for SpecOps work when you display ‘exemplary service’ or some junk like that. You’re not born into it or anything, and we weren’t treated better, either.”
“Was boot camp bad?” Pinkie asked innocently, following behind the trooper.
“Ever been to hell?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s on Coruscant.”
Pinkie bounced up next to the Sergeant, splashing water in a small wave as she landed. “It couldn’t have been that bad, could it?”
“We were malnourished, always sleepy, worked from dawn to dusk with no breaks, and had to deal with some of the meanest ponies in the universe as drill instructors.”
“Oooh... Wow. That’s rough.”
“Yeah. You ever done five hundred pushups?”
“I can barely do five!” the smuggler answered behind a laugh.
“Don’t go to boot camp, then,” Dash stated simply. The conversation carried them within a few yards of the rocky cliff leading up to the island. Natural stairs seemed to form in the jagged slope, formed by the rapid tide that ceaselessly rose and fell through the channel. As she started to climb, the towering buildings ahead rose and rose until she finally hefted her legs over the final ridge and she stood below them. A flickering neon sign written in the sharp, block-like letters of Basic read “General Hospital”, and shingles were starting to peel from the roof of the facility.
Large craters dotted the suburbs of the stony island, the cement roads cracked in many places and entire walls blown away from their foundations. Separatist patrols lurked around the center of the small town, usually flanked by one or two massive security droids. Dash slinked from the alley she’d found herself in and retreated back to the cliffside she’d ascended, where Pinkie Pie was just tumbling over the ridge.
“They’ve got tons of guards trotting around,” Dash told her hurriedly. She looked back down the alley to check her six. “They didn’t see me, but there’s no way we’ll get through there unnoticed.”
“Where are we going, Sergeant?” Pinkie asked as she shook her boots out, sending droplets of water onto the concrete. “You never did mention why we were here.”
“We’re meeting Wraith somewhere,” Rainbow replied, peering around the corner to see if she’d been spotted. “I need to track her signal with my communicator, but I need to make sure we’re still undetected.”
“Right. Because being shot is bad. You might die!”
Dash rolled her eyes at Pinkie and plucked her all-purpose communicator from her belt, gingerly tapping the receiver button to turn the machine on. Instantly, it lit up with a small arrow pointing into the hospital building beside her, displaying a small figure that read ‘twelve meters away’. She turned to stare into the stone wall, as though she’d expected there to be a doorway, and grunted when there wasn’t one.
“She’s in there,” Dash commented. “But I don’t know where the door—”
The sound of a metal lock clicking open brought Rainbow’s attention to Pinkie Pie, who was pushing open a hinged door to the hospital basement. Dash hadn’t noticed the entryway behind the large pile of trash cans beside it, but Pinkie had seen it as they climbed over the clifftop. As it creaked open, she shoved a switchblade handle into her boot and walked inside. “Found it!” she called from within.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Dash said quickly, galloping toward the opening. “Good work.”
The basement room was dank and poorly lit, but a pony whose mane looked exactly like Pinkie Pie’s met Dash at the door. She looked up at the Sergeant and smiled really wide.
“Hiya, Sergeant!” said the pony happily.
Dash stopped at the door, looking down at the pony addressing her. It was clearly not Pinkie Pie, but the likeness was uncanny. “Wraith?”
“Yepperoony!” replied Wraith in a sing-songy voice. “But my friends call me Surprise! Come on down, Dashie, let me brief you on the op.”
As Surprise walked away, Dash stared after her in confusion, rooted to the ground. One Pinkie Pie was already a handful; she didn’t know I she could stand a second one on top of it. Slowly, Rainbow placed a hoof on the first rotten wood step leading down into the basement. They creaked under her weight unceremoniously, but held her up despite their condition. “Right, so, uh are you related to Pinkie Pie?”
“Who’s Pinkie Pie?” asked Surprise, fluttering her white wings in confusion.
“I am!” Pinkie exclaimed, popping her head out of a wooden barrel in the corner that wreaked of chocolate. “I found the hospital’s chocolate milk supply!”
“Oh, is that what that is?” Surprise said rapidly, her eyes wide in jealousy. “Do want.”
“Umm, Lieutenant Wraith?” Dash interjected. “About my mission—”
“Oh, right right right. Lemme brief you quickly.” Surprise pointed to the table next to her, where a single glowlight illuminated a large map. “Those are the schematics for the building just across the street. As you can see, there’s a really big storage room in the back of the facility, and we have reason to believe our bomb is there. So you just need to go in and find it. Easy peasy, right Sergeant?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess,” replied Rainbow warily. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Umm, let’s see. You might want to bring a gun. It’s guarded.”
Dash grimaced. “No, seriously?”
“Oh yes,” Surprise confirmed with a nod. “But not very heavily. So you know, a lot of the Seps have been funneling away from the island and heading to their base on the other side of the island. I think they’re moving the bomb today, Dashie, so the pressure's on. Other than that, just have fun!”
“Right. Fun. So, how do we get inside? There’s a swarm of Seps between us and that building.”
Surprise grinned and put a hoof to the console on her armored foreleg. A violent earthquake rocked the ground as a thunderous explosion decimated a nearby building—Dash recognized the sound as a specific explosive she’d been taught to identify and disarm in SpecOps training. “That will have them preoccupied,” replied Surprise happily. “You’ve got your window. Better hop to it.”
“Are you coming with us, Lieutenant Wraith?” Dash asked quickly as she reached for her rifle.
“Oh, Dashie, not so formal! Call me Surprise! And, uh, I’ll join you later. Gotta stay here and...” Her gaze drifted to the vat of milk that Pinkie had shoved her face into again. “...take care of a few things. Clean up and stuff.”
Dash rolled her eyes again and turned on her hoof toward the door. Pinkie raced after her as she departed, dripping sticky liquid from her clothes and smacking her lips. Both ponies could hear the sound of furious slurping behind them as they left the cellar and emerged outside again. Just as Wraith—Surprise, Dash corrected herself—had said, every Separatist in the vicinity of the target building was flocking toward the far end of the island, away from Dash and Pinkie.
“Hurry, Pinkie,” she said urgently, taking a step into the cement courtyard between her and the building. “We need to get inside before those Seps see us.”
Pinkie Pie didn’t reply, which surprised Dash enough to make her turn around. She was standing in the alleyway next to the hospital, staring at the large building across the street, eyes wide in curiosity and awe. Dash recognized it as the building where the ZR-57 was supposedly being held, but Pinkie only saw a potential grave for a loved one.
“Is this... the same building you broke out of?” Dash asked.
Pinkie Pie nodded slowly, mouth slightly agape.
“You going to be alright?”
Another nod. Rainbow started toward the building and raised her rifle, preparing to break in with as much force as necessary. She tapped her hoof against the control panel and, surprisingly, the door swung open on its own. Cautiously, she peered around the corner and saw nopony standing guard inside. A flashing yellow light above an elevator door at the far end of the room was the only sign of movement within.
Pinkie Pie slowly sneaked into the room, passing Dash at the door, and looked around slowly. “I have a bad feeling about this, Sergeant.”
“Yeah,” Dash replied, checking her six before locking the door behind her. “I know what you mean. Nothin’ doin’ but going ahead, though, right?”
When no immediate reply came, Dash looked back to Pinkie, who was standing next to the elevator at the end of the room. The door before her slid open and, after selecting the button that read “bottom floor”, the two friends descended into the bowels of the repurposed Separatist base.
As the small chamber lurched aggressively downward, Pinkie’s eyes fluttered shut momentarily. “Oooh,” she murmured.
“What?” Dash said, looking at her friend with concern.
“It’s just... Lemon. He might be down here still.”
“If he’s here, Pinkie, we’ll find him.”
Pinkie smiled weakly at Rainbow, who returned the gesture just as half-heartedly. Secretly, she wished this ordeal with the mysterious stallion her friend referred to as Lemon Drop to be over. It was causing Pinkie more concern than she realized, to the point where it was tangibly noticeable. Her hushed tone, her morbid expression, even her tense stance; Pinkie Pie was obviously troubled. If this was going to be an issue, Dash prayed it wouldn’t affect her when it mattered most.
The elevator lurched to a halt and the door creaked open. The proceeding hallway was barren of life, but across the right wall was a long stroke a dried blood, smeared in a perfect arc as though it had been brushed on by a painter. Pinkie Pie whimpered softly but followed behind Dash as the pair exited the elevator, the latter with gun raised and eyes peeled. To the right was a door leading to a room full of metal cages, probably for keeping and torturing prisoners.
Dash pivoted into a door leading left and instantly raised her rifle, only to drop it again in surprise and awe. Just beyond the room beyond was a glass window overlooking a massive indoor hangar, with swarms of Separatists scurrying around below. Pinkie pushed her face against the window and inhaled slowly.
“Dashie, look!” she exclaimed, pointing her hoof at the glass. “It’s your bomb!”
Dash took a few steps forward and peered further down into the hangar. Sure enough, four ponies dressed in tan uniforms were pushing a frighteningly large bomb encased in metal onto a carrier shuttle, no doubt to ship it somewhere else on the planet to be outfitted and deployed. Along with the bomb, several ponies in shackles were being driven onto the shuttle, each one devoid of clothes and ragged with sickness and hunger.
One of those ponies was a yellow earth pony stallion with tousled mustard hair.
“Lemon!” Pinkie shrieked. Two guards below heard the scream and looked up at the window. When they saw Dash and Pinkie, faces pressed innocently against the glass, they raised their rifles and fired on the control room above them. Thinking quickly, Dash wrapped her hooves around Pinkie and pulled back with all of her strength, just quick enough to save her from a shot that merely singed her hat. The fedora flew backwards off the mare’s head and landed on the faded steel plating just in front of the doorway, and just as it landed, a loud siren blared across the room, the hangar, and throughout Mannett Point. Red lights also began swirling overhead along with the sound of frantic scurrying below.
“What the hay, Pinkie Pie?” Dash barked. “You just blew our cover!”
“I did?” she replied innocently.
“Now we need to find a way down there.” Dash stood up and brushed her armor off with her hooves before peering around the frame of the exit. Further down the hall was another set of doors, the last of which appeared to be a stairwell. The trooper immediately bolted toward the stairs, only to be abruptly stopped by the sound of the elevator at the far end of the hallway opening. She turned around to see a massive stallion in rugged tan combat armor slowly lift his head and make eye contact with her.
“Republic soldiers, huh?” he said loudly, his bellow echoing off the lonely steel walls. “We cornered your friend outside, the white pegasus covered in chocolate milk, and now I’ve got you.”
“I’m not goin’ down without a fight, bucko,” Dash countered, raising her own rifle.
“I’ve had enough—”
Both fighters suddenly stopped bickering at the sight of a pink earth pony slowly walking out of the command booth halfway between them. She turned on the spot toward the stallion and flipped her hat into the air with her teeth, catching it on the top of her head.
“Oooh, ho ho ho!” The Separatist fighter shouldered his rifle and put a hoof against the wall nonchalantly. “Hello again, lass. Didn’t think I’d forget you, did I?”
“Where’s Lemony?” Pinkie asked, narrowing her eyes.
“The stallion? On the ship going to our base. He’s gonna be slaughtered like an animal, so I hope you said your goodbyes.”
“Pinkie, c’mon!” Dash called out, stepping into the stairwell beyond Pinkie. The stallion at the end of the hallway started to walk forward, but she didn’t move. “We need to stop that bomb!”
“Go ahead, Dashie,” Pinkie replied coolly. “I’ve got this.”
Dash tilted her head curiously, then nodded and bolted down the stairs. Blaster fire erupted behind her a moment later, drowned out by her armored hooves hitting the metal stairs as she almost literally flew down them. She came to a door and kicked it open, landing inside the hangar just under the command booth window. Shards of broken glass littered the floor before her, and several surprised Separatists turned to look as she busted in.
Bolts of hot red energy shot past Dash as she tucked and rolled toward the nearest cover, a massive loading crate made of durasteel plating. She pushed her hoof into her fanny pack and pulled out a sticky bomb, priming it and hurling it over the box. It exploded violently behind her and rocked the container she was hiding behind, sending two gunponies flying into the wall beside her with a sickening thud.
The distinct sound of thrusters kicking off caught Dash’s attention again, and she turned from behind her cover to see the transport shuttle starting to take off.
“Aww, shoot!” She lifted her rifle and fired a few shots at the ship, which were absorbed by the flickering rear shields. One shot broke through and connected with the port engine, sending sparks and smoke across the hangar bay and stunning several charging Separatist guards. The ship, however, still trundled away from the hangar and out into the open sky, turning toward the sea with a trail of black smog following behind it.
Her attention shifted to the remaining few guards that were still shaking their heads and trying to stamp out the small fires that had ignited on their manes and tails. Not wanting to take any more lives than necessary, Dash galloped back toward the stairs and ascended them as fast as she could. Pinkie Pie was not at the top, nor was the large Separatist gunpony who had blocked the elevator before. Figuring one of them was at the top, she hit the button that read ‘top floor’, and nearly fell as the sudden lurch of the elevator going up shook the floor.
When the door opened again, it was not Pinkie Pie who met Rainbow Dash at the door, but Surprise. “Hey, Dashie!” she said happily.
“Lieutenant!” Dash quickly replied, looking around the room beyond frantically. “Where’s Pinkie Pie? Did she come by here?”
“Refresh my memory,” Surprise said quizzically. “Who’s Pinkie Pie?”
“The pink earth pony who showed you the chocolate milk.”
“Oh, her! No, I didn’t see her come up.”
Dash marched out of the elevator, nearly bowling over Surprise, and looked outside. Several dead Separatists lay strewn across the courtyard outside, and an equal number of reprogrammed assault droids were likewise smoldering and sparking sporadically where they laid. “What happened? I thought you got captured.”
“Noooooo, that’s silly! You can’t catch me,” Surprise sang. “These big meanies came over here because you guys triggered an alarm. I tried to warn them, they were gonna die if they got too close, but... yeah. How was your mission?”
“The bomb got away,” Dash admitted, hanging her head. “Being transported in some old shuttle. I managed to blow a fuse in one of the engines, but it still got away.”
“You mean that smoking hulk of dirt that flew by?” Surprise replied. “I got a heading on that sucker as it was leaving. Wouldn’t have seen it but for the smoke. Nice work, Dashie.”
“But I failed! They got away!”
Dash’s comlink buzzed suddenly as Twilight’s voice interjected. “Yes, that’s true, but the rest of Wonderbolt Squad is already en route to intercept them at the Sep’s main base of operations. Lieutenant Wraith, you are to escort the Sergeant back to base, then rendezvous with the others at the Volcano camp.”
“Aye aye, Twi,” Surprise said happily, saluting the disembodied voice.
“At ease, Lieutenant,” came the disembodied reply.
“Twilight, what about me?” Dash suddenly asked.
“You’re not going, Sergeant,” said Twilight slowly. “Commander Spitfire specifically ordered you to stay behind on this one.”
“What?! Why?”
“She didn’t say. But she did give you a direct order.”
Dash clicked her communicator off in a huff, snorting loudly in anger. Surprise put a hoof on her back and smiled. “Hey, cheer up, Dashie. You get to go on a break, huh? Should be fun.”
“I’d rather be in the thick, with you guys,” Dash replied glumly.
“Trust me, not on this one, you don’t.” Surprise started in the direction of the fort, only to stop a few steps later and turn back around to face Dash. “You comin’?”
“What about Pinkie Pie? I should probably go try to find her.”
“If she’s anything like me, she’ll turn up later,” Surprise replied. “C’mon, Dashie, let’s go already! I have orders, and one of them is to escort you back to Fort Garnik!”