Cruger was in a good mood.
Why wouldn't he be? It was a nice day, he was out on his custom ATV, and SPD was beginning to fill up with qualified personel again. It was especially good to see his sorta nephew Gray Ghost join the ranks, though no surprise as he thought of Cruger as his father. It was truly a shame, son of Princess Luna, who became Nightmare Moon shortly after the Discord incident, and King Sombra, cruel tyrant of the Crystal Empire. No small wonder he set himself up in a time dilation bubble. Still, it was good to see the squirt try to make his name stand for something good. While the dark powers his father forced upon him were too unstable for Patrol work, his steel trap mind would make him a grade A Inspector in due course.
Cruger's mood soured slightly as he recalled what had happened to Luna. While he saw both princesses as little sisters, he connected a mite more with Luna. When Luna learned of the experiments that Sombra was performing on her own son, it was Cruger's shoulder she cried on. He saw the signs of Luna's desire for more ponies to appreciate her and the night she brought, and was able to keep them in check. If it wasn't for Discord, there would probably be no such thing as Nightmare Moon. At least in modern times that was no longer a problem.
The ATV hit a bump,bringing Cruger back to the present. He did enjoy his ATV, which he named the Delta Striker. It was one of the only two pieces of SPD equipment the the R&D team wasn't normally allowed to touch, the other being the Shadow Saber, his trusty blade.
Cruger's thoughts enevitibly drifted towards his budding R&D department, which honestly didn't get to do much back in the old days. His current research chief, Fetch, was a prodigy of cyber-magi systems, it took him about 5 seconds too figure out how to use a Crysterminal. He also knew more random trivia than a champion game show contestant, in fact, he probably was one.
His counterpart in maintanence was an odd duck named Steam Gear. While normally as talkative as Fluttershy, if you got him on the subject of wings, well.
Let's just say it's easier to get Pinkie to shut up, Gear didn't like cupcakes.
Cruger was silently glad that the Runner Bays were still shut down, poor colt might have a heart attack if he saw Delta Runner 2, to say nothing of the Delta Wingers.
Of course there was also that new assistant, Lunar Fang. Poor guy, in the 3 weeks since SPD resurfaced, the young thestral had gotten zapped, had somthing blow up in his face, or got whacked by somything at least a dozen times. Luckily one of the perks of belonging to SPD was that there was a state of the art medical center on site.
Speaking of thestrals, his new Head Trainer, Edge Case, was straight from Luna's personal guard. He filled every possible definition of elite guard. The only reason that Cruger didn't make him a Patrol Trooper was that he would be much more useful training other Troopers.
Cruger frowned slightly as he thought of the current state of the Patrol Squads. There were dozens of applicants, most of which went straight to the bottom of the pack, D Squad. Several transfers from the Guard, as well as some exceptional recruits, went to C Squad, which comprised the bulk of SPD's forces. What troubled Cruger was that not many qualified for the elite B Squad. To enter B Squad required the right blend of ability, experience, and character. Ponies like that Dual Star, former Royal Guard who considered anger to be a weakness. Of course he wasn't too upset that no-one qualified for A Squad, that was Cruger's personal squad. Nobody but NOBODY entered A Squad without being hand picked by Cruger himself.
Although there was at least one mare who he had his eye on.
Cruger's communicator started beeping. Pulling over, Cruger was a major opponent of driving while on the phone, he answered it. It was one of his Dispatch Operators, Blue Rush if he wasn't mistaken.
"Sir, Miss Song asked me to tell you that RIC was ready."
"Acknowledged," Cruger replied before hanging up, smiling. He thought of SPD as his family, and every good family should have a pet.
It was time to bring the family dog back from the vet.
Just as he was about to leave, he noticed a famillier blue figure on a low grey cloud.
"Good afternoon miss Dash."
Rainbow Dash turned around. While most people wouldn't have noticed, for the split second between her turning around and her seeing Cruger, there was a sad, confused look on her face which she quickly replaced with a friendly grin.
Cruger was not most people.
"Hey Cruger! What's up?"
"Nothing much, is something troubling you?"
"Well kind of," Dash admitted, "nothing really."
"Mind if I join you so you can talk about it?" Cruger asked with a friendly smile.
Dash laughed. "I'm on a cloud, you don't have wings, how do you expect to join me?"
Cruger's smile turned into a mischevious grin, "if i can stand next to you on that cloud, will you tell me your troubles?"
Dash returned the grin and nodded, "sure, why not?"
Grinning wider, Cruger walked next to the cloud, grabbed the edge, and vaulted onto it. Dash just watched, mouth wide enough to safely pass a supertanker through. Cruger just smiled and pointed at a small gem on his boot, "cloudwalking charm, birthday gift from Luna. Celestia got me a coffee machine that year, still don't know which one is more useful." His grin dropped, "now, what's wrong?"
Dash's expression returned to the one Cruger saw earlier, "nothing really. It's just that all my life I wanted to become a Wonderbolt. To protect the skies of Equestria and delight massive crowds with my raw awesomeness. To prove to everyone that I'm the best flier in all Equestria, if not Equis. But then you come along and bring SPD with you, which sounds just as awesome as being a Wonderbolt, if not more. I mean seriously, you have a giant robot, hard to get more awesome than that. So here's me, on one hand being a member of SPD might be more awesome than being a Wonderbolt, and on the other is a dream I've had before I could even fly. Do I follow the dream I had since I was little? Or do I abandon it because I found something I want to do even more?"
Cruger said nothing for a minute. "Well, I can't make up you mind for you, but if it helps," he said while standing up to leave, "a few Wonderbolts have transferred to SPD."
Dash raised an eyebrow, "really?"
Cruger nodded. "Now if you'll excuse me," he said while jumping off the cloud, "I need to get back. RIC's coming back from the vet."
As Cruger rode off, another question entered Dash's mind.
Who's Rick?