The Stars Beyond The Veil

by Charlemane


21 - Repomare

Chapter 21
Repomare
“You’re not allowed in here. Go home.”
“Not allowed? Not allowed?! Just where AM I allowed then? You got something against griffons you racist prick?”
“Calm down and go home.”
“I’m trying to asshole! But you’re blocking my way!”
“Final warning.”
“Oh, I’ll give you a warning...”
-3371 EC. Minority riots on border worlds. Curfews introduced amid public outcry.

I was feeling groggy by the time we got back to the hangar with several ponies in tow. To my ever-growing consternation, Nightshade magically appeared while we headed toward the hangar, apparently contacted by Jess about why we were moving out so quickly. Tick showed too, looking like she had just crawled out of bed and thrown on a fresh jumper before stumbling out the door with her things in tow. Only one pony was really missing.

“Where’s the prince?” I asked, glancing about the platform.

“Probably getting his beauty sleep,” Tick droned, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, the less I see of him, the better day I’m gonna have. See you onboard.” With a flick of her tail, Tick turned and sauntered off toward the transfer plate, grumbling all the way.

“What’s eating her?” Nightshade asked, watching her go with mild disinterest.

“Not everyone’s an anytime pony like us, Nightshade,” Jess replied with a smirk. “Ponies like her need lots of rest. Or lots of coffee. Actually, that’s sounds like a pretty good idea. Horizon?” Jess said, turning to me with a serious look on her face, “you need a coffee maker for your ship.”

I didn’t budge. “My ship needs a lot of things,” I replied. I wasn’t much of a coffee drinker. Junkyard practically chugged the stuff, and anything Junkyard did, I didn’t want to emulate. Call it my bias if you want, if I needed energy, I just learned to suck it up. Although the ciders probably helped here and there.

Jess smiled, “Just get one, flyboy. I think-” Jess’ ears shot up as we both heard shouting coming in our direction. We both turned our heads, glancing in the direction of the noise to see Estoc moving at a brisk trot looking like he too had just crawled out of bed.

“I’m here! Thank you for waiting!” The prince yelled as he approached. He looked a little worse for wear, if the bags under his eyes were any indication. “Sorry about that,” the yellow pegasus said, “You wouldn’t believe how stubborn the hotel staff was. Nasty, rude individuals.”

I smirked. As a fellow pegasus on an earth pony station, I could empathize. “At least they didn’t punt you into the hallway,” I said. “You don’t have to come with us, you know.”
Estoc put on his mask as he returned my smirk, “And let you run off with the prize? I don’t think so.”

I shrugged, “suit yourself.”

All preparations are ready. Tex told me silently. I’ve got your clearance ready to go as soon as we’re online.

Thanks Tex. I replied.

“Tex says we’re ready,” I said, and then turning to Jess, “where are we going, anyway?”

Jess chuckled. “You’ll like this one, I promise,” she said. “We’re going to Cirrus.”

I blinked. “The station?” I asked.

“The planet,” she answered.

I stared. Jess just kept wearing her smirk. “You’re serious,” I said.

Jess’ smile widened.

***

I could hardly contain myself on the trip over. We were going planetside. It was hard not to be giddy about the prospect. I had never set hoof on a planet in my entire life. Living on one was usually reserved for rich ponies, or at least ponies with the means to afford the atrociously expensive housing down there. The most an average pony could do was commute, and even then, it took a certain caliber of pony to actually work planetside. The most an average pony could do was visit, and even that held a considerable cost. Granted as a pilot I had better chances. I owned my own ship now, so technically I could go where I pleased, but for the most part it also meant that I had to stay where the shipping lanes were, and the closest most shippers ever got to life on planets were the space elevators surrounding them. Setting a hoof on a world? Feeling the breeze in my feathers? It would be an eager first for me. But that wasn’t even the best part. We were going to Cirrus.
Of all the worlds in the PC, Cirrus was easily one of the most well-known. It wasn’t a capital planet by any measure or even a very populous one, rather, it had a reputation for being racially exclusive. Only pegasi were allowed on Cirrus, and for good reason. Cirrus was a gas dwarf. Located on the far western side of the Pegasus Cluster, early explorers discovered that the planet had a breathable atmosphere and a surface that was almost entirely covered in liquid water. Its moisture content alone made it a valuable resource for water mining operations, and, to make it even better, gave it a thick, permanent cloud layer which was perfect for large populations of pegasi. The only real downside was a lack of food, but with tons of water at their disposal, they found they could grow the food on the stations and send it down via space elevator.

The place didn’t come without its dangers, however. Cirrus was a heftier planet than most. It clocked in at the higher end of reasonable gravity, and due to its dense atmosphere and high water content, any trip to its surface was positively lethal. Fly too low, and the planet would crush you with its atmosphere alone, nevermind the woes of higher than average gravity or the extreme storms outside the pacification zone. Harvesting crews needed specialized equipment to even work at low altitudes, and nopony was ever allowed out into the open air.

Despite the danger, however, Cirrus also had a reputation for being a resort world. Inside the pacification zone lots of wealthy investors had set up their own little paradise of vices. Casinos, high end entertainment, you name it. There was no shortage of things to do if you had the bits to pay for them. All that fun to be had, and all of it geared toward pegasi like me. Best of all, I would get to walk on clouds! Real clouds! That alone would be worth the trip.

There was one other reason I was eager to go. Non-fliers weren’t allowed to go past certain parts of the space elevator for safety reasons, which meant that I’d have a chance to talk to Jess without any worry that Nightshade would be hovering nearby. It would be guaranteed privacy.

The long trip to the far side of the PC couldn’t have ended fast enough.

***

We landed on grid late in the afternoon, a few days after we’d left Winter’s Edge. I took the the first length of the journey, sitting for long hours in the pilot seat because once we hit the border between the EPRW and the PC, Jess legally had to take command of the ship. My license was still revoked, technically, and whenever a stray patrol dropped in to say hello to us, a licensed pilot needed to be the one on comms. Out near the edge of pegasus space like where L6-C is, sure, it’s not much of a problem, but after we started jumping through the more populated systems, the pings from patrols started coming about every third or fourth jump. That slowed our progress considerably. Jess did manage to catch a ride from a couple of the patrol ships that stopped us, but for most of the crossing, we were on our own. Thankfully we had plenty of supplies, so we could cut straight through the main shipping corridor without stopping to resupply and made a beeline for our destination.

I was in the cabin for our final jump. A trip to Cirrus was not exactly something I would be able to do very often and I wanted to savor the experience. Thanks to my enthusiasm, the lurch of the Sparkle Drive was almost bearable.

“And done!” Jess declared, leaning back in the pilot’s chair and letting out a huge sigh. “Celestia, do I hate travelling.” Jess leaned forward and stretched, popping a few bones in her spine as she worked out the knots the pilot seat had put there. “It always takes too damn long, and there’s never enough to do.”

That was one problem with flying in populated space. You needed to be ready to answer calls, whether from patrols or just so some jumpy passerby doesn’t put two in your engines. While it might have been rare for somepony to land on grid with you, it wasn’t impossible. The magic of the teleportation sometimes manages to attract itself, which sometimes ended up in some interesting conversations between pilots. It was also Sector Law that you needed to be on comms at all time, so there was that too.

“You know, if you’d have let me fly for a bit, it probably wouldn’t have been so bad,” I said with a smirk. We both knew the reasons why that was off the table.

She passed me a look that could curdle milk. “I’m already fixing to put one pony in a brig today, don’t make it two.” Her expression broke with a bark of laughter and she turned the ship toward our final destination. I sat in anticipation of what we were about to see.

The mass of a gigantic planet floated into view. From the blue haze of the outer atmosphere, to the seemingly endless expanse of clouds beneath it, Cirrus looked bigger than I could have ever dreamed. The light from the nearby star reflected off the clouds below, casting the entire world in a somewhat eery tan and golden hue. The swirls of superstorms roiled below, forming enormous golden spirals that seemed to spin in slow motion across the planet’s surface. I stared on in awe, mesmerized by it all.

I was going there.

My grin could have split my face.

Just outside the planet’s horizon line, I spotted a line of starships heading to one of the nearby stations. Compared to the behemoth of a planet next to it, the station looked absolutely tiny, even if I knew otherwise. Space Elevators were usually pretty small, carrying only enough amenities to serve the crews that maintained them, if anything they were more glorified spaceports than living colonies. Sure, you could stop in for a bite to eat and maybe shop, but they weren’t designed to do much more than that. The elevator was there to deliver goods and ponies to and from the surface and little else. This elevator was no exception, one of many, judging by other orbiting points of light, snaking their way across the horizon.

Jess leaned in back into her seat and lifted a leg to adjust the mic on her WAND. “Tower, this is officer Jess Silvermane, requesting priority docking for official business.”

The radio crackled for a little bit while we waited for a response. I watched a little light on the comms board go green as the connection was made and our call went through.

“Scrap… Bandit? This is tower. We’re reading you but we don’t show your ship on any of our records. Please transmit your credentials and authorization code.”

“Roger that tower, codes are on the way.” Jess’ WAND glowed as she sent the info on its way and worked the consoles. When she was finished, she leaned back and checked her WAND again before opening up the line again and saying, “Zero. Four. One. Seven. Delta.”

Silence followed while we waited for a response. “Authorized. Welcome to Cirrus, Lieutenant. What kind of business brings you out here?” The tower pony asked.

Jess leaned back, “Just picking up something for my boss. We had a cruiser go missing a while back, and I tracked it here.”

“Roger that ma’am. We’ll open up a spot for you shortly. For what it’s worth, enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you, tower,” Jess replied smartly as new instructions started pinging the control board. The C-Band closed with a pop. With a weary sigh, Jess put us on course again. “Almost over,” she muttered with a weary sigh.

I could echo that.

***

After a quick jaunt through the elevator’s small hangar, we were finally in the station proper, if you could call it that. It was more a network of corridors than an actual station, but since it was pegasus made, the ceilings were high enough to fly in, which was a wonderful change from the cramped passages of Winter’s Edge. Everything was remarkably clean, if sterile. It was almost eery. Over the years I had grown so used to seeing advertisements plastered over practically every surface, so much that the sudden lack of them felt almost alien. The walls were all stark and bare, and if Jess hadn’t been leading the way, it would have been easy to get lost. In addition, the architecture was new to a lot of the ponies in our troupe, judging by the way they regarded their surroundings. Estoc of course didn’t pay it a passing glance, but Nightshade and Tick did. Whatever their interest, they didn’t comment. Pulling us to the side before entering the central plaza, Jess turned to address the rest of us.

“Alright. So, everyone is clear what we’re allowed to do here, right?” Jess said.

A murmur of agreement went up. We had gone over this several times while onboard the ship at Jess’ insistence. The plaza was the last stop before the cutoff, intended as tourist trap for those unfortunate enough to be stuck near the end of the line.

“It still sucks that we can’t go down,” Tick complained, “I mean, I get it, but still.”

“Not a fan of sky diving, I take it?” I asked with a shit eating smile.

Tick passed me a flat look and just shook her head.

“You’ll be free to roam around the station until we get back,” Jess said. “Just don’t try to get past the cutoff unless you want to spend the rest of the trip in a cell.”

Jess turned to Estoc, who regarded her with mild interest. “As for you, sir, you’re free to move wherever you please, just please don’t wander too far. I don’t expect we’ll be gone too long and to my knowledge, we don’t have any other business here.”

Estoc nodded respectfully. “Out of respect for our comrades I will stay behind. There isn’t anything here that I haven’t seen before, anyway.”

Jess returned his nod. “Fair enough,” she said, and then nudged me with a wing. “Alright, Horizon, let’s get this over with.” She pushed the control, and the door to the plaza slid neatly open.

Pegasus design is a thing of beauty, in my own biased opinion. Clean, sleek lines, with no wasted effort on the frills you might see in Unicorn space or the mad claustrophobia of the earth pony stations. The plaza was similar to many others you would see on bigger stations, with wide open spaces and all the quirks of the Pegasus Cluster. Various floating storefronts drifted around the outside of the ring, with a few pegasi hawking their wares to those few ponies who drifted too close. They were common sight in the more heavily populated stations. We called them cloud shops. Most were open air, and the only way you could go to them was to flap in for a quick bite, buy your wares and move on. Being a central choke point for ponies moving to and from the surface, the plaza we entered was packed with them, and shared the staples you would normally see in most pegasus marketplaces. It was wide and high, with plenty of airspace for the almost exclusively pegasus ponies flying in every direction. The flap of wings might not have been deafening, but it certainly added a pleasant white noise to the din of conversation floating over the place.

“Well this is different,” Tick said, curiously looking up at one of the cloud shops just overhead.

I’ll say. Tex said in my head. What the hay happened out here? I don’t ever recall designs like this! How is anypony supposed to even get up there?

They’re not. I thought back at her. That’s the point. It’s catered to pegasi, since they’re just about the only ponies that can safely visit it.

I still think it’s not very nice.

There’s a lot of things we do that aren’t very nice. I replied. But don’t think that we’re the only race that does it. Hell, I got kicked out of practically every establishment I went to when I first got to Winter’s Edge, and I would bet the Core has their own flavor of racism too.

But racism is wrong! There's no Harmony! How can you exp-

“Horizon? You’re spacing again,” Nightshade commented. I very nearly jumped.

“Right, sorry, talking with Tex. What were you saying?” I explained.

“We’re splitting up,” Jess said, motioning me to follow. I stepped up beside her as our group started to move along. “You and me are going to the elevator while everypony else is going shopping.” She glanced upward. “Or at least tries to.”

I nodded. “Alright then. Lead the way, boss.”

We said our goodbyes and walked away from the main plaza, following the signs to the main elevator for personnel. Multiple warning signs soon started popping up as we got closer, and before long we passed a pair of station security ponies working as bouncers for the main lift, underneath a nice, large sign that read, “PEGASUS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT,” in bold red lettering. Jess led me past, nodding to the guards as we went, and then we stopped in front of a blank wall. For a moment I thought we had made a wrong turn. Then I looked up.

As if the warnings weren’t enough, the entrance to the elevator was in the ceiling.

“You’d think somepony would get the picture by now,” I commented, glancing at the wide hole above us.

Jess chuckled good naturedly, “You’d be surprised just how creative some ponies can get, especially the unicorns. I can’t tell you how many of those idiots I had to pry out of some problem or another before I landed my position in the PBJ.”

I laughed quietly at the thought of some unicorn trying to magic their way through the security on L6-C. “Let me guess, they thought the station was hiding something from them?”

Jess smiled, “Got it in one. Say what you will about unicorns, but throw something they don’t understand at them and they’ll never stop second guessing it.”

We both took off, flying up toward the hole in the ceiling. It wasn’t really much of a flight, just a good jump and a couple flaps and we had cleared it. We set down on the small landing area that had been cleared next to the hole, and then casually trotted toward the elevator to the transit station. A stray thought prompted a somewhat random question as the door to the elevator closed..

“Hey, Jess, what do these ponies use for the space elevator, anyway?” I asked.

With a ding, we started to descend. Outside our little cubby I saw the floors pass us by, while we waited patiently inside the elevator.

Jess shrugged, “Mass transit array, probably. I don’t know about this station, specifically, but most of the elevators I’ve been on used ‘em.”

I nodded quietly, it made a bit of sense, after all, using something stupid like solid fuel rockets all the time would just be a waste of resources, not to mention dangerous. “Does your job take you to planets that often?”

Jess glanced at the elevator’s readout before answering. “Sometimes, but not as often as you might think. Most of the ponies we go after try and hide out where it’s easier to get away. Planet’s might be expansive, but with surveillance the way it is these days, it’s only a matter of time before we find them. Marehunts are usually short when we really want to pick someone up.” She shrugged again, shifting her weight and stretching a wing before settling back into a comfortable position. “We always get our mare,” she said, “you know how it is.”

To be fair, I’d experienced it firsthoof.

The elevator slowed as we reached our floor. With a ding, the door opened, and we both stepped out onto the platform.

“Call me curious,” I said as I followed Jess over toward the line of ponies waiting to depart. Nearby, I could see more security ponies, one of which held a tablet and was checking in ponies as they passed. “What’s the story behind your cruiser, anyway?”

Jess missed a step and recovered. Groaning, she replied, “Frustration, if anything else. The truth is, I’m not exactly sure.” We walked side-by-side down the line to the transit checkpoint, effectively bypassing the queue of waiting ponies, several of which were giving us dirty looks as we strolled by. It was also getting the attention of the security ponies sitting at the checkpoint.

“Stop,” one of the guards ordered, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. Jess and I complied, coming to an easy stop in front of him. “Why are you cutting in line?”

Jess’s WAND lit, displaying a badge, her face, cutiemark and several lines of text in front of her. “PBJ. Official business. I’m here to recover stolen government property that I tracked here. Please let us through.”

The officer glanced from the credentials to Jess, and then over to me.

“Who’s he?” he said, pointing.

“Horizon Seldat, civilian contractor and my backup,” Jess replied.

The security buck raised an eyebrow. “The Sandwich corps are using civvies now? And here I thought they couldn’t any sink lower. Did you all run out of jam or something?” He laughed at his own joke. Jess’ smirk strained at the comment, but the buck ignored her. After checking a few things on his tablet for a moment, he stepped aside. “Alright, you check out. Personnel entrance is the first door on the right. Just don’t cause too much trouble down there. We have enough headaches here as it is.”

Jess smiled and nodded. “Thank you sir.” And with that, Jess led the way.

As we passed the checkpoint, I decided to continue the conversation. “What did you mean by you’re ‘not exactly sure?’”

Jess shrugged, her smile fading into a thin line. “Just that. I don’t know. I don’t know how the pony managed to take my ship,” she said, taking the right that the security pony had indicated. I followed close behind her. “Our ships have military encryption, and we’ve also got shipboard defenses set up in case anyone tries to tamper with the systems. Any two-bit hacker would have a hell of a bad day if they tried to hotwire it. The only way I can think of anypony getting my ship up and running is if they had my launch codes, but It’ll be a cold day in hell before I’d share those with anypony. And on such a short assignment, they wouldn’t have had enough time to hack it anyway.”

“What were you doing at the time?” I asked.

“Tracking down some shitbag over in the southern border,” she sighed, “I was on assignment on a station near Selene chasing a thief when it happened. I got the shithead, but on my way back I discovered that somepony had run off with my ship. I had a very special conversation with the docking authority after that.”

I cringed. ‘Special‘ for Jess could have meant a whole lot of things.

“Either way, “ she continued, “after I found that out, I had to turn the perp into local custody while I waited for command to get me a ride.” Jess groaned, “Ugh, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the looks on my coworker’s faces when they found out what happened.” Jess growled as her eyes narrowed. “Most of this trip is personal. I’m gonna find the little jackass who made off with my ship and make him tell me just how the hell he got my codes.”

We stopped just in front a line of ponies heading into a wide room.

“Looks like this is it,” Jess said, stepping inside. I followed her, doing my best not to get caught up in the small crowd of ponies making their way to the slightly raised platform in the center of the room.

“When will we know they’re going to turn it on?” I asked, taking a seat next to Jess as we got comfortable on the transit deck.

“Any time now, I’d figure,” Jess said with a shrug. “It’s usually pretty quick.”

As if in answer, I started hearing a familiar hum coming from the ceiling—the sound of a Sparkle drive powering up.

“Ah, there it goes,” Jess said, looking up toward the the source of the noise.

It was then that I suddenly remembered the other thing I wanted to talk to her about. “Hey, uh, Jess? Before we get started searching, I need to talk with you about Nightshade.”

Jess gave me a quizzical look. “Oh?”

My stomach dropped out as we were suddenly elsewhere.

***

The arrival compound looked very similar to the station we had just left. Metal walls were everywhere, in defiance of the planet’s gravity, built to house the teleporter back to the orbital stations. By the almost electric buzz in the air, I could tell that there was a seriously powerful magic generator nearby, helping to maintain the cloudwalking spells on the place and continue staving off the inevitable. We were on Cirrus, I knew and felt that much, but we hadn’t stepped outside. Instead, Jess found a nice secluded area inside the compound for us to have our little chat as I, and to some extent, Tex, filled her in on what we knew.

“Tell me you’re joking,” Jess said. Whatever her expression was, I was having trouble reading it. She looked like was on the edge of skepticism, like she wanted to believe me, but hadn’t quite decided yet.

I had told her everything I knew, as I knew it. She requested as much and I wasn’t about to hold anything back. “You think Nightshade is an assassin?”

“To a degree of certainty, yes,” I replied. “He’s had me under the screws for a while. Frankly, he scares me. He has this tendency to suddenly pop in whenever his name is mentioned that just scares the ever-loving shit out of me.”

Jess’ eyes narrowed slightly as she mulled it over. “You realize I can’t just take an accusation like this lightly. This is a very serious claim you’re making.”

I nodded. “I know. And I know I’m in over my head, too, but I wouldn’t be telling you if I wasn’t sure.”

“You said you had proof?” Jess asked.

“Sort of,” I replied. “It was enough to get me thinking, at least. I have some videos that Fritter sent me. Combined with what I’ve experienced working alongside him, I’m pretty certain that my reasoning is correct. Nightshade is dangerous.”

“Most military types are,” Jess countered. “Still, if what you’ve told me is true, then I at least owe it to you to look over the evidence myself. But that will happen after this assignment, alright? So until then, we forget about all this and finish our job.”

I swallowed. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was a step in the right direction.

“Alright,” I said.

Tex, send it.

Waaaay ahead of you.

Jess’ WAND beeped. She blinked for a few seconds as her focus changed, and then returned her attention to me. “Alright, I’ve got them. No more distractions, okay?”

I nodded.

“Good,” Jess said.”Now let’s go find my ship.”

With that she turned, motioning for me to follow, and led us back toward the outside exit. We passed a few ponies from the latest group that landed, and stopped at the door. Jess keyed the control and walked through like it was the most natural thing in the world. For me, not so much. It was with a special kind of trepidation that I crossed the boundary into the outside world, and once I did, all of my current worries simply disappeared.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect once I crossed the threshold onto the first planet I had ever set hoof on. I couldn’t suppress the giddy feeling, or for that matter resist the temptation to jump up and down on the cloudcrete lining the roads outside of the landing complex. I can’t even begin to describe what it feels like to have your first-ever breath of truly fresh air, or imagine the weird sense of dissonance I felt looking on an endless skyline for the first time after living aboard a station for my entire life. The closest thing I could describe it with is… awe.

I stood in awe of nature. I gazed on a perfectly golden skyline with clouds that stretched as far as the eye could see, only distantly aware of the various structures that formed the majority of the city beneath us. I must have looked like an idiot. I didn’t care. I was too overwhelmed with everything. Everything in my body was screaming to just take off and fly forever, mission be damned. Every stray cloud looked tempting enough to just run over and jump up and down on it like I did on my bed when I was just a young colt. To this day, it was probably one of the most magical moments of my life. It was all I could do to breathe. And breathe I did.

I took a deep breath of crisp, cool air, fresh enough to taste on my tongue, and sat down with a heavy fwump.

Heavy. I felt very heavy, I realized. While inside the compound I hadn’t really noticed thanks to my conversation with Jess, but sitting outside and finally having a moment to collect myself, made me realize just how much weight I seemed to have gained. It was uncomfortable, and maybe even a slight bit disorienting. Artificial gravity might be a decent patch job, but this was the real thing. My whole body felt like it would sag just sitting there, and the effort from even just walking was making me feel just a little bit winded.

“First time going planetside?” Jess asked, wearing a knowing smile.

I nodded. “Yeah. This is… wow.” A passing tuft of cloud stuff caught my attention as it drifted lazily by.

Jess laughed, “Well then, we’ve picked a hell of a planet for it. Sightseeing later, though, we’ve got a job to do.” With a nudge of her wing, Jess started to lead the way.

“Where are we heading? By the way?” I asked, reluctantly getting back up and shaking off a stray bit of cloud that had stuck to one of my hooves.

Jess looked aside, checking a nearby map before answering. “Hangar district,” she replied. “Fritter said that was where my ship was spotted last. He also said it was in one of the drydocks around there, so we’re going to have to do some searching once we get down there. You wouldn’t mind doing a little bit of flying, would you?”

I grinned. The prospect of stretching my wings in open sky put a shiver in my primaries. “Do you really need to ask?” I replied.

***

Hangar 51. An almost musty smell hung in the air as we silently snuck our way into the sealed hangar where our objective was located. While the transit compound had been at the top of the city, the drydock holding Jess’ ship had somehow ended up near the bottom of the pacification zone, wedged in between the industrial district and the less than inviting military outpost nearby. Together, we hunched by a window in the ceiling of the complex, gazing in one of the skylights at the ship inside.

“There she is,” Jess said, her eyes half lidded as she scanned the rest of the hangar for occupants. I crouched beside her, carefully peeking over the side of the window at the impressive war machine below.

There was a certain, predatory nature to pegasus ships. Even if it was one of the more common models, Jess’ cruiser matched up with the majority of the PBJ’s police forces. If not for the half-baked attempt of an emergency paint job, the ship was a work of art. Clean, sleek lines, and a slim aerodynamic profile blended perfectly with the various fixed weaponry that made up its arsenal. It had lithe, deadly grace, and it was enough to make me salivate at the idea of flying one. A long time ago, that was the dream: cool spaceships, danger, and risky flying. In retrospect I ended up with two out of three, but come on. Who doesn’t want to fly a fighter?

I whistled as I took it in. Noting just how much larger it was over a ship like the Bandit. It needed the extra mass, to be honest, more to support its onboard systems than for aesthetics. It was powerful, and needed powerful support systems, especially for the type of weapons the pegasus forces put on their midrange fighter craft.

“Awesome, isn’t it?” Jess said with a genuine smile, as she too looked down at her cruiser with a fondness that spoke of years of familiarity. Sadly, it’s profile was marred by its paint job. Whoever had stolen it was in the middle of repainting it, so its normally clean surface was marred by a botched paint job. To boot, the pony hadn’t even finished covering the ship’s name, which still stood out on the side of the vessel in bold black lettering.

PPS ALCATRAZ

How the thief managed to get that by the security checkpoints I’ll never know.

“Yeah. So, what happens now?” I asked.

“Same thing I did with you.” Jess replied. We wait here until the thief comes back, and then we nail him before he can escape. Depending on how long he’s staying for,

“So it’s a stakeout?”

“Pretty much. The right information should flush him out, however.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Jess smiled as she turned to me. “Let it slip to one of his buddies that we’re looking for him, and they’ll be sure to tell him. After that, he’ll come running here to grab the quickest and easiest way to get out.”

“What if he grabs a shuttle instead?” I asked.

“Then, I get my ship back and he gets nothing,” she replied, “either way, I win. The only thing that changes is how much I win. And today I’m going to win big.” She nodded to the rafters just below the window. “There’s a good spot down there to keep an eye on things while staying out of sight. We’ll camp there until our little friend comes to grab the ship.” Bracing against one side of the window, she started working at the inside lock with her WAND, another moment, and she looked at me. “Help me get this open.”

I nodded, “whatever you say boss.”

We worked it open and slipped inside.

***

Waiting is boring when there’s an entire world out there. More often than not I found my attention slipping toward the window we’d just climbed through while we watched the sun slowly go down. But if I was distracted, then Jess was the perfect image of focus. Jess sat nested, her rifle trained on the entrance and the rest of her flattened against the rafter we hid on. It was all I could do not to fidget as I imitated her, flattening myself against a support beam while we waited for Jess’ fake tip came into play. The experience was a little weird, having been on the receiving end of her little tactic. It was a gambit, sure, but for a gambit, it seemed to have a pretty high success rate. This time, it worked like a charm.

After sitting motionless for what felt like hours in the rafters, a blonde pegasus in a flight suit barreled into the hangar, glancing about with panicked fervor before spotting a nearby tech and nearly tackling him to the ground to get his attention.

“Tell me it’s ready to go,” the poor bastard said. Next to me, Jess adjusted her aim.

“Dude, what? Look, Rezzo, I know you’re in hurry, but wiping something like this takes time and-”

The blonde smashed his face into the other pony’s drawing a pained grunt from the dock worker and growled, “I didn’t fucking pay you to drag your fucking hooves. Is it ready to go or not?”

Jess fired.

Flash, crackle, pop.

With a scream the blonde pegasus took the slug in the side, electricity arcing over his body as his body convulsed. The force of the hit was enough to knock him off the tech, who promptly wet himself on the floor of the hangar, amidst his struggle to get on his hooves and away from the scene. The tech bolted for the door, and in an instant, Jess was over the side of the metal rafter and swooping down toward the pony still shaking on the floor. She hit the ground hard, her hooves landing right next to the pony’s head.

“Got you, you little bastard.” Jess said, whipping out a set of mag cuffs from her suitpack and locking them around the hooves of the pony still in seizure. I landed a short distance behind the scene, watching from a careful distance so as not to get in the way.

“F-fuck! Shit, wha-” Rezzo said, wildly looking around as the taser wore off.

“Ah ah ah,” Jess replied, stuffing a boot in his mouth and effectively silencing him. “You’re gonna want to save your breath for later. You and I need to have a nice long talk, preferably aboard my ship.” The pony’s eyes widened as realization washed over him. His response was a whimper, muffled by Jess’ front boot.

It was then I noticed what the rest of him was doing. His wing had dropped low, and a small black ball emerged just out of Jess’ sight.

“Jess! He’s!”

An electric sensation washed over me. The rest of my words were drowned out as an ear piercing crack split the air. My world became white as as a pressure wave hit and nearly knocked me off my hooves. Past the intense ringing in my ears the only thing I could hear was Tex shouting my name in my head.

What was that! Horizon? Horizon! Get up! He’s getting away!

I had to blink away the afterimage of the blast, only to see Jess likewise stumbling in place and holding her wings over her head as she tried to shake off the effect of the flashbang.

“Fuck!” Jess yelled. I noticed first the empty cuffs on the ground, and then a flash of movement off to my right in the next moment as our target sped out the door. “After him!” Jess screamed. We both bolted at once.

We were out the hangar door in a flash, wildly searching for our target as precious moments ticked by. Jess spotted him first as he tried to disappear around a building and we were both off, closing the distance as quick as we could, my heart pounding in my ears over the keening squeal of fresh hearing damage. I was already tired. The flight we made searching for the hangar had worn me down, and my wings felt like lead as I pumped them, just trying to pace with Jess in her frantic pursuit. Whatever the case, I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for long.

We turned, catching the attention of pedestrians as we rocketed down the street after the blonde pegasus ahead of us. Some of them shouted in surprise, others whooped and hollered at the show. Some even tried to intefere, only to get swatted aside as the pegasus charged through them. Our target turned, dodging a sign, and dove down through a gap in the clouds toward a lower street. Jess banked and followed, just a few seconds behind, but already I could see that she was tiring as well.

His objective became pretty clear, the moment we rounded the edge of the cloud. Nearby there was a more stable looking platform where several police bikes were moored--military models if I had to guess. He shot for them like there was no tomorrow, and to Jess’ surprise, took the time to mount one. With a high pitched whine, It came alive under his touch, and the bike shot off into the open air with roar.

Jess was stunned, she landed next to the other bikes and blinked a moment before regaining her senses. “The fuck? How did he… fuck! Horizon take the other one!” Her WAND flashed and immediately two more of the bikes flared to life. Bolting to one of them, she jumped on and it tore off into the open sky. Shouting followed, as several police officers started piling out of a nearby building, coming to deal with the commotion.

Without really thinking, I mounted the other bike, and gunned it. The bike roared to life. I nearly found myself thrown off as it surged forward, barely controlled as I pulled up hard to avoid punching a hole through a nearby building.

“Holy Crap! This thing moves!” I yelled. It really did. It was the lightest, fastest thing I had ever flown, and the air wasn’t helping either. I wanted to spread my wings to stabilize, but my gut told me that would be a very bad idea. I had to squeeze my wings in to fight it. I stabilized the bike, looked around for where Jess and the other had taken off to, and then tore after them, praying the cops we had just robbed didn’t have any more bikes in their possession.

“Horizon I can’t see you back there! Did you make it?” I heard Jess call through my WAND’s earbud. Her voice crackled as she put more and more distance between us.

“We just stole two police bikes!” I yelled back at her, wrenching the controls to the side to make another sharp turn.

“So?” Jess replied, completely unconcerned. “They’ll get them back, no worries, get your ass up here.”

My mouth worked silently

Keep talking, I’m trying to slave the interface. Tex said.

“What interface?” I said aloud.

“What was that, Horizon?” Jess replied.

“Nothing!” I pulled up a little to stabilize the bike, leaning in slightly and hugging myself against the frame. It was awkward, but more and more, I found it workable. “Look, I’ve never used one of these before, give me a minute to get my bearing and I’ll be right behind you!”

“You don’t have a minute!” Jess shot back, “Get out here! And make sure your guns are set to low power. I want that buck alive.”

“These things have weapons!?” I yelled, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.

Yeah! And pretty good ones, from what I can see! Tex helpfully chimed in.

“Yes. Look, just get your ass up here already!” Jess shouted. “And whatever you do, don’t open your wings unless you want to have a long fall. Oh, Come on! You piece of sh-”

Jess vanished ahead of me, shooting a gap between two buildings and pitching hard, up higher into the air. Frantically I swerved to avoid smashing into a nearby pedestrian, and cut the line to follow, trying to eat up as much distance between myself and the two ponies ahead of me.

The turns were hard. It was everything I could do to keep from hitting the errant pegasi scrambling out of the way of the chase. I chased Jess’ contrail through the busy skyway as she pursued the blond pegasus. Slowly but surely, she was eating up the distance. The pegasus seemed to notice as well, as when he cleared another building, he abruptly changed tactics. I crested the building behind Jess, just in time to see the buck pull into a hard dive and hit his afterburner. His contrail tripled as he pulled ahead, shooting past the city limits and making a straight shot toward the far end of the pacification zone.

“He’s nuts! He’s going for the storm line!“ Jess yelled over the radio. She gunned her own burner and followed. Silently I did the same selecting a slightly different vector to try and head them off. My bike tore through the air, roaring the whole way as I struggled to keep my wings from opening on instinct. It was a raw sensation, a feeling of speed and freedom like nothing I’d ever felt before. My heart pounded in my chest as the bike ate up the distance and my body felt the g’s press in.

I could see them in the distance. Jess was chasing and only just maintaining the distance between them. Suddenly my WAND flared, filling my vision with all sorts of data, from atmospheric reports, to the bike’s status, and a series of small dots wavering dead center on my vector.

Got it! Interface up! Tex called.

“Tex? What the hell is going on?” I said aloud, still pressing myself against the bike to keep my profile. “What are these things?”

Fixed weapon targeting reticules. These things don’t seem to be equipped with turrets, so you’ll have to aim manually. Tex replied.

Great. I droned. Never mind that my aim typically sucked.

Don’t worry! I can run the ballistic analysis for you. Just don’t crash! EEE! I haven’t done this in centuries!

I groaned, tuning her out. Squinting into the wind, I adjusted my course, matching the arc that Jess was taking and willing the bike for everything it had. Flashes ahead of me, marked the path where Jess had started opening fire on the thief. Tracing deadly lines of plasma across the cloudy sky and forcing the buck to dodge, giving up ground with each wild maneuver. Fortune, however, wasn’t going in our favor. With a final desperate sprint, our target made it to the cloud line, swerving around a giant pillar of cloud as he finally left the pacification zone.

Jess swore loudly, as she pitched to go after him. I followed as close as I could, practically eating her contrail as we continued our pursuit into wilder weather.

I felt the exact moment when I left the pacification zone. It was hard not to. It was like a wave suddenly crashed over us as the force of the turbulent weather no longer responded to the city’s magic. My bike jolted underneath me, causing me to tighten my grip on the controls and fight to stabilize it. I was just another headache to deal with as I rounded the cloud pillar behind Jess, almost feeling it pull at my body as I whizzed by.

I swallowed. A more than aware of the danger.

We had to avoid the clouds. While the bikes would pass right through, our pegasus physiology wouldn’t. At best we’d get knocked off our bikes by a stray cloud, at worst, the impact would be enough to break every bone in our bodies, even with cloud being a relatively spongy material. Hit one large enough and fast enough, and you were in for a world of hurt.

The wind whipped through my mane as we soared deeper and deeper into the wilds, slowly closing on our target while firing our weapons to keep him from running straight. Every turn he made bled off just a little more of his lead, making our shots just a little less wide, and our quarry just a little more panicked. Good.

“Where does he think he’s heading?” I called to Jess over the radio, squinting into the wind as I kept my eyes on our target.

“He’s probably going to try and lose us in the storm. We can’t let that happen,” Jess replied.

“What storm?” I replied, glancing around.

“That one,” Jess said. She didn’t even need to point.

We were definitely outside the pacification zone now. Gigantic pillars of golden clouds loomed dark and brown on the horizon, flecked with streaks of orange and white as the light caught its upper edge. Deeper in the shadows of the clouds, I could see faint flashes of lightning streaking through them, filling the air with a charge that I could feel even from this distance.

“Shit.” I muttered.

The target banked, taking a hard turn around one of the giant pillars and dropping out of sight.

“We can’t lose him! Take the other side!” Jess called, as her airbike disappeared after him. I pitched hard and left, trying to cut across the peak of the cloud to get a bird’s eye view of the situation and decide my next move. I spotted him a moment later, juking under another cloud as Jess pursued him, still making a mad dash for the darker stormclouds while trying to break Jess’ line of sight.

I judged his position, adjusted my heading, and took a shortcut. Diving low across the top of one cloud until I found a hole that would let me drop down right on top of them. I dropped into a funnel and out pitching and firing my main gun as I took a vertical drop through their line. Hot energy whizzed through the air passing harmlessly by the buck, but enough to startle him. The buck rolled, pitching hard to avoid my followup shot and kicked on his booster to keep me from nailing him. He dropped into a wide loop, and I smiled. I’d broken his escape path. I sailed through their flight path just behind Jess as she kept up pursuit, rapidly firing her bikes guns to keep the buck off balance. Adjusting my angle, I pulled up to follow them, thought better of it, and dropped even lower into the cloud cover.

“Jess I’m going low, see if you can’t drive him down,” I called, and then dropped out of sight underneath the tail of a small thunderhead.

I was immediately soaked.

Spitting rain water out of my face, I trawled across the underside of the cloud, praying I would get struck, and then pulled up into a gap in the cloud cover, wet, cold, and ahead of our target. I spotted Jess immediately by the amount of firepower she was laying down on the poor bastard. Still, he was doing a good job at dodging her.

Imagine his surprise when I pulled out right in front of him.

I was close enough to hear him yell, fire on instinct, and pull up. I shot past him, and watched him clip a cloud, throwing off his steering enough for Jess to get a strong bead on him. I cut power to my bike’s thruster to tighten my turn, and brought myself around with a snap. The momentum was nearly enough to throw me off. I carried it in a roll, brought my thrusters back to full and charged across the bucks new line as he recovered.

Tex, give me a target. I thought as I rapidly closed the distance. Immediately a small circled filled my vision, dashing across my line and off to my right, I banked hard to follow it, feeling the g’s pull on my body in all the wrong ways. Crushing weight blacked the edges of my vision as I brought myself to bear. I strained to take a breath, and focused, narrowly aware of how everything seemed to be turning gray.

For once, he was moving straight. The targeting circle moved steadily along his line as he tried to regain control of his craft.

I lined up, and fired.

Hot energy flashed. A lance of high-density plasma sailed through the air and struck true along the buck’s port stabilizer, exploding with a bright flash.

“Nice hit!” Jess called.

The buck screamed as the bike started spinning out of control, trailing a spiral of smoke through the air as his trajectory bent earthward. Within seconds he was whipped off, wildly flailing in the air as he tried to regain control of his natural airspeed. His bike disappeared into a cloud, never to be seen again.

His wings snapped open instinctively, catching the air with enough force to snap them. I heard his scream over the whine of my engine as he started to plummet. Jess dived, shooting twice with her bikes weapons and nailing him twice in midair. Lightning crackled around him as he suddenly went rigid.

I shot past and bled off my momentum, turning my head to track his fall. Within moments, Jess was on top of his limp form, falling like a ragdoll through the air, and caught him. She pulled up in a gentle arc, burning up and away from the stormfront we were rapidly approached..

“Alright! I got him!” Jess called.

“Is he?” I replied.

“No. He’s still alive, just gaining a new appreciation for lightning,” she replied. “I’m gonna dump him on a cloud a ways up. We need to get out of this weather.”

“Roger,” I replied. I followed her bike and ascended. We spent two minutes burning away from the heart of the storm before we found a smaller, lazier cloud and dropped the poor moaning bastard on it. Jess set her bike in hover, and then dropped dead on top of him like a bag of brigs, eliciting a shriek of pain as he squirmed in place.

“Alright you little shithead!” Jess screamed in his face, “How did you get a military override?”

Oh, is that what that was? Tex asked, That bit of code did look a little funny when they were slinging it around back there...

Not now, Tex, I thought as I brought my own bike to a stop next to Jess’, placing a wary hoof on it to keep it from floating away, and watching the exchange with a sort of morbid fascination.

The buck keened beneath her, his broken wings writhing underneath the strain of her weight. Jess moved her hoof, nudging one of the wings and drawing another cry of pain out of him.

“Tell me! Dammit! or I’ll dump you over the side!” Jess screamed.

“I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Please don’t kill me!” the pegasus cried.

Jess stepped off him, letting his wings flop uselessly to the cloud. “Out with it. I want names.”

The pegasus swallowed, “I don’t know his name.”

Jess twitched. The pony jumped, “Slide! Slide Windshear!” The name rung a bell. Distantly I recalled the incident aboard the mag rail back in the Core with particular discomfort.

Jess’ eyes narrowed. “You’re sure about that? I’m sure I can still pop this cloud you’re on,” she threatened.

The pegasus shielded his face. Trying to hide from the glare Jess was boring into him“I swear! I swear!”

“How did you get the codes?” Jess asked.

“He sold them to me! Said he wanted to piss off somepony he worked with… oh Celestia, that was you wasn’t it?”

Jess snarled, cramming her face into his. “Alright asshole,” she spat, “This is what is going to happen next. You’re going to come with me. Both of us are going to be taking a nice long trip back to the office, and you are going to testify, in front of my boss, exactly what you just told me. Got it?”

He nodded rapidly.

“Good,” Jess said, extending one wing. A small charge built up around her wingtips, crackling from a small device attached to her flight suit. “Now, go to sleep.”

There was a flash of light as she swatted his face with a wing. The buck went rigid, convulsing twice before his eyes rolled back into his head and his body sagged.

“Jess?” I asked.

“What?” she replied tersely.

“You’re scary,” I said.

“Deal with it,” she replied. “Also, I’m cutting this outing short. We need to get back to the office, now. I am going to fucking MURDER Slide.”

“Yes ma’am.”
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