Previous Chapters Next
Close
Chapter 1 - Falling In3,250 words
Chapter 2 - Falling Out5,469 words
Chapter 3 - A Cut Above3,468 words
Chapter 4 - Rail Danger3,640 words
Chapter 5 - A Bridge Not Far Enough3,459 words
Chapter 6 - Bobbing for Apples4,248 words
Chapter 7 - How Many Licks3,864 words
Chapter 8 - Head Rest6,001 words

Chapter 4 - Rail Danger

CHAPTER 4

Rail Danger

"A mudslide?"

The stationmaster nodded as he wrote a few lines and then gave the paper to a passing clerk. "Yes! Just this side of the South Gorge Bridge. Took out the telegraph lines too. We won't even know if the tracks are okay until we've cleared them off."

"But the train!"

"We've sent a crew to try and clear the tracks, but without the telegraph and with our flyers grounded by the storm—Would you believe the leading edge is still hours away?" He shook his head in disbelief, then he continued. "We have no way to contact the stations south of the bridge so that they know to stop the train. Unless they notice the lines are down and get extra cautious. But we can't count on them deciding to—Wait!" He looked at Dash again, and she could see his eyes darting down to the bolt of golden lightning on the uniform's flank. "Can you fly there and—"

Dash was already lowering her goggles. "I'm on it!" One clerk-dodging, rainbow-streaked moment later, she was out the door and gaining altitude.

The storm's intensity had grown while she had been inside the station, darkening the sky with thick rain-gushing thunderclouds—she could barely see through the downpour. She had to descend, lift her goggles, and squint through raindrop-laden lashes just to see the tracks. However, this was the central train station for Manehatten, and there were more tracks here than she'd ever seen before in one place, all splitting up and going in different directions. She couldn't tell which tracks to follow.

She realized she had acted in haste in order to make a "cool" exit, instead of a good exit. A Wonderbolt's exit.

Dash swooped down, back through the station's still-swinging door, slower this time, to get the directions she should have gotten before she left.

Wet paper was plastered everywhere. Frazzled clerks scurried about to gather and sort the debris of her rapid departure back into the all-important storm reports they once were. The place was a mess.

Guilt seemed to boil out of the pit of her stomach—guilt for her blunder, but more than that: guilt for damaging the good name of the Wonderbolts by causing such mayhem while wearing their uniform.

The stationmaster was still where Dash had left him on the other side the office. She became painfully aware of the new trail of water she was leaving across the floor to reach him, stepping gingerly around the ponies gathering up papers.

The dark looks from the clerks as she passed only piled embarrassment on top of the guilt. Her desire to fly off randomly until she found her own way grew with every step.

The stationmaster looked up with a scowl and saw her approaching, and suddenly Dash was at a complete loss for words. How could she just ask for directions after that fiasco of an exit? It would be so much easier to bluster her way through this uncomfortable encounter, as she probably would have under other circumstances. However, she was in the uniform, and that changed everything.

She heard "Dash's" likely words in her head, and "Wonderbolt Dash" cringed at them.

She wasn't really "Wonderbolt Dash" yet, though, despite the uniform—but she also wasn't "Just Dash" because she was in the uniform. Indecision knotted her stomach.

Reaching the stationmaster, with no further time to delay, neither version of Dash wanted to say a word. She'd never seen a Wonderbolt officially apologize for anything before—Spitfire's personal apology was something else entirely and not applicable here.

With no other obvious option, she let the uniform do the talking through her. Everything she'd ever heard her idols speak, all their professional attitude and poise—or what little she'd been able, somehow, to absorb—flowed up from someplace deep inside her.

"I'm so very sorry for my exit, stationmaster." His put-upon frown almost made her falter, but she pushed down her personal embarrassment and let the flow of words continue. "My only excuse is that I have friends on that train, and in my panic I made a bad decision." As she said those words, she heard the truth in them. "I'd offer my help in cleaning up, but I'm sure that I'd only make a bigger mess, and my skills are needed elsewhere at the moment. But I promise you that, when this is all over, I will be at your service in whatever way I can to make things right." Then, as she felt the words fail her, she could only repeat "I am so very sorry, sir!"

Dash took in a big breath at the end of this speech, having spoken it all in one go. She felt oddly drained. The stationmaster's scowl had melted away, but now she couldn't read his expression. She became aware that the nearby clerks had paused in their cleanup to watch. She started to wonder if, in her attempt to sound responsible, she had just sounded stupid.

The stationmaster gave her a curt nod. "A fine apology, Wonderbolt—I'm afraid I don't recognize your mane."

"Rainbow Dash, sir."

"Ah. New member?"

"Only temporary."

"I hope they make it permanent, Acting Wonderbolt Rainbow Dash. You have the right attitude." He smiled then, and something inside her quivered, hope sparking. "When you aren't letting your obvious enthusiasm get the better of you," he added.

He pointed a hoof in a southward direction. "Look for a tall pole with two red lights at the top. Head in that direction, and you'll be following the right tracks. Good luck, Wonderbolt!"

She gave him a salute, because that seemed the thing to do, and turned to make her way—walking this time—out of the station. The clerks she passed continued to clean up the mess she had made, but a few who had heard her apology turned to smile at her. The quiver in her chest strengthened. Maybe she had handled that right after all.

However, as she stepped out into a blast of heavy rain and howling wind, she berated herself for it even being necessary. Wonderbolts don't often apologize because they do their best not to do anything that needs an apology.

A determined grimace on her face, she spotted the indicated light tower, donned her goggles, and rocketed up into the howling storm.

———

If the edge of the storm is still two hours away, what in Equestria is this?

The land was as dark as night, though the clock in the train station had read half past eleven in the morning. Opaque curtains of rain swept over Dash, blown by fierce and inconsistent winds like none she'd ever flown in before.

Dash had to fly high enough that she didn't slam into the signs and telegraph poles that lined the rails, but still low enough that she could clearly see the tracks through all the rain and darkness. She almost crashed into the spout arm of an unexpected water tower as she was leaving the switchyards.

Onward she flew, pounding her water-soaked wings to make headway through the rain, struggling to hold a straight line above the tracks against the violent thrusts of wind shoving at her.

Never before had flying been such an ordeal. Never before had maintaining a level course taken all of her concentration. It was an intensity of focus that left little room for anything else—as Dash discovered when her flight was rudely interrupted.

Like going down stairs in the dark and thinking there is one more step than is actually there, Dash crunched—full speed and face first—into the side of a rocky hill.

The sudden impact knocked all the remaining breath from her body, paralyzing her lungs. Dazed by the impact, she slid helplessly down the cliff face to land painfully on the tracks below, stunned and scraped and gasping for breath around a mouthful of mud.

She sucked in a huge gasp of rain-filled air, her lungs aching almost more than her tired and battered body. Barely aware of where she was, she could only think to get off the tracks before a train came and crushed her—forgetting that the line was out of service.

In a daze, she dragged herself over the cold, wet metal of the rail and onto the gravel siding. As she cleared the tracks, her head cracked hard into stone, and she could move no more. Stars of pain were all that she could see in the blackness.

———

Dash's first clear thought was that she wasn't being rained on, but she could still hear the raindrops pounding the ground. She opened her eyes, but it made little difference. She opened and closed them repeatedly in an attempt to see something, anything at all.

It was not until a flash of lightning illuminated the turgid sky that Dash discovered that she was lying in the mouth of a tunnel. She turned to look down its Stygian throat as the thunder rolled in, echoing off the soot-stained stone walls. There was no light at the end of this tunnel.

After a time, the urgency of Dash's mission dragged her upright, swaying slightly but functional. She realized she had a dilemma on her hooves.

The tracks she was following had gone into a tunnel. To follow them, she would have to either go through it, on hoof and with no light source to guide her, or fly over whatever hill or mountain it penetrated and hope against hope to find the other end in the storm.

Without the rain to blame, Dash knew that the tears in her eyes were of her own making. Whether they were due to the pain or fear for her friends she couldn't say, but it was the pain that chose her course of action for her.

Although nothing was broken, she thought that giving her wings a chance to recover would increase her odds of getting to the train in time—even taking into consideration the time lost while traveling through the tunnel.

As long as the tunnel isn't too long.

Dash groaned and stretched her wings out, feeling the tip of one brush the tunnel wall. Thinking she could do that to keep herself moving straight, she set out into the tunnel at a slow trot.

Her stiff, tired wing quickly cramped in the strange position, but she discovered that she could feel the angle of the crossties as she stepped on them. That, and the echoes of her hoofsteps, was enough of a guide.

Urgency still rising inside her, she folded her wings back to rest them and closed her eyes. Blocking out the horrible thought of running into another wall, Dash set off into the darkness at a full gallop.

———

There was no sound in the cool, dusty, soot-flavored air but that which she made: the echoing thunder of her hoofbeats, the steady whoosh of her panting breath, the strained thudding of her heart. At first she tried to figure how far she'd gone and how much farther she'd likely have to go, but the monotony of it soon emptied her mind of all conscious thought. She just ran.

Alone in the dark, under who-knew-how-much rock and earth, she galloped onward into the endless echoes for what seemed like hours.

———

Dash was blasted by the storm before she was even aware of the change in sound and temperature near the end of the tunnel. In an instant, her wings sprang open, and she shot directly up into the rain, eyes still closed, the drops beating harshly against her face. Never had she been so relieved to be flying!

She slowed to a hover and relished in the rough sensation of wind and rain. The storm was every bit as harsh as before—perhaps even more so—but it was alive and changing. The mere thought of having to traverse that unending, unchanging tunnel again made Dash's hide crawl, and she realized just how much it had affected her. It wasn't exactly scary, but—I never want to have to do that again. Ever.

Opening her eyes into a squint against the rain, she carefully descended to find the tracks once more. The tunnel mouth was a black arch against the lesser black of the storm. She wanted nothing more than to turn her back to it and fly—and fly she did, all the faster for having that dark maw behind her.

———

After another hour or so of flying through the storm, the sight of the work crew's lights ahead brought a cry of relief unbidden to Dash's lips. She shot downward through buffeting winds to land hard, stumbling and splashing in thick sucking mud, rearing up to free her hooves directly in front of their single car-less engine. The train's bright floodlights behind her illuminated the scene of the disaster and the team's efforts to clear it.

The six-pony team, two unicorns levitating rocks and four earth ponies shoving piles of muddy soil, turned at the splash of her landing and sudden looming shadow. They were shocked to see the silhouette of a rearing pegasus, outlined in a halo of floodlights and sparkling rain—wings spread wide, prismatic mane blowing in the wind, majestic.

Her balance regained after the rough landing, Dash closed her wings and made her squelching way through the thick mud towards the closest worker, unaware of the shocked expression on his face. No longer in flight, her goggles had beaded up with water, and she had to remove them to see clearly. By that time, her target had recovered from his momentary belief in the supernatural and was moving to meet her halfway.

Despite the buckets of water hitting them, all six were so covered in thick, clingy mud that she couldn't even tell the colors of their hides, and exhaustion had etched lines in their soiled faces. Dash's greeter glanced at her uniform and nodded, raising his voice over the storm. "A Wonderbolt! No wonder. No normal pegasus could fly in this weather."

Dash opened her mouth to explain that she wasn't a full Wonderbolt but quickly decided this wasn't the time to nitpick. He asked her, "Where did you fly in from?"

"Manehatten station."

"All the way from Manehatten in this storm?" he exclaimed. "Celestia! I knew you Wonderbolts were good but... Color me impressed!"

"Right now all I can color you is brown," she quipped, nodding at his muddy coat.

Glancing at himself and the mud streaming down his flanks, he laughed shakily. "Not a bad color—I rather prefer it over my usual orange. More somber and dignified. If, as it is in this case, temporary."

Feeling they were straying from the task at hoof—though probably even more relieved to be having a conversation after so much time alone in the storm and the tunnel—Dash got down to business. "So how bad is it? Can we get it clear before the train arrives?"

"Train? They haven't stopped it already?" Shocked, he turned and galloped ahead over the mud and rocks to the far side of the slide, Dash taking a flying leap after him.

The tracks ran between two hills, one of which had collapsed, covering the rails with mud and rock. Beyond the far end of the mudslide, the tracks continued across the gorge on a wooden bridge. It was to either side of the bridge that the work crew directed all the debris that they cleared, spilling it into the gorge below. The mudslide even covered part the bridge itself, earth and stone spread over the wooden boards and iron rails.

The once-orange, now-brown workpony jumped down from the muddy pile onto the bridge and carefully trotted out beyond the end of the debris. He straddled the rails—front hooves on one side, rear hooves on the other—and held perfectly still, concentrating.

The pounding rain, lit by the engine's harsh lights, gave everything odd, flickering highlights. Even standing still, he seemed to be wreathed in motion, a shimmering halo of glistening raindrop splashes.

Dash waited at the edge of the bridge until he turned to her with a haunted expression. "Why didn't they signal the train to stop when we reported the blockage?" he demanded angrily.

She took a half step back at his intensity. "They couldn't! The telegraph lines are down."

He waved a hoof at the pole nearest them, the last on this side of the gorge before the line ran under the bridge to the other side. "It's intact and working perfectly! The slide didn't touch it. We used it to report our progress, even."

"Well..." She was unsure of how to answer that, not being all that knowledgeable about it. "Maybe there's a break further south."

He was quiet for a moment then admitted, "Yeah, that's possible. Likely, even, in this weather." He got agitated again. "But they have to be stopped! It's going to take days to clear these tracks."

"Days? I've gotta get to that train!"

"Fly fast, Wonderbolt." He clanged the rail with his hoof. "They aren't far at all!"

Dash nodded, lowered her goggles once more, and shot out over the narrow bridge.

The gorge was wide and deep and filled with dark, churning fog, and the bridge that spanned it was long and narrow. The wind was harsh above the bridge, but the gorge provided enough protection that the fog within it wasn't even disturbed. As she flew over it, she suddenly had a strange, surreal feeling, as if the train tracks below her were laid upon a thundercloud, unsupported and carrying only spectral cargo through the skies.

She shook the image from her head, wet strands of hair from her mane slapping her cheeks. Head down, she was soon racing along the tracks on the other side of the gorge.

———

She saw the train's headlights round a curve before she heard its engine over the storm, pulling up just as it barreled under her at full speed.

"What are they trying to do? Outrun the storm? They're in it!" She banked hard and reversed course, matching the speed of the train and coming in low towards the engine.

The engineer jumped so hard he hit his head on the roof of the cab as a sodden mass of feathers and hair slammed into the deck behind him, yelling, "Stop the train!"

Dash ripped the goggles from her face and squinted into the light of the boiler's firebox, her eyes unaccustomed to the brightness after so much time spent in stormy darkness. She cast about for the engineer and found him huddled in the corner, shaking and staring at her in fear.

"You've got to stop the train!" Dash shouted over the dual noise of engine and storm. Her rainbow-hued mane and tail swirled about her in the strong eddies of wind, her features lit only by the orange glow of the firebox. He stared at her, trembling.

Dash advanced, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. "The track is blocked! Stop the train!"

"B-b-blocked?" he stammered, wide-eyed.

"We. Are. Going. To. Crash! Stop the train!"

Something of what she'd said finally seemed to sink into his head, and his eyes opened even wider—which she would have thought impossible. He scrambled to all fours and scampered over to the banks of levers, gauges, and knobs. Losing his hat in his haste, he began rapidly working the controls with expert speed. Finally he moved to a large lever on one side of the cab, squeezed the clutch, and hauled back on it hard.

Dash was thrown forward by the suddenness of the train's deceleration. Her shoulder banged into the firebox door, its hot metal instantly turning the soaked fabric into steam and ash. She rolled away, but not before the heat penetrated deep into her hide. It didn't hurt, but, as she glanced at the angry red burn, she knew it would soon enough.

The train shuddered and shook as the wet brakes squealed like banshees, cutting through the rattle of the wheels and the howling of the winds, setting her teeth on edge. She found what purchase she could on the rough metal floor to prevent being tossed from the cab by the strained bucking of the train.

Rain-soaked hillsides flashed past in the lights of the train—then vanished.

We're on the bridge!

She pulled herself up from the floor and thrust her head out the side window, peering into the darkness ahead. There was nothing to see, nothing even to judge their speed. She couldn't see the tracks from here, and nothing else surrounded the train but cloud and rain and darkness. The echoing squeals of the brakes seemed unending.

With nothing to see, Dash closed her eyes.

———

4,855 views

408

Previous Chapters Next