Mortal Coil

by Reeve

XVII - Debrief

Feather Duster was clearly trying very hard not to be followed, taking the most circuitous route to his destination. Taking sharp, unexpected turns and constantly trying to mingle and lose himself in crowds. Unfortunately for him, I was pretty determined not to let him out of my sight, and the fact that I was still wearing the guard armour and had a certain look of determination about me, nopony dared stand in my way. I seemed to be getting pretty good at the whole spy thing already, whenever Feather Duster made to turn around I would quickly put on my helmet and stand still as if I were simply on guard duty.

We travelled all around the Merchant District, at one point I saw him noticeably knock into another pony, I could just picture something passing between the two of them as they did… or it might have been a clumsy accident brought on from him constantly glancing around rather than looking where he was going. As we exited the Merchant District and began traversing the Home District, I hoped he was nearing his destination, the streets here were less crowded and the number of guards fewer, my presence was less subtle and I feared I would get caught out soon.

Ever since I had started following him I wondered to myself what he was doing back here, he was supposed to have been on the way back to Equestria by now; he even said they would be leaving the day after our caravan departed from Daybreak. Something was definitely up here, if his behaviour wasn’t suspicious enough to someone who was paying attention to him, I knew who he was and that his mere presence raised many questions. The Siren had sailed to Daybreak Landing specifically because Panchea-Equestria relationships were rocky, Hammerhead had made us promise not to say who had aided him and his men for the same reasons, and yet now Feather Duster was here in Mule, the last place an Equestrian citizen would want to be caught in.

I was dragged back to the present when Feather Duster finally stopped outside a random house, and quick as lightning he dashed inside. If I had taken my eyes off him for even a second I might have missed it and thought he had run further down the street. The house was nothing special, a small two story apartment, clearly quite cheap by the look of it, the kind of abode that got rented out to sailors spending the night in town before setting off the next day. The curtains were all shut, making it impossible to see in even as I casually walked past the house and gave a nonchalant glance its way. I stopped beside the front door; there was no window in it so I wasn’t at risk of being seen. Removing my helmet I pressed my ear up against the door, I could hear muffled sounds coming from within, but the door was just too thick to make anything out.

For a brief second I considered putting my helmet back on and knocking on the door… or maybe kicking it in, I could pretend it was a raid. Before I made any rash decisions however, I remembered the vital documents stuffed down my breastplate that I was supposed to be returning to Maverick down at the harbour. As much as I wanted to know why Feather Duster was in Mule when he was supposed to be half way back to Equestria, I decided to leave it for another day. Turning away from the house I began making my way to the Harbour District, my thoughts never leaving Feather Duster or the house he was now hiding in.

As I arrived at the water’s edge, still with some distance to go before I arrived at the barge, I made my way under a nearby jetty where I began taking off Liberator armour. Once I had it all removed and piled up beside me, I began taking each individual document and blueprint, flattening them before folding them properly and storing them away in my satchel. I then turned to the armour, I didn’t trust leaving it here in case somepony came across it and it raised some awkward questions, so using my magic I lifted each piece up and levitated them out over the water surface before dropping them and allowing them to sink.

Making sure I wouldn’t be spotted, I climbed back onto the jetty and started making my way along the harbour to the where the barge was waiting for me. This time I spotted the red barge before I saw Stranglethorn sitting at the base of the gangplank, puffing on a pipe. He didn’t glance my way as I walked up towards him; no doubt he had again seen me long before I saw him. Once I reached him however, he gave me a small nod in greeting.

“I’m, uh… done,” I informed him, unsure if there was some kind of lingo I should use.

Again he nodded, taking his pipe out and adding some ground up herbs into the chamber before offering it to me.

“Um, no thanks,” I said as polite as I could manage. “I don’t smoke.”

“It’s not tobacco,” Sufferthorn said, appearing once again at the top of the gangplank. “Those are special herbs; they calm you down and help focus your senses. Good to smoke a little before and after a job. Now get in here before you draw too much attention our way.”

She strode away into the cabin, leaving me and Stranglethorn where we were. As I looked back down I saw that he was still holding it my way, his expression still as passive as ever.

“It’s okay, maybe next time,” I told him.

He gave me another nod, while it was no different from the previous nods he had given me this one felt like it was conveying approval. He put the pipe in his own mouth before standing up and gesturing with a foreleg for me to lead the way. Walking up the gangplank I made my way over to the cabin door which was still open from when Sufferthorn went in, Stranglethorn remained a few feet behind me, moving silently.

Once inside I found Maverick sitting waiting for me, Sufferthorn at his side. One looked pleased to see me, the other less so, no prizes for guessing which. I took the seat opposite Maverick without waiting to be invited, which only seemed to make him smile wider. Stranglethorn came and stood at my shoulder, mirroring his sister.

“Welcome back,” Maverick greeted in his usual sickly sweet voice. “You’ve caused quite the stir, although Typhoon is keeping very quiet about what has actually happened, whatever you did must have really worried him.”

“Well I got the information you wanted,” I explained. “I had hoped to make copies of it so he wouldn’t know it had been stolen, but some things happened and I wasn’t left with much time to get out and back here.”

“Of course, you got the information and that’s the main thing,” Maverick assured me. “After all this was only your first mission, we can’t expect absolute perfection.”

“You took a little longer than we expected,” Sufferthorn told me in a calm voice, only the slightest hint of scorn. “After the guard were put on high alert we figured that if you were coming back at all it would be soon after that, did you make a detour or something?”

“I didn’t want to come straight here,” I explained, I had already decided ahead of time I wasn’t going to tell them about feather Duster until I knew more about why he was here myself. “I didn’t want anyone tailing me back here so I took a longer route to throw any would be stalkers off.”

“The mare’s a natural!” Maverick declared, laughing slight while Sufferthorn simply quirked her eyebrows. “Now Rarity, let’s debrief you, tell us everything that occurred from the moment you left this morning.”

“Don’t leave anything out,” Sufferthorn warned. “We’ll be using this to gauge your performance and how useful you’ll be to us in the future.”

I told them every little detail, from how I got passed the front gates to stealing the keys, getting a disguise from the armoury and finally getting rid of Typhoon from his office. By the time I had reached that part Maverick was looking ecstatic and even Sufferthorn seemed impressed, although she clearly didn’t want to express it.

“Most brilliant,” Maverick complimented. “So that was the point you found the information?”

“It wasn’t as easy as just lifting the documents off his desk,” I explained. “It was completely by accident that I discovered a secret safe where it was all stashed away inside. I looked over it just to make sure it was the right stuff, and I’m afraid to say that…”

I pulled all the files and documents from my bag and began laying them out over the table between us.

“This is a lot worse than you might have realised,” I finished as I opened the second blueprint I had stolen and laid it out for all three to see.

Maverick’s smile vanished and the colour drained from his face as he looked down at the design, Sufferthorn’s eyes widened in shock, only Stranglethorn remained calm at what I had shown them. I had stolen two blueprints, one showing the entire fortress; including the massive underground complex that nopony had been aware of, the second showed what Typhoon was having built down there.

“It’s called the Dreadnaught,” I explained, having learnt as much from the various documents I had taken. “All the information is in that blueprint and those files, it’s a huge ship that can fly through the air and can carry the Liberators army and siege weapons straight over the ocean and Equestria to Canterlot itself in a mere week.”

“Impossible,” Sufferthorn breathed.

“Siege weapons?” Maverick repeated, looking up at me.

“Apparently the Dreadnaught isn’t the only thing they’ve been working on, although it is the main one,” I continued. “From what I was able to read in the brief time I had, they’ve been taking the same technology that they’re using to make the Dreadnaught and are applying it to conventional siege weapons such as ballistae and catapults. It’s all being built beneath the Fort, and the modifications they’ve been making on the Fort itself are all designed so that it can open up and allow the Dreadnaught to rise out of the ground.”

“This is insane,” Sufferthorn said, looking through the documents to confirm what I was saying. “How is it possible for them to make such leaps in technology in such a short space of time?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “There might be something I overlooked in those papers, now that you have them you have all the time in the world to read over them and figure out exactly what we’re up against.”

“I always thought Typhoon was mad,” Maverick said, still staring at the diagram of the airship in both fear and awe. “But with this kind of arsenal at his disposal he might actually pose a real threat to Equestria.”

“You’re not going to side with him now that you think he’ll win are you?!” I exclaimed in disgust.

“Of course not!” Maverick replied indignantly. “I’m saying the opposite; we need to put a stop to this before he puts his plans into action.”

“With these plans for the fort we might be able to organise a sabotage mission,” Sufferthorn suggested, bringing the fort blueprints to the top of the pile. “This underground facility seems to cut into the city sewers. Strangle, do you think you can head down there and look for a weak point we can enter through?”

Stranglethorn nodded and within a second he was gone and the cabin door was closed again.

“Is there anything you need me to do?” I asked, leaning forward while Maverick and Sufferthorn began busying themselves with the documents.

“You’ve done more than enough,” Maverick told me. “Seriously, you did an amazing job. You can head down below the deck and get some rest or go outside, although keep your head down if you do that. When we know what our next move is we’ll let you know.”

“I’ll head out for a bit then,” I replied, standing up and making my way over to the door.

Once outside I let out a long, shaky breath. It wasn’t even late afternoon and I was already exhausted from the day’s events, the idea of going below deck for some sleep was tempting but I needed some food first. As I made my way out of the Harbour District on a quest to find a café and the left over adrenaline drained from my system, the fear began to return, the same fear I had felt when I was in Typhoon’s office looking at the diagram of the Dreadnaught for the first time.

The Liberators were intent on conquering Equestria, and if those documents were anything to go by, very soon they would have the means to do so. That airship would travel over the sea and the mainland of Equestria and be at Canterlot before anypony could try and stop it, and then war would be brought to Equestria’s doorstep. Maybe they would win, maybe they would lose, the only thing that mattered is that hundreds, maybe thousands of ponies would die in the conflict, and my family could be among them.

I knew if Maverick asked me to help stop the Dreadnaught, that I wouldn’t hesitate in doing so, but I wouldn’t be doing it because I hated the Liberators or because I was loyal to the Rebellion. I would help destroy that flying monstrosity because I would do the same to anything that posed a threat to my family, simple as that.

I wasted as much time in town as possible, nervously anticipating my next summons and lowering my head to my plate any time a patrol of guards passed by the café I was sitting at. The summons however did not come, so after a couple hours when I could no longer make excuses to keep using a table I made my way back through town to the harbour. It turned out that I had greatly underestimated the time it took to put together a mission of this sort, I should have known better than to think it would be something spontaneous and by extension reckless.

Maverick, Sufferthorn and Stranglethorn were all busy around the table when I entered, going over the different documents, scribbling notes and arrows over the maps and arguing over approaches. The former two leapt up briefly when I entered but relaxed when they saw it was only myself, seeing that they were busy I decided to make myself scarce and take up Maverick’s earlier offer of getting some rest below deck. It was hard to sleep what with the muffled voices over my head and the loud one inside, but eventually I was able to drift off and the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake.

It was a little bit disorienting to wake up and the first thing you see is the face of a professional killer, but what with everything that had happened in my time here, I was beginning to take those sorts of things in my stride. Obviously he didn’t say anything, but his eyes looked directly into mine before flicking briefly up at the ceiling. I knew what he was indicating, so as he backed off I stood up and began getting ready. Stranglethorn went ahead up the ladder while I threw on the rest of my clothes and strapped on my satchels.

As I went to follow him, I opted to carry my weapons behind me rather than equip them in case this mission too required a more subtle approach. Once I was in the cabin I found everypony in the same places they were in last night, but this time without the frantic planning or discussions. Maverick was looking over some things when I approached the desk, but Sufferthorn glanced up at me from where she was leaning.

“Have you got a plan?” I asked, trying to be civil towards her.

“We do, but you needn’t concern yourself with it,” she replied before turning her attention back to the desk. “You can go back to bed if you want.”

“What?!” I exclaimed. “No, I want in on this mission.”

Both of them looked up at me in surprise, although Sufferthorn looked more annoyed than anything.

“Look Rarity,” she snapped back. “You did great yesterday, I’ll admit that, but when we sent you in there we had no idea the Liberator situation had escalated this much. This mission is far too important to entrust to a rookie, capable as you may appear.”

“I can help,” I insisted. “I want to help.”

“There will be other missions in the future, but right now you need to…” Sufferthorn began before stopping midsentence.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion, following Sufferthorn’s gaze over my shoulder at Stranglethorn who had moved and was now leaning up against the door. He was giving his sister a look, not any look in particular but it seemed to mean something to her judging by what she said next.

“Are you serious?!” she exclaimed. “You think we should let her help with this one?”

I opened my mouth to question how she got all that from one blank look, but the smarter part of my brain told me to shut up and let him help me. Stranglethorn gave her another look which she examined silently for a moment before continuing.

“Are you serious?” she said again, but this time the edge had left her voice. “Well… I guess if you really believe that, then it changes matters.”

Stranglethorn nodded once and his sister gave a slightly frustrated sigh before looking back up at me.

“It looks like you have Strangle’s vote of confidence,” she told me. “So you really want to help with this one? Then sit down, shut up and listen, we don’t have a lot of time to get you up to speed and you are not going into this unless you are one hundred percent clear on what the plan is.”