19: Shout
Light Despondent Remixed
Chapter 19
Shout
In violent times
You shouldn't have to sell your soul
In black and white
They really really ought to know
Those one-track minds
That took you for a working boy
Kiss them goodbye
You shouldn't have to jump for joy
You shouldn't have to jump for joy
Shout
Shout
Let it all out
Tears for Fears, Shout
“I will use you, or anything else I can, to achieve my mission.”
Captain Gabriel Lorca, Star Trek: Discovery - “Context is for Kings”.
Kraber
They were all staring at him now. Hoppy was frowning, the look of every bartender in the world when trouble was brewing in their establishment. Other ponies and humans had turned as well, every one of them looking right at Kraber.
He turned in his seat to look at the speaker. It was a blue, shaven headed Pegasus mare in EAV Marine fatigues, a scowl on her face as she looked at him. Her wings were flared up.
Pegasus adrenaline response. The thought struck deep in Kraber’s mind, and he shifted in his seat, half ready for her to jump on him. He was already thinking of the best targets: Pegasus bones were lighter than most ponies - breaking her legs or wings (or neck) would probably be simpler.
Then he caught himself. No. No, we shouldn’t - we’re not -
“Well?” she asked. “Cat got the famous tongue of Viktor Kraber? No quips? No excuses? No dumb pop-culture references? You’re not going to say ‘but for me, it was Tuesday’ or make a joke about how that doesn’t even narrow it down?”
That last one especially hurt. Because Kraber’s first instinct actually had been to make a joke about that, but she’d beaten him to it.
Dear Die-ary. I’m beginning to think maybe, just maybe, something is really wrong with me, Kraber thought distantly.
“Come on,” the mare growled. “Bucking come on. Say something, you bucking asshole.”
“Cindy,” Hoppy said from behind Kraber, “maybe you should -”
“Should what?” ‘Cindy’ said. “I’m sure Viktor Kraber will say something fucking hilarious in a minute to make us all forget who the fuck he is, right?” There was something in her tone that felt like she wasn’t just talking about Prisma and Louis now. “Hey, maybe he’ll make a joke about dogs, or reference some fucking movie with that Obi-Wan guy getting stoned! Oh, I forgot! He likes dogs more than people, he’d never hurt a ‘pupper’, so I guess he’s alright now and we can just forget who he is, what he’s done, what he did to Louis and Prisma the fucking second our backs were turned!”
She turned to look at the crowd in the bar, none of whom looked comfortable about what she was saying.
“Hey, they didn’t find her right?” ‘Cindy’ asked. “Maybe when they do we’ll find her eyes gouged out and her hooves missing, with the words ‘you’re fokking welcome’ carved into her bucking flank, huh?” She turned back to Kraber. “That about right? Or maybe, just maybe, you just scalped her and unmarked her like you did that family at Point Echo.”
That had been years ago, now, but Kraber remembered. He remembered the look of terror and helplessness in the eyes of the father as he watched his daughter die, the blood spilling from her throat. She couldn’t have been older than twelve. Maybe younger, it was hard to tell with ponies. The mother had screamed, kicked, screeched, even as he stuck the dagger into her throat. She’d head butted him so hard he’d cracked a rib as he held her. Lovikov had laughed, said to keep her scalp on a wall as a trophy and a memento ‘of how much spirit she’d shown’. Bastard probably still had it somewhere.
The father… Kraber could see his eyes now. Staring at Kraber with the same haunted look Kraber had seen in the mirror a million times. He had done that to that father. If he hadn’t gutted him there and then, that stallion might have come after him with the same vengeance he’d had towards Pinkie Pie.
Kraber could feel it sinking in, now. The hollowness of himself, his cause, everything he had been and done for years. His everything. Why had he killed that family, and spared another? What had made that father, that mother, that daughter, worthy of death, and the other worthy of sparing? Would he ever really know?
‘Cindy’ wasn’t done. If anything, Kraber not speaking was just galvanising her.
“Am I the only one who notices how phenomenally INSANE we’re being right now?!” she asked the crowd. “Doesn’t anyone else notice how this is a bad idea?! Am I crazy?!”
A hand went on Kraber’s shoulder. The man who’d been next to him looked suddenly sober and serious.
“Walk away,” he whispered. “I mean it. You’re going to kill her if she keeps going.”
Later, Kraber would think that the first thought Kraber should have had ought to have been something along the lines of ‘she’s the one shouting, and you’re worried about her safety?’
But of course, he didn’t think that. It never even crossed his mind.
I am?
It took him a moment to realise. Oh fok. He’s not actually wrong. How many people have I killed in moments just like this?
Then he realised something else. The mare talking to him like this was a Pony. She knew the reputation. She obviously knew the reputation. She was spouting off every major trait he was known for, referencing things he hadn’t just done, but been proud of.
She expects me to kill her, he realised. And in that moment, everything he was crystallised. Everything he was, had done, could do, everything that he had become and built himself up to be, crystallised into a single realisation.
They’re waiting for the moment where I go off the rails, he thought. They’ve read what I’ve done, they’ve heard the stories. Are they all scared?
Why the fok shouldn’t they be? Wouldn’t I be, some maniac with a penchant for scalping people, gouging eyes out, murdering everyone who looks at me funny, starts working with them on their ship full of fokkin’ guns and crazy shit? Surprised no one’s fokkin’ lynched me.
He hadn’t noticed until now, but ‘Cindy’ was crying. Maybe she had been from the moment she’d started speaking. Maybe he’d seen what he wanted to see when he’d seen the scowling: an angry gluestick that he had to be ready to kill take down.
“Aren’t you going to say anything, you bucking coward?” ‘Cindy’ asked, her tears spilling even as she grinned almost ferally. “Nothing at all? What the buck is your defense going to be? I definitely committed all those documented atrocities, but I definitely didn’t kill these two when I was the only witness?!”
Kraber picking up his drink and downed it. “Yeah.”
He stood up. ‘Cindy’ flapped her wings once, bringing herself to matching height, and hovered there. For a moment, he met her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
‘Cindy’ blinked. Her eyes widened in what might have been shock, or horror, or a dozen other emotions.
“You’re right,” Kraber said after a moment. “I did a metric fok-ton of horrible things. It’d be pretty in keeping if I had done something to Prisma.”
“But you didn’t,” Hoppy said from behind him. “Right?”
There was a plea in his tone. Kraber suddenly realised that every one of the ponies, especially, was staring at him apprehensively.
Wouldn’t you? a small voice asked him.
“No,” Kraber finally said. “I tried to save her. I just failed.” He sat down, not caring that ‘Cindy’ was now looming over him. “I think… I think I don’t wanna be ‘in keeping’ with myself. Not the guy you’re talking about.” The father’s eyes, staring with that dead look that promises revenge for every last thing. “Never again.”
There was a moment of silence. Kraber closed his eyes. Then he felt something smack against his cheek, warm and wet. He opened his eyes, reached a hand up - spit.
‘Cindy’ was trotting out.
“I don’t know what the fuck you did to convince the Captain,” she said over her shoulder, “but you’re running out of time.”
There was a collective moment of tense silence, and then Kraber sighed, turning back to the bar.
“Can I get a cloth?” he asked Hoppy.
“Sure,” Hoppy replied. He grabbed a washcloth and gave it to Kraber, a sympathetic smile on his face. “Sorry about her.”
“Don’t be,” Kraber said. “You know who I am. You probably know better than me. I’ve let myself fokkin’ forget.” He chuckled weakly. “Frankly, I’m surprised ponies or people who think like her haven’t shivved me in my sleep.”
“Christ,” one human said. “Don’t tempt fate like that.”
“I reckon they know what Strike or the Captain would do if they did,” Hoppy replied. “We’ve had vigilante justice in EAV before. Never ends well for anyone.”
Kraber had made the decision that he loved Romero’s office. It reminded him of a pub-
”How predictable,” Verity sighed.
“Hou jou bek.”
-he and his old college friends had frequented. Allegedly due to the owner foreseeing that it would be nostalgic soon enough, it’d hadn’t been redecorated since the eighties, so it’d gone from trendy, to slightly-out-of step, to a dinosaur, to trendy again. So there was a sort of timeless feel to it, a sort of… jaded tranquility.
Romero’s cabin felt similar, in a way. He’d decorated it with several paintings, or facsimiles of paintings. One or two obvious ones. One or two battle scenes. One or two that looked more modern. One facsimile (or at least Viktor hoped it was a facsimile) of Van Gogh’s ‘self-portrait with bandaged ear’.
And there was a comfy couch sitting in one corner, as if to observe it all.
“You de-escalated,” Romero said, sounding as if he couldn’t quite believe the words coming from his mouth. “You de-escalated.”
“You don’t have to sound that surprised,” Kraber muttered, even though he was frankly still surprised at himself.
“It’s not just surprise, it’s happiness,” Romero said. “I’m glad. It’s a sign of progress.”
“What’s the point?” Kraber asked, staring at Romero’s spare tablet. Romero had recommended some article before the upcoming meeting, but Kraber hadn’t looked it over yet. “It failed anyway.”
“It’s still a huge step forward for you,” Romero said.
“Didn’t feel like one,” Kraber said. “Besides… she had a right to be scared of me. They all do. Not six months ago I was murdering people just for looking at me funny.”
“Try not two months ago,” Lucky Strike muttered.
“So in the end,” Kraber said, “The problem is optics.”
“This is rich,” Lucky Strike said, “Coming from you.”
“But am I wrong?” Kraber asked.
“No,” Romero allowed. “I suppose you’re not.”
“You said it yourself,” Kraber said. “The Front has a serious image problem that is mostly my fault.”
He switched to another article. It was titled:
A Nervous Energy
By Lewis Hauser
"The election of President Jack B. Davis was a watershed moment in the American political system. The country - in fact, the world at large - breathed a sigh of relief as republican frontrunner Donald Trump lost the election. Some, such as Dreher, identify it as a crippling blow to American conservatives, as the bloc once so united in opposition to president Barack Obama found itself losing its momentum. It's surmised that without the emergence of Equestria, he could never have been elected. While the other two candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump, were too entrenched in the political strategies they'd formulated years before, Davis focused heavily on outreach and a plan to welcome the new arrivals. Various political theorists have cited Davis' election as a blow to fascism... but neither Davis nor the Conversion War ended the division facing America. At the date of publication, this division is reaching a fever pitch, liable to cause a dangerous blowout in the next two years...
“...For all your faults,” Lucky Strike said, “You’re not directly responsible for all of it.”
“Isit?” Kraber asked, raising an eyebrow. “Could’ve fooled half the ship.”
“Hey,” Lucky Strike said, “That’s still a step in the right direction.”
Kraber grumbled. “If you insist. Why am I here again?”
“Among other reasons?” Romero retorted. “Because your word may yet carry some weight in Defiance.”
“I’ve been pretending to be dead for awhile and working with you,” Kraber said. “I doubt that. There are people there who would stab you in the front as soon as look at you. I’d know, I am one of those people.”
“But not everyone,” Romero said. “An entire town, along with their agents in the North Country, can’t be so irredeemable as to be a complete write-off to everyone. I believe that, if you understand our positions, not only could this benefit you… but you could serve as an intermediary, eventually. Pull part of Defiance’s base out from under Lovikov, and save us from having the U.S government use it as a stepping stone to crush us.”
Kraber looked up from the article. Stared at him for a few seconds.
“Are you just making this shit up as you go along?” he finally asked.
“Excuse me?” Romero asked, a note of irritation in his voice.
“I feel like every time we talk, you’re revealing some new plan or some new way to turn things to your advantage,” Kraber said. “Fok, how do you keep all this straight without having an aneurysm?”
“How did you manage to go through medical school, be an actor, star in a film, learn how to ski, and be a father over the course of about four years?” Lucky Strike asked.
Kraber opened his mouth to reto-
“…Touche,” he admitted. “But for the original point. It’s entirely possible I had some of the hydroponic ganja that totally isn’t allowed on the ship, but did you just ask me to conduct negotiations? Do you know what happened last time I had to settle a hostage negotiation?!”
“It was excellent marksmanship,” Romero admitted. “And I’ll admit. I wish to heaven I had Spader or even the good Reverend to help me out here. But you’re what we have, and you’ve got one key advantage. You know these people.”
“Bold of you to assume that knowing them is the same as being able to make a difference,” Kraber said.
“And bold of you to assume that just because I only just told you a plan that means I only just came up with it,” Romero retorted. “Frankly, and forgive me if this sounds cold, but it’s an old plan - I’m just replacing men like Kerkonen in it with you.”
“I think that’s a fokkin’ dof idea, sir,” Kraber said.
Romero’s eyes narrowed. “It’s what we have, Viktor, and-”
“Captain,” Lucky Strike said. “Even if that was insubordination-”
(I mean, it probably is, Kraber thought, but what the fok is my rank, anyway?)
“-he’s not wrong about how that at least sounds,” Lucky Strike said. “But he’s wrong about the goal. We’re not trying to bring people like in, we’re trying to subsume people like you and bring you around to our goals.”
Romero nodded. “Quite right.”
There was a pause.
“Have you finished that article?” Romero asked.
Kraber nodded. It’d been a fairly interesting read.
“That,” Lucky Strike said, “Is what this meeting is about. Romero gave you the, ah… ‘ pointless, stupid war, against the stupid leading the insane or the desperate’ line, didn’t he?”
“Aweh,” Kraber said.
“I may not like it. But you’re the ship’s foremost expert on Lovikov,” Lucky Strike said. “I’m guessing we don’t need to reiterate the same points - we already know them. So tell me: Do you honestly, genuinely believe Lovikov would wage war on humanity?”
“Well-” Kraber started.
The words died in his throat.
First, he’d wanted to say yes. Then he’d second-guessed himself. Then…
“He absolutely would, if Portland is any indication,” Kraber said.
“What about some of his contemporaries? Galt, for example?”
Kraber snorted. “Who even fokking knows what Galt will do? He’d gas a town of innocents if he thought it’d gain him something down the line.”
“Then the situation is dire. We need to take the legs out from under this movement, and you’re our best chance to do it,” Romero said. “And you’re frankly higher profile than most men from the other side of the Split that I’ve worked with.”
“Wait, if it’s an old plan, why didn’t you implement it before?”
“Because he thought you would be there, and kill our guys,” Lucky Strike said pointedly. “That doesn’t seem to be a problem now. Unless you got cloned.”
“God save us,” Romero muttered. “That would be… awkward as hell.”
“You’re telling me,” Kraber said, eyes wide. “You’ve seen my fokkin’ self-loathing issues. Imagine I had someone to take them out on who was actually me!”
“...That’s why he gets to oversee the summit?” one other guard was asking. His nameplate read ‘KAMINSKY.’ He was wearing a helmet with a transparent faceplate, exposing a handsome, sharp-featured face with a thick mustache and spectacles.
Kraber had seen him at the synagogue on the Challenger. He hadn’t been happy about seeing him there before, and it didn’t look like he would change his mind anytime soon.
“He’s heard the whole explanation twice,” Lucky Strike said. “So…”
She sounded just as annoyed as KAMINSKY. Kraber had looked Kaminsky over, and he’d known - immediately - that Kaminsky hated him and wanted him off the ship, dead or alive.
He’d been very subtle about it, though. Maybe it was Kraber’s knowledge of body language. His ability to read people’s tones.
Or maybe it was the fact that Kraber had been in the mess hall, eating crabcakes, and heard Kaminsky saying “I hate that bastard and want him off the ship, dead or alive.”
Could’ve been anything, really.
“...Yes,” she said. “Yes, he does.”
“Fine,” Kaminsky said. “But you do anything funny, anything at all, and I swear to God-”
“He’s in the middle of an HLF summit, surrounded by the most important leaders, one of whom carries around a particle gun,” Romero said.
“Besides, nobody could be that stupid,” Lucky Strike said. “Right, Kraber?”
There was a dangerous edge in her voice.
“...Right,” Kraber said.
I never know how to feel around her.
Romero and Kraber were heading for Conference Room Two, which, according to Romero, was ‘one of my personal best’. Kraber didn’t know who was onboard, but it had to be impressive if Romero was putting on a show.
Before they reached the door, Romero stopped.
“Put this on,” he instructed Kraber, handing him a gas mask from the wall.
Kraber looked down at it. “Why?”
Romero rolled his eyes. “Because we’re going to a meeting with a cadre of elite HLF officers and staff from the Spader loyalist side, and I don’t want them knowing you’re onboard.”
“What, you ashamed of me, Dan?” Kraber asked with a smirk.
Kaminsky grumbled.
“First name basis after a week?” Heliotrope asks.
“It was just a couple of times, I haven’t really spoken to him much since,” Kraber replies. “Sometimes, we squad up to play Apex, but…”
“Is that the guy that keeps playing Lifeline?” Soarin’ asks.
“Yeah,” Yael says. “Granted, sometimes I do that.”
Romero rolled his eyes. “Kraber, just do as I ask, please? There’s enough at stake without us having awkward questions from people I respect and have to work with. There’s a voice modulator in there that should make you… less recognizable, at the very least.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t just muzzle me,” Kraber said.
“Don’t tempt me,” Kaminsky grumbled. “I’m begging you, Cap. Let me do it.”
“That would be counterproductive for a number of reasons,” Romero said. “I know I can’t stop you from talking. Just don’t do it too much, the modulator might…”
“Crap out?” Kraber asked.
“Exactly,” Romero nodded.
Kraber sighed. “Fine. Just so you know, though, I’m not fokkin’ cool with this. My face is my best feature.”
“On that,” Kaminsky said, “We agree at least.”
“Have you seen my cheekbones?”
“They’re alright.” Romero snorted. “Whatever you say, Kraber.”
“Alright?!” Kraber sighed. “Philistines.”
Kraber slipped the mask on, and the two of them walked into the conference room… and Kraber felt a weight in the pit of his stomach.
Sitting around the conference table were a few of the most famous (or infamous, depending on your opinion) members of the Spader-Loyalist HLF. Maximilian Yarrow himself was sat there: shaven headed, bearded, tattooed, a long green overcoat slung over a tank top and cargo trousers. Next to him was stood a blonde haired woman in bulky Armacham-labelled battle armour, a heavy assault rifle that looked suspiciously like some kind of modified ATC laser rifle in her hands. Lucky Strike was there, too, a frown on her face. There were others, too - most of them in Armacham armour, either labeled with Spader’s old ‘1st Skirmishers’ logo, or else daubed in a variety of runic symbols that looked Norse. There were others, too, that Kraber didn’t recognise: a couple of men in Corsair armour, old Hardball sets painted black with red swords daubed on their shoulders. At the back, there was a youngish man in camo fatigues, his arms folded as he looked around the room furtively. An HLF militia armband was around his upper left arm.
The Reavers. Kraber felt the urge to just walk out. The Reavers were… well, if the Spader-Loyalists had batshit people, Yarrow’s Reavers were them. Kraber had worked with them once, and during that time he’d caught a member of their group, a rather good shot called Yorke, trying to rape a pony refugee. At which point, Kraber shot them in the dick. He could still remember the exchange beautifully.
“Come on, you’re just like me, I’m sure you’d-
“FOKKIN’ KONTGESIG!” Kraber had roared, and shot him in the knee.
” I thought you shot him in the dick,” Vinyl said.
“I kneecapped him for a clearer shot at his dick,” Kraber said.
Yarrow’s response, however, hadn’t been nearly as pleasant and cordial as that. In fact, it had given Kraber genuine pause.
“You don’t ever. Ever. Let men like that serve with you,” Yarrow had said coldly, as his men did their work on Yorke. “You don’t stand for it. You don’t slap them on the wrist. Not in this kind of outfit, not in this kind of war. You end it, and you say ‘this is what happens when you cross the lines of human decency’.”
As far as Kraber was concerned, that particular message was… well, not overkill, but to misquote Rogue One, definitely more of a manifesto than a statement.
When the Reavers had posted the video online, along with a warning about war crimes and how the Loyal HLF dealt with them, Lovikov had just laughed. ‘All that for some gluestick’s honor’.
Should have been a sign right then, Kraber reminisced. Fok. How did I… let myself stay submerged like that?
And then there was someone else he recognized - a vaguely brownish man with a massive handlebar mustache and an utterly massive widow’s peak. Everything about his features seemed exaggerated, from his long, wide chin to his curiously flattened nose, and the rumor was that he had acromegaly.
Dallas Gennaro.
He led the Freebooters, a unit of (mostly) HLF that’d fight for whoever paid them. PHL, rural towns, even some of the prefab settlements like Blink that the U.S government had built to house the refugees of an entire continent. But never PER or Solar Empire. They weren’t monsters, after all.
Something was profoundly strange about his inclusion. Romero, from all indications, preferred to keep a tight, professional ship. So why was a mercenary here?
“Daniel,” Yarrow said to Romero with a curt nod, beginning the meeting. “Good to see you.”
“And you, Max. Glad to see you recovered,” Romero said with an easy grin. He nodded at the blonde woman. “Sam.”
‘Sam’ just nodded back.
Is that… Kraber narrowed his eyes. Samantha Yarrow? Isn’t she PHL? Fok’s going on there?
“And… Gennaro,” Romero said. “Good to see you again. Been a long time.” He glanced at Yarrow. “I assume you brought him?”
“That’s right,” Yarrow said.
“Well, I’m glad you could make it,” Romero said easily, sitting down. Kraber stood by the door, trying not to feel intimidated that Yarrow was here: when they had last met, it hadn’t exactly been the best of times, even when the split hadn’t been such a formalised, violent thing.
“We were expecting Kevin,” Yarrow said evenly. “But he couldn’t make it. Pressing business in New Jersey called him away.”
“Of course it did,” Romero said quietly. He sighed, leaning heavily on his hands. “Alright, so. We’re here to talk about two things.”
“The transmissions, and whatever the fuck Cairn was doing in Hadley’s Hope,” Samantha put in.
“Also,” Yarrow put in, “We need to talk about Lovikov.”
Romero chuckled. “We probably do, don’t we. Times like this, I wish Gregor had just got that prick shot somewhere.”
Kraber nodded, and he wasn’t the only one.
“Helmetag wasn’t that sort of man,” Yarrow said stiffly. “Which would normally be a good thing, but in this instance…”
“In this instance,” Romero finished, “it leaves us with the unfortunate circumstance that while we’re trying to do our job, the PHL and UNAC are going to be worried we’re like Lovikov.” He clicked his tongue. “There’s an old truism that bad rep goes further than good rep. Startin’ to wish it wasn’t a truism.”
Kraber nodded again.
“So,” Romero began. “Hadley’s Hope. What happened?”
“Commander Cairn took the town,” Samantha began. “Seems like he started with ponification - the usual PER slash Imperial combined gig, rounding up the citizens. Then…”
“Then what?” Romero pressed.
Samantha shook her head. “You… you ever played Doom?”
“Yes,” Kraber said.
Samantha motioned at him. “Well, like that. Blood on the ground. Smears of weird writing everywhere. Like… like someone had gone mad in that town. The rump of Cairn’s forces were holed up somewhere, but their iconography was weird. Like they’d gone…”
She trailed off again.
“Gone rogue?” Romero asked.
Sam nodded once.
It’s the beginning, Viktor, something whispered in Kraber’s ear. He turned, but there was no one else in the room.
“I’ve seen some of the Ferals doing that,” Gennaro said. “Spooky shit.”
“Strike,” Romero said, looking at Lucky Strike, “you were seconded to Sam’s unit at the time. Would you concur with her assessment?”
“I would, sir,” Lucky Strike said, nodding. “I don’t know what Commander Cairn’s forces were doing, but it was…” She swallowed nervously. “It was not standard operating procedure for their unit or their force’s type.”
“Standard operating procedure does change, Strike,” Romero pointed out.
“Respectfully, Captain,” Strike said, her tone quavering slightly, “not like… not like that.”
What the fok happened in Hadley’s Hope? Kraber thought to himself.
The beginning, Viktor, the whisper said again.
“So, uh… what did happen in Hadley’s Hope?” Kraber asks.
Yael and Heliotrope share a glance, neither of them looking particularly happy.
“You don’t want to know,” Yael says after a moment.
“I seriously have to wonder at this point,” Heather said, “If they named it that as a cruel joke.”
Kraber looked over to her, chuckling slightly. “Right?!”
“Like ‘hey, we knew this place was doomed anyway, so we named it Icarus,” Heather said.
“Did they seriously name a place that?”
“That’s concerning,” Romero said quietly, folding his hands in front of his mouth. “Very concerning. A unit of PER and Imperials going rogue? You’d think the brainwashing of the Geas would stop them, or their political officer -”
“We, uh, found their political officer,” Samantha cut in.
Romero moved his hands, raising his eyebrows expectantly.
“Dead,” Samantha continued. “Mutilated. Tongue cut out, some sort of runic symbols carved onto him. Unfamiliar ones too.”
Romero sighed. “Well, that explains that.”
“Why… how the f-fuck would that happen?” Kraber asked, affecting a moderately okay Boston accent.
Samantha shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“It’s not unheard of, not entirely,” Romero said, his voice quiet, “but it’s rare. Very rare. I can only think of a handful of circumstances where any soldier of the Imperial Guard has spontaneously broken the Geas. One is Heliotrope with the PHL -”
Dancing Day
“Wait, he knows about that?!” Heliotrope exclaims.
“Of course he knows about that,” Yael says heavily. “He’s a mysterious R&D guy. It’d go against trope if he didn’t.”
“Besides,” Vinyl adds, “Those files are public. You don’t need much in the way of clearance to look them up.”
“You’re oddly calm about this,” Heliotrope says.
“If it was a choice between Romero bringing it up and Lovikov, who would you pick?” Vinyl asks.
Dancing Day shrugs. “It’s a good point.”
“How do you accidentally break a Geas, anyway?” Aegis asked.
“Easy,” Heliotrope says. “I… look. I’ve always been used to doing my own thing. When someone tells me to hate the race that created Deus Ex or Prey-”
“The one from 2016?” Kraber interrupts.
“That’s the one!” Heliotrope crows.
“Bethesda really screwed Human Head over with that one,” Yael said.
Everyone turned to look at her.
“I play games too,” Yael said bluntly.
“I say, ‘why?’” Heliotrope said. “I… I saw ”
“ - and I’ve heard of isolated, similar cases,” Romero continued. “That said, psych evals of Heliotrope have been little help because she claims to have done it by accident. None of these incidents are particularly helpful to this case, though. That was individuals. Not units.”
“So… what?” Kraber asked.
“So, we have a rogue Commander on the loose planning something that has Jim and Hiro Mifune poking around my men,” Yarrow put in. “And when Hiro Mifune is poking his head around, you know something serious is about to happen.”
“The Mystics?” Romero asked, frowning.
“Mystics?” Kraber repeated.
Kraber could see Kaminsky smirking at that.
“Mystics?” Aegis echoes.
“Long story,” Yael says sighing, “and I don’t get half of it.”
“I almost have to wonder if they get half of it,” Spitfire said.
“Hey, I was about to make a joke about that, but you beat me to it,” Kraber said, chuckling a little.
“Yeah,” Yarrow said, frowning. “Some of them picked up a survivor in Nipville and gave him to us. He’s a good kid. But they’ve been tagging with him ever since.”
There was a long pause, and the kid in the militia armband shifted where he stood, visibly uncomfortable.
Well, there’s that kid, Kraber thought.
“Well,” Romero finally said, “that, unfortunately, is just one of our problems.”
“The transmissions,” Yarrow said quietly. “What do you have?”
In reply, Romero motioned to Lucky Strike, who brought a tablet out of her saddlebag and placed it in front of him. He tapped a few commands, brought up a video with a few of his officers in it, and pressed play.
“We recorded this,” he said, “about three days ago.”
The video showed the officers huddled around a radio, which was spitting static. After a moment, voices could be heard.
“Det finns ingen tid. Ei ole aikaa. There is no more time. Ko si aye. O ko le daaju lati ja. Jon imkniecca skončyć. yaseaa li'iinha' dhali-”
“Is anyone out there? Are we the last ones left alive?” another voice cut in. “This is the last Ark. Is anyone left, we are begging you, respond, ple-
“'iinha' hdha lah. qabl fuaat al'awan. Circa à dà un spugna in u vostru cori di corpu.”
“I speak Corsican,” one man spoke up. Kraber didn’t know him, had never seen his face. “Last part was ‘He seeks to drive a spear into your beating heart’ but I can’t even guess what that means.” He wrinkled his nose. “Pronunciation and accent were abysmal, though.”
“Die hoeke sny ons wanneer ons probeer om te dink!” the radio continued.
Kraber’s blood ran cold at that. ‘The angles cut us when we try to think!’
“Tá gach uair... agony. Bolest je to všechno, tady. Všechno to bude. As we are, you will be. If you do not ARRETE, to skončí, stöðva það áður en það er of seint, make it stop, Ēṭā khuba dērī āgē ēṭi bandha karuna, make it stop, MAKE IT STOP, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE IT STOP, pabeidziet to, pirms tas beidz jums, WE BEG OF YOU-!”
It burst into static, and then:
“They took our eyes. And yet we see. Gure gogoak hartu zituzten. Eta oraindik uste dugu. They took our hearts, and yet they swell with love for you. They took our ears, and still we hear. They took our legs, and yet we want to run, run to anywhere else where the pain isn’t everywhere, where it is not Unser Geist, unser Körper, unser Leben-!”
It cut out again. There was only static.
“...More English this time,” said the kid in the fatigues.
“Dear God,” Kaminsky said. “That’s the stuff of nightmares.”
“Heard those before,” Kraber said. “I… a lot of it is in different languages. Some of it sounds like...
“We’ve counted eighteen languages at least,” Romero said quietly. “Finnish, Swedish, Afrikaans, German, and even Tolkienate Elvish and Klingon.”
“Heghlu'meh qaq jajvam,” Gennaro said blandly.
“And Swahili, I think,” Kraber added, ignoring that. He saw Kaminsky throw him a dirty look, but he ignored it.
“What are these transmissions?” Samantha asked quietly.
“We don’t know,” Romero said quietly. “They’re on any frequency, any radio, any transmitter of any kind. And they’re all saying the same sorts of things: warning of time running out, asking for help.” He sighed. “Some of them also appear to be… extra-dimensional in origin, for lack of another word.”
“Extra-dimensional?” Yarrow repeated.
In response, Romero tapped the tablet and brought up a note. “A transcription of one message. ‘This is the UES Ajax to any arrow forces, stop, we are under attack by Celestial Dominion forces, stop, send reinforcement immediately, stop’.”
None of those words made sense. ‘Arrow’?
“Another one,” Romero continued. “‘USS Enterprise has departed New York City. The last bastion of the United States has fallen. God save our souls. Gilead Aeterna’.” He sighed. “There’s more, with references to things I’ve never heard of.”
“What could be sending those sorts of messages?” Samantha asked. “And more importantly, why?”
“We don’t know,” Romero said quietly. “But it’s a prelude to something bigger, I’m sure of it.”
“Well,” Yarrow said quietly. “That’s just peachy.”
“It feels almost anti-climactic to bring up Lovikov next to these,” Romero said quietly, “but we’ve got to. Portland was a turning point.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” Samantha said. “That Lovikov’s been… recruiting.”
Lucky Strike spoke up. “Who the fuck would join up with Lovikov after he committed the worst rogue HLF terrorist attack since the Purple Winter? More importantly, how is he even recru...”
Her voice died in her throat as she looked over to Gennaro.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” she moaned.
“And that’s,” Gennaro said, “Why I’m here. I got a dodgy contract not long ago for a farming settlement out in the desert that the PHL are trying to cultivate. Turned out, the place was under construction, and…”
“And?
“And we met up with some bigwigs in suits and gas masks,” Gennaro said. “The human was asking some questions about working with them. I don’t know who they were, but they… they had money. Real pull. They talked like they’d never see a day in prison.”
He paused.
“And one of them talked about working for Lovikov. He said… something strange. He said… ‘we can save this world without compromise.’”
“I’ve seen that on some graffiti,” Yarrow said. “Even found it in Bastion, once. ‘No Compromise.’”
Kraber raised an eyebrow. That was… ‘Worrying’ wasn’t the word for it.
“Did you accept?” Yarrow asked, finally.
“No,” Gennaro said. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here. They said I had nothing to go on if I tried to tell the media, that they wouldn’t trust an HLF man, and… well, they were right.”
He sighed.
“But… I’ve got a friend - a spy, more like - in an anti-government militia out in Oregon,” Gennaro said. “The Constitution Security Force.”
“Why would you have a spy there, of all places?” Yarrow asked.
“It’s America,” Gennaro said simply, “But yes, essentially. Romero, I know that you and Yarrow strive for a racially equal, non-judgmental HLF. But…”
“But like you said, this is America,” Kraber said. “If you’re looking for people that like skirting the government, you’re going to attract particular people.”
“Begs the question where all the crazy left wing people go,” someone asked.
“The PER,” Gennaro said at once, without a shred of hesitation.
“Dude, the fok?” Kraber said immediately.
“What?” Gennaro said. “Extreme left-wing people are all about tearing down the corrupt world order and curtailing the ‘excesses of capitalist individualism’ or some shit like that. What is Celestia to them but a chance to tear down literally every ‘oppressive institution’ in one fell swoop?”
“God damn apocalypse,” someone else muttered.
“So it’s crazies on either side of this shit,” Kraber said irritably.
“Exactly, Mr…” Gennaro said. “Ah. You might want a nametag installed. While I’ve tried to keep kard-karrying-klansmen-”
”Gennaro always spells it with a K,” Kraber said. “He likes alliteration.”
“-from my organization, it’s impossible to completely stem the flow of them,” Gennaro continued. “I’m guessing it’s much the same for you.”
Romero, and both Yarrows looked at him, conflicting emotions rushing over their faces.
“It’s been particularly difficult for me,” Maxi Yarrow said. “Although honestly, most of the ones who’ve joined me basically give that shit up. Haven’t had to kill any of them yet.”
“Preston has a way of weeding them out,” Sam Yarrow said.
Kraber smirked. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for that man.
“Smashing them with that hammer of his?” he asked.
“For the ones that don’t outright refuse to work with him? Daryl Davis’ doctrine, actually, at least most of the time,” Maxi Yarrow said with a chuckle. “Man’s the gentlest HLF man I think I know.”
“But anyway, my spy?” Gennaro continued impatiently. “She said that they’d gotten an offer to join Lovikov, and that another militia recruited them.”
“That’s…” Romero said. “Extremely worrying. We do not recruit from them, period. It’s in the damn charter for God’s sake.”
Sam Yarrow nodded. “Human life is sacred: class is irrelevant. Creed is irrelevant. Race is irrelevant. Sexual orientation is irrelevant. Under the eyes of all deities or none, all human life is made equal.”
“Wait,” Kraber said, “A thought occurs. Why did you say ‘the human?’”
“Because there was a pony with the man that recruited us,” Gennaro said.
“This is impossible,” Sam Yarrow said. “Lovikov… the Carters... they don’t work with ponies. No way, not a fucking chance.”
“Swear on my grandfather’s soul, she was there,” Gennaro said.
“It makes a certain amount of sense, though,” Lucky Strike said. “The Ship that saved Lovikov? The way it disappeared? You’d need seriously high tech to do that. And the only ones that have it work with ponies.”
“But… Lovikov…” Kraber said. “No. No no no no. This is impossible.”
“Impossible or not,” Gennaro said. “It happened.”
Kraber thought on that. “I have a very bad feeling about that. He’s willing to look for anti-government militias, who else will he recruit?”
Romero and Kaminsky threw Kraber a look.
“Well, it’s not our -” he began.
“Primary concern, no,” Yarrow cut him off, “except that it is, Daniel, or at least it’s mine. I’ve fought tooth and nail for us to be seen as legitimate. Lovikov is - even aside from Carter, perhaps moreso - the single greatest obstacle to legitimacy I have ever faced. Carter, for his many faults, could be reasoned with at one point. Lovikov, not so much.”
He took a brief moment to compose himself.
“Dan,” Yarrow said. “I’m trying to be kind here. But it’s hard to see that assertion as anything but astoundingly naive. If Lovikov takes the plunge, he takes us all with him. Lovikov running about, in open war against the PHL means that the independence you and I thrive on is gone.”
He looked to Kraber.
“You’re entirely confident Lovikov would be that much of a hazard to us?” Yarrow asked.
“I’d stake my life on it,” Kraber said. “Minus the part with ponies, but...”
“You don’t sound sure of that,” Gennaro said.
“I think that if he’s willing to work with ponies, Lovikov only cares about the end point,” Kraber said.
Samantha clicked her tongue. “Great. So we’ve got Cairn and whatever the fuck he was doing that’s got the Mystics poking their nose in our business, we’ve got transmissions from other universes that make no sense, we’ve got Lovikov giving the HLF a bad name, and we’ve got Gardner, Ze’ev and the rest of the PHL just happy to let them do it so they’ve got an excuse for their civilian slaughtering escapades.”
“Sam,” Yarrow said in a warning tone.
“No, let’s be honest,” Samantha continued angrily. “They want Lovikov. There’ve been people in the UNAC and PHL wanting to burn us all or fold us in for years, just because they’d rather everybody wore their flag rather than be an independent group they can’t directly control. Lovikov is just handing them the evidence they need to sell whatever actions they want to take to the President and the public.”
There was a long pause.
“You’re probably right,” Romero said after a moment. “Hell. You’re certainly right. There’s always someone waiting to take the worst view of any group they don’t control. But we can’t do anything about Gardner: we can do something about Lovikov, and we can do something about the PER, Shieldwall’s plan, and whatever Commander Cairn’s doing.”
Samantha sighed looked over at Kraber. “You. You’re so sure Lovikov will do that. Any insight on his plan?”
Kraber shrugged. “F… fokked if I know. Lovikov just sort of aims for objectives, makes things up, and pretends it was all his plan the whole time. Give him a week and he’ll be saying he always planned to fire on Portland and it was a huge victory for the cause of some advanced something or other.”
Samantha sighed. “Bollocks.”
Yarrow leant forward. “Well, then we’ve got to deal with all these problems at once, don’t we?”
Kraber almost laughed, but the expression on Yarrow’s face was deadly serious.
“Um, sorry,” he said, “but… er, how?” At Samantha’s scowl, he held up both hands.
“Ignore him,” Kaminsky said. “Look, he-”
“I don’t mean to be that guy,” Kraber continued, “but you’re talkin’ about heavy odds.”
“That’s enough, soldier,” Romero put in.
“No, Daniel,” Yarrow said, holding up a hand. “The man wants to ask a question? I’ll answer it. If I can’t explain to a guard, how the hell do I explain to anyone else?”
He smiled, a confident, dangerous expression on that man’s face.
“The problems are threefold,” he said. “Cairn’s doing something big, weird, and not sanctioned by the Empire. Now, he started with Hadley’s Hope, but whatever it is it won’t stop there.” He looked at Samantha. “Sam - you, Luke, Earnest Star and a few of our best will begin investigating Cairn’s movements. See if you can find anything out. I’ll contact Munro and see if he can give us some help. He has FEAR. They’re experts in this sort of thing.”
“Alright,” Sam said quietly.
“Lucky Strike,” Romero said quietly. “I’ll assign you to continue working with Officer Yarrow. I want her to have the best people - and ponies - for this, and that’s you and your team.”
Strike saluted. “Any time, sir.”
“Now, as for Lovikov, the Empire, and the UNAC,” Yarrow said, clapping his hands together. “That’s a harder problem. Daniel,” he looked at Romero, who straightened. “You’re still the best man for whatever the Empire’s doing.” He paused. “And you are right about one thing. Whatever Lovikov’s doing, it is fundamentally not the primary concern. The Empire is.”
“I aim to please,” Romero replied with a small smile.
“Good, then aim to give us an edge,” Yarrow said sternly. “Any edge you can. Newcalf weak spots, better modulations on our particle guns, new frequencies, portable shield generators. Anything that gives us something.”
“I can extrapolate on some ATC tech,” Romero said with a nod. “See what the boffins can do. These Thunderchild class ships are testbeds, after all.”
“Now,” Yarrow said, sucking in a breath. “The UNAC is harder. The problem can be partially mitigated by taking Lovikov out. Now, Lovikov… whatever idiocy he’s planning, he’ll fail. But he’ll take a lot of good people out wi-“
“What if he succeeds?” Kraber asked.
Dead silence. Everyone’s train of thought squealed a halt, brakes grinding.
“Excuse me, soldier?” Romero said, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. “Would you care to repeat tha-“
“I asked,” Kraber said, “What if he succeeds?”
Kraber had thought that what happened before was silence. He’d been wrong. This was like a complete lack of ability on all sides to even make sounds, as opposed to a simple absence.
“Well,” Lucky Strike said, “we all clearly want to say it, so I’ll do it: he’s clearly a madman, and there’s no chance he could succeed. So, arguments?”
Kraber blinked.
She just threw me a bone.
It’d taken him a few seconds to truly grasp it, going by her sarcastic, mocking tone. He’d grown used to that being aimed at him when he was a kid. But-
She wasn’t mocking me. Just the idea.
“I…” Yarrow started. “The Ship, for one thing, his ability to evade authorities. Clearly, we underestimated him.”
“No, that’s not quite right. He wanted to be underestimated,” Sam Yarrow put in.
“So if he has the ship,” Gennaro said, “what else might he have?”
“Were you trying to build him up this way?” Romero asked, looking at Kraber.
“No,” Kraber said, “I genuinely wondered this.”
Another brief moment of silence. Kaminsky was staring daggers at him.
“I can’t say for certain,” Yarrow said. “Because I don’t know what his end goal is. But a world where someone like Lovikov wins a fight with the PHL, one where he does as he pleases, or God forbid, takes on the PHL and defeats them…”
“That could never happen,” Gennaro said.
“The soldier here asked it as a thought experiment, I figured I might as well go with it,” Yarrow said.
“It would be an endless nightmare,” Lucky Strike said. “Lovikov doesn’t give a damn about innocent lives, especially if they’re ponies.”
“If we think he’s going to do that?”
“The answer’s plain as day,” Yarrow said. “Take him out before he has the chance.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Just like that?” Kraber put in.
Yarrow smiled. “Well, not just like that… but a lot like that.”
Kraber felt the blood drain from his face. Yarrow was casually talking about ‘taking out’ another HLF officer.
“But he’s…” he began, before trailing off.
“Yes?” Yarrow asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, he’s an HLF Captain,” Kraber said quietly. “He’s surrounded at all times by people who don’t bat an eye at him doing basically whatever the fuck he wants. Assassinating him…”
“What you’re saying we should,” Gennaro put in, “is difficult.”
“He’s a mutineer, but we’re not savages,” Strike put in. “Shouldn’t there be… I dunno. A trial at least?”
It seemed appropriate for someone to ask, if nothing else. Kraber wouldn’t have necessarily given Lovikov a trial, but Yarrow, so Kraber had come to understand, wasn’t him.
Yarrow, however, snorted.
“Lovikov is a bastard murderer who shot a good man for the sake of power, hires the dregs of humanity, and exacerbates divisions when we not only are supposed to be a group for the unification of humanity, but we need to unify or we’ll die. He has jeopardised not only our mission, but our lives and the lives of our families,” he said. “He’s on the path to ruining any unified front between us and the UNAC, has given men like Gardner all the ammunition they need to take UNAC into a pointless, bloody civil war, and risks single handedly plunging this entire front into chaos, and chaos only serves one pony.”
They all knew who he meant.
“His life,” Yarrow continued, looking straight at Kraber, giving him the uncomfortable feeling that Yarrow could see right through the mask, “is what’s difficult. His death will make all our lives a lot easier.”
“Okay,” Kraber said.
Whatever response Yarrow was expecting, that was clearly not it. He blinked.
“Fuck him,” Kraber shrugged, entirely sincere. “I just retired when he tried to bombard Portland. Also, he didn’t give me severance pay. That dick!”
Romero sighed. “Soldier, do me a favour and go wait outside.”
Kraber nodded. “Uh, sure. Uh, sir.”
He walked out, leaving the conference room.
Y’know, Viktor, he thought to himself. Maybe you should have kept your mouth shut.
He shrugged.
Like that’ll ever fokkin’ happen, he thought, resigned. This had been a problem for him virtually as long as he could form words.
A few minutes later, Romero and the others exited the room. Yarrow stopped and held his hand out to Kraber, who was (thankfully) still wearing the gas mask.
“Always keep a question in mind if it occurs,” he said. “Questioning if you don’t agree or understand is part of what makes us human.”
“I’ve had enough of absolute certainty, anyway,” Kraber said. “It’s a fokkin’ croc.”
Oh, shit, he thought. OOH, ME ACCENT’S SLIPPING!
The thought was enough to make him struggle not to laugh. Thankfully, the mask hid that.
“What’s your name, trooper?” Yarrow asked.
“Uh, Francis,” Kraber improvised. “Francis Strang.”
“Francis Strang,” Yarrow repeated. “Keep up the good work. It’s men on our side that’ll go down in the history books, you mark my words.” He brought his other hand up and clasped Kraber’s hand tightly, his voice brimming with the kind of sincerity that would have had any soldier on Earth choose to follow him into hell to rescue a snowman. “Every one of you brave lads and lasses is a credit to humanity. You’re what we’re fighting for.”
Kraber didn’t reply, just nodding. It was good Yarrow couldn’t see his face - he was fairly certain his guilt and shame were showing. It should’ve made him feel better to see Kaminsky getting embarrassed, but…
You’re not fighting for me, he thought morosely. You shouldn’t. I’m not brave, and I’m not a credit to fokkin’ anything.
He could see Kaminsky, an expression that was a very admirable attempt at studied neutrality on his face as he listened to Yarrow talk. Kraber felt his heart sink
And I’m not the only one who thinks so.
But he didn’t say anything, and with a final nod, Yarrow passed him, Samantha following him with barely a glance in Kraber’s direction. The others followed, until finally only Romero and Kraber were left.
“Well,” Romero said, giving Kraber a raised eyebrow. “I think I owe the techy who built that voice modulator a beer or seven.”
Kraber let out a small, guilty laugh. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir,” Romero said acidly. “You sounding professional sounds really wrong somehow.”
“Right?” Kraber asked. “It’s like me having sex with Ze’ev.”
“Christ,” Romero said. “That just sounds unnatural.”
Kraber let out another chuckle.
“And how, Dan,” he said. “And how. I think I need to flush that out my system with some bourbon.”
“You were lucky,” Yael says.
“I was,” Kraber repeats. “Right then, right there? Sam Yarrow would have killed me faster than you can say ‘lynch mob’. She might have had a hate-ladyboner on for the PHL, but that just meant men like me were second place on her shit list.”
“Yeah,” Yael says with a nod. Whatever history she has with Sam Yarrow, she doesn’t elaborate.
“So… what was the whole thing with Cairn in Hadley’s Hope?” Vinyl asks.
Kraber smirks. “I did find out one thing.”
The moment Kraber walked into the rec room he knew he’d made a mistake.
Here’s how it goes: Kraber opens the door to the rec room, boots tapping against the metal floor, and then-
And then-
Dead silence. Men and women, mares and stallions, staring at him. Some of them shocked. Some of them staring daggers at him.
Aw, shit.
Kraber’s eyes settled on a chair. That’d be the best weapon at a time like this, wouldn’t it? But as he moved towards the kid that he’d seen, he realized:
Nobody was doing anything. They were all just staring at him.
The kid was sitting in the rec room. Apparently the different parties wouldn’t be leaving for a day or so, but fortunately Yarrow wasn’t in the rec room - neither of them, actually.
“Hey,” Kraber said to him.
The kid blinked and looked at him, his eyes widening. “Shit. You’re…”
“Yup,” Kraber said, winking. “But, uh, keep it under your hat, huh?”
The kid blinked again. “Uh… yeah. Sure.” He paused. “Shit. How are you even here?!”
“Eh, jou know,” Kraber shrugged. “Faked my death so I could retire, and ended up here! Somehow.” He paused, scratching his beard. “When you think about it, it really doesn’t make much sense.”
The kid looked at him, mystified.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “That’s…” He paused. “Wait a minute. You were there.”
“I was where?” Kraber asked.
The kid pulled out a small notebook, flicking back through it. “‘A man with a bushy beard, the shadow of a man in armour made from obsidian and nightmares behind him’.” He looked back at Kraber. “Shit, that was you.”
Part of Kraber really wanted to laugh it off. To treat it like it meant nothing. Instead:
“You saw it too?” Kraber asked.
“In my dreams,” the kid whispered. He held up the journal. “I… Jim said that I should do a dream diary. He thinks whatever I’m dreaming is… it has something to do with Cairn, with whatever Cairn’s doing.”
“What do you think he was doing, then?” Kraber asked.
The kid’s eyes widened. “I… you’ll think I’m crazy.”
Kraber stared at him for a second. Then tapped his head. “Bru.”
The kid winced. “No. Seriously. This… if Jim didn’t tell me he believed me, I’d…”
“Just say it.”
The kid licked his lips. “I was at Hadley’s Hope. One of Yarrow’s new recruits. I saw the symbols.” He swallowed. “They were… singing.”
“What do you mean?” Kraber asked.
“I mean singing,” the kid hissed in a desperate whisper. “They were…” His expression became slack, and his eyes glazed over. “They were singing the song of the Nameless, bringing him here, but they don’t know the words yet and he will not tell them, and the pale mare is muffling the sound.”
Kraber frowned. “What?”
“She’s muffling the sound,” the kid repeated. “Muffling it. She doesn’t want to see him eat us all again. But the song is being sung. The bell is starting to toll.” He blinked, his expression becoming confused. “Oh, no, I did it again, didn’t I?”
“The pale mare,” Kraber said, stroking his beard in thought. “Can’t tell if she’s a unicorn, earth pony, or pegasus? Albino? All whites and grays? Has a sword?”
The kid’s eyes widened. “You see it too.”
“Once,” Kraber said. “While I was unconscious in the ocean.” He stroked his beard again. “I also saw Princess Luna, I think. Which was weird.”
“I thought she was dead,” the kid said.
“I think I’m beyond the point of questioning that,” Kraber said.
“Well,” the kid said, shaking his head, “I’m at the point of wishing the whole thing was very far away. A few weeks ago, I was just a militiaman. Me and my group were drafted, and the next thing I know the PHL burned us all.”
He paused.
“There was something weird about Nipville, too,” the kid said.
“Weird how?” Kraber asked.
“Well, they were…” the kid said. “The commander that brought our unit in, some man by the name of Soldano-”
“Arnold Soldano?” Kraber asked.
“I don’t know, he never said his first name,” the kid said. “But… he had us deploying these devices that looked kind of like auto-milkers.”
“I’ve seen enough hentai to go where this is going,” Kraber said.
The kid looked at him with an expression of utter disgust. “Jesus, no. Not like that. But they did drain… something.. From ponies. You’d fasten the ponies to the floor under them and hang the machines to the ceilings, and… it was like all the color drained out of them. We had to use a barn once and the dirt under this machine, it… it was gray. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Kraber’s knowledge of magic was… well, to say it was rudimentary was putting it mildly. He’d never known much more than the bare fundamentals - Ponies have a particular kind of tissue in the hooves, wings, horn, and flank that superconduct magic - but beyond that, one common thing he knew was that color was involved.
“They came out looking like death warmed over,” the kid said. “Fur was clammy, and I just felt so sick about it. They looked like they’d vomit if you poked them, like… like moving was a struggle. It was like walking when one of your feet has gone to sleep.”
“I think…” Kraber said. “I think it might’ve been draining their magic or life force or whatever.”
“It makes sense, honestly,” the kid said. “They looked so awful.”
“Yeah,” Kraber said. “That’s a…”
It’s not any worse than what you’ve done, is it? Something whispered to him.
“You know what?” Kraber asked, suddenly feeling extremely tired. “I can’t throw stones. I just… I feel so sick about what I’ve done, and you seem like a good kid. You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t have had to do that.”
“Siphons,” the kid said. “Soldano called them Siphons. I think you might’ve been right.”
...Fok.
“This was going on since before Nipville,” Kraber said, his jaw dropping. “Oh my God. How long has he… did I ever really know him? Was he just lying the whole time?! Fok, I thought he…”
“Going by the fact that nobody I’ve worked with can mention Lovikov without insulting him,” the kid said, “No, I don’t think you ever did know the real Lovikov. I don’t think anyone really knows that kind of person. Not till it’s too late.”
Whoever Lovikov’s backing are, Kraber thought, they have the resources of PHL and they don’t give a shit about ponies.
It’s one of those Others that Romero mentioned.
He had so many questions.
“We need to tell the Captain, Yarrow, anyone,“ Kraber said.
“You really think they’ll believe me?” the Kid asked. “Also, wait. You’re not going to ask if I’ve told anyone else?”
“Take my word for it,” Kraber said. “If someone asks ‘have you told anyone else,’ you need to run or stab them. Because they are absolutely about to betray the FOK out of you.”
“You seem pretty certain about that,” the kid observed.
“We need to go find the Captain and Yarrow,” Kraber said. “Now.”
“You seem like you have a lot of… conflicting emotions about Lovikov,” the kid said. “Are you-”
“Those,” Kraber said, “Were not my chommies. We need to go. Now.”
The kid was moving before Kraber realized it. They rushed out the doors, passing a particularly shocked-looking pegasus fluttering by.
Her eyes widened as she saw Kraber.
“Y-” she started.
Kraber ignored her. “Sorry, but we have to chase. Later!”
“But I-”
More of her saying ‘you bloodthirsty idiot, probably, Kraber thought, as they rushed for the Captain’s office.
They rushed through a metal corridor. As they passed a set of stairs, Kraber saw Cindy again, staring at him with a look of utmost hatred.
They’re unnecessary, Kraber thought. We have to get there, now!
He turned a corner. Romero’s office was so close, right there, and-
“Stop. Right. There.”
CLACK
Kaminsky was there, holding a Sumak SMG that looked like a clone of an MP5, pointed straight at Kraber’s chest.
Reflexes almost took over. Kraber could see himself jumping and bicycle-kicking Kaminsky in the face.
The kid stopped him. He held hand out in front of Kraber.
“No,” the kid said.
“Kaminsky,” Kraber said. “This is urgent, we… need a fokkin’ ova with the Captain.”
“No,” Kaminsky said.
There was a moment of absolute silence, and Kraber blinked.
“Did I fokkin’ stutter?” he said. “I said -”
“Heard you,” Kaminsky said. “I said no. I don’t care what power you think the Captain’s given you. He’s in a meeting. You can wait a few damn minutes. End of.”
“This is no time for measuring our shotguns,” Kraber said heatedly. “I need to get this kid through that door. Right now.”
Then suddenly, like a lightning bolt, Kraber was struck with clarity.
“Are you fokking high?” Kraber asked.
“...Excuse me?” Kaminsky asked.
“You really, genuinely, truly think,” Kraber said, “That you can threaten me with that piece of kak MP5 clone, without being caught on camera. Do you think the Captain’s too dof to have security footage outside his office?”
And then Kaminsky laughed. It was short, bitter, and hard.
“No,” he said. “I think I can kill you. You have a rep with thieves and amateurs, Kraber, but you don’t have plot armour. This is real life.” He raised the weapon a fraction. “I was with Delta Force at Fairport while you were setting up a treehouse in the woods with that glorified biker bandit Lovikov. Whatever you think you can do, I promise you that trying to force your way past me will only end with the remains of your face on the deck, bleeding, followed by you cleaning toilets for a month. And all that… because Viktor Kraber doesn’t have the patience to not be the center of attention for five minutes.”
He was moving towards the kid. Inching ever so slightly. If Kaminsky wanted to shoot him, he’d have to-
No.
And Kraber was surprised to realize that it wasn’t Kate’s voice or Victory’s voice or the voice of the evil Nega-Kraber or whatever.
It was all him.
The ends don’t justify it, Kraber thought. I’m sure you and the kid will be really happy about getting another bystander hurt.
Also, whatever happens next will only be my fault.
“...Then let me go in,” the kid said.
That surprised Kraber, slightly. But immediately he knew what to say:
“He has the important information, not me,” Kraber said. “He knows about Nipville, I wasn’t even invited.”
“… how serious is this,” Kaminsky finally said.
“Fairport level serious,” the kid said. Kraber had no idea if the kid knew what Fairport was (and come to think of it, Kraber didn’t know much about that particular shitshow.), but it was a good play.
Kaminsky frowned. “You’re serious.”
“Yes, sir,” the kid said evenly.
“I see.” Kaminsky took a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll escort you in. And if you’re still here, Kraber…”
“You’ll shoot a man to death outside the captains office, on camera, unprovoked?” Kraber asked. “Aweh, great plan, ten outta five knackstapeece. If that made sense in your head, you need professional help.”
“No, I’ll just escort you to the brig with a bloody nose,” Kaminsky retorted, grinning nastily. “Killing people just for pissing you off is the sort of thing unprofessional dickweeds with something to prove about their… shotguns do. I’m sure you know the sort.”
“...Fine,” Kraber said. “I’m going to the rec room.”
“Have fun with that,” Kaminsky retorted, opening the door. “Alright, kid. In you go.”
He pointed to the kid, punching a code into a keypad. The door slid open.
There was a pause as Luke walked into the office. Kraber saw Yarrow and Romero sitting in the room, looking alarmed at the sudden intrusion.
Kraber inched over to the side. Yarrow couldn’t see his face, or at least he hoped not.
“As for you,” he said, looking at Kraber. “I don’t know what you’ve done to convince the Captain, but you’re running out of time.”
The same thing that Cindy said… Kraber wondered. And, combined with the… Something very bad is about to happen.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kraber asked.
The door opened.
“Ah,” Romero said. “Are you still here? I need to clarify some things about Soldano to you.”
Kaminsky blinked, before glowering at Kraber.
“He needed to be in there more than I did,” Kraber said by way of explanation. He couldn’t resist grinning. “I didn’t know he’d want my perspective.”
“I see.” Kaminsky was doing a very good impression of someone who wasn’t absolutely livid. It was almost admirable. “In you go then.”
“Well, thanks,” Kraber said, still grinning.
A vein throbbed in Kaminsky’s forehead. Kraber might have regretted pissing him off if he’d been in a better mood, but right now all he could do was think it was hilariou-
“Viktor Marius Kraber,” Yarrow said. “Aren’t you dead?”
There was an unpleasant edge to his voice. A strange coldness. As if he was another Yorke, and Yarrow’s Browning Hi-Power was about to brush the tips of Kraber’s mustache.
...Fokdammit. I’m about to have to answer a lot of unpleasant questions.
“Ah, shit,” Lucky Strike sighed. “Here we go.”
Yarrow’s eyes bored into Kraber. Despite himself, Kraber knew he couldn’t match that, so he simply stood, as noncommittal as possible in the face of one of the most influential HLF men in North America.
“He was supposed to be,” Kaminsky growled, staring at Kraber.
“Mind telling me how you survived being caught on an exploding boat?” Yarrow asked, coolly.
“I…” Kraber started. “Well, you got me. By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.”
Yarrow and Kraber shared the kind of relationship that came from having less than nothing in common. No matter what, they’d end up at opposite sides of the room. Like two magnets that repelled each other. The best they could do was a relationship on the same level of friendliness as two colleagues nodding to each other in the same hallway. Nowhere was that more important than right here and now.
“That’s really the best answer you have?” Kaminsky asked.
“Ja,” Kraber said, refusing to say anymore.
“I’d heard the rumors,” Yarrow said. “I’d…”
“I know,” Kaminsky said. “I’d prayed they were false, too.”
Yarrow looked at him for a moment, then looked back to Romero.
“Sadly, nothing’s entirely airtight,” Yarrow said, his voice uncannily soft.
“He is remarkably hard to kill,” Lucky Strike said.
“You… certainly have an ability to throw people’s plans off the rails,” Yarrow said. “I’d assumed-”
“It’s alright,” Kraber said. “You can say you hoped I’d died in the explosion.”
Yarrow blinked at him. “I can say that. And honestly, I’ll probably mean it.”
“I’m not that different from Lovikov in a lot of ways,” Kraber said. “If any of you wanted me gone, I wouldn’t blame you.”
“‘Gone’ is an understatement,” Samantha said coldly. “You’re the walking embodiment of what’s wrong with the HLF, why we have to justify ourselves to men like Gardner.”
Kraber swallowed. “I can’t exactly disagree.”
“Wait,” Kraber said. “Soldano is leading Defiance now?!”
Yarrow nodded.
“...Yes?” Romero asked.
“I’m guessing you already know,” Kraber said, “That this isn’t a change. Soldano has none of Lovikov’s charisma, none of the charm.”
“I’d surmised as much,” Romero said.
“So, overall, not so much of a threat,” Lucky Strike said.
“I didn’t say that,” Kraber said. “I said, Soldano has none of that…. But, he’s more or less Lovikov’s autopilot. He’ll do pretty much whatever Lovikov wants, with less of that little h…”
Kraber caught Lucky Strike glowering at him.
“That sentient touch,” Kraber finished lamely.
“You and Lovikov see murder the way our carpenter sees hammers,” Yarrow said. “Pardon me if I don’t know what to think of that.”
Samantha hadn’t moved from her arms-folded position, her eyes still narrowed at Kraber. “I know exactly what to think.”
“Lovikov will tell you why to enjoy it,” Kraber said. “Soldano will dive in headfirst. He’s got none of the finesse. But if it helps… he’s not quite bright enough to really do any of what Lovikov is planning on his own.”
“Alright,” Romero said. “That’s actually really good news.”
Kraber blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“No, he’s right,” Yarrow said. “If we’re going to take Defiance out from under Lovikov, him not being there is the best news we’ve got. Especially if Soldano doesn’t have the same charisma.”
Ship’s Library
Later, Kraber would collapse into an armchair that - and he was certain of this - had been specifically picked during the Europe Evacuation for being the right combination of “sturdily built” and “comfortingly broken from years of loafing.”
Two meetings, having to explain Soldano, not feeling truly comfortable, and Kaminsky’s clear urge to beat the shit out of him had left Kraber exhausted.
I poked a hole in Kaminsky’s ego. Tried to get some revenge against Lovikov.
But I’m… still… not happy.
It was like Kraber had an itch… under the skin. Not for the first time, he wondered about all the things that he’d seemingly forgotten how to do.
I should get this. I should be able to understand why they’re pissed. I should be able to understand why none of this makes me happy.
A thought crossed his mind unbidden, as Kraber made his way to the library’s comics section.
Dear die-ary. Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe, there really is something wrong with me.
He chuckled slightly.
Okay, that shouldn’t be funny right now. Why am I laughing? What’s so funny? What the fok is wrong with me?!
He reached for a hardback-covered comic. Pulled it ou-
“Your problem,” Victory said, one eye poking through the hole he’d left, “Is that you have emotional detachment disorder. You’ve had less of a life story and more of a genetic disaster. You know that, right?”
“What the fok?!” Kraber yelled, careening back into a bookshelf sitting against a metal wall.
“You alright back there?” the librarian asked. “Do I need to-”
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Kraber said. “Just thought I saw an… enormous rat. With mange.”
“The mighty Vicky Kraber,” the librarian muttered, “Scared of a rat.”
“Hey, if you don’t think it’s a massive sanitation issue, go tell the captain,” Kraber said. “I’m not scared of rats! You’d be surprised if you just saw one staring at you. At…”
He paused.
“At eye level. Huh.”
Victory absolutely was not that tall. But she was looking him straight in the eye through the bookshelf.
The librarian didn’t say anything after that.
“You just said that because you remember The Expanse,” Kraber whispered, looking for another comic. Watchmen, Watchmen…. Or Kingdom-
HOLY SHIT
THEY HAVE TRIGUN?!
FOK YES
Kraber ripped the manga off the shelf, a smile threatening to split his face.
“I mean, obviously,” Victory said. “Because I am I am he as you are he as you are me, and we are all together now, copyright Michael Jackson!”
Kraber just stared at her for a few seconds.
...where do I begin with that one?
“But seriously though,” Victory said, “Something is wrong with you. You were awful at psychology, you don’t know much about brains, but… that much is obvious. It’s been obvious for years. You’ve known that since the first time a teacher laughed at you.”
Kraber ignored her, trying not to remember that. It’d sparked a lifelong bone-deep distrust of teachers.
“I say this from the bottom of my heart, wherever I left it,” Victory said, “you need to do something about it.”
Like… seek professional help from a counselor that doesn’t see it as the perfect alibi? Kraber thought.
He’d considered getting counseling from one of ship’s psychiatrists, but… he hadn’t felt comfortable. The first one he contacted, a pegasus mare by the name of Stable Alignment, wouldn’t even say a word to him. The first time he’d come, she’d stared at him. Hadn’t responded to him no matter what he said.
When he’d finally left, there’d been a crash and a scream. And the sound of sobbing.
...did I kill one of her friends? Kraber had wondered, before coming to the conclusion that… with how he’d been in Austria and Germany, he probably had. Odds weren’t too bad.
He looked for a chair. And found one below a porthole, sandwiched in between two bookshelves. He settled in, and turned the cover.
The moment he heard hoofsteps against the metal floor, Kraber was suspicious. They could’ve been there for anything, anything at all, but fragments of paranoid fantasies.
What is it now?
“...Oh,” said a very tiny voice. “It’s you.”
The panel of Trigun read “Housewives packing hunting rifles. Children should not see this.”
“...Unfortunately, yes,” Kraber said. “What is it now?”
He looked over the pages to see Alpen Glow, looking up at him as if she’d opened a closet door to find some kind of horrible bug-eyed tentacled thing with too many mouths.
Oh, just fokking great.
Alpen Glow made a noise so indistinct Kraber couldn’t tell if it was a stammer or a cough. Her eyes had gone as wide as dinner plates. Her eyebrows were slowly inching their way towards the safety of her widow’s peak, and she was forcing herself back.
Kraber just sighed and went back to reading Trigun. What happened next was almost a reflex:
“Look, if you have more death threats, take a number,” he said. “I don’t fokking care right now.”
“L-look,” Alpen Glow said. “H… he doesn’t want to talk. Th-there, I can go back to the rec room now?”
And why are you asking me? Kraber wondered, before taking another look up from the page and seeing a familiar gray unicorn with purple eyes, and a reddish-brown mane.
Hope.
“What’re you doing here?” Kraber said, and all the apathy he’d poured into his last sentence just evaporated then and there.
“She wanted to say something to you,” Hope said.
“What’re you d-” Alpen Glow asked.
“Besides, he’s not going to do anything,” Hope said.
It was like Kraber lost all sense of up and down for a few seconds. There was a reflexive snap of rage. Then sadness. Then relief.
Somehow, Hope hadn’t made that sound condescending.
“...How in the fok do you know?” Kraber asked, narrowing his eyes. “How do you know that I’m not some kind of horrible ticking time bomb being held here at gunpoint?”
“Because you don’t want to,” Hope said. “I… know what that feels like. To be seen as some kind of ticking time bomb, like you said.”
It shouldn’t have made as much sense as it did, but Kraber nodded along. “Ja,” he said. “Ja, I do.”
“Just,” Alpen Glow said. “...I see you’ve both backed me into a corner.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I didn’t do anything,” Kraber said.
“I just…” Alpen Glow said, stumbling over each syllable like a rock careening down a hillside. “Before I tell you this, I need to know: Did you kill Louis and Prisma?”
Kraber took in a deep breath, and exhaled deeply. “You heard from Cindy, didn’t you.”
“Not just her,” Alpen Glow said. “It… I hate to say it. But it’s very believable.”
Kraber sighed. He wanted to get pissed off at that, wanted to be high on the fumes of righteous anger, but…
“No,” he said. “Everything else, she accused me of. But not that. I swear to God, I didn’t kill either of them. Louis got ponified with a crossbow, and Prisma… ”
He paused. “I don’t actually know what happened to her. I think it was some kind of fire spell. But everything just burned, and then… there I was.”
“...Huh,” Alpen Glow said, looking down at the metal deck of the library.
Kraber tried and failed to get back to his book. The anime had changed so much - they’d padded things out so much, just before the episode that’d be adapting it.
I forgot how annoying that kid that says they captured Vash three times was, Kraber thought, as he read over a panel featuring Vash pushing up a pile of rubble with a metal beam. It was such a striking moment - after all the comic talked up Vash’s actions, after all he tried to avoid the attempts on his life…
He did the right thing regardless, as he pried the rubble off the wounded bystanders that’d been holding him at gunpoint minutes earlier.
At this point in the episode, Vash would’ve been receiving an utter torrent of abuse from the episode’s villain.
Lucky you. Everyone gets to be wrong about you, Kraber thought. Do I even still like this story?
He tried to get back in. Tried to enjoy the comic.
“Hope,” Alpen Glow said. “This is stupid. He... clearly doesn’t want to talk.”
And then Hope asked three words Kraber hadn’t heard from anyone on the ship:
“Are you okay?”
What Kraber was going to say was: “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
But something didn’t feel right. There’d been genuine compassion in Hope’s voice, the kind he’d barely heard from anyone but Romero.
“...No,” Kraber said. “I’m starting to feel like a prisoner.”
Alpen Glow and Hope looked at him quizzically.
“I have nowhere to go, I don’t get to talk to anyone, and people are openly ova about how much they want me off the ship,” Kraber said. “And yeah. They’re right. I’m just… I’m starting to feel like I should’ve died in that boat explosion, and most of the ship shares that opinion. I know they’re right, but it… this fokking hurts. Ek is siek en sat.”
He sighed.
“Ja. I’m a kontgesig. But everyone’s berdonnered at me and I feel like I’m just stewing in my own resentment every day,” Kraber said. “That can’t be healthy.”
“Have you been in prison?” Alpen Glow asked, her eyes narrowing. A note of anger crept into her voice.
“I’ve been in holding before,” Kraber said. “Some of it was during the Purple Winter, with police departments. Some of it was during college. So I’ve definitely been a prisoner.”
“Honestly, I get it, too,” Hope said.
Conflicting emotions surged through Kraber’s mind. Confusion. Anger.
Where the fok does she get off? How in the… why… of all the fokkin’...
“It’s not that bad,” Hope said, as Kraber struggled to process it. “But… I’m the only Slow Newfoal, you know? Everyone wants to learn about my DNA, my alicornal tissue, my everything. There’s test after test, every day,” she sighed.
She slumped a little as she said that.
Kraber stumbled over the next word like a mountaineer approaching a summit. “You feel like…. Like you’re not a person here. Like you’re not even a side character in someone’s story. Like you’re their macguffin.”
There was supposed to be a question mark at the end of that sentence. But somehow, Kraber had forgotten. He’d felt extremely certain as he said it.
Libraries were admittedly supposed to be silent, but the next few seconds of quiet stuck out to Kraber - and, he was certain, to the rest of them.
“Oh my God,” Hope said, her jaw hanging open. “That’s exactly it!”
“Does anyone even ask Layla from House of M or Kobik or whoever how they feel about existing as just a plot device?” Kraber asked.
“I don’t know who either of them are,” Alpen Glow said.
“Don’t worry about Kobik, Secret Empire wasn’t very good,” Hope said.
“Actually, it was kind of ass,” Kraber said.
“You know what?” Hope asked. “You’re absolutely right.”
“That Secret Empire was ass?” Kraber asked.
“That’s not important. More… How’d you know that was what she felt like?” Alpen Glow asked.
“Honestly?” Kraber asked. “Most of it was a guess. She was talking about expectations, and there’s… so much that Romero wants to put on my shoulders.”
“What could he possibly want out of you?” Alpen Glow asked, chuckling slightly, her nose wrinkling a little.
“Honestly? You’d be surprised.” He held up his right palm, fingers curled slightly. “Prove you can reform the Carter side, be an ambassador to the Carter side, be a weapon to use against Lovikov, and provide surgical services. All while most of the ship hates me.”
Kraber was already sitting in an armchair, so there wasn’t much more he could do to signal relaxation or exhaustion. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. He sort of… melted, slightly, deciding to resist gravity less than normal.
“Well, for what it’s worth,” Alpen Glow said, “I’m grateful.”
Kraber blinked.
“For saving my wings,” Alpen Glow said. “I still need to walk a lot, but… Without what you did, I wouldn’t have been able to fly ever again. So… Thank you.”
If Afrikaans hadn’t been his native language, all ability to use English would’ve fallen by the wayside, he would’ve simply said “Que,” or something similar. Thankfully, the Afrikaans word for that was:
“Wat.”
So really, it didn’t change much.
“You seem… surprised,” Alpen Glow said.
“Well, I…” Kraber said. “I mean, it’s kind of my fault. But niemand nie actually been grateful to me for a couple of weeks. Dankie. I mean it, really.”
“I thought I was thanking you,” Alpen Glow said, one eye narrowing, one eye widening in confusion.
“Yeah, well, it’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for me,” Kraber said. “So… thank you. Really.” He sighed. Exhausted from weeks of struggle, a smile cautiously wandered onto his face.
“I just wanted to say it because…” Alpen Glow said. “You always seem so… alone.”
“I know. I’ve been very subtle about it,” Kraber said.
“I know what it is to be the low mare on the totem prole and having to work your way up,” Alpen Glow said. “You’re not the only one who came here from the dregs.”
“So do I,” Hope said, nodding. “The best thing you can get when you’re there is… to know you’re on the right track, you know?”
Kraber didn’t know. He’d had a fairly absurd number of life-changing experiences, but needing to work his way up among people who at worst wanted him dead was a new one. The longer he thought about it, the more sense it made to him.
“I cav it, but there’s one thing I don’t get. What do I do?” Kraber asked.
Alpen Glow frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“What you’ve said meant a lot,” Kraber said. “But… I do my job, I try not to piss anyone off, I work in the kitchen in my off hours, and they still…”
Something caught in Kraber’s throat.
“They still fokkin’ want me dead.”
“They wanted me, and Doctor Well Met dead too,” Alpen Glow said. “Nobody here is a bad person, they’re just…”
“Some of them still don’t know what to make of me,” Hope nodded her head solemnly.
“Just…” Alpen Glow said. “Keep trying. I know everyone says that. But if you keep working at it, they will come around. Promise.”
“You… really mean it?” Kraber asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Course I do,” Alpen Glow said.
It probably should’ve bothered him that Alpen Glow didn’t deny his assertion that the ship wanted him dead.
”Hold up,” Dancing Day says, “You keep saying you’ve been here for weeks. Did you… forget about Yael? Or Heliotrope?
Kraber’s eyes widen. He stares over at Yael and Heliotrope’s holograms.
“Uhhhhhh….” he says, voice droning and trailing off a little bit.
“It was an interesting few weeks,” Vinyl Scratch says.
“I wasn’t around for most of it,” Kraber says sheepishly. “I… kind of forgot.”
“Honestly, so did I,” Heliotrope says. “Except in my case, I kind of wanted to forget.”
Kraber
Time Unknown
DO YOU ACCEPT
Kraber was in a log cabin, sitting next to Lovikov.
“So what the fok is this?” he asked.
Lovikov looked up at him from his seat and smiled. “The future.”
“So is it modern art?” Kraber asked. “Is this log cabin really a statement on the failures of mankind and the way nature abhors a vacuum?”
Lovikov looked to him. “What.”
“I’m just saying, I don’t understand any of this,” Kraber explained. “Is this… is this a fokking drug deal? You mentioned that we were going to be getting help from ‘a friend in the north woods.’ Then drove me and Benning here.”
DO YOU ACCEPT
“This,” Lovikov said, “is my backing. We’re here to vet you with them.”
“And if I fail?” Kraber asked.
“That won’t be an issue,” Lovikov said, smirking.
”It’s you again, isn’t it?” Kraber asked. “You’re actually-”
Oh.
You only wish it was me. This… is something else.
“And why,” Kraber asked, “Is that?”
Lovikov’s smirk didn’t leave his face. “You’ll find out. Or maybe you won’t.”
As if to punctuate that sentence, a bookshelf swung open, revealing a set of stairs leading into blackness.
“Oh God,” Kraber sighed, “How cliche can one man get?”
Lovikov’s smirk stayed as if it was painted on his face. And Kraber didn’t go down the stairs. Didn’t
Didn’t
Didn’t
DIDN’T
Kraber wheezed. Choking and spitting.
“FOK WAS THAT?!” his eyes darted around the room. Around the shipping container he shared with [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.].
Oh. I’m back?
Back from where? He wondered. He was sitting up in his bed. He looked down, towards the other pillow. Where [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] should have been.
“Love?” Kraber asked. There was some word there, some word he should’ve been using, but… for some reason he was drawing a blank. He looked towards the other pillow, the sheets pulled up over a sleeping form. “Sorry,[█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] I didn’t mean to wake you up. I was just having the weirdest fokking dre-”
He stopped. The figure was unearthly still.
[█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] was a light/heavy/ sleeper. And nobody could just keep sleeping within inches of a man having such an outburst. If Kraber knew his nightmares (and he did!) then [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] absolutely would have noticed.
Slowly, tenderly, Kraber reached towards the covers. He wondered if he’d hidden his stuffed animals on that side again, and-
He blinked.
His stuffed African Wild Dog and stuffed horse were in the crevice between the two pillows. The African Wild Dog’s glass orbs bore into him as it made its insipid sewed-on smile.
...seltsam…
Kraber’s fingers moved, millimeter by millimeter, towards the edge of the stolen bedspread with a precision he reserved for surgeries. Like peeling back the skin to work on an organ, he shifted the bedspread back to find-
Nothing.
There was nothing under the covers. But-
The bed creaked. Kraber didn’t weigh enough to make the bedframe do that, not on his own, anyway.
So what in the goddamn-
He looked closer at the other half of the bed. Something wasn’t right. He ran his fingers along the fitted sheet that covered the mattress. Felt every thread as his eyes narrowed, until…
A sudden absence. The bed indented ever so slightly. As if someone was sleeping right next to him. Except he was the only one in the room. [█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.] was dead/away/dead/away.
Kraber reached for the stuffed African Wild Dog and pointed their glass eyes towards the dent.
“Now isn’t that bizarre?” he said aloud.
There was(n’t) someone there. There was an indentation, a sense of weight, but nothing filling it. It was there. Something, someone had to be there, but nothing was. Was. Wasn’t. Was. Wasn’t.
“You’re awake, huh?” Lovikov asked. “That was a wild night you had at The Tanner’s.”
Kraber spun around the room, looking for Lovikov’s voice. He was sitting on an old, crappy armchair Kraber had taken from a wrecked house in a town the PER had “disappeared.”
[█̴̡̨̡̜̳̬̰̣͙̳̲̗̐̏͛̅̒̕█̵̛͙̱̯̫͍̪̼͑́̏̄͋̐̎̍̓̆͐͒̅̓̚͘͝͝█̷̤̮̩͇͕̼̳̳̩̳̆͑̿̀̈͂͘͜.]’s armchair. They’d loved that armchair.
“But…” Kraber said. “There was… we’d… you took me somewhere. Near the…”
The words died in his throat. He couldn’t remember.
“You had a bad dream,” Lovikov said. “You got drunk at the Tanner’s, like you always do, and I had to carry you back.”
“It felt so real though,” Kraber said. “We were in the tunnels, and… there was a secret door, and…”
“Secret what?” Lovikov asked, a look of confusion written on his face. “Viktor, you’re not making any sense. What are you talking about? I know I remember carrying you out of Tanner’s.”
Kraber considered that. That… did sound like something he’d do, and he had a splitting headache.
“That… does sound nice,” Kraber said.
“Hey, it’s what friends are for,” Lovikov said. “You… doing okay?”
“I…” Kraber said. His head throbbed. “Ag, fokking balls, my head hurts…”
“I’ll… go get you some water or something,” Lovikov said. There was a curiously wistful look on his face. “You know I love you like a brother, right?”
Kraber smiled weakly. “You’ve always done right by me. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”
Lovikov tapped him on the shoulder, that strange wistful look still painted on his face. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up like that. That’s goddamn quitter talk. You always deserve a friend by your side.”
The two of them stared at each other.
“Now,” Lovikov said, “I’ll… go get you some water. You stay in bed, relax, and try to take a load off.”
Lovikov turned and left.
That did admittedly make sense. But something didn’t sit right with Kraber.
He narrowed his eyes. Looked at the pillowcase, to find a slight yet noticeable stain. Just where his fingers had touched it.
He held his right hand up to his face. Stared at the fingertips.
There was dirt under them.BRRRRRRIIIIING
Kraber awoke in a cold sweat, and he reached for the pistol he kept under his pillow, only to realize-
Where was it where was it where was it-
Kraber’s eyes tracked to the source of the ringing. Was it a bomb?! Did they get to him?! Oh, shit. Was that dickbag Summers here?! Did Kaminsky and Cindy plan on a murder attempt?!
His eyes
(son of a fokkin whore what the fok is goin on here fok this fok, where the fok is my goddamn .45)
darted around the room. Looking for the source of the noise. A little box sitting on his nightstand. Operating on instinct, Kraber surged out from his bed, reaching for it. He grabbed it in both hands, wishing he had a screwdriver.
I can use my thumb to unscrew it! That works someti-
Kraber paused. For the first time, he looked down at the object in his hands, only to find that he was holding an alarm clock.
Shit, he thought. I could’ve died.
Kraber considered that. Then realized that made no fokdamned sense. He was holding an alarm clock! So what the hell was he thinking? That he somehow could’ve died in the dream?
That made no sense.
He shut off the alarm, carefully looking for the off switch. And at his fingernails.
No dirt.
Why did I ever think there’d be? It’d be a decent scare if I was making an adaptation of Pet Sematary, but it doesn’t make much sense here, he thought.
He sighed, and sat back down on the bed. He’d purposefully set the alarm so he had some time to sit down and relax. It was half an hour before he’d have to put on clothes, get breakfast, take a shower… the usual morning kak, before staggering into the lobby of the medical bay with the blackest, bitterest, sludgiest coffee on the ship.
He set the alarm again. He probably wasn’t going to fall asleep again, but it helped to be sure.
And just what in the fok, Kraber thought, was that about?!
His dreams had been worse, lately. Fields of screaming pony and human faces. Cockroach-trees. Herds of things that had once been human, running across fields of rust-red and purple grass. And then there’d been the time he woke up, panting heavily, drenched in sweat, saying out loud “and thank fok I won’t remember this!”
“What was that?” Dancing Day asks.
“Fok weet, I don’t remember,” Kraber says.
* * *
The next day began like any other.
Sit at the table furthest away from anyone. Lean back in a chair that wasn’t made for people built like beanpoles.
Sit with Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie.
They talked about this newest movie, some Reel Action flick the PHL had made for as little money as possible for as much output as possible. It was titled “The Confession.”
It was sort of an anthology piece. All these citizens of the co-prosperity sphere or whatever Celestia called it now had managed to escape the Solar Empire. And they’d give their stories. Explain how one day, it’d clicked for them that this wasn’t their home anymore. You’d have these ponies sitting in an almost aggressively sterile room, monologuing about the secret police or the
None of them had seen it, of course, but Jessie was big into films so she’d seen some reviews on youtube and wanted to go and see it on shore leave.
“We get shore leave?” Kraber had asked.
“Well, yeah,” Wedge had said. “It’s best in the summer. All the places that sell lobster rolls are open, there’s ice cream everywhere, and I get to enjoy the summer. Everyone gets…”
Wedge’s voice trailed off into nothing. They’d run straight into the ass end of the elephant in the room.
…fokdammit.
Nobody would’ve said it. They all knew.
For a moment, Kraber thought of looking to Alpen Glow for guidance. But then he thought about Louis. Where was he, a-
shit.
“They’d really trust you with shore leave?” nobody asked. “They’d really trust a literal mass murderer enough to get off the ship?
“I mean, I can bootleg it if you want?” Alpen Glow asked.
The spell was broken.
“Sure,” Kraber said. “Aweh. Sure. Why not.”
It wasn't long before someone actually said it, though. As Kraber searched for something to say, he heard a new voice.
“Like they'd ever let you off the ship,” they said.
Kraber said nothing. He looked over to find, of course, another pony. A heavyset green unicorn pony of indeterminate gender, with a yellow and orange mane. They stood next to a black woman with
He didn’t even feel angry anymore. What was the point?
“You missing your friends right about now?” they asked, levitating an iPad over to them.
Kraber didn’t say yes as he read the article displayed on the iPad.
It read: “PHL Victory! Colonel Gardner’s forces liberate HLF stronghold.”
Not captured. Not broke. Liberated.
It had a picture of a tank (Kraber didn’t know tanks) that stood proudly atop a wall of tree trunks and rubble, looking down upon an improvised pillbox on what used to be someone’s deck. A gun that looked like a DsHK sat on a tripod with plastic tubs of 12.7x108m sat abandoned, looking very small in front of the tank.
But he came close. Too close. There was this sudden pang of longing to be somewhere else, to be on the open road.
He could just imagine what they’d say. Awww, does the poor widdle nazi baby want more war crimey?
”Pause,” Heather says, sighing and raising one eyebrow. It looks as if it is trying to seek shelter under her bangs.
The room goes silent. Everyone looks to Kraber’s college friend.
They,” Heather said, “Would not say that.”
“Agreed,” Heliotrope said.
“It was my self-loathing talking,” Kraber says bluntly.
“You know what they did there?” the black woman asked. “It was a little town called Ellisburg. I had family there.”
“I can tell you what we did there,” Yael volunteers.
“Maybe in a bit,” Kraber said. “We’re almost at the part where we get off the ship.”
“Really?!” Dancing Day pipes up, excited.
“You’ve been weirdly quiet, lately,” Aegis notes.
“I, uh… fell asleep,” Dancing Day says. “This part with the ship was kind of boring.”“Boring? Really?” Kraber asks.
“Well, maybe just tiring? I thought Romero and the Thunderchild were cool,” Dancing Day admits, “But… you just looked so out of it. You were like, a… like a…”
She looks up to Astral Nectar.
“What’s a… it’s like a, like a…”“Like a pegasus in a tunnel?” Astral Nectar asks.
“What’s that mean?” Heliotrope asks.
“I mean that he just seems like he was out of his element,” Astral Nectar says.Kraber sighs and nods. “You know what? You’re absolutely right.”
“You know what they did?” the woman asked. “They recruited hate groups and let them run rampant. Literal. Goddamn. Nazis. You know why Kaminsky hates you so much?”
Kraber really wanted to make some sort of witty comment. But… it hadn’t been the first time this happened. It’d felt so omnipresent he hadn’t even felt comfortable signing on with the therapist.
“I assume it’s because I’m of the war crimes,” Kraber said, deadpan.
“Because he’s jewish,” the pony at her side finished. “I don’t understand human religion that much. But you… you looked at people that would’ve killed you with a smile on their face, and you decided to smile right along with them.”
“How the fok do you know they were Nazis?” Kraber asked. “I didn’t even know about this until t-”
“Because they literally had Nazi flags,” the black woman said. “Some of them were a literal hate group from before the War.”
She picked up the tablet from the unicorn’s telekinesis field. Scrolled down to show a group of men and women, most of the men in bulletproof vests with the ubiquitous goatee-and-wraparounds combo that seemed to be manufactured in bulk in small towns.
A… distressing amount of them had swastikas on their armor.
Oh, shit.
“You joined with a bunch of pissed off rednecks forty years too late to the cross burning. I hope you’re fucking proud of yourself, motherfucker,” she said.
She spat on the floor. It came within millimeters of Kraber’s boots.
“Does it make you feel proud to do this?” the pony asked.
“Honestly?” Kraber asked. “No. No, it fokking doesn’t. This is going to eat at me every hour of every fokking day of my miserable life.”
The noise in the cafeteria died down, ever so slowly. Kraber became aware of far too many eyes settling on him.
“For the love of God. I am sorry,” Kraber said, his voice trembling. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’M FOKKING SORRY!”
His voice rose. He felt his eyes heating up, burning.
They’re going to laugh at me, aren’t they? He thought.
The woman and pony stared at him. The pony wore a scowl, the woman was openmouthed.
“Everything I did was a mistake. It was wrong then, and it was wrong now. I’m. Fokking. Sorry,” Kraber said.
“And I don’t give a shit,” the pony said, finally. “What you did, Kraber… that’s unforgivable. We’ve told you. You’re running out of time.”
Their glare swept over Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge.
“You three. You sicken me,” she said. She looked to Jessie. “You… you know what this man has done? The lives he’s ruined? Three weeks ago, he would’ve killed you, skinned you, just like he did Prisma and Louis.”
“FOR THE LAST FOKKING TIME, I DIDN’T KILL THEM!” Kraber yelled.
“And what goddamned evidence do you have?” yelled an Earth Pony stallion who sat by a water bubbler, in the corner. “You don’t give a shit about killing anyone! If one of us got killed tonight, we’d all think you did it!”
Oh, fok. He was right.
It didn’t matter.
“Maybe if you three keep being buddy-buddy with him,” someone else said, “You might end up in trouble.”
Kraber turned around to see Biggs, Jessie, and Wedge staring at anything but him. He could only see the corners of their faces, but their expressions were pulled taut. They were afraid of him.
Everyone was afraid of him.
Fok it. It’s all pointless, Kraber thought. As long as he was Viktor Kraber, as long as he was on this boat…
It could never work. He could never be happy.
It was a sobering realization. It wasn't as if he could tell himself with a straight face that it was unfair. After all, anywhere else, he would've been hanged.
And these people... where did he even get off acting like they owed him anything? Why in God's name do I keep bragging about this shit?! The shittiest thing was that they were right. If he'd been here, and the boss had crowbarred someone like him onto the job, he would've hated them too.
He was a monster. And every day he was here would remind the entire boat of that simple fact.
“I’m… going to the medical bay,” he said.
When he got to the waiting room of the medical bay, he saw Cindy glaring at him.
Kraber desperately wanted to punch or stab something. Even to play a videogame. Take off some stress. But…
Nothing.
He had no outlet. No release. No. Fokking. Nothing. He ached to do something. Anything. To find a woman or man or whoever at a pub, But he wasn’t going to be allowed in the rec room, he wasn’t going to be allowed shore leave, and
(I’m going to die on this ship)
Kraber blinked. Where had that come from?!
Despite everything, he couldn’t shake it. It made sense. An entire boat full of armed HLF and ponies? None of whom liked him?
It was only a matter of time before he had an… accident.
“The fuck are you looking at?” Cindy asked.
Kraber ignored her, stepping into the office. He let the familiar, artificial un-scent of antiseptics and equipment wash over him, as he stood in a hallway leading to several examination rooms - and one operating room.
Doctor Fetlock stood to greet him.
“Excellent,” Doctor Fetlock said. “I’m glad you’re here. Our patient was injured while working on a... classified... project."
There was a pause.
"You're not going to...?" Fetlock asked, his voice raising with an unspoken question.
Kraber sighed. He felt almost weightless, less like he'd walked up to Fetlock and more as if he'd blown in like a piece of detritus on the wind.
"What is even the fokking point, anyway?"
Fetlock didn't answer. He trotted towards the operating room, not even looking at Kraber.
That same thought seemed to echo in Kraber's mind. What's even the point. The longer he thought about it, the harder it was to answer.
Cindy was right. Kaminsky was right. He'd deserved a hundred times worse than them treating him like a bit of muck scraped off the bottom of a shoe. And if he complained about it, what did he have a right to say? Knowing his luck, if he scheduled an appointment with a therapist on the ship they'd just laugh in his face.
There was no reason to expect anything but things getting worse.
"He's suffering severe back injuries, punctured lungs, and organ damage," Fetlock said. It was as if Kraber hadn't said anything at all.
Sometimes he felt like a ghost on this ship. Less than real.
The automatic door slid open. Kraber guessed there was a laser sensor mechanism calibrated for pony height, meant to minimize contact.
"So," Kraber said. "Who am I-"
His voice died in his throat as he looked down at the operating table, to the patient sitting there, anesthetized.
It was Kaminsky.
...Fokdammit.
“If today was a person,” Kraber found himself saying, “I would shoot it. I would shoot it in the balls.”
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I mean, on one hand I understand why everyone's pissed with Krabber. On the other... there were plenty of ponies who went along with Celestia's plan at first until they realized just how deep down the rabbit hole it went. I'm sure some of them don't have much ground to talk smack given what they've done.
10753418
Agreed. She's the sexiest hallucinatory pastel war criminal ever.