Virga

by Dave Bryant

Pass

The afternoon was fine and cloudless and hot. The stalwart switcher engine puffed down the track little faster than a pony could canter—but far more tirelessly. So far there had been no other rail or foot traffic on the narrow right-of-way hemmed by forest and foothills. They might be the only ponies in the world for all anyone knew; there had been no glimpses even of activity in the visible strip of sky.

Rose lay on the cab roof gingerly, wincing from the sun-heated metal, and peered down through an open side window. “Well, what about signals?” she shouted to the pair laboring inside.

“This line don’t got signals,” the ancient and rather leathery engineer shot back without even looking up. “The company’s still usin’ timetables an’ train orders.” She backhoofed toward the telegraph poles that marched alongside the track. “They keep talkin’ ’bout startin’ ta use tokens, but it never seems ta happen. I bet they’d do it in a hurry if there was a big smash-up, ya know?”

“So we have no idea if there’s another train on the line, then?”

“Nope.” The cracked voice sounded unperturbed. “Jus’ keep thinkin’ good thoughts, an’ hope they’re movin’ slow like we are so’s they c’n stop quicker.” Her assistant didn’t look thrilled with this philosophy, but went on working without a word, watching gauges and making adjustments with attentive precision before turning to shovel more coal. The undersize locomotive was neither designed nor supplied for long trips away from its home yard, and there’d been no time for additional preparations. The resulting potential for unpleasant surprises left the crew tending to its needs with unswerving, if rather edgy, vigilance.

Rose snorted, albeit softly. The seemingly stoic pronouncement resonated with her ingrained military outlook, summed up in the simple statement politely phrased as “stuff happens”. Besides, she was partial to tough old biddies, not least because she was likely to join their ranks herself someday, provided she survived that long. “Right,” she murmured before heaving herself to her feet and turning to walk back along the top of the train with careful steps as it rounded a large-radius curve northward.

Automatically she eyed the pair of sentries posted on the first and last cars, making sure their eyes were searching the sky and the surrounding forest, and reminded herself to rotate the watch soon. More than enough soldiers were available for short stints of no more than an hour, to limit both inattentiveness from boredom and exposure to the buffeting slipstream. She acknowledged the not-quite-salutes the look-outs threw to indicate they’d seen her, then turned back around to face into the wind. With finicky care she spread her wings and commanded the mysterious clinging force she’d discovered to dissipate.

Sunset had explained the latter as the ponies’ answer to a lack of hands, a universal form of equine magic that enabled them to “stick” things to themselves, or themselves to things. It certainly was useful, and even permitted ponies to do a few things humans couldn’t, since it wasn’t restricted to hooves or frogs—but it did have sharp limits, being no stronger than musclepower and extending no farther than direct contact or contact through a single intermediary layer such as clothing or shoes. “After Sci-Twi compared it to the way gecko feet work, Rainbow Dash started teasing me about ‘gecko hooves’.” The young unicorn had rolled her eyes in affectionate exasperation.

The big pegasus lifted from the curved top of the passenger car and began flapping slowly, almost lazily. She slid to the left, swiveling her head back and forth continually to compensate for the missing eye, until she no longer was over the train. Her breathing speeded up, more from stress than exertion. She knew her oversize wingspread wasn’t close to brushing against car and foliage, but both human and pegasus instincts insisted she was about to foul her wingtips.

She dropped a pony-length of altitude, rushing over the grassy ground, and glanced sidelong at the battered car, letting it move slowly past relative to her own motion. When she was level with the adjoining platforms of it and the next rearward car, she banked and sidled back to hover between the cars, flapping furiously in the unsettled air roiling in the pocket formed by the cars’ ends and overhanging roofs. Hastily she extended her legs to touch and hold on to the platform railings.

Wings folded and hooves minced from railing to railing until she was able to step down to the platform itself. Once firmly on the stamped metal sheeting she breathed a sigh and muttered, “Now I know how those squid flyboys feel.” A moment later she was through the door and into the car, glancing around.

All the wounded had been collected in the first car, where they lay on benches and the swept floor. Sunset and Cook, along with several other volunteers, did what they could, moving from one to another. A few of the occupants, patients and attendants alike, called greetings to her over the constant warm wind sweeping through the windows now bare of glass. She nodded back as she ambled along the aisle. “Mister Platter? Ms. Analemma? A moment of your time, please.”

“This sounds like one of those stupid river-crossing puzzles.” Sunset managed to keep her voice down despite the outrage coloring it.

“It is one of those stupid river-crossing puzzles,” Cook pointed out in a more practical tone. “There’s no other way?”

Rose shook her head. “Most of the east-west cargo traffic in this part of the country uses a line farther north that goes through a notch in the Unicorn Range—I gather it was an easier route to build, and it’s more direct. This line winds through a long pass in the Smoky Mountains instead. It’s not all that high, but it’s got a lot of steep grades by railroad standards. From what she told me, they could get away with that because they mostly run short passenger trains on the route, and those are a lot lighter.”

“It’s gonna take forever to get to Tall Tale,” Sunset groaned. “What about the ponies who’re hurt?”

“And every day we’re out here is a day we could be spotted by a wandering enemy airship,” Cook added reluctantly. “Or a day the enemy could occupy the place before we get there.”

“I can’t do anything about it,” Rose stated firmly. “Unless there’s immediate military danger, I’m just a passenger. She respects my rank and she’s willing to work with me, but legally she’s in charge, and she’s the expert.”

When both the other two opened their mouths, she cut them off impatiently. “Look, this isn’t a debate. I gave you two a head’s-up because I’ll need help getting the word out and keeping things organized, okay? I’m sure I can depend on you to keep your cool; I can’t be sure of that about any of the other civilian passengers. I talked with quite a few of them this morning for a little counseling, but that doesn’t mean I really know any of them.”

Cook let out a breath and nodded. “Yes, Captain, I understand.” Sunset still looked rebellious; in equally quiet tones he continued, “Ana, can you stay here and keep things under control? If you can do that, I’ll apprise the other civilian passengers of the plan. Captain, I assume your next task will be to brief the company?”

Sunset’s nostrils flared and her eyes squeezed shut, but when she opened them again she too nodded. “Okay. We’re stuck with things the way they are, so we don’t have any choice. It’s just—”

“I know,” Rose broke in more gently. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t like it either. Yes, Mister Platter, my job’s to make sure the company’s ready to undertake the necessary evolutions.”

The hills and mountains that bounded the Everfree to the north were as untamed as the forest that carpeted their southern extents, though not quite so magically intractable. Deciduous trees dominated the bulk of the wildwood, but even around the junction and town they mixed in almost equal measure with evergreens. As the rails wended to a more northerly course and began climbing toward the taller peaks of the Smokies, the transition progressed apace, but exactly where the Everfree and its resistance to magical intervention ended nopony could say.

As the incline steepened the locomotive gradually slowed until it chugged along no faster than a walk. At last it pulled onto a long flat pony-made bench, another passing loop at its center; steep embankments above and below were reinforced by stonework. A pair of trainponies jumped out and worked the switch so the train could back onto the loop, clearing the through track, then reset it.

All the able-bodied passengers debarked, and more trainponies set to work. On Rose’s orders the company fell out, sitting or lying on the grass and duff in loose groups rather than forming ranks, but no less attentive to her briefing. Behind her Sunset and Cook assisted with moving the walking wounded to what shade the bench possessed.

“All right, you lot, here’s the plan.” Rose raised her voice more out of military theater than any real need. “The switcher doesn’t have the muscle to lug the whole train to the summit like a full-power locomotive could, so it’ll have to pull one car at a time. Once all the cars are at the summit loop, the crew hitches everything up again and we make the downhill run. I’m told that won’t be as tough; the grades are longer, and there isn’t much in the way of reverse slopes.”

Her mouth quirked. “Until this whole fire drill is finished, we need to guard both ends of it, so the company will break into two detachments. Lieutenant, you’ll command the first detachment; I’ll command the second detachment. First detachment, along with the wounded, makes the first run. Second detachment, along with a minimal rail crew, makes the last run.” She went on, detailing which squads made up each detachment, then wound up with, “Any questions?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said the earth pony in her early twenties who looked both pleased and daunted by the prospect of semi-independent command. “What about the other runs?”

Rose made a face. “Bad enough I’m splitting the company as it is. I’m not going to chop it up into penny-packets.”

The younger mare opened her mouth, then thought better of it. “Yes, Ma’am,” she repeated.

“Anyone else?” Rose looked around but got nothing other than head-shakes and verbal negations. “All right, then. Form up by detachment.” There was a general scramble as the soldiers rose to find their places.

Sunset and Cook sat on the rear platform of the first car, staring back at the crowd as the engine pulled out on its first run. Rose already had turned away, attending to preparations for the rest of the shuttle. The old bench car was filled to capacity with the injured, a few ponies to care for them, a minimal railpony crew, and roughly half the surviving infantry company. Even so, the reduction in load made the switcher more spry, and it chuffed up the pass with vigor.

“A whole day?” Sunset didn’t bother to muffle her appalled words.

“Most of a day,” Cook corrected absently. “And that only because the railroaders aren’t planning on taking any breaks. Nopony wants the split to last any longer than absolutely necessary.” He looked over at her. “Let’s go see to our patients.”

Once inside they kept busy enough to relieve the tedium as minutes fell away with the slope. There was little talk aside from brief, clipped questions, answers, and instructions among civilians and soldiers alike—most revolving around the limited care they could provide. The passing landscape evolved from hills to mountains, dense forest dwindled to clumps and stands, sunlight thinned with the haze that gave the range its name. Then, finally, the tilt leveled out as they reached the summit.

The locomotive deposited the first car on a siding smack in the middle of a lengthy cut. Mountainsides rose precipitously on both sides, providing shade and restricting the panorama to narrow slices of the Everfree’s green expanse stretching away to the south and more misty peaks, some rising above the treeline, to the north. The summit cut was kept clear of everything but grass, though a few groves of pine stood farther up the surrounding alpine banks.

The skeleton crew moved quickly and efficiently to send the switcher on its way back down. No sooner had the engine disappeared over the shoulder of the grade than the senior lieutenant directed the troops to leave the car. “The wounded need the room,” she explained in self-conscious tones. “And we need to find the emergency cache the captain mentioned.”

The squad dispatched to search quickly found, near the north end of the cut, a combination shed and water tower containing the promised stockpile. Stale and utilitarian as they were, the food, water, and first-aid supplies were greeted with enormous relief by all and sundry.

So it went. Like clockwork the locomotive reappeared with one carload of passengers after another, headlight heralding its imminent arrival. Afternoon faded through evening to a seemingly endless night, though few of the growing advance party found sleep easy or restful, before morning brightened once more. The lack of other rail traffic was as disturbing as it was convenient. Far-off silhouettes of airships appeared a few times, no more than slow-moving dots in the cloud-spotted sky; at least once bright pinpricks and a glimmer of flame suggested an air-to-air battle. Even tinier specks indicated a few pegasus ponies were braving the potentially hostile skies, though there didn’t seem to be a lot of weather activity.

By midday the piecemeal move was nearly complete. All that remained was to finish the final trip, bringing the last boxcar and the rest of the Guard company. The buzz of conversation picked up as ponies looked forward to reuniting for the next leg of the trip, only to cut off abruptly at a distant, but sharp, bang—followed after a few seconds by a staccato series of blasts from a fading steam whistle.

There was trouble on the line.

Author's Note:

“The quick-reaction force is set up as best it can be while remaining mostly out of sight, and the portal remains apparently deactivated.” The somewhat dyspeptic-looking man in late middle age looked up from his briefing notes at the other formally dressed men and women around the long table in the well-appointed conference chamber.
   “Otherwise there’s no new information. Undersecretary Stripes continues to express confidence in her officer, Ms. Shimmer, and Ms. Brass.” His skeptical tone made it plain he disagreed. “That’s all we have at the moment. Moving on—”
   However critical the situation in distant Equestria, it was only one of many concerns for the nation in general and its top leadership in particular. Moreover, however little they might care to admit it, there was almost nothing they could do about it anyway.

Comments

[EchoWing]

Well, at least they've gotten a little relief. Thank whatever deity you follow for small favors.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Hoo boy. This is going to be problematic. Let's just hope the trouble is relatively minor and not, say, an aerial raid.