Unshaken

by The 24th Pegasus

Chapter 145

Attack the fort in force from the river: 6 Votes

After Kestrel spent some time to puzzle it over, she decided to pitch the more straightforward approach to Tumbleweed and the Gang when she returned to camp. After all, there was a lot that could go wrong with bombs, and even when Trixie was with them, their luck using explosives had been fairly hit or miss. Now the magician was gone and her expertise in fireworks had gone with her, and Kestrel worried somepony would only blow themselves up if they tried to jury rig something together using her leftover fireworks. Attacking the fort directly would likely, ironically, be the safer option out of the two.

Kestrel let her cloud drift away from the fort in the wind, plotting potential avenues of approach and sightlines for an assault on the crumbling bastion. If the Gang could secure a small flat-bottomed boat to approach along the water, they could land on the spur of rock and swampy ground and charge into the fort through its ruined wall, or creep into position and surprise any guards stationed inside. The opposite riverbank had some dry ground and rocks to position a sniper or two; Kestrel wondered if putting Snapshot there alongside Pinpoint would be the best place to position the two marksponies they had available for the assault. Maybe with some rope they could get into the trees and shoot down into the fort from above, leaving no place for any defenders to hide.

By the time Kestrel’s cloud had drifted a safe distance away from the fort and she took wing, the gunslinger was starting to believe that maybe things would work out alright in the end. Even with Silver likely to be out of commission for the attack on the fort due to her worsening sickness, the lackluster defenses and lax guard detail had her confident that the Gang could bust in, wreak havoc, and leave without any problem. She only hoped that she was right. The Gang couldn’t afford things to get any worse.

The first thing Kestrel did when she landed back in camp (barring a wide yawn and a few slow stretches of her tired wings) was make her way to the central building, following the sounds of gruff chatter making its way through the cracked open door. Pulling open the door with a tug on the handle, the gunslinger shuffled inside and made her way to the table in the middle, where Tumbleweed and Roughshod sat with their revolvers partially disassembled and a small vial of gun oil and some rags between them. Tumbleweed looked up as Kestrel approached and gave her a nod, then slid the revolver’s cylinder back onto its axle and gave it a little spin. “Back so soon? I take it the flight went well?”

“Better’n what I feared,” Kestrel said, dragging out a seat and joining the two stallions at the table. “Damn thing’s a rotten ruin. Walls tumblin’ down into the swamp and they ain’t in no hurry stickin’ ‘em back up. Ain’t nopony defendin’ the thing either, just a couple of lookouts when I flew over. Didn’t see hide nor hair of the twenty ponies Tin Cup said to expect.”

Roughshod scoffed and fit his hoof into the handle of his mug of coffee. “You musta missed somethin’ then, Kessie. Ain’t no way things work out that easy for us.”

“We been gettin’ spat in the face by Lady Luck too much for her to not catch us a break sometime soon,” Kestrel fired back. “Maybe this one’ll be it. If this one’s easy as it looks, we might get what Tin Cup knows and be on our way outta here before the end of the week.”

“I’m still thinkin’ we should just grab ‘em and beat it outta ‘em,” Roughshod grumbled, and he gave Tumbleweed a quick look out of the corner of his eye before he raised his mug to his lips. He took a big gulp and set it down with a grunt. “Least we know what we’re gettin’ into with that one.”

“I done give us our best heads up about our other option.” Kestrel turned to Tumbleweed, who seemed to be mulling that information over. “I’m thinkin’ we can go take that mare, Pinpoint, and stick her and Snapshot on the bank on the other side of the river from the fort. Maybe get ‘em up in the trees and have them shoot with our fancy scoped rifles from afar. The rest of us, we get in a little rowboat and row on up there under the cover of the night. Sneak into the camp, shoot everypony we see, and smash their stills and toss ‘em into the river.”

“And you said they ain’t gonna be able to put up much resistance?” Tumbleweed asked her. “We ain’t gotta worry ‘bout gettin’ stuck on the rocks and shot like fish in a barrel?”

“You can take a little boat right up to the rocks and hop into the fort,” Kestrel assured him. “Long as you don’t bump into no gators or slip on the rocks, we ain’t gonna have any problems gettin’ inside. From there, the stills are out in the open, and anypony who might be stayin’ there’s probably got a tent fixed up along one of the walls. The buildin’s were in such bad shape I don’t think nopony would want to sleep in there. Things looked ready to crumble at any second.”

Tumbleweed nodded, and after a moment, he turned his attention back to his revolver. “Sounds like it’ll work, then. Best shot we got anyway; least we got some good news from it.” After a moment, he added, “But we ain’t gonna have Silvie with us. No way that poor filly’s feelin’ up to things by then. She just needs to focus on gettin’ her rest.”

“That’s what I’m thinkin’,” Kestrel agreed. Then she quickly did the math in her head. “So that leaves you, me, Rough, and Snap for the job. Add Pinpoint when we swing by to pick her up, and that’s five. You think five’ll be enough?”

“You said there was only a couple when you was there,” Tumbleweed recalled. “We can handle three. We can handle more than that if it comes down to it; I doubt these shiners know much ‘bout shootin’ and fightin’, ‘specially if Tin Cup’s right and they got connections in New Oatleans that means they ain’t gotta worry bout no lawponies comin’ after ‘em. Let’s just hope that we don’t hit ‘em when they’s gonna be busy ‘round their hideout.”

“Hit ‘em in the night, then,” Roughshod said. “Should be simple enough.”

“Yeah. We just gotta scrounge up a boat and get set.” Kestrel drew her revolvers and dropped them on the table as well, figuring she might as well join the stallions in cleaning her guns. “Shouldn’t be too hard to find a boat ‘round here, I don’t think. I’ll fly out and find one tomorrow. Maybe I’ll see if Tin Cup and his crew got one. Gotta fly out there anyway to let ‘em know of our plan.”

“We should have the finer points of our plan down pat then,” Tumbleweed said. “Way I see it, least from what you described, is we can either concentrate our firepower or spread it out a little. Either we put Snapshot and Pinpoint together and stick you with me and Rough, or we spread the two of ‘em out and get you up in the air to pick off any stragglers. You saw the fort the best; depends on what you think would be the best way to go about it.”

1. Concentrate our firepower. Best bet we have is if we come across a target, we all take a shot at bringin’ ‘em down. Might mean we have fewer angles to handle any threats should they pop up, but if there ain’t gonna be a whole lotta ponies at the fort, might be the best way to go.

2. Disperse our firepower. More firin’ positions means more sightlines we can cover. It’ll expose Tumbleweed and Rough to a bit more danger if they meet stubborn resistance, but at least we can cover more angles if there’s more ponies than we’re anticipatin’.

Author's Note:

Please comment your decision down below. Only comments expressly stating your choice will be considered. You cannot vote for multiple choices. Polling will be considered closed after a few days and a sufficient number of comments.

This story is a CYOA comment-driven story, where you, the readers, decide the outcome of the story. Each poll contains several options, each with sub-optimal choices thrown into the mix, with nothing but the prose to clue the readers into what each option entails. The will of the masses, alongside a few unbiased dice rolls, will decide the outcome of the story.

You can find Kestrel's character sheet, along with some key information about her and the Gang, here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xAGDlcd5mlMTAHwexlsrXOffQMMLoQc12u9itAa-io0/edit?usp=sharing

If you want to see the dice rolls in action, check out my Discord server: https://discord.gg/RsVkdDP

Comments

[CanadianPony]

1. Splitting up tends to lead to gangers dying and shit meeting fan. Quick and hard to cause max damage

[RoboRed]

1. Hit 'em hard, I guess.

[Jaro45]

Option two ( 2 ). There are no guarantees that one, the shiners are so low on horsepower. Two, they can't shoot worth a damn. Or three, ( un ) expected bad luck strikes. With a spread out position the gang can't just be hammered flat in one shot.

[Hahapie]

I think 1 is the best option. With as few of gins as we have we gotta keep them together or it’s over before we even walk into the fort.

[Napalm monster]

Option 1

[Six String]

1

[AcerSpacer]

1. Don't split the party

[Merula]

Option 1. Like a spearhead, go right through any opposition encountered

[SolarisLunaris]

2.

[djthomp]

I'm thinking one, concentrate.

[Quick Fix]

It's never as easy as it sounds, and that means adaptability is the keyword for this operation. Option 2