Unshaken

by The 24th Pegasus

Chapter 21

Set the charges in the canyon: 49%

There really was only one place where they could pull off the train heist, Kestrel concluded. The canyon was their best bet. Blowing the rails in the open would simply get them overwhelmed and killed, and if the train was carrying explosives of any kind, then blowing the bridge might destroy everything inside when it fell into the gorge. If they stopped it in the canyon, however, they could at least use the terrain to their advantage, even if it meant difficulty in getting the haul out of the canyon and back to camp.

“Let’s go take a gander at the canyon,” Kestrel said, flying forward. “Pretty much the only place we can set the charges and walk outta this one alive and rich. Question is, where’s the best spot?”

The two mares held their wings out straight as they glided down to the rocky canyon on the other side of the bridge. Only when they were close enough did they begin to flap them again, circling wide over the cleft in the rock. The canyon was only a couple of miles long, more a gash in a mesa than anything, and relatively straight. The canyon walls steeply sloped upwards, making it difficult for ponies to climb up or down it on hoof, and their bases hugged the rail tracks laid through them so tightly Kestrel was surprised trains could even fit through it. There would definitely be no room to bring the wagons down into the canyon, and the narrow ground meant that the train would likely slow down as it entered in case of rockslides.

“Think it matters where we put the charges?” Silvie asked, flying up to Kestrel’s side once more.

“Probably better closer to the bridge than at the other end,” Kestrel concluded. “Be easier to get things loaded into wagons near the exit instead of haulin’ it all the way from one end to the other.”

She flew down into the canyon just to make sure. The walls rose so steeply above her that she felt boxed in, despite the open sky directly overhead. Her hooves clacked against the rails as she alighted, and when she looked down the tracks, the gentle curve to the left only let her see about halfway through the canyon before they curved out of sight.

Silver landed next to her, and Kestrel pointed to a spot by the rails where the ground fell away some. “We can probably get the charges buried there,” she said. “Might take a little diggin’, so we’ll need to get here and get set up early tomorrow. So long as the engineer can’t see anything amiss from the engine, we’ll be fine.”

“Are we gonna blow the charges under the engine or what?” Silver asked.

Kestrel merely shrugged. “That’ll be for Boss to figure out. We don’t want to blow up a powder car by accident, but if they see that the rails is ruined before they even get to ‘em, they might throw her in reverse and get outta here.”

“I s’pose.” Silver looked around and shuffled her feathers. “At least from up top we’ll be able to keep control of the fight, but I don’t know what our ground-bound companions plan on doin’.”

“They’ll figure it.” Kestrel began to flap her wings and rise out of the canyon. “C’mon, let’s get back to camp before a train comes through and squishes us flat.”

And then they were up and off through the air, their eyes trained eastward and settling on the red mesa that concealed their camp. The flight took them a little more than an hour, though they weren’t in a hurry. They had nothing left to do for the day, and they didn’t want their wings to be sore come tomorrow. They would need all their energy for taking down the army train, and Kestrel had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t going to be as simple as they all hoped.

They were the first of the crew that had gone to Rock Ridge to make it back to camp. Things were quiet, though Snapshot perched on the rocks above the camp at least signified nothing strange had happened while they were gone. The stallion simply nodded to Kestrel and Silvie as they descended onto the platform at the edge of camp the pegasi liked to take off from, and Kestrel shook her head. For a stallion as twitchy as Snapshot could be, he never seemed to need sleep and could be incredibly patient when he had a job to do.

The smell of lunch cooking over the fire made Kestrel’s mouth water; she’d missed the chance to get something to eat back in Rock Ridge with the excitement surrounding Trixie’s show and then flying off to scout the rail lines. Silver couldn’t help herself as she immediately galloped into camp, grabbing first a drink of water from the bucket and then snatching a tin bowl in her teeth to grab some stew. Miss Irons looked up from the deck of a nearby wagon as Silver bounded over to the fire, and her features resumed the hardened, resting frown she always seemed to wear when in the presence of other ponies. “You’re back already?” she questioned Silver, her magic setting aside the blanket she’d been knitting. “Where’s Tumbleweed and Wanderer?”

“Still in town,” Kestrel said, answering for Silver—the young pegasus already had her cheeks bulging with stew like a chipmunk storing nuts and couldn’t answer at the moment. “We found a job and a new recruit. The geezers are polishin’ off the details.”

“That’s good to hear,” Miss Irons said. “Hopefully whatever job you found will get us enough money so we can go back someplace north. The desert heat here is practically murderous.”

If Miss Irons was complaining, then Kestrel figured she was in a good mood. Or at least, had nothing to be directly angry at at the moment. She lifted her ears and tilted them this way and that while she got herself her own bowl of stew, and her eyebrows lowered. “Where’s Roughshod?” she asked the older mare. “I figured I was gonna hear Sienna singin’ when I came back.”

Miss Irons shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t much care,” she said. “The poor wretch wasn’t giving him any fun. She was all tears and misery in a few minutes, blubbering on about anything I asked her. Roughshod likes breaking down tough ponies more than he does kicking around schoolfillies, so he got bored and gave up after a few minutes.”

“He probably went to find a cactus to wrestle,” Silver chimed in between breathless bites of her meal. “Somethin’ as prickly as he is.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Kestrel said. She took a few steps to the right and peered through the tents, spying the Gang’s poor captive. Sienna’s face was caked with dried blood, with channels cut through her matted coat for her tears. She shivered slightly as she hung from the wagon wheel, her body curled in on itself to try and be as small as possible despite her bound state. Kestrel knew that she wasn’t going to be in much of a talking mood after being beaten and scared witless by Roughshod, but she did feel something resembling pity tug at her heart.

Silver looked up from her meal and let her eyes uneasily settle on Sienna. “Poor mare,” she muttered under her breath. Then those eyes found Kestrel. “What’re we gonna do with her?”

1. Nothing. That ain’t for me to decide, even if I was the one that brought her here and I’m Tumbleweed’s right hoof. Best to just let her be for now.

2. Try to get something out of her. Not sure what all she told Roughshod and Miss Irons, but I bet half of it was desperate lies just to get him to stop hittin’ her. Maybe she’ll be willin’ to talk to another mare.

3. Untie her and give her something to eat. Poor thing ain’t been fed since… well, don’t know when her last meal was, but she ain’t had a bite of our bread. After all she’s been through, maybe she deserves a bit of mercy.

4. Let her go. Damn filly’s been through enough. We don’t need to keep her around for Roughshod to tell Tumbleweed what she told him. Whether she makes it to safety somewhere in the desert or an adder gets her, don’t make no difference to me.

5. Bring her to the sheriff. A hundred bits is a hundred bits, and we might as well get some use outta her. She’ll probably swing, but that’s the outlaw’s life.

(Confidence Required: 45 Votes)

Author's Note:

This chapter's poll: https://www.strawpoll.me/18157035

Please use the poll for voting. You can discuss options in the comments, but I will not take anything stated there into consideration when determining the vote.

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

[RoboRed]

...Feed the poor thing.

[Gearsmash King]

Roughing up someone for interrogation is one thing. Nearly torturing and scaring to death is another. Untie her and let her eat. She's been through enough. And if Tumbleweed gets upset, we'll deal with it then.

[djthomp]

Talking with her should be harmless. Either untying her or letting her go could go quite badly, and bringing her to the sheriff before we get much out of her seems like a waste.

[Merula]

Feed her. Shes been through enough shit.

If she decides to try and escape (Not that I'd blame her) though, all bets are off