A Method to his Madness

by Luna-tic Scientist

4 -- A day for disaster

A bout of intense shivering brought Equilibrium back to the world with a snap. Gasping with the cold, teeth chattering uncontrollably, she jerked and twitched her numb legs, trying to climb out of the sticky mud. On the third try she managed to get to her foreknees then, sobbing with the effort, dragged her hindquarters to firmer ground. Collapsing again, Libi panted, flanks moving like bellows as she tried to catch her breath.

It was still night, although there was a hint of light to the eastern horizon promising an eventual dawn. Trying to focus on her surroundings, Libi looked around for shelter, somewhere to get out of the bitter wind that chose this moment to whip over the grass. Nothing. "Got to move," she said to herself, body made clumsy by the cold, "gotta get up, filly. Stand up you stupid mare, stand up or die here!" Her voice rose to a ragged scream as stiff and numb muscles started to cooperate; with a surge of adrenaline she finally stood on four shaky legs.

Gasping from the effort, the false energy of rage fading as quickly as it came, she started to walk. Painful though it was, the uncoordinated stagger got her muscles working and injected some much needed heat into her body. Still shivering, she finally had enough presence of mind to notice the low building a couple of fields over. "Barn," she croaked, "you're a barn." Hope flaring, she changed direction, only to run into a barbed wire fence. The scored line of pain made her gasp and she stood there, shocked by this new indignity.

Looking left and right along the fence line Libi squinted into the wind, trying to see if there was a gate. "C'mon you inconsiderate feathered bastards," she muttered, "you can't tell me that you fly everything in." Finally seeing it at the far corner, she carefully turned and trotted unevenly towards it, desperately afraid that if she fell now she wouldn't have the energy to rise again. Finally reaching it, and too tired to use magic, Libi took hold of the spring-loaded mechanism with her teeth, the metal bitter and terribly cold on her tongue. It was awkward, obviously designed to be opened by a set of talons, but the gate had been well maintained and opened easily once she unlocked it.

Working her mouth to get rid of the taste, Equilibrium staggered to the wooden building, then used her head to push off the bar holding the big doors closed and stumbled inside. Out of the wind she immediately felt better; it was far too dark to see her surroundings, but her nose told her of the presence of dry hay and food. Following the smell she found a series of bins along one wall, all filled with the globular shapes of turnips. Tears of joy running freely down her muzzle, Libi ate her way through a dozen of the roots before walking to the smell of hay and burrowing into the soft, warm fibres.

===

Squinting into the setting sun, Swift Wind From The Mountains snapped his beak in annoyance when he saw the bar on the barn door was lying on the ground. He was tired, hungry and his foreclaws were sore from wielding the heavy hammer all afternoon. The damage was extensive and there was no telling how many of the stock had escaped through all the smashed fences; if he'd lost any more due to stupidity...

"Pounce! Have you been playing in the barn again? How many times--" he roared, throwing down his fencing tools in disgust.

"No da, been in the house helping ma dress the first dead cow," Pounce From Shadows said quickly, running over from where he'd been trying to hitch the second casualty of the night to the tractor. He was really too small for this kind of work, less than half the size of his parents, but was persistent and had managed to at least get the drag chain around the carcass' neck.

Swift sighed, forcing down his anger and picking up the heavy hammer once more. "Sorry son, I know. Shouldn't take it out on you."

"That's okay da, it was a bad night. I'll fix it."

That it had been; the idiot aerodyne pilot had done all but machinegun the stock Swift was responsible for from the air. The panicked cattle had run randomly in the dark, smashing fences, getting tangled in wire and in a few cases breaking legs when they tripped. He'd had to prematurely slaughter a half dozen so far; his mate, Lightning In The Night, had been working frantically at their little butchery station to try and salvage something from this debacle. Despite the urge to take random shots at the infernal machine he'd resisted; the claw-and-skull symbol on the side was enough to temper his fury with fear.

"Da! Da! There's a weird calf in here!"

Swift's fragile calm, never his strong suit, broke again. Pounce From Shadows' imagination will be the death of me, he thought. "I don't have time to waste on some stupid--"

Pounce poked his head through the door. "No da, I'm not making it up. It's real funny, only got one horn."

One horn? A sudden thought struck him and he swallowed hard. Leaping over the half-finished fence, he glided down to the front of the barn, fencing hammer still in one foreclaw. Stepping inside, he could see why Pounce had mistaken it for a calf; if he'd been in a hurry he might have made the same error. Caked in mud and filth, it was about the right size, but with oddly proportioned legs and a head that was far too big for a dumb animal of its size. A single stubby horn jutted up from the centre of its forehead. It was lying half-buried in a pile of hay and was so still that he thought it might be dead.

Rutting Tartarus, Swift thought, this must be what the Red Talons were looking for. "Pounce," he whispered, "go fetch your ma and tell her to bring the comms. Be quick."

Pounce From Shadows, looking nervous at his father's suddenly serious tone, nodded jerkily and bounded out of the barn, taking to the sky as soon as he was clear of the doors.

Swift crept forwards, examining the creature from all sides. It was asleep, he decided, not dead. It -- she? Swift wasn't sure, never having seen a pony in the flesh, but he could remember something about the shape of the muzzle from one of the strange, imported Equestrian video shows. His eyes fixed on her single horn. Witch! his mind shouted, remembering the feather-raising tales his grandmother had used to scare the guano out of him when he was still a chick.

If she's a witch, she's in no state to curse anybody, he thought. There's no way you can stay here. Decision made, Swift reached out with one large foreclaw and grabbed the pony by the scruff of the neck. The figure awoke with a start, legs thrashing uncoordinatedly, but she was nowhere near as strong as a calf and Swift had no problem dragging her from the barn and out into the fading light.

"No, please..." she whimpered in heavily accented Gryphic, eyes frantic and ears folded back against the sides of her head.

Swift nearly relented when he saw her panic and heard that pleading tone, but hardened his heart. "What do you think the Talons will do to us if they think we've been hiding something they want?" he snarled, giving the small form a hard shake. The pony didn't reply, just wrapped her slender forelegs around his forearm in an effort to support some of her weight. Feeling a little guilty, Swift lowered his foreclaw enough for her to stand on her own legs, but didn't let go.

His mate, Lightning In The Night, still wearing the bloodied smock she used to keep her feathers clean during butchery, landed on the other side of the pony, followed by Pounce carrying their portable comms terminal. Seeing another gryphon so close the pony panicked again, fighting Swift's hard grip, but doing little more than making him stagger slightly.

"Stop struggling, damn you!" he shouted, gratified when she froze.

"Sorry," the pony said in a hoarse whisper, eyes flicking from himself to Lightning, nostrils flaring, "please don't kill me."

Lightning In The Night looked surprised, then glanced down at her once white smock. "We're not going to hurt you," she said in a tone reserved for young animals and frightened children, using one foreclaw to remove the stained piece of clothing and pass it to Pounce From Shadows. "Are we?" she said, in a voice that brooked no argument, turning her gaze to Swift.

Swift flinched, looking a little shamefaced. "We'll give you some food and a head start before we report you. I'm sorry, it's the most we can do." He relaxed his grip on the pony's throat, letting his foreclaw drop to the ground.

The little unicorn cleared her throat and worked her jaw a few times before replying. "Thank you," she said softly, looking nervously up at the gathering clouds before starting to back away from him. A tremor ran through her small frame.

Lightning had been studying the pony intently. "How far along are you?" she asked.

Swift watched mystified as the pony followed Lightning's gaze and seemed to shrink slightly. "I've got about a month left," she said, almost too softly to be heard.

"She stays the night, at least," Lightning said in that same, final tone of voice.

"What! There's no way--"

"She won't survive another night in the open without shelter. You've seen enough cows you old fool, look at her condition."

For the first time Swift looked at the unfamiliar form with a farmer's eye, seeing the similarities with his own cattle. Like a calf, but with that swollen belly she almost looked like... "You're pregnant," he muttered, feeling slightly sick. He wouldn't treat one of his cows like he'd treated this pony. He looked over at Lightning, seeing the conviction in her eyes, then slumped.

"Use the barn; take what you need to rebuild your strength." He watched the tight lines of worry on the pony's muzzle ease, felt his own tension fade and knew this was the right decision. "We can't help you, though, the Talons will be back, and there's no way we can hide you from a thorough search... and they will search. They don't trust anybody."

===

From a distance, the aircarrier looked like one of the larger cargo blimps. This was, in part, a side effect of a tapered cylinder being the most efficient shape for pushing a large object through the air -- a compromise between reducing wind resistance and wasted hull mass. The other reason was that it provided some degree of camouflage; the shape was close enough to that of a bulk carrier that even satellite imagery had trouble telling the difference. The hatches on the underside made it obvious what she truly was, but if you were close enough to see them it was really far too late.

A cargo blimp used helium -- or hydrogen in the uncrewed models -- but the Friendship Express was far too heavy for that to work.

"Engineering, this is the Admiral. Status report," Twister said, stretching his pale mauve wings and yawning mightily. He'd been up most of the night after the 'mission warning' brief came in from the Palace. The cloud dock's aircrew had been run ragged making sure his aircarrier was ready to move within the specified timeframe; the last thing to be completed before they could leave was the reinstallation of half the port side levitators. They'd been disabled in an attempt to isolate a problem with number twelve, but the movement order had come through before the work could be completed.

"Engineering here," came a voice that sounded as tired as Twister felt. "Everything is back online except port twelve. We'll just have to turn off number eleven to balance it out. You've still got full power."

"Thank you, Engineering. Set the clock to six hundred seconds." The Express had levitator power to spare; no warship could afford single points of failure. This would reduce their margins, but there was enough redundancy that he felt comfortable with the decision. It's either that or not go, he thought, grinning suddenly. That would go down well with the Palace.

The Royal Equestrian Air Force technically had Princess Celestia as its commanding officer, although for that to happen the whole of the civilian government would have to be dissolved, something that hadn't even happened during the emergence of Nightmare Moon. Despite this, it was long tradition that all orders from the general staff were sent through the Palace. Luna had similar titular responsibilities for the space forces -- mostly surveillance, although there were some new facilities being built on the moon -- as well as the FOAL teams.

Now they were a bunch of odd-balls, Twister thought. Definitely not the spit and polish type, but they got the job done -- whatever it was. The pegasus turned away from the general access intercom near the door and stepped over to the giant windows that occupied the curved front of the semicircular room. They were high up on the nose of the Friendship Express, the hull of the aircarrier only visible if you were prepared to stick your muzzle out of a window and risk falling out.

Despite the Express' size, the bridge was deceptively small, only enough room for the heads of department or their designates. Five other ponies: aircrew, FOAL liaison, atmospherics, navigation, and spellcraft systems. Everything but engineering -- they were all in the service core of the aircarrier, among the systems they maintained.

Twister trotted over to his command bay -- a raised, padded alcove that would hold him in place during even the most violent manoeuvres -- and settled down on to his belly. Waving a hoof over the gesture interface, he opened the diagnostic systems and ran an eye down the list of status summaries. Looking good, he thought, then raised his head to speak to the bridge crew. "Okay ponies, let's run through the list. I want to be underway in ten minutes."

Pointing at each bridge station in turn, Twister went around the room, listening to the status reports and judging how much any given problem would affect the overall performance of the aircarrier. There were many issues, but nothing critical -- except perhaps the D deck officer's shower was apparently dispensing raw sewage, rather than water, at random intervals. A fault that large should have been easy to fix, but with the stress of recommissioning, somepony had let it slide. Fortunately the Admiral rated his own shower. ...I might let it run a bit before getting in, Twister thought with a suppressed grin, listening to that particular tale of woe.

"Excellent, considering our sudden change of disposition, I think we're ready to go." He swept his gaze over them again, noting the nods and muttered 'yeses,' then nodding himself. "Good. Navigation, please get us on our way."

"Aye, sir," the earth pony replied, activating her command interface.

All over the aircarrier alarms sounded in quick succession: access doors closing, engine start, brace for acceleration. Outside, in the cylindrical space that served as Cloudsdale's number seventeen cloud dock, pegasi suddenly filled the airas the dock's refit teams took the shortest available route to clear the space around the Friendship Express. Within seconds the air was empty again and aircarrier's cluster of spellcraft levitated ducted fans started to blur.

"Cloud dock reports the last of their crews are clear and the gangways have retracted. Dropping mooring line in three, two, one, mark."

A subtle shiver ran through the Express and the puffy walls of the cloud dock started to drift past as the aircarrier slowly accelerated under minimum thrust. Ahead of its blunt nose, the magic holding the big doors together dissipated; the sharply defined layers of cloud lost cohesion and turned into drifting streamers of fog. It took five minutes to clear the dock at this achingly slow pace, but once they were far enough away to avoid damage to the relatively fragile cloud construction the engines were opened to full power.

She still wasn't that fast, certainly not in aircraft terms, but she was far quicker than anything of that size had any right to be. At a stately two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, the Friendship Express headed for the ocean and the gryphon kingdom of Razorclaw.

===

The Consul looked out the window at the angry crowd and fluttered his green wings in dismay. There had to be several hundred gryphons in the garden spaces surrounding the Equestrian Embassy, a similar number in the sky and the same again roosting on the surrounding buildings. "How can this have happened?" he asked again.

The head of Embassy security, Sergeant Trailblazer, sighed and stepped up to the window next to the Consul. He'd donned his fancy armour and was now the perfect, pristine white of any other pegasus member of the Day Guard. "I don't know, sir. We had no more warning than the Razorclaw government did, even if we do have the ability to do something afterwards."

Paperchase winced at Trailblazer's morbid humour. He hoped it had been quick for the unfortunates in the ministry building. It probably was; the explosion had been powerful enough to rattle the ornaments on his desk. The crowd had started to gather an hour after the coup; Paperchase wasn't sure, but he'd thought that there were individual gryphons stirring them up. The crowd had been loud, but not violent at the start -- something similar happened every month or so, the local gryphons making it clear that they didn't really like the ponies being there. Same old story, proud people, etc.

That was when the trouble had really started. Anti-Equestrian rhetoric on the audio and video feeds, pony-run premises and residences vandalized, individual ponies threatened or attacked. The rapid rise in hostility had been breathtaking, so fast that the following morning he'd used his contact list to recall every pony he could get hold of. They'd all seen the news, seen the looks they were given by gryphons passing them by; it didn't take much for the trickle of scared ponies that'd been arriving all afternoon to turn into a flood.

That had seemed to set the crowd off. The last few pony refugees to make it had done so under a hail of dropped or thrown debris from the waiting gryphons; the Consul had sent out his small security force to shield the stragglers. That might have been a mistake, even though it had probably saved several ponies from injury. As soon as the unicorns had started flicking aside the thrown objects, or deflecting them with short-lived force fields, the cry of 'witch' had risen from the crowd, quickly becoming a chant. The rain of debris became a storm; when the security team had managed to get the doors closed it wasn't just the refugees who needed medical help. At least a dozen gryphons had limped away, struck by their own people's projectiles.

Out of deference to their host country, the Equestrians had built their embassy to the normal gryphon design; that is, a heavy cube with small windows. For their own sanity it didn't occupy the whole of the block they'd been given; they'd flattened out the slope and planted it with a wide range of food crops to supplement the somewhat bland diet they could source locally. For such a small plot the productivity was very high; one of the side effects of having most of Razorclaw City's earth pony population help maintain it. That was one of the main reasons for the regular demonstrations; good farming land was scarce here, and even though the actual area was small it seemed to rub some gryphons the wrong way.

The outer half of that vegetable garden was mush now, stomped flat by angry paws. The inner section, marked out by a perfect circle, was intact only because the Consul had activated the buried spellcraft field generators. Paperchase stared at the crowd through the pale pink shell of the force field. This morning he'd thanked Celestia for the new day, as he always did, here and now he thanked Luna for her foresight. Once among the deadliest of threats to Equestria, the Princess of the Night had was now its most zealous defender.

He'd watched, fascinated, as the force bubble had expanded out from the block walls of the embassy, passing without pause through the trees and ornaments, but gently pushing every gryphon back with irresistible force. They'd really gone mad at that point, even working in groups to pull chunks of masonry off the nearby buildings to rain down on the dome. "The local authorities are not going to be happy," he muttered, "I'm pretty sure we never told them about that."

Trailblazer chuckled. "All hail Luna's paranoia."

Several military vehicles -- those noisy double rotor things the locals called 'aerodynes' -- had flown low over the Embassy and he could see at least one group of soldiers occupying a nearby rooftop. None of them had done anything to disperse the gathered gryphons; the crowd had quietened when they first saw the aerodyne, but when nothing happened they grew even bolder. Something else moved in the distance, occasionally glimpsed through the gaps in the taller buildings surrounding the embassy. A beetle-like shape with podded engines at each corner, the thing looked like one of the big cargo lifters the locals used.

So why is it still here? What the Consul knew about powered flight could be written on a very small scroll, but he did know that such things were expensive to run. That force field can withstand a lot, but if that thing has been hijacked... He caught a flash of sunlight reflecting off the vehicle and shivered. I don't want to be here if the pilot decides to ram us.

"How many didn't make it back inside the embassy?"

"At least fifty, including the group from Fancypants down at the new plant. We were never able to reach them, all the radio links were down by the time we thought to call them."

The Consul sighed again. "There's nothing we can do for them here; I've not even been able to discover who's in charge now. How are the evacuation plans coming along?"

"We're as ready as we'll ever be, the trick will be to keep the gryphons off the chariots from the Canterlot Dreaming."

"Where is it now?"

"It's about thirty minutes out; apparently they've already sent the chariots ahead. The airship's at her pressure height, so they've got a lot of gliding to do."

"How high?" the Consul asked with more than academic curiosity. Down was always easy, even when you had to control a chariot. Up was something else entirely.

"About eight thousand metres."

Paperchase nodded; it had been a long time since he'd tried any real high altitude flight, but eight kilometres was within the reach of most pegasi. "How do you plan to get the chariots through the mob?" he asked, looking again at the large numbers of gryphons still flying around the dome.

"In should be easy, just a matter of timing and a bit of discouragement from unicorns on the roof. Out will be more tricky... but we've enough pegasi for a flying screen and I'll spread out my unicorns between the chariots to deal with any birds that get through."

"What makes you think a few of us flying around will be able to scare off all that lot?" the Consul said, waving a hoof out the window.

"In the end the locals want us gone, sir," the sergeant said calmly, "and, although this armour looks shiny and useless, it is still perfectly functional." He spread one wing, displaying the thin, flexible blade that attached to his leading edge armour and lay like an extra steel flight feather at the end of his wing. Normally purely for ceremonial purposes -- they looked really impressive reflecting the sun during a fly-by -- the sergeant's had been honed to a razor's edge. There was the sliding sound of metal against metal as he refolded the wing.

Paperchase shivered; there was something about Trailblazer's calm acceptance of the fight to come that made him feel cold. "It's a pity about the armoury." Now that's an understatement.

The pegasus sighed. "Yes sir. In hindsight, it was a mistake to place it next to one of the field generators. When the secondary failed..." The thaumic backlash had mangled the contents of the little room, but at least the other generators had kept the field up. "The microwave area denial unit would have been very useful."

Enough energy to hurt, but not to injure. Perfect for violent, unruly crowds. "Tell me, Sergeant, where did you serve before joining diplomatic protection?" Now that he thought about it, the other pegasus' file had been oddly bland and short on details; the Consul was used to the language of government paperwork and this had screamed of something to hide. There was also something about the pony, a frightening competence that seemed out of place in such a backwater embassy.

"I've served Princess Luna in many places, sir. A bit of a troubleshooter, you might say." Trailblazer smiled at the Consul and winked. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready for our visitors."

"Carry on, Sergeant," the consul murmured, watching the pony trot out of the room. "All hail Luna's paranoia indeed." The hints Trailblazer had dropped lifted his spirits considerably, and there were several others among his staff that had the same attitude as the sergeant. Perhaps we'll get out of this after all, he thought.

Shaking his head, he reached out and pulled open the nearest filing cabinet, then started removing racks of memory crystals, small pieces of equipment and the occasional document folder, dumping them all in the fancy fireplace. He paused for a moment, staring at a year's worth of work, then held the igniter switch down for a count of five and watched the lot burn. The fire was far hotter than it was normally, the pile burning quite happily under the influence of the spellcraft embedded in the walls of the fireplace. Let's see them get anything useful out of that, he thought.

Turning to his terminal he pulled out a special card from his desk -- the only item that hadn't ended up in the fire -- and placed it into the reader, pulled it out and reinserted it upside down. He watched mournfully as his terminal promptly crashed, every bit of memory randomly overwritten in a cycle that wouldn't stop until the power failed. Standing up, the Consul walked out of his office and headed for the roof, not looking back.

Outside, curiously muted through the force field, came the roar of a thousand voices raised in anger.

===

Trailblazer nodded approvingly as the top quarter of the shield flicked off, just as the first chariot reached it. His guards had assembled on the roof, holding the gryphon's attention long enough for the six empty chariots to get within range of the unicorns. By the time enough of the mob had noticed the vehicles, his unicorns had used their telekinesis to clear a corridor of air through to the dome. It had worked beautifully, but it would only work once.

The Canterlot Dreaming was a luxury airship liner, currently on a round-the-world cruise; fortunately for the ponies in Razorclaw it had been in the area when the trouble had started and was close enough to pick them up. What it wouldn't do, of course, was wait. Her Captain wanted out of what looked to become a warzone, and was taking the fastest route back to international airspace. Perfectly reasonable: the Canterlot Dreaming's master was responsible for over a thousand passengers and two hundred and fifty crew.

In a disorganised rush the ponies that had assembled on the floor below piled onto the chariots; Trailblazer and his team had a fun few minutes reorganizing the loads so no one chariot was overloaded and all had one or two competent spellcasters on board. The chariots were big, ornate things, each pulled by a team of six pegasi. Designed to ferry the flightless -- or just plain lazy -- passengers to and from the giant airship, they bore the marks of hurried alterations where the Canterlot Dreaming's engineers had ripped out internal fittings to get more space.

"Excuse me, are you Sergeant Trailblazer?" asked one of the Dreaming's pegasi.

"Yes," Trailblazer said absently, listening with one ear to the report from a guard who'd been sweeping the now deserted building for anypony they'd missed.

"I'm Nightstick, second in command of the Dreaming's security group. Captain Spinnaker sent as many of my team as she could spare; if we can hitch some of the fitter civilian pegasi to the chariots..." the pegasus trailed off as the armoured Royal Guard switched his full attention to her.

"How many?" Trailblazer snapped.

"Four on each chariot," Nightstick said promptly. "The lead pair on each are normal crewponies, they can do the steering if we can replace the rest. You'll have another twenty-four trained pegasi at your disposal. The whole crew volunteered to help, but we've had some gryphons trying to get to the envelope, so we had to keep a good few back."

The sergeant grinned. I guess you don't get to be in charge of a multimillion-bit airship if you're stupid, he thought, suddenly relieved that the 'luxury' part of 'luxury cruise' also meant archaic pegasus-drawn transport. I'd still have liked a nice fast airtruck, though. He grimaced at that; maybe not. The local military were probably quite twitchy, at least there was no way a pegasus chariot could be 'mistaken' for someone on the other side -- whoever that was.

"Excellent, get your team unhitched. I want you in fours, playing card formation," he held up one hoof, marking out the perimeter of a rectangle. "Keep it tight; no matter what you stick with your wingpony. You get much air-to-air training?"

"A bit," she said, looking nervous, "we're mostly there to help the passengers, but the Dreaming does cruise near some trouble spots and we'll sometimes put on in-flight air displays during the longer ocean crossings."

Trailblazer nodded. "Understood. Like I said, stick together and you'll be fine. This lot," here he waved to encompass the gryphons, "are a disorganized rabble. Teamwork is our advantage here. You patrol the perimeter, keep about two hundred metres out once we get into clear air, if anything gets through, let it go. The unicorns will use that volume as a free-fire zone, so stay out of it. The Royal Guard will be doing the same thing. Questions?"

The security mare shook her head, obviously relieved that somepony had a plan.

"Right!" he roared out to the civilian pegasi watching the frantic preparations. "I need twenty-four ponies to help pull these chariots."

The only reply was the nervous shuffling of hooves and the occasional wing flutter. Trailblazer was just about to turn away, face blank to hide his disappointment, when a familiar voice called out from the middle of one chariot.

"I'll do it," said Paperchase. The consul pushed his way off the chariot and trotted calmly to the front of the vehicle, slipping his head through the collar and twisting around to pull the cinch tight with his teeth. This was enough to goad the others into action and they had soon filled all the empty slots.

Having already assigned the unicorn Royal Guards to their chariots, Trailblazer went to talk to the Guard pegasi and his own personal team. As he approached, one of the pegasi was talking to an earth pony in cooking garb, a concerned look on his face.

"...but you're one of the kitchen staff, aren't you Blevie? Shouldn't you be on one of the chariots?"

The dark blue earth pony mare grinned back at the white pegasus. "I also cook."

The pegasus standing next to the first rolled his eyes at this exchange. "Use your eyes, mate, look at the three of them. One of each of ponykind, involved with the military -- they're FOALs, you idiot."

"What do you mean, 'foals'?" said the first, looking confused. "The sarge has to be at least forty."

"They didn't hire you for your brains, did they?" the second replied, then explained to his wingmate exactly what a FOAL was.

Trailblazer hid his grin at this exchange; Blevie was an excellent cook, it's just that it was one of her secondary talents. While he was gathering his thoughts, Night Storm, his combat mage, nodded in the direction of the Consul, now happily chatting to the pegasi he was harnessed with and the ponies in the front of the chariot.

"He's a good one and no mistake," she muttered.

"That he is," Trailblazer said with quiet pride, "always makes it easier when you think they're worth saving. Are you ready for your party trick?"

"After being stuck in this backwater for two years? You bet I am."

"Blevie, a word if you've finished your conversation...?" he said, eyeing the earth pony mare’s bulging panniers. Short lengths of cord, each ending in a fat knot, were neatly lined up around the edge, just ready to be grabbed by a nimble mouth. "Remember when I gave you explicit orders that all our special kit was to be kept in the armoury? Exactly how well did you obey that order?"

Blevie looked affronted. "To the letter, boss! Everything I was issued with was trashed when the room went up, including my armour."

"Then...?" he said, gesturing to her panniers.

"These are all mine; I made them here. A filly's got to find something to do in this town -- it's not like it's easy to go out for a drink."

Trailblazer grinned, when you worked with smart ponies, it was always wise to give them the right orders. "What are they?"

"Just some bird scarers. You know, aluminium dust and perchlorate all wrapped up nice and tight with string and glue. They're real noisy and bright, but won't cause any permanent damage unless you actually hold one when it goes off."

"Perfect. I want you on the tail chariot. There are going to be lots of birds following us; convince them it's a bad idea."

Blevie gave him a bloodthirsty smile. "It will be my pleasure, boss."

Comments

[Luna-tic Scientist]

And not an April Fool prank in sight. I must be slipping.

[Blaster M]

Time to do the blockade run... with a spawncamping army.

[Pseudosapien]

"He looked over at Lightning, seeing the conviction in her eyes, then slumped"
Such perfect characterization. He knows the right thing to do, he just needs a little help from his friends to get there. I feel like I know them already, and I hope it goes okay. Looking forward to meeting the Talons sometime too: they're the villains of this one, but everyone's the hero of their own story.

[Caliaponia]

Screw the Talons.

[FanOfMostEverything]

At least Libi's tongue didn't freeze to the latch.

In any case, I find myself cautiously optimistic about the embassy staff's chances. We'll see if that holds up. No telling how many clever birds might be lurking in the crowd.