The Freelancers

by OverHeart

Chapter 35 - Found

Golden Dawn, along with the two siblings Cogwheel and Flywheel, had made her way through the thick and dense treeline toward where she saw the mysterious craft crash with little resistance so far, but her main concern was the drones the Arcology was likely to send out in search of the very same aircraft she was looking for.

“Do we know who these ponies are?” Cogwheel grumbled, toting a heavy machine-gun on his back.

Golden Dawn shook her head. “Aircraft was unmarked, but if they’re heading to the Arcology in an unmarked, untagged, and a presumably disposable vehicle, then you can assume that they have a bone to pick.”

“And a reason to shoot at anyone that shows up to ‘help’ them.” Flywheel offered. “We doing the usual, engagement wise?”

“Yes, only engage if they shoot first. I’d rather not have any more injuries, we’re down enough ponies as it is.”

The plume of smoke from the crash site rose from a small clearing that had been cut into the treeline as the aircraft came down, and from the looks of things, it should be mostly intact. However, they’d only have a short amount of time before Arcology security came looking, and time was of the essence if they were going to pull still living bodies out the wreckage rather than dead ones.

The aircraft was in view now, surrounded by burnt trees and mangled undergrowth and foliage. It looked as if nobody had survived the crash until a battered synthetic with a flickering holographic mane walked out from behind the shattered remains of the aircraft, dragging behind itself the body of a bat pony.

“What in the-” Flywheel whispered. “Is that an Arcology Synth?”

“Quiet!” Golden Dawn snapped.

It knelt over, checking on the mare that it had pulled from the wreckage as a curly maned Unicorn jumped out of the cargo space, clearly very upset with the situation they were in. He spoke to the Synthetic quickly, but in a borderline panicked tone.

“Snowy, how is she?” Matterhorn asked. “Lucky seems to be fine, if a little rattled. A few bumps and scrapes here and there.”

“The young miss is breathing, thankfully. She insisted she was okay before she passed out again, though. Probably just in shock from the crash.” Snowy responded. “And our two friends?”

“Not a scratch on Access thanks to his cyberware, but Sheet Rock must’ve landed on something inside the cabin because has quite the nasty gash on her left side, it’s oozing blood all over the place” Matterhorn said, clutching his own head wound. “I applied some medical gel to clean and close her wound, but she’ll need to see a doctor.”

“How far are we from Rift City? Can you walk that far?”

“I’m not even sure you want to consider that. Purists aren’t known for their welcoming attitude and even if we manage to find the one group of them that don’t want to rip out our implants, they’ll have an ulterior motive.”

A snap echoed from the surrounding forest, and in one swift motion Snowy deployed his rifle and fired a warning shot toward the noise. It sailed high above the tall grass that surrounded them and embedded itself into a rotten stump, partly blowing some of it away into splintered chunks.

Matterhorn however simply looked over uninterested and a little confused, opting to ready a simple spell as opposed to loosing a shot haphazardly. If Arcology Security didn’t know they’d survived the crash before, they most certainly did now.

“Are you insane?” Matterhorn barked. “They have listening posts all over the forest, they’ll have heard that!”

“I heard something, or someone, in the grass. I fear we are being watched, and if we are, the ponies that are watching us might wish to reveal themselves. We have no quarrel with them.”

More shuffling and rustling could be heard, followed by another dry snap, and a white maned mare popped her head out of the grass with her hooves in the air.

“Don’t shoot, we just saw your craft go down. We don’t mean you any harm, we promise. We just want to help.”

Snowy approached, rifle leveled at her with an indecipherable scowl on his face, wordlessly ordering her and anyone else in the tall grass out and into the open, preferably where they could be kept an eye on.

“We?” Snowy remarked. “Who is we?”

Two other ponies climbed out the grass, one with a nasty looking heavy machine gun strapped to his back, and the other had what looked like a homemade sawn-off shotgun. They stood in a line before Snowy and Matterhorn, with their weapons safely stowed and holstered.

“We’re from Rift City, we saw or I suppose heard your craft get shot down, so we came to investigate.” Golden Dawn remarked. “I’m Golden Dawn, these two ponies behind me are Cogwheel and Flywheel, my left and right hoof respectively.”

“Likely story!” Matterhorn barked, clearly very angry. “How would they have know this particular unmarked craft was a threat to them, we could’ve been anyone!”

“But you’re not just anyone are you?” Golden Dawn remarked. “A Unicorn Mage, an Advanced Synthetic, a Thestral, and a couple of Unicorn Netrunners. That’s a strike squad if I ever saw one.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“You don’t spend years rehabilitating ponies with implant rejection problems and deal with all sorts of mercenaries on the side to not pick up even a few pointers, you know.” Golden Dawn nodded, a little smug. “I have a proposition for you, a simple exchange of favors.”

The dull sound of hundreds of drone rotors filled the air. Security was on its way, in full force by the sounds of things, and Golden Dawn seemed to be their only way out.

“We’ll provide you a place to hide for a few days until Arcology Security calms down, medical help for your friends, and food for your stomachs. You’ll only have to do one thing for us, and I feel like it would benefit you too in the long run.”

Matterhorn was unconvinced. He had heard the stories of the purist cults that had cropped up in Rift City like a plague, and this caused a mass exodus of ponies to the larger cities and settlements. Rift City itself wasn’t nearly as urbanized as either Canterlot or Manehattan, but it still had its share of problems that neither her or his employers were particularly enthusiastic about dealing with.

Purists disliked cyberware of any kind, and often tore it out of ponies forcibly in an ill conceived attempt at “saving” them. Both Matterhorn and Snowy were very reluctant to trust them, but neither of them had any real medical experience and the window of time they had in which to act was rapidly closing before their eyes,

“Do we have a deal?”

Matterhorn and Snowy looked at each other for a moment, lowering their weapons.

“Fine, but the moment you even make us feel uncomfortable is the moment we start shooting.” Snowy warned. “One of our number seems heavily wounded, my friend here, Matterhorn, has tried to apply some temporary first aid but has had little luck with anything more substantial.”

“That’s no problem, we can handle that. While your friends are getting the help they need, we can enlighten you as to what your part of the bargain will entail. Please, follow me, and closely. I don’t want you getting lost in the trees.”

Author's Note:

Another short one this week. I had hoped to have something more meaty to post in terms of plot, but i felt like their new situation needed some more setup as we'll be on this arc for a little while.

This one feels a little rough in places, perhaps a little bit of writers block causing some problems maybe.