Fallout Equestria: Alphabet soup

by Doomande

Enclave: D is for Duty by Trooper

“Lieutenant, are you even listening to me? I asked you, do you understand the charges that you are being tried for?” the gray Enclave officer with the marking for the Judge Advocates Corps on his collar asks.

Before him sits a teal coated pegasus with his black mane and tail. His uniform shows that he is a lieutenant of scouts for the Enclave. He shakes his head and replies, “Of course I do, do ya think I am an idjit?”

They are inside a closed room. Besides them, on one end there is a bench with two Enclave officers who are acting as the board of the Court Martial, and a third who is the presiding judge, upon whom the final decisions will rest. Next to the teal officer is his defense attorney who is sitting there with his forehooves crossed, his eyes closed and shaking his head.

“One more comment like that and I will hold you in contempt.” The judge tells him.

The teal officer’s wings flare a bit at this, his ears start to pin back, and he tells those in the courtroom, “Go ahead and hold me in contempt, I already do. I hold the whole blasted Grand Pegasus Enclave in contempt. For the love of the Goddesses, we should be helping those down there. Our duty was ta protect Equestria and all ponies. Instead look at what we have done and continue to do to those poor souls.”

The prosecutor that stands against him looks at him in disgust and replies, “That was one hundred and ninety years ago. Our duty now is to defend and protect the pegasi, and by extension the Enclave. You do this by following your orders, or have you forgotten what your duty is.”

The accused all but spits, “Just doing your duty does not mean obeying orders that you know are wrong. Those orders were wrong, and the ponies in that village were innocent. We need to do better. We need to do what is right and just, that should be our duty.”

The prosecutor turns back to him and asks “And who are you to decide what is and what is not your duty? You are an officer of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. You have been trained. You do not decide what your duty is. Your duty is to follow orders Lieutenant, in case you forgot.”

“No sir, I have not forgotten. I also know that when it comes my time, I will be held accountable to the Goddesses for my actions.”

Several of those in the courtroom laugh at this. The prosecutor then tells him, “You already are being judged for your actions. Think Stallion, think!”

And he does. The lieutenant thinks back over his career. In his mind he remembers his father Sirocco’s career in the Enclave service. He remembers his mother and father's joy at the birth of his younger sister Blue Skies, then the pain of loss when his mother died in childbirth when they tried to have a third foal.

His father always said it was because the doctor and medical attendants failed in their duties that his mother died. The unnamed foal taken as well as his mother to Elysium. Then he lost his father as Sirocco tried to forget his pain by diving head first into his duty.

The son followed in the hoof steps of the father and put his duty before his own wants and desires. To the point he even had himself proud cut so an unplanned foal could not interfere with his career, his duty to the Enclave.

It had been a good career, he thinks. He had entered service as an enlisted pony and after seven years was advanced to lieutenant. He was proud of this as well as satisfied that he was doing his duty to the Enclave.

He thinks back to the mare he met and fell in love with after he made sergeant. How she begged him to get married and have a foal. He remembers how crushed she was when he told her that not only would he not, but that he could not be the father of her foals. She left him shortly after that. But as she left, she told him, “It is my duty as a healthy mare to have at least one or two foals and to raise them to protect the Enclave.”

Duty. Duty she said. It felt like a buck into his muzzle. But he did not stop her, in fact he told her, “If that is what you feel is your duty, then go, be nothing more than a womb for somepony else. But do not ever darken my sky again.”

He sits in the courtroom with that memory and hears the prosecutor ask him, “This was not your first time on such missions was it Lieutenant?”

He shakes his head to clear the memories and then replies, “No Sir, it was not. In fact, myself and my team have been working together for several years on just such missions.” He tells them.

“If this was a common type of mission then why did you fail to do your duty? What was so special that you, who swears that you know what duty is and always does it, failed this time?”

As he sits there, he thinks back to the day that got him to where he is now and what is going to happen to him next.

He was commanding a ten-pegasi squad on the mission. All of them veterans who he had worked with before. They were part of the elite of the Enclave military. They carried out missions down dirtside so that others did not need to get their hooves dirty.

The mission orders took them to the northern plains section of what was once Equestria, in a small village named Maredora. The Enclave had recently received reports of anti-Enclave elements as well as dashites living and operating out of this area. The team members were to go in, find them and eliminate the threats to the Enclave.

He and his squad had scouted this area for the past several weeks. The two previous nights he had his sergeant and corporal both go into the town to investigate and verify if they truly were supporting the Dashites. He is about to call off the mission and request a pickup, but he wants to make sure for himself that the village is clear.

The day before he is to perform the recon himself he is surprised when he sees a band of buffalo enter the village. He observes them from just off the edge of one of the many bluffs and mesas that surrounded the area. He is relieved when he sees the buffalo leave the village several hours later, after their trading has been finished.

Once he sees that they are leaving the area entirely he calls to the members of his team on the whisper mic of his power armor and tells them, “All team members hold your positions, once it is safe enough, I will go into the village and recon.”

He receives the normal round of “Roger,” from each of his troopers, then he hunkers down and waits.

He waits until it is dark, then he glides down to the edge of the village and begins to walk the streets of it. Looking into the closed shops he remains in the shadows. He passes the general store with its shuttered windows. The blacksmith shop with one door left partially open. The small church that while rundown shows evidence of use. The town sheriff's office is closed for the night and is empty, as usual from what he and his team have seen.

He sneaks into an old abandoned warehouse and all he sees are some boxes on some shelves. Toward the back away from the door, he sees a few of the boxes have been converted to living quarters. He listens to the conversations at a distance and hears nothing incriminating.

Finally he comes up to the town pub. He remains out of sight but listens to the conversations inside.

From inside he hears a mare’s voice, “Ya know Tender Hoof. One of these days we keep dealing with those buffalo, one of the other villages will cause us grief.”

“Ah, yah worry too much Half Pint, the last time any pony from Buckston tried to give us trouble we took care of them.” A stallion replied.

From the back room of the pub he hears a foal start to cry and the mare he assumes is Half Pint tells the others, “Ok every pony, I will be back in a bit, I need to feed my filly.”

He hears hoofsteps leave the main room of the pub and the others continue to talk.

“Ya know though she may be right,” another voice starts, “Those ponies in Buckston hate the buffalo and would do anything to get rid of them or those who help em.”

Then he hears the voice of the one he thinks is Tenderhoof say, “Yeah, but there ain’t many of them, what do you think they can do, sick the Enclave on us. It’s not like we can do anything to em. Besides it’s Buckton that had those Dashites visit them last season.”

The other stallion replies, “Yeah, I know, and Two Horns said that his herd had a run in with a couple of lone pegasi awhile back, so who knows. Maybe we should put a night watch again for a while. Ya know, just in case.”

“High Hoof, I think ya are worrying bout nothing. Aint no pegasi within a hundred miles by now.” Tender Hoof's voice answers back.

He is so entranced with their conversation he does not hear the door open from the back of the building. He then hears a mares voice call out from right next to him, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

By instinct he strikes her with the stinger on his power armor tail. It hits her in her throat, but not enough to keep her from screaming. As he looks at her, he notices she was carrying a foal who is on the ground screaming now. From inside the building he hears the shouts of the patrons yelling and hooves coming toward the door.

He begins to take flight and hears his sergeant call out over the radio, “The LT has been spotted, you know the procedure, let’s go.”

He knows what those orders mean. The death of the entire village. In horror he calls out to his ponies, “Cancel that order, I repeat cancel that order. Fall back to the recovery position.”

As he says this, he is about fifty feet in the air and he feels his suit seize up and falls to the ground. His suit is dead.

All he can do is watch as the rest of his squad goes about their work. He calls out over the radio, “For the love of the Goddesses they are innocent, there are mares and foals there. Don’t do this.” Right after this his radio goes dead and all he can do is watch his troopers as they massacre the entire village.

Once it is done his sergeant approaches him and his radio clicks back on. He hears the disdain in the sergeant voice as he is told, “Lieutenant. You are under arrest for failing in the execution of your duty by disobeying orders while in hostile country. This is considered an offense of treason against the Grand Pegasus Enclave.”

He screams back, “For what? We did not need to kill them, there were no Dashites here. They were innocent ponies, just trying to live.”

“Sir, that does not matter. You allowed them to see you. You refused to follow the orders as per standard operating doctrine. You Sir are a traitor.” His sergeant says coolly. Then he continues. “Your radio will no longer transmit, and power will only be returned to your suit to allow your return to base. If you attempt to deviate or escape, I will kill you sir. Do you Understand?”

Yes, he remembers his duty. But duty should include doing what is right, not just what is legal and ordered.

He jumps as he hears a gavel slap the bench, and he hears the Judge ask, “Do you understand?”

He shakes his head and looks at the judge and says, “Excuse me sir?”

The Judge then repeats himself, “Lieutenant Sunset, you have been convicted of failure to perform your duty, disobeying orders and Treason against the Grand Pegasus Enclave. You have done this through your haven giving illegal orders that countermanded set operating doctrine. For this you will be immediately dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces of the Grand Pegasi Enclave. You will then be branded with the mark of a traitor, known to some as Dashites. You will then be excommunicated from all Enclave territory. If you attempt to return or come into contact with other Enclave personnel you will be summarily executed. Do you understand?”

He nods his head, and looks over and sees one of the Guards has a red-hot branding Iron in his mouth, he turns slightly and sees another the same way. Finally, he says, “Let’s get this over with.”

Both Irons strike his flanks, right over his compass cutie marks. He screams in pain and both of his hind legs fail him as he collapses onto the floor. His vision goes first white, then black as the pain overcomes him and he passes out.

When he comes to, he is in the ready room of one of the scout platoons. He is told, “On your hooves traitor.”

As he is trying to stand, he is suddenly kicked and bitten by the members of the squad all of them yelling

“Move Traitor!”

“We should kill you!”

“Who do you think you are? You traitor.”

Eventually he is able to get to his hooves. His left eye is swollen shut. His right ear is burning in pain and he feels blood running down it along the side of his head and side. He is having a hard time breathing and he has extreme pain from several spots on one side.

He says nothing but puts his head down and tucks his tail under him as he slowly follows them to the departure station. Four troopers and a Captain in power armor escort him to the vertibuck. They shove him inside and climb in after him.

As he feels the vertibuck takeoff he watches the cloud city of Thunderhead recede below them along with everypony he knows including his family. He realizes he never even got to say goodbye to them. He then sees an opening in the clouds below them and scans the sky. As the aircraft dives for the opening he looks up and sees the sun in the sky. He watches it until they dip through the opening which closes right behind them.

They fly for what seems to be an hour, in silence except for the roar of the aircraft engines, below the cloud cover. They take him to the middle of nowhere, near a mountain with a forest several kilometers south of it. Finally, they land and he is thrown out of the vertibuck and onto the ground. They give him nothing. But before the door closes on the vertibuck he hears the voice of his former corporal as she yells to him, “Sorry Sunset, but we are only doing our duty and following orders.”

Then the door is slammed shut and the vertibuck quickly climbs and heads back towards the cloud deck within a few minutes it is no longer visible.

As he looks around, he sees nothing familiar. He begins to walk cautiously toward a ragged bunch of trees. Beyond which he sees what appears to be an abandoned village. He continues past the trees and as he gets close to the village, he sees a small group of ponies, all of them dirt bounds, approaching him.

When they are close enough a light green unicorn with a yellow mane and tail approaches him cautiously and tells him, “Stay calm, we are friends here, I am Trauma Care.”

Sunset is grateful but confused and asks, “Who are you ponies and why would you help me?”

The unicorn smiles and tells him We are just fellow wastelanders who are tired of the pain and suffering we see others go through and we feel it is our duty to help any others in the wastelands who need it. We only ask that you do the same someday also. Now let’s get those wounds treated.”

Sunset smiles at the unicorn and tells him, “Thank you so much. Don’t worry, I will repay ya for this by helping others too.”

Trauma Care smiles at this as he says, “That is all we ask. We cannot change the wastelands all at once, but we can make them better, slowly, one act at a time.”

After he is done treating him, Trauma Care tells Sunset, “Ok, most of your wounds are healed. I am sorry but I could not save most of your right ear. That and you will have a couple of scars. I am just happy I got to you before you punctured a lung from those broken ribs on your left side. But you should be alright. You are lucky they did not damage your wings.”

Sunset nods his head. He takes a deep breath and says, “Yeah I guess I was lucky. It is too bad though that most of those that did this to me were once my own troopers.”

He sees Trauma Care whence before he says, “I can only imagine how that had to be. I am sorry my friend.”

Sunset stays with them for almost a year after this. He becomes a part of the community and learns from them how to survive in the wastelands. In repayment he teaches them what he knows about the ways of the Enclave scouts.

One day after one of his talks with Trauma Care and the others he tells them. “I am sorry to say it, but I feel guilty about teaching you so many techniques that could get some of my former comrades killed.”

Trauma Care lays a hoof on his shoulder and tells him, “True, but you also taught us how to save lives, even those who try to take ours and for that we are very grateful. I had no idea about some of those advanced techniques you used for injured wings or even battlefield first aid.”

Sunset closes his eyes and tells them, “Trauma, I am also afraid that if word gets out that I am here, the Enclave may come after me and kill anypony in their way. Because of that I guess I feel the need to say goodbye.”

“Ok, my friend, we do understand. But please stay until morning at least.” Trauma Care asks him.

Sunset agrees and, in the morning, they give him a set of saddlebags. One of which is yellow and has three butterflies on it. He smirks when he sees it and tells them, “Thanks, but do you really think I am in the same ranks as those of the Ministry of Peace?”

Trauma Care and the others all smile at him and Trauma tells him, “Sunset, several of us are descended from members of that ministry. We help where we can. Please understand we consider you one of us and ask that you remember our duty to help others so that we can make this world better.”

Sunset chokes up a bit. Gives Trauma Care and several others a brief hug then tells them goodbye as he takes off and begins to find his way in the wastelands.

In a short time, he finds his first weapon. He takes an old bolt action rifle from below the body of a dead earth pony that was alone in the rocks. He still tries to help others, but he also never forgets they could just as easily kill him. He lives like this for another three years on his own.

Then one day he is flying low and below him he sees a pure black earth pony. The earth pony is carrying a shotgun and he also wears a pistol on his hip. But then Sunset also notices that he looks lost. Not just in the sense of direction, but also purpose. The other thing he notices is that this stranger is wandering toward the Shatterhoof Correctional Facility.

Sunset circles once to check the area one more time, then he approaches the pony cautiously. When he knows that the buck has seen him, but is taking no hostile action, he walks up to him and introduces himself. “Howdy stranger, my name is Sunset, you look like you could use a hoof.”

He sees the look of desperation on the stranger’s face as he slowly nods.

Sunset then tells him, “Friend, first off, you are heading the wrong way. That trail will lead you straight to Shatterhoof and the slavers there.”

He sees the stranger shake his head slowly and then hears him say, “Thank you. I guess I should go.”

Sunset can tell that this stranger has something going on so he asks him, “Anything I can do to help you?”

The stranger shakes his head again. Finally, Sunset asks him, “Well, I already told you my name, what is yours?”

The stranger looks surprised and tells him, “Trouble.”

At first Sunset is confused and then he realizes that is his name, but he jokes, “Common now, what is your name, I aint lookin for no trouble now.”

The other stallion finally realizes it is a joke and smiles slightly and tells Sunset, “Thank you, that is the first time I have laughed in a week. Actually, my full name is Trouble Water, but most just call me Trouble.”

Sunset can sense something inside this pony is very hurt so he asks, “What happened last week?”

Trouble is at first sullen and quiet, then tells him, “My, my wife and son. They were killed by raiders. Over by Ponyville.”

Sunset looks at him with compassion and asks, “How many were there?”

“Over one hundred of them. I heard one of them mention the Dragon.”

Sunset's eyes go wide with fear as he too has heard of the Dragon. Even as an Enclave scout the Dragon was known to be a dangerous opponent. He then says, “Trouble, we need to let others know he is there. Let’s say we head on over to New Appleloosa and let them know there.”

They are heading south for the second day toward New Appleloosa when Trouble sees something in the sky and points it out to Sunset and asks, “Hey Sunset, what is that thing there?”

Sunset looks and tells him, “They call them vertibucks Trouble, and the last time I saw one was when it dropped me off down here.”

Trouble then asks, “So what do you think they are doing down here then?”

Sunset smiles sadly and tells his friend, “The same thing we are Trouble. They are doing what they consider their duty, now let’s make sure they don’t see us, then get back on our way, we have a job to do.”

Trouble smiles at him and says, “Yep, I guess we all have our duty, but ya know you sound like my sister Tar when you mention it.” as they head into a thicket and watch the vertibuck flying low and at high speed. It lands in the distance and they see a lone pegasus be tossed out and left behind as the machine lifts off and returns the way it came.

Sunset looks at Trouble and nods his head, “Yep, and that duty can come at a cost. Let’s go see if we can help him and then we head on down the trail to New Appleloosa.”

Together they climb out of the bushes and go to help the injured and abandoned pegasi. To do their duty and try to make things a little better with one more small act at a time.

Author's Note:

Topic Enclave written by Trooper