Fallout: Equestria - Common Ground

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 4: The Past Submerged

Chapter Four: The Past Submerged

“Good morning Pleasure Coast, and a go-od morning it is indeed! Some of you fine griffins inland may have already discovered this in the past couple days, but Radio PC is now available in a much w-ider area. So I say not only good morning Pleasure Coast, but also good morning Commonwealth! We owe our sudden expansion to the efforts of a single unicorn new to the Commonwealth, the one known as Doc Silverarm. Be sure to thank him on my behalf if you see him around Pleasure Coast. And for those of you in the greater broadcasting area who have been terr-or-ized in the past by the raiders of Distribution Station Seven, also give the good doctor your thanks that you’ll no longer be facing attacks from that par-ticular direction. You’ll recognize him when you see him. Now, on to other news …”

Radio PC had begun broadcasting to a greater region the moment I dialed it in at the distribution station, but the Commonwealth Crooner didn’t have the resources that DJ Pon3 had access to that let her see everywhere in Equestria at once. I let him know that the deed was done right after I’d returned to the Pleasure Coast, but he’d held off until today to make the announcement to his listeners. Just how those in the broadcast range would know to tune in when the announcement to tune in was made over a previously dead signal, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t the one running a radio station.

While I listened to Radio PC, I was also busy brewing healing potions using Summer Sunrise’s alchemistry set. The fight with the raiders at the distribution station had taught me that I needed to keep more potions on hoof than expected if I planned to stay alive out in the Commonwealth. It was cheaper to create them from scratch than to purchase the potions already created or looted from hospitals, so I’d acquired the raw materials and was now working to build up a healthy supply. My saddlebags were going to be bursting once I’d finished up with these potions and added them to the other items I’d purchased to help me I explored the Commonwealth.

With my reward from the Commonwealth Crooner, I’d gotten my clothes and shotgun repaired, restocked on ammunition, and purchased survival gear. While a bedroll was fine, it didn’t offer much shelter out in the open, and the Griffin Commonwealth seemed to have plenty of open spaces between settlements. I’d acquired a tent to remedy that problem and offer some additional shelter from the elements and curious wildlife. I’d also gotten tools to set up a campfire and cook over it, which was a skill I'd need to prepare some of the mutated fruits and vegetables I’d harvested. It would require some creative packing, but I was confident I could stow all my equipment in or on my saddlebags.

Studying my PipBeak’s map, which was now dotted with the locations of the radio distribution stations, I had a plan for how to spread Radio Free Wasteland through the northern stations. There were twelve in the northern half of the Commonwealth, and I would only need to activate two more to bring RFW to the Pleasure Coast. However, I intended to activate as many as possible and spread Radio PC at the same time. I’d told the Commonwealth Crooner that last part of the plan and he’d been happy to offer me a reward for every new station I added to his network.

Judging from the elevation markings on my PipBeak’s map, a valley spiraled through the northern Commonwealth in a counterclockwise direction, and I intended to strike out east and follow it around to get to the far northwest station. That was the one I’d need to activate to bring RFW to the Commonwealth in any capacity, and I’d activate any distribution station I came across along the way. Fortunately, my radio presets had been copied over from my ruined PipBuck, so I still had the frequency for Radio Free Wasteland in my PipBeak. That meant I could preemptively activate the distribution stations; they would then appropriately rebroadcast the station once it was broadcast to them, which was what I’d done at the distribution station I’d already hit. It seemed to be a good plan, but I knew that plans often went awry, so I was preparing myself for anything. What I didn’t expect was Franz bursting into the clinic as I was preparing to leave to pick up some food containers.

“Good, you’re here,” he said to me. “I need you for a job, now!”

“Me, specifically?” I asked. “Why?”

“There’s no time to explain,” Franz replied. “We need to go!”

I was about to follow him, assuming something terrible had happened like the assassination of an important griffin, when Summer Sunrise clopped his rotted hooves on the clinic’s reception counter to steal my attention.

“Ah haven’t seen y’ this worked up in a long time, Franz,” Summer Sunrise said as he stared at the griffin with a knowing expression. “Is the Red Harvest back in port?”

“Well … yes,” Franz hissed with an exasperated sigh.

“The Red Harvest?” I asked Summer. “What’s that?”

“It’s an old zebra submarine that visits from time t’ time, and every griffin with a boat falls over themselves tryin’ t’ trade with ‘em,” Summer explained while Franz glared daggers at him. “Y’see, they trade in gold an’ silver—old zebra imperial denarii, t’ be precise. Catch is, they’ll only trade with one griffin per visit, an’ they require them to provide two things: repair material fer their sub, an’ someone in t’ fix things up.”

“Why do you need me?” I asked Franz skeptically.

“‘Cause no griffin wants t’ do it,” Summer chuckled, and Franz’s glare deepened. “The sub’s underwater an’ heavily irradiated.”

“Shouldn’t this be a job for a ghoul, then?” I asked.

“Most of the pony ghouls, alas, still harbor wartime prejudices against zebras,” Franz said before Summer could speak. “I thought that, perhaps, a pony as distant from that war as yourself might feel differently.”

“Well, it is distant history at this point,” I said. “And I was friends with a zebra ghoul.”

“Perfect!” Franz said excitedly. “That’s what the sub crew is, the original crew from the Pony-Zebra War, ghoulified! Come on, we’ve not a moment to lose.”

“Okay,” I conceded as I looked at Summer, who was glancing sidelong at me. “But you’re going to pay for the Rad-X and RadAway I have to use for this. We can negotiate a fair wage on the way over.”

“You’re learning fast,” Franz sighed, disappointed; he wasn’t going to take advantage of my newcomer’s naiveté as much as he’d hoped. “But you’ve got me over a barrel. Fine, but we need to go now! If we’re not the first ones there, there’ll be no profit for either of us!”

***

The radiation meter on my PipBeak was clicking softly before we even reached the sub. A megaspell had gone off in the ocean not far from the Pleasure Coast, and balefire radiation still lingered in the water of the city’s bay. That bay was normally empty of watercraft apart from a few fishing boats heading out to catch blightfish or hunt larger prey. At the moment, though, it was swarming with boats circling a small rocky island in the middle of the bay. Some of these boats tried to cut us off, but Franz’s pilot was good at her job, and we made it safely through to the submarine’s tower. Through the murky water, I could just barely make out the massive shape lurking beneath the surface. The submarine was long and slender, and entirely submerged apart from the rusty metal trapezoid jutting out of the water that we approached.

“I have what you need!” Franz announced excitedly as he waved a large duffel bag in front of a periscope, “And someone to install it!”

He pulled me toward him, and the periscope turned lazily as it regarded us. A hatch opened at the tower’s top, and a ghoul swiftly emerged. He looked basically the same as the pony ghouls I’d encountered, other than the shape of his head and his ratty military uniform. The ghoulish zebra crew member waved me over, and Franz draped the duffel bag around my neck and urged me on. A set of holes were helpfully cut into the tower to be used as hoofholds, which I used to climb up. The ghoul vanished down the hatch once I reached the top, and I followed him down the ladder which the tower was wrapped around.

PipBeak’s radiation meter immediately began to click alarmingly, and I stopped to silence it before continuing my descent. The substantial dose of Rad-X I’d taken before setting out would keep me from absorbing too much radiation, and if I absorbed a serious dose, the PipBeak would warn me that I needed to down some RadAway.

The submarine’s control room awaited us at the bottom of the ladder—a cramped compartment filled with currently unattended stations, apart from one. I couldn’t make out any of the script over the control consoles or the pipes that ran along the walls and over my head, as it was written in the zebra language. The crewmember who’d let me in had disappeared, but there was a new zebra ghoul standing before me. His uniform was still mostly intact, though the badges of rank were tarnished. On his head was perched a hat with another badge, canted off to the side due to a missing ear.

“It has been a long time since they sent a living one,” the ghoul remarked in accented Equestrian. “If I may ask, what did you do to deserve such a punishment?”

“I’m not being punished,” I replied, and the ghoul grunted. “I volunteered for this job.”

“Hmm. I am Captain Zaliski of the Red Harvest. I was once the enemy of your kind. Does that concern you?”

“Are you my enemy now?” I asked.

“No,” Captain Zaliski replied.

“Then I don’t have any problems with you,” I said with a shrug. “I was once good friends with Zherana, a zebra ghoul who guided a megaspell into Vanhoover. Whatever you did in the past, I doubt it could be much worse than that.”

“We did not have the chance to partake in the final bloodbath as the megaspells fell,” Captain Zaliski said. “But … perhaps that was a blessing. To see the destruction of the world from afar has made us all reconsider the pointless violence of that war. If we were a part of that destruction ourselves, could we tolerate our own existence?” The captain frowned, almost unconsciously, and his gaze slowly drifted down toward the floor.

“So …” I said, breaking the silence, “I’m supposed to fix something?”

“Yes, our electrical systems always need repairs,” Zaliski said, snapping out of his contemplative trance. “Come, follow me.”

Turning sharply, the captain guided me through one of the corridors leading out of the control room. The submarine groaned and shifted as we trotted along, and I glanced around with concern.

“Nothing to worry about,” Zaliski assured me. “We are surfacing to take on the goods from your griffin friend.”

“What do you do with them?” I asked curiously.

“We trade,” Zaliski replied. “There are other settlements that trade with us, and there is also what remains of our homeland.”

I’d never really considered before that the Zebra Empire was still out there, at least as a physical place if not as a functioning nation. Something that had dominated Equestrian thoughts for decades no longer seemed important when all one’s energy went toward surviving in the Wasteland. Equestria hadn’t been the only nation ravaged by megaspells on the Last Day, and I wondered if the zebras had fared any better. Surely the Equestrian response for the destruction of Cloudsdale would have been greater than what had befallen the Griffin Commonwealth—but was the Zebra Empire as totally annihilated as Equestria?

“Here, time to work,” Captain Zaliski said as he gestured to a wall panel.

Removing the duffel bag from around my neck, I popped the panel open and took a thorough look inside. Cables and fuses were easily accessible here, the former snaking away through different conduits in the wall to other sections of the submarine. A guide was printed on the inside of the panel, but it was badly faded and difficult to comprehend even when I shone my PipBeak’s flashlight on it. On top of that, it was impossible to read since it was written in the zebra language. I unzipped the duffel and examined what was within. Franz had provided all the materials the zebras had specified on their arrival and the tools needed to install them, leaving it up to me to piece together what went where. I’d done some minor work on electronics in the Clinic back in the Equestrian Wasteland, so I put my little and distant experience to work as best I could to repair the Red Harvest.

I had a lot of questions for Zaliski as I worked, since I couldn’t read any of the labels on zebra equipment. Fortunately, most of the original hardware had been previously replaced by griffin goods with labels in Equestrian, so I wasn’t totally reliant on the captain. He seemed to have a very intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Red Harvest, which I suppose was bound to happen when you’ve spent one hundred and sixty years living in and maintaining it. Honestly, he or one of the other crewmembers probably could have repaired the submarine themselves, so I wondered why the zebras demanded someone come aboard to install the components they required. Maybe he just wanted conversation with someone whom he didn’t have to see every single day.

We moved around the submarine to fix the various problems that had developed since its last time in port, and our journey gradually led us forward. At one point, I was following Zaliski through a large, open compartment with a single catwalk down the middle. Goods were piled up and strapped down around the space, and more were being lowered from above, guided into place by crewmembers. Ceiling hatches were open in several places, and I caught glimpses of Franz’s employees scrambling around to pass trade goods off to the zebras.

“Did this once hold—” I tentatively started to ask.

“Missiles, yes,” Captain Zaliski cut me off before I could finish my thought. “Tipped with megaspells, but we disposed of those long ago to make cargo space.”

He didn’t seem inclined to say any more about it, so I didn’t push him. I continued to work on repairing the sub’s electrical systems, the materials in my duffel bag growing scarcer with each stop. When we reached the nose—where the torpedoes still sat, waiting to be fired at Equestrian battleships that had run aground or were sunk long ago—we turned around and doubled back to the aft of the submarine.

I was chewing through my Rad-X and RadAway faster than expected, so I tried to keep things moving quickly; soon, I was installing the final fix. I jumped when a heavy thud suddenly emanated very nearby. It was a different sound from when the submarine had been surfacing, but since Captain Zaliski appeared completely unfazed, I went back to work. Then, it sounded again, followed by a few smaller thumps. It went on long enough that I could identify the source as a nearby hatch.

“What’s that?” I asked Captain Zaliski.

“The brig,” he responded.

“You have prisoners?” I asked.

“Our crewmembers who have gone feral,” Zaliski replied. “We take them with us because it is our responsibility to care for them. One day, each of us will join them, until the last survivor scuttles the Red Harvest.”

“Seems kind of grim,” I commented as I got back to work.

“It is the way things are,” Zaliski said stoically. “There are some things that cannot be changed, and to fight against them is madness. Besides, through good and bad, I am content with the path of my life. I have seen the world burn down, but I have also observed the beginning buds of new life. I have lost a wife and children but have been allowed to spend many years with my second love, the sea, traveling across the world. Weighed on the great scales, I am satisfied with what I have received. I would not change it, even with its hardships and pain, even if such a thing was achievable.”

“If you say so,” I said as I replaced the panel I’d been working on. “Well, I think that’s the last of the repairs. I suppose once you’ve finished loading, you’ll be taking off again.”

“Yes,” Zaliski replied. “We do not stay in port for long.”

“I’ve been wondering something. You’ve traveled around the world, but have you ever sailed to Equestria?” I asked.

“We viewed it from a distance, long ago, but close enough to see that little remains,” Zaliski said. “I do not think we would find a warm welcome in your land.”

“Maybe not,” I admitted. “But, the War was a long time ago. You might be able to find somepony at least who won’t shoot you on sight. To be straight, I was hoping you might be able to bring a message for me to friends in Equestria, to let them know I’m here and I’m safe.”

“Hmm,” Captain Zaliski said, his brows furrowed and cracking. “I believe you to be an honest pony, Doc. Yes, we will make an attempt to deliver your message.”

“Really?” I said, excited and a bit surprised. “Thank you, that’s great news! If you can, get it to Sage or Violet Night. They should be in Tenpony Tower in Manehattan. Oh, and let them know I’m planning to spread Radio Free Wasteland’s broadcast to the Griffin Commonwealth.”

“Everything that can be done will be done,” Zaliski said with a slight nod. “When next we visit the Pleasure Coast, I will let you know if we have succeeded or failed.”

“Thank you,” I told the ghoul again, “Truly.”

Not only was I going to be able to hear Sage through Radio Free Wasteland very soon, but I may have just found a way to communicate with her. Things were starting to look up.

Level Up
New Perk: Trust Me, I’m a Doctor – Bonus to all persuasion attempts.
New Quest: Inland – Travel into the interior of the Griffin Commonwealth.
Alchemistry +6 (46)
Athletics +1 (22)
Barter +2 (96)
Electronics +9 (40)
Medicine +1 (114)
Speech +1 (102)