The sun beat down on a vast cement parking lot that surrounded a modest, two-pump gas station and squat supermarket behind it, heating the gray surface. Nestled at the far end of a town called Mayberry, settled on the windswept plains beneath the great shadow of the Red Road, the station was one of the last vestiges of civilization until the Road hit the Andalusian Mountains out west.

Spreading chestnut and poplar trees grew in stands around the aching and sagging wooden houses which lined the road that cut the town in half and connected it to the Red Road. Scraggly front lawns and battered sidewalks decorated the small town and set it apart from the shiny cities to the east and west. It was a quiet place with a quiet dignity that was set apart from society and liked it that way.

Below a vast blue sky with contrails of white that cut through it, resting on that hot cement parking lot outside the supermarket, was the Odyssey. The camper was connected to one of the rusting pumps by a gas line that shuttled the precious fluid into the RV's tanks. Reddington stood by it in his leather jacket, watching the counter on the pump move upwards.

Starlight, meanwhile, leaned against the rickety RV on the other side, looking out and away from the grocery store, past the small town's dusty road, and to the wild plains beyond. The tall grass swayed in the wind like a vast ocean on land, rolling and diving with it. She kept one hoof over her eyes to block out the harsh rays that tried to blind her while she watched.

A chime above the door of the convenience store next to the gas pumps dinged as Professor Staten walked out with a plastic bag in his mouth. He narrowed his eyes against the glare and ambled over to the Odyssey. He wore a loose shirt covered in flowers that he had bought at the same station, along with a new pair of sun shades.

He walked up to Starlight and held up the plastic bag. "I thought I'd get you and I something to keep with you just in case."

"In case of what?" she asked, looking away from the majestic scene and, unfortunately, back to Staten's aging blue face.

He shrugged. "Accidents, death, explosions, you know, the kinds of stuff that's already happened before we even got out of Gracia."

"Very funny. So what is it?"

The hazel-eyed pony reached in the bag and produced a small headset with a wire that ran to a box with bumpers for hooves to press. It was an older model mobile phone; the kind that were bought with minutes instead of some sort of data plan.

"I figured that the two of you could use some phones in case we need to contact each other," Staten said. "I've got my own that's not hooked up to any big phone company, and you two need to do the same. It makes it harder to trace the calls."

Starlight took the phone and looked down at the little box it came with. There was a small screen that, unlike the newer models, only displayed the names and numbers on a monochrome green background.

"I already put my number and the one for our smuggler's phone in there," he said. "You're welcome, by the way."

"Yeah, thanks," she mumbled, scrolling through the half-dozen menus, "just what every growing girl needs."

Staten rolled his eyes and went off to give Red a phone. The smuggler had denied owning one, so it was about time that changed. If he was going to work for them, he was going to keep in contact.

Starlight stayed put, leaning against the camper while she fiddled with the thing. She had had one not so dissimilar back in highschool, but the plans had been too much once she started to live on her own. Besides, who was going to call her? Her parents? The professor?

She shook her head. It wasn't like she had missed out on much. Now, all it took was getting chased by the government while traveling with her dad's friend and a crazy smuggler to get her another one. She had to smile a little bit at that thought.

Starlight sighed and looked back out across the plain, but it didn't look quite so peaceful anymore. Instead, it looked vast and empty: a great waste that stretched on petramin after petramin and made their destination beyond the mountains seem forever away. And in between them and the destination could be a thousand different threats like those in Gracia. Or worse.

"What's on your mind?" Staten asked, walking around the RV and shrugging on his jacket. "You look troubled."

Starlight shook her head. "It's nothing. Really."

"Somehow, I don't think you're telling me the truth," he said.

"It really is nothing. Just afraid is all."

"Afraid?" he said. "Afraid of what?"

She sighed. "Well, you got us those phones for 'emergencies' and it got me thinking. That smuggler is the only one here that knows how to shoot a gun. You and I can't really look out for ourselves if we get separated from him, and there's a lot of chances of that between here and the Serenity Valley."

Staten leaned against the side of the RV and smiled. "Who said I didn't know how to shoot a gun?"

"Well I just assumed—"

"Your father and I had quite a bit of fun out in the open desert in our excavation days." He sighed wistfully. "The least I can do for your father is teach you to defend yourself properly."

Starlight jerked her head toward the other side of the RV. "What about the smuggler?"

"What about me?"

Red came walking around the RV with his leather jacket hanging on his back. He nodded toward the Odyssey. "The gas is pumped and we're already paid. We can hit the road at any time if you two are ready."

Staten turned to him. "I was actually thinking about taking Starlight out and teaching her how to shoot. I know you have weapons; I'll pay you for the ammunition later."

"Woah, woah, go shoot my guns and my ammo while I sit here and do what, exactly?" Red asked.

"You seem to have neglected to fill up your cupboards and refrigerator with, well, anything," the professor said. "The supermarket is right over there. Why don't you go fill up while we're out? I'll even give you the money."

Red took out a pistol from beneath his jacket and smiled. "Or I could show the lady how to shoot."

Quicker than Starlight would have thought possible, Staten surged forward and wrenched the gun from the smuggler's hooves. Then, in one fluid motion, he tossed his sunglasses up in the air and shot two neat holes through the lenses. Starlight held her hooves tight to her ringing ears and grit her teeth.

"I'll show Starlight how to shoot," Staten ordered. "You go get the food. Meet us back here in an hour."

Red grumbled but took the money the professor offered and started back toward to the supermarket. He kept his head held low and his pistol once again holstered.

Starlight was left alone outside the RV while Staten smiled at her and climbed up in the Odyssey. He rummaged around for a minute before reemerging with a saddlebag loaded down with guns and ammo.

"I think this might be enough," he said.

"Yeah, for arming the militia," Starlight said, then shook her head. "Whatever, let's just go."

She followed the professor to the edge of the road, then ran across with him when no cars came. They trotted across the ditch on the other side and arrived at a barbed wire fence that separated the fields from Mayberry.

Staten used his hooves to spread apart the fence into a hole large enough for Starlight to climb through, then followed after her. The pair found themselves waist deep in the sea of grass the caressed over them in waves.

"Doesn't this land belong to somepony?" she asked.

"Probably," he said, "but these country hicks won't stop us. Come on."

Starlight sighed and trudged along behind the professor until they were well away from the roads and houses and everything else that made up civilization. They could hear the chirping of crickets and other bugs while birds circled high above.

The professor stopped after what felt like an hour of walking and held up his hoof. "Here is good," he said.

"About time," Starlight grumbled.

He ignored her and shrugged off his saddlebag. From inside, he produced a long barrel shotgun and then took off his floral-pattern shirt. He marched out about two hundred petra from Starlight before shoving the shotgun in the ground butt-first. The barrel stuck up above the grass and he tied the shirt to it until it was whipping around like a flag.

"That's our target," he said, pointing to the shirt. "Let's see if we can't hit it."

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say," she said.

Staten pulled out a standard rifle and showed it to her. It had a long, shiny barrel that ended with a dark wood stock that had been smoothed down until it shone. The butt, like all pony weapons, was specially made to lean into the shoulder so the pony's full body would absorb the brunt of the recoil.

With a smile, Staten brought the gun up and aimed down the built-in sights. He brought his opposite hoof up to the lever-trigger and pushed down on it. The rifle barked and spit smoke and fire as it sent its lead bullet downrange.

A single hole appeared in the short as the retort rang out across the fields.

Starlight's hooves leaped to her ears. "You keep doing that!" she yelled. "Warn a pony before you do!"

"Right, sorry," the professor said, giving her a pair of earplugs from his bag.

Starlight popped them in her ears and nodded to him. "Okay, you brought me out here to teach me, so teach."

"Well, first thing," the professor began, taking up position behind her and putting the rifle on her shoulder, "is to get a proper stance down."

---

Reddington tried to ignore the squeaky wheel on the buggy that he rolled through the supermarket lanes. The stuffy little concrete store had him sweating as he pored over cans of corn and fruit that looked like it had been run over by a truck a couple of times.

The few other customers in the store were elderly folk who paid him no mind and did little to get out of his way when he walked down the snack food aisle. After getting dirty looks from a few of them, he made sure to buy as much soda and chips as he could carry. He would do anything to remind the geezers who was the young stallion in the store.

He shook his head when he passed them.

What did they matter? He was a smuggler! Sure, that girl and the professor started to ignore him and didn't seem to think he had any idea what he was doing . . . but that didn't make him an idiot! They wouldn't forget him when they were thankful to have food in their bellies.

Metal fans lazily spun through the air above him, doing little but to move the hot air around a little bit. Red grumbled beneath his breath about it and did his best to get everything they needed.

In the cart, he had piled in, along with the chips and soda, a variety of fruits, canned goods, vegetables, bread, cheeses, and some milk to put in the Odyssey's fridge. That was as much as he could think of at the moment and would be enough to make it to Amperdam, at least.

He pushed his cart to the store's sole checkout counter beneath the thin windows that let in murky light, reflecting off the dirty linoleum floors. Red fought from fidgeting in the unfamiliar, enclosed space and longed to be on the road back in the Odyssey.

There was a small teletube with a bunny ears antenna sitting behind the counter, which a plump mare watched while occasionally doing her job. She hit the side of the machine and the static dancing on the screen cleared for a moment. It was some local hick reporter droning on about crop news and traffic on the Red Road. Red ignored it like everything else in the little town and placed his items on the counter for checkout.

The mare looked at him with disdain for interrupting her show but started to scan the food and place it in bags for him anyway. She rang up the total for him and took his cash without a word. Red started to breathe easy again when she gave him the change and loaded the bags into his cart. Then he heard his name.

". . . a stallion known only as Reddington, interstate smuggler and petty thief, is wanted for kidnapping, assault, assault on an officer, grand theft auto, and treason," the little tube blared. "He was last seen heading west on the Red Road and all towns are advised to be on a lookout for him and his passengers. Here is a police photograph for reference."

To Red's horror, an old mug shot of him popped up on the screen. He'd changed enough since then that he hoped he could pass for a different pony, especially as the clerk watching the tube turned around to face him.

"Have a nice day," she said in a strained voice.

Red nodded to her and did his best to keep cool as he pushed the buggy out the door and back to the parking lot. He could feel the clerk's eyes boring into the back of his head, and he broke out into a run once he was outside.

While he ran, he wrenched the mobile phone from his pocket and put the headset on. He got up the contact list and dialed the girl's phone number. Just as he did, he thought he could see the clerk start to approach him from across the parking lot.

---

"You have to learn to control your breathing," Staten told Starlight after she missed her eighth shot. "Otherwise you will be too shaky to aim anything. Breathe in when aiming, then out before you pull the trigger. Keep both eyes open at all times."

He was standing over her as she struggled with the gun. The thing had enough recoil to send her sprawling without the right stance and was aching against her shoulder.

"How am I supposed to control my breathing every time?" Starlight asked. "That's impossible."

"You have to feel it," Staten said. "Do it until it becomes instinct. Again."

She sighed but raised the gun and kept her eyes glued to the shirt with one hole punched through it. She tried to feel the way the grass around her bent and swayed to the wind.

Deep breath.

She took aim and placed her hoof on the trigger.

Let it out.

She fired.

This time, the gun bounced back instead of up or some other direction, and the bullet flew straight and true. A rough hole was shorn near the bottom of the shirt.

Starlight jumped up in the air and laughed. "I did it!" she cried.

Staten smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "That was a fine job you did. Now do it ten more times and you'll be a real marksmare in no time."

Before she could, though, her mobile started to ring. She had left it in the saddlebag and hurried over to it. Putting the piece in her ear and clicking the answer button, she said, "Hello?"

"Listen, girl, it's me," the smugglerl said on the other end. "I'm going to have to make this quick, but I think the townsponies know who we are. The clerk at the supermarket . . . she saw me."

Starlight could hear sirens begin to wail in the background.

"Shit," Red said. "Okay, I gotta go, but you and the old guy get out of here as soon as you can. I'll find a way out."

The line went dead and Starlight threw off the headset. Staten was staring at her and she shook her head. "Red's in trouble," she said.

"Of course that little fool would get himself into something . . ." Staten began.

"No, no, it sounded like they found out who he was," Starlight said, "and the only way they could have found that out is if there is a bulletin out for our arrest too."

Staten smirked. "So are you saying that we mount a rescue operation?"

"Well I managed to hit one out of nine shots with this thing," Starlight said, shaking the gun. "So why not? It's nothing worse than what we've already done."

The professor laughed. "That's the spirit!"

Together, they sprinted back across the field with the professor lugging the saddlebag with him and Starlight doing her best to cradle the rifle to her chest. Luckily, Staten made her turn the safety on before she shot herself in the face somehow.

They made it back to the parking lot to find the place deserted, but the RV still parked in front of the empty pumps. There was a shopping cart next to the camper that was loaded with food but nopony to attend to it.

"We're too late," Staten muttered.

He paced around the parking lot after setting the bag down. "They'll have taken him to the local police station by now and have probably called in the IS too. We don't have long before they're here, but we're going to be outnumbered by the cops. We'll need surprise, but all we have is the RV . . ."

Starlight shrugged. "A big RV barreling toward me would be a pretty big surprise to me."

"No, no, they could just shoot out the tires or the driver if they felt like it. It won't work as a surprise, but, perhaps, a distraction." Staten got a big grin on his face. "Starlight," he said, "load up all the food from the cart except fruits, vegetables, or anything soft. Then, give me a grenade or two. We're going to have a little fun."

---

The county sheriff was a lime colored stallion with a barrel paunch and thinning yellow hair who was fond of wearing reflective sunglasses and a beefy jacket while he chomped on a cigar.

He kept Red in the front of the town's small jailhouse, located at one corner of the dusty town square, instead of inside. He had told him the IS would be coming and they didn't want any surprises.

The smuggler's heart beat faster. The IS weren't going to play nice if they wanted the girl and the professor so bad. Yesterday, he had been just another smuggler, but now he was valuable.

He tried to wrench his hooves against the shiny, like-new cuffs, but it was to no avail. The sheriff, however, noticed him doing so and laughed.

"Don't even bother; those aren't going to be broken open until our friends at the Intelligence Service get here. I just know they're going to love you."

Red snarled at him. "At least they notice this little hellhole for once."

The sheriff slapped him. "Quiet you," he said. "I'm not stupid. Nopony's gonna provoke me while we wait."

"Fine," he said, looking away.

The sheriff started to laugh. "Oh, don't tell me you're scared! Boy, you're practically shaking!"

"I am not!" he shot back.

"Sure, sure." The sheriff leaned closer to him and smiled wide enough so that the smuggler could see his broken and yellowed teeth. "Listen, let's just make this easy. You tell me where your little friends are and I tell the IS that I never found you."

Red backed up and shook his head. "Never," he said. "As long as those two are with me, they're my crew, and I take care of my crew."

The sheriff shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just hope you'll feel the same way when the suits are done with you. In the meantime, just relax and let my boys keep an eye out for your friends."

Clumped together next to the jailhouse were the four other police of the town. The perimeter of the town square was just a bunch of sagging brick buildings with roads at every corner. There was a small stand of trees with a gazebo in the center. It was deserted at that time of the day and utterly quiet.

That was, until the blasts of a horn filled the empty stretches of the square.

The sheriff laughed. "That must be them. Time to go."

It was Red's turn to shake his head, though. "No, that's a very particular horn," he said. "That's my horn."

Down the side street across the square from them, the Odyssey came barreling down the street, its horn blasting. The mighty vehicle roared across the square until it came to squealing stop in front of the jailhouse, turned to the side to present a larger target.

The hatch at the top opened and Starlight popped out, rifle already raised to her shoulder. She cocked it and kept it trained on the sheriff.

The four police officers raised their weapons as well and pointed them all at Starlight. She tried to keep their aim steady as they came to a standoff.

What the officers, nor the sheriff, noticed, however, was the metal grocery cart filled with fruit that had rolled its way out from behind the jailhouse. Red had only a second to see it before he dove to the ground as the explosion went off.

Gooey extracts of a dozen kinds of fruits and vegetables covered the sheriff and officers in a nonlethal mess that left them sputtering and confused.

Before they could come to their senses, a stallion wielding a big, silver shotgun came walking up from the alley the cart had come from.

"Well look at this," Staten said. "Looks like we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us, Starlight?"

"Big damn heroes, professor," she said.

Staten smiled. "Ain't we just?"

Red stared at the two of them, cornering the town's entire police force. The old geezer and the girl? Really?

The professor walked up to the sheriff and tapped him in the chest with the shotgun. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, "but you've got something that belongs to us and we'd like it back."

"This is an official police investigation," the sheriff began. "You cannot think to disrupt—"

"You see the mare hanging out of the top of the RV with the really big gun?" Staten asked. "She's one of the criminals the IS wants. She's a convicted killer and we've come an awfully long way and, well, she's looking to kill somepony."

"I never liked this town anyway . . ." Starlight mumbled.

Staten nodded to the officers who put down their now-gooey guns. "Right, so let him go."

"But he's a wanted fugitive," the sheriff protested.

The professor raised his shotgun into the sheriff's face. "But he's our fugitive, so let him go."

---

Refueled and safely out of the clutches of the IS, the Odyssey cruised down the Red Road with a full tank of gas and full fridge of junk food. Minute by minute, the town that would now be swarming with black-suited agents was falling behind them while the mountains to the west got closer and closer.

"I guess we're all wanted criminals now," Red said at last.

Starlight smiled from her chair near the back of the RV. "Yeah," she said, "but it has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

He coughed. "And that was mighty fine of you two coming to pick me up back there. You really saved my skin."

"Don't mention it," Staten said from the passenger's seat. "If we're going to make this journey, we will all have to work together."

He looked out the window to where the Red Road rose up to the mountain pass and where he knew it dropped off into Serenity Valley soon after. "I'm afraid we will be tested on that before long."