Chapter 3: Descent

Evidently, we’d fallen asleep sometime after our wild shenanigans. Peeling one eye open, I leaned carefully upward so as not to disturb Solara, and peered out of the thin slit of the Sky-tank’s cockpit windscreen to see that night had fallen. Panic tore through my gut when I noticed the time on the ScoutBuck’s clock, and I quickly shot bolt-upright, toppling Solara unceremoniously off of me.

“Oh, shit! I’m late for the briefing!”

I took only a moment to wake Solara, rapidly explaining the situation to her before launching myself out of the Sky-tank at top speed towards the command office. Throwing base regs to the wind, I flew through the corridors as well, much to the dismay of the night crew ponies shuffling hither and yon as they tended to their duties.

Slamming open the door to the briefing room, I skidded abruptly to a halt in my hurry, my hoof immediately slapping up to my forehead in a salute. “I apologize for my tardiness, Ma’am! I lost track of time!”

The Wind-Twins—Gust and Gale—both turned to regard me with looks of disgust. It wasn’t too hard to tell them apart, twins though they were. They were both a light grey with matching dark blue eyes, but Gale, the older of the two—by minutes, as her sister constantly pointed out—wore her charcoal-grey mane tied up in a bun while her younger sister had hers woven into a long braid. My eyes flicked to the captain’s bars at their necks, and I swallowed nervously, holding my salute while they stared me down.

“You’re late, Lieutenant,” Gale snarled angrily. “This briefing was to start ten minutes ago.”

“I know, Ma’am, and I apologize for that. I was, uh… I was testing out the new piece of gear Doc issued me.” I lied through my teeth, but there was a chance they’d buy it. Besides, it was still a half-truth. I had spent a good deal of time in Doc’s lab before Solara had tracked me down, after all.

“Is that so?” Gale cocked an eyebrow, her voice still dripping with venom. “It’s a stars-awful excuse, but I guess it’ll have to do.” At long last she returned the salute, and I allowed my hoof to drop in relief.

“I imagine you got an idea of our mission from Chief Engineer Nocturne, but allow me to elaborate. Command has ordered us to test the effectiveness of the prototype coilgun on alicorn shields. In order to do this, we’ll be flying out to the ruins of Canterlot. Not only will they be easier to locate, but effects of the Pink Cloud make the resident alicorns far less dangerous than the ones roaming free around the Wasteland.”

I felt my blood run cold, and I swallowed a lump in my throat. Memories of nearly being slaughtered by alicorn magic flooded through my mind at the mere mention of Canterlot.

“C-Canterlot?” I stammered. “With all due respect, Captain, that’s a suicide mission. I’ve been to Canterlot, and the alicorns there are no less deadly than anywhere else. In fact, they’re probably more deadly, simply because of how much of a deathtrap that place has become. Even if Doc works out all of the coilgun’s kinks, we’ll probably all wind up dead just trying to find a target to test it on!”

“If you have a problem with our orders, Lieutenant, you may take it up with Command,” Gale spat bitterly. “Or shall I consider this an act of disobedience and insubordination? You’re already on thin ice, it would be a shame if somepony were to… condemn you to the frigid depths below because you couldn’t do something as simple as following your orders.”

“Just give me the stars-damned thing so we can get this mission underway,” I snapped through clenched teeth. “The sooner we get it over with, the better.”

“I’m glad you saw reason,” Gale said curtly, before raising her voice. “Chief Engineer! You may enter now, if you please!”

I whirled around when I heard the door open behind me, and watched as Doc strolled through the door towards me. Nipping at the old pony’s heels was one of his weapon techs, laden with the burden of the coilgun, which had been mounted to a battle saddle and was riding loosely upon his back.

“Please tell me you worked out those issues, Doc,” I damn near pleaded as the two ponies approached me with the weapon and set to outfitting me with it. “Nopony told me that I’d actually be testing it against alicorns, in what is probably the most lethal place on the surface, no less.”

“I wasn’t able to do as much testing as I’d have liked, but I was able to work out the primary issue,” Doc assured me as his assistant placed the saddle on my back, and they began adjusting the bridle and harness straps. “You should be fine, just be sure that you exercise a modicum of common sense.”

Gust and Gale started snickering quietly in the background, but they were silenced by a dark glare from Doc.

“Now then, you should be ready to go,” Doc said, giving the saddle a firm tug to make certain it was secure. “I’ve linked the trigger to your battle saddle’s bit, and your ScoutBuck should recognize the proprietary targeting suite I developed for it.”

I flicked an eye over to the display screen and noticed that my inventory display had been replaced entirely with the most needlessly complicated reticule I’d ever seen.

“Is this reticule really necessary with the crosshair the E.F.S. is giving me? That should work perfectly fine for the task, shouldn’t it?”

“The reticule is there for a reason, Mach,” Doc chuckled warmly. “The ScoutBuck’s coilgun targeting suite is designed to work hoof-in-hoof with the optic I’ve mounted to it. If need be, you can treat it as a long-range markspony or sniper rifle. Now, believe me, considering the significant threat your targets pose, you don’t want to be getting any closer than you have to be!”

I glared flatly at Doc while he reached for a strap hanging from his neck. “Here, I’ve gathered all of the magazines I’ve managed to put together thus far. You’ll have to obtain microspark cells from the armorer while your commanding officers are gearing up, though. I’m afraid I haven’t any on my person.”

“Thanks, Doc.” I took the satchel he offered to me, loaded with maybe ten magazines at the most, and slung it around my own neck. “Look, considering how serious this mission really is, I’d just like to take a second to say that I really appreciate what you’ve done for me all these years. You’ve made life a little less boring for me, and testing out all your little toys has been fun.”

Doc stomped a hoof on the clouds and nickered crossly. “Stop your nonsense, Mach. You’ve been through some pretty bad scrapes before—this is just another day on the job. You come back alive, and with my data and weapon intact, or you’ll have earned my wrath. Believe me, you don’t want to earn my wrath,” he said, the light glinting ominously off of his glasses as he glared at me.

“All right, then,” I said, gripping his hoof one more time for a shake, before heading out of the briefing room behind the twins. We stopped briefly at the armory so that they could outfit with weapons and I could obtain microspark cells for the coilgun. While the twins armed themselves with a pair of Sunburst rifles apiece, I crammed as many microspark cells as I could into the ammo pouch I had hanging from my battle saddle on the side opposite the coilgun.

Loaded for bear, we stepped out of the armory and into the brisk night sky, strapped head to hoof with death dealing weaponry and ammunition. I paused for a moment to look wistfully up at the stars twinkling in the night sky before turning my focus to the full moon. Ponies said that once upon a time, there had been a series of craters on the moon’s surface that formed a mare’s head, but whether or not that was true was a mystery. No such formation could be found on the moon these days, and I had damn good eyesight.

“Lieutenant!” Gale snapped, jerking me out of my trance. “We’re on the clock now! Get a move on, trooper!”

I tilted my head back to see the twins hovering idle just above me, waiting while I stood there stargazing like a dope. “Well,” I sighed, unfurling my wings. “Let’s go make some really bad life choices.”

We flew in a loose formation—Gust in the lead and to the left, Gale in between and to my right, and me bringing up the rear, dead center. It was a long flight out to Canterlot, and our predesignated flight path took us there by way of Ponyville, hitting several smaller waypoints in between. With absolutely no rapport between my commanding officers and myself, such a long flight gave me a considerable amount of time to kill on the way, so I fell back on the only thing I had to keep myself entertained.

I pawed blindly at the ScoutBuck’s many switches, and managed to activate the night vision spell with the intention of amusing myself by scanning the desolate, barren wasteland below us. There were twinkling lights of small towns and encampments—ponies trying their best to eke out a living on the cards fate had dealt them. Here and there I spotted a campfire where a group of travelers had settled down for the night, and even some caravans were still on the move, trying to get to their next stop as quickly as possible, so as not to be hit by raiders or bandits.

Ugh… Every time I laid eyes on it I felt my lip curling in disgust. I’d seen a lot in my days of flying recon, and it had gotten so tiresome by this point that I could easily turn a blind eye. It was deplorable the way those dirt-munchers lived down there. They made their homes and businesses out of war-torn ruins or hastily erected shanties. With alarming frequency I watched as they killed each other for food or water, or for money and weapons. Their savagery made me physically sick to my stomach.

How could they act so uncivilized? Sure the surfacers had no ruling body anymore, but us pegasi got along just fine. We'd overcome the chaos of war very quickly after it had ended. My forefathers had banded together to form the Grand Pegasus Enclave, establishing order and casting out those who sympathized with the surface ponies and attempted to sow dissent. If we could do it, why couldn't they? The answer was simple—they weren't trying hard enough. The surface ponies had lost their way and would rather squabble over resources than band together to overcome their dire situation.

I sighed and shook my head. Pathetic, the lot of them.

A tinny beep in my ear drew my attention to the ScoutBuck. Its automap function had been notifying me each time we passed a location of significance, and sudden movement caught my eye as we started to pass through the airspace over the ruins of Ponyville. I slowed to hover and squint down at the small town beneath me, focusing my attention on a small scuffle that had broken out by a bridge.

“What is it, Lieutenant?” The twins had noticed I was no longer in formation, and had swept around to hover nearby. I held up a hoof for silence and gestured towards the disturbance.

It looked to be a fight between raiders and slavers, but that wasn’t what had caught my eye. What had made me stop were the two ponies the slavers had been transporting. Both were unicorns, but one of them was wearing what I recognized as Stable-Tec utility barding with a number 2 on the back. She had to have been fresh out of the stable. Her barding was spotless, and had no rips or tears in it.

Crossing my forelegs, I leaned back to watch the scene unfold with casual interest. It wasn't every day you saw a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed stable pony get her first reality check. To my surprise, I felt an errant pang of pity reverberate through my chest. This poor kid had no idea what she’d just gotten herself into.

I raised a single eyebrow in surprise as the little unicorn undid her shackles in a deft display of telekinetic prowess. She immediately went to work on her fellow captive’s bindings before she was interrupted by a pair of raiders crossing the bridge. My wide-eyed gaze faded, giving way to a grim frown. It was a quiet night, and our wings were deathly silent. All I had to do was listen, and their voices carried all the way up to where we hovered idle.

“Looks like we got ourselves some prizes!” One of the raiders—another unicorn—exclaimed in glee as she approached.

“Help us?” Said the little stable pony meekly. The poor kid sounded scared out of her gourd, and to be fair, she had every right to be. Raiders were certifiably insane. You could never predict what they’d do next, but there was one thing you could always count on—their penchant for violence. It was unquenchable and knew no bounds.

“Oh, I’ll help myself to you, all right!” The raider mare shrieked, and she pivoted to deliver a swift buck from her hindlegs to the innocent little stable pony.

One of the twins scoffed. Gust, I realized, once she spoke in a hushed whisper. "Tch, look at him. He's probably thinking about helping the pathetic little dirt ponies. Oh boo-hoo, the poor widdle stable pony is gonna get her first taste of the Wasteland. "

"That'd be just like him, wouldn't it?" Gale whispered back. "Putting that Wasteland scum over his fellow pegasi. That fiasco last year is proof positive he's a sympathizer."

"Brand him and be done with him, I say," Gust said. "Should've done it the second he came back from that mission. If he didn't have so many high-ranking family members, I'm sure he would've been cast out years ago. What use is a chain of command when you do whatever you want anyway? Must be nice to live such a cushy, privileged life. The rest of us actually have to work for a living."

"Will you two shut the fuck up?" I snarled, whirling around to face the sisters. Below us, the raiders had now immobilized the shackled unicorn and were trying to blast his hooves off with a shotgun. “I am sick and tired of you two giving me and my family all kinds of shit! My allegiance belongs to the Enclave, and it always has! If I wanted to leave to go rough it with a bunch of ground pounders, I would've done it long before I even joined the military!"

“You’re out of line, Lieutenant," Gale said with a sickly sweet smile. "Though we all know that doesn't matter to you in the slightest. I'm sure you'd run right to daddy and have the matter cleared up in a jiffy—oh!" Gale feigned surprise and held a hoof to her mouth. "That's right. He can't help you anymore because the Council finally wised up. Anypony willing to pull strings to pardon his own son is a pony whose loyalties are questionable at best. You, like your father, are nothing but a rebel sympathizer."

Before I could stop myself, I was streaking towards Gale with both hooves outstretched and ready to tackle her. From behind me I heard Gust’s Sunburst rifles hum to life and begin to crackle with energy. The familiar sound provoked an immediate response and I halted mid-flight, just outside of striking distance.

"If you so much as raise your hoof to me, I swear to Polaris that I will see to it you are branded and made to live with these savages for the rest of your days. Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?” I growled an affirmative. “You are unfit for duty. This op is over,” Gale continued, "You are to return to base immediately. Until such a time as our superiors have decided what should be done with you, you are grounded until further notice. Now move.”

Damn it, my wings were clipped. If I disobeyed orders, I'd be in deeper shit than I was already. Even if I tried to keep going towards Canterlot to prove that I could handle what was asked of me, it didn't make a lick of difference. On any other day I would've said to hell with my orders, but Astral was right. Something very strange was going on. The way the twins had goaded me into reacting seemed entirely too suspicious.

“Son of a bitch,” I hissed, streaking off back towards Neighvarro. All of this because I wanted to pony watch. Since when did I give a fuck about anypony below the clouds? Why had that mare drawn my interest when I never spared a passing glance for anypony else? As if that hadn't been enough, I'd went and lost control of my temper. Again. Right after Astral had warned me to keep my hooves in line and play nice with the sisters.

“Command, this is Captain Gale,” I barely heard the mare saying from behind me. “We are returning to base ahead of schedule due to unforeseen circumstances. Suggest immediate and indefinite grounding of Lieutenant Mach until a thorough investigation into his true allegiances can be conducted.”

I tried my damnedest to keep my mind focused on the important things—namely the ramifications of my actions and how fucked I probably was—but that niggling little thought in the back of my head wouldn’t go away. What were the sisters ultimately playing at? These past two days had been incredibly strange. Yesterday that stranger had called me out to try and get me to divulge my private matters. Then the very next day, Astral tells me myself and our father are both under close surveillance. Was this just a coincidence? Did the twins just see this as an opportunity to strike an actual blow at me after years of simple passive-aggressive behavior?

Time seemed to stretch on, and I swear the short flight back to base was twice as long as it had been on the way to our destination. I could feel the eyes of the twins on my back as I raced on, and my heart was still hammering anxiously in my chest. What the hell was wrong with me? Why had I decided to pick today of all days to develop an interest in the Wasteland's goings-on? I was already under scrutiny for being a potential security risk, and this would only make me look more guilty once the twins gave their report.

Ignoring that stable pony altogether was what I should've done. She was probably dead by now anyway.

“Oh, would you look at that,” Gale said smugly as we approached the base grounds and began our descent. I looked over my shoulder to see her and her sister smiling ear-to-ear. “I don’t even have to go looking for the Colonel. She’s found us all on her own.”

“Mach!” a familiar voice called out from below me, panic-stricken and urgent. Astral. “Mach!”

I ripped my gaze away from the twins to look down at my sister as I landed, hurriedly streaking towards me from the command office. Her mane was a complete mess, and her dress uniform was disheveled and completely unlike her. Seeing her caused the feeling of dread that had been growing in my stomach since this morning to double in intensity. Something wasn’t right. Why was Astral waiting for me to return? She should have been tied up with her duties at this time of night.

“Colonel Astral!” Gale said as we landed, “I have the most interesting news regarding the Lieut—”

“Astral?” I blurted, cutting her off before she could build up momentum. “Astral, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Colonel,” Gale tried again, her tone one of forced calm and respect. “I really think you should listen—”

“I know, already!” Astral snapped aggressively, causing Gale to nicker and jerk back as if she’d been physically struck. “I have urgent business to discuss with the Lieutenant, and I will handle his disciplinary action afterward! You are dismissed, Captain! Both of you!”

Gale pursed her lips tightly, and the two mares glared at each other for a moment before she nickered again and took off. Once they were out of earshot, Astral turned back to me. “Mach, it’s Dad!”

My brow furrowed. “What about him?”

“They’ve placed him under arrest, Mach!” Astral said as she stepped over to me, her eyes on the verge of tears. I couldn’t help but nervously take a step back as Astral lurched forward and seized two huge hooffuls of my flight jacket before turning her pleading gaze on me. “Mach, they’re about to try him for high treason! You know what happens to ponies convicted of treason!”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and what had just occurred during the recon flight was pushed roughly to the back of my mind. “What happened, Astral?” I said, doing my best to keep calm and avoid riling her up even further. I needed information from her, and I sure wasn’t going to get it if she was a panicky mess. “What did he do? Why is he being charged with high treason?”

“H-He’s been accused of accessing restricted databases and purging classified Enclave files!”

I was dimly aware of my jaw dropping open. The world around me slowed down to a crawl. All sound drowned out until I could hear nothing but a dull ringing in my ears, and my eyes slid out of focus as the true weight of what Astral had just said settled on me. It all made sense now. All of it. That meeting yesterday in Anemoi Park, that strange armored pony’s cryptic warning... Our respectively weird orders today and the twins' behavior… They had to have been conducting an investigation, and they’d finally closed in on their culprit this morning. My father had been caught, and what Astral had just told me made it crystal clear as to how.

Whatever the hell my father had found, he’d wanted removed… and they’d caught him with his barding around his fetlocks. I had no idea what supposedly-damning information needed obliterating so urgently that he’d take such an enormous risk, but there was no way purging those records was worth the penalty for high treason.

Stars alive, that idiot!

“Mach, what are we going to do!?” Astral sobbed, giving me a rough shake to elicit some sort of response. “What in the name of Polaris are we going to do!?”

An urgent tingle coursed through my body, a mix of equal parts fear and a strange feeling I couldn’t identify. There was one thing that was coming to me with crystal clarity, however. I could feel it as surely as if it were a physical object that had been placed there—a tiny little spark deep within my chest that was telling me exactly what I had to do. Taking a deep breath, I looked skyward and fixated upon the brightest star in the night sky—Polaris.

“Polaris, hear my plight,” I whispered to the star, begging for its aid in my time of need. “Is what I feel genuine? Is this what I need to do? What I am meant to do?”

I waited with bated breath, expecting some sort of thought or instinct to pop into my head and confirm or deny my suspicions. Nothing of the sort happened, but as I continued to watch the brightly burning star, it winked out of existence for a brief period before once again bursting back into brilliant radiance. A blink. A single blink. Could that have been an affirmative?

That was good enough for me.

“Astral, I need you to calm down and listen to me,” I said, doing my best to play the part of big brother and keep her from worrying. “I need you to do me a really big favor, okay? I’m going to go and take care of this right now. When I come back, I need you to be waiting here with my gear, can you do that? Rattler, my knife, my service pistol—all of that stuff. I’m going to need it when this is over.”

“Why—?”

“Go, Astral!” I barked, and the jet-black mare nodded in understanding and took off in the direction of our house.

I watched until Astral’s coat had faded into the black of the night sky, and then I turned and bolted into the command office.

Fate had dealt me a pretty clear hand tonight, it seemed. Looking back on the way things had progressed so far, my path—and my future—had apparently been chosen for me. With Astral headed off to get my gear, I’d done all I could to prepare myself for the road that lay ahead, and now it was time to tackle the unexpected obstacle of my father’s arrest. As I approached the door to the interrogation room, I steeled myself for what was about to come, and reached forward to put my hoof on the handle.

Locked.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I hissed angrily. It didn’t come as much of a shock once I thought about it, but it did make things just a bit more difficult. How the hell was I going to get in there? I couldn’t just knock—it was an interrogation, for pony’s sake. That was when my eyes fell on the coilgun’s barrel, just barely visible in my peripheral vision.

“Bingo.”

I moved so that I was standing diagonally to the door handle and sighted in with Doc’s fancy little reticule. This thing was supposed to be powerful enough to punch through alicorn shields, so it had to be able to tear apart a locking mechanism. If I shot straight in, though, I could hit anypony standing on the other side of the door, and though I didn’t really like my dad, I didn’t exactly want to kill him, either.

I reached forward to clamp down around my battle saddle’s bit, disengaged the trigger safety, and fired. There was a thundering boom and a slight shudder at my side, and a neat hole appeared at the crack between the door and its frame, right about where the lock bolt would be. There was a tinny scraping sound, and the door popped open a crack.

I immediately surged forward and seized the handle. “Wait!” I cried as I charged forward, bursting through the door before they could investigate the sudden disintegration of the door lock. “Everypony, wait!”

“What the—?” a stallion shouted in confusion, whirling to face me as I burst into the room. I’d never met him before, and I’d met damn near everypony on the base at least once. He was wearing an officer’s uniform, but no rank insignia were visible. Strange. “You'd better have a damned good excuse for interrupting an interrogation in progress... Lieutenant," the interrogator growled as he checked my rank insignia. "I'll see you court-martialed for this."

“It wasn’t him,” I said, stalking quietly forward towards where my father and the interrogator stood, and stopping just short of them. “General Silverbolt is innocent.”

Confusion washed over everypony in the room like ripples expanding in a pond, my father included. I saw him turn his head and furrow his brow, glaring at me suspiciously. I knew that expression. In my youth, I’d been subjected to that expression more times than I could count. That was the expression reserved specifically for when my father was deciphering one of my lies.

“Oh?” the interrogator said coolly, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. “Be that as it may, this is not a trial, Lieutenant. Any evidence you may have to present will not help the General.”

“It. Wasn’t. Him,” I repeated through clenched teeth.

The interrogator narrowed his eyes at me and was silent a moment. “Very well then, Lieutenant. Suppose I decide to listen to what you have to say. If General Silverbolt is not responsible for these crimes against the Grand Pegasus Enclave, then who is, pray tell?”

“…I am.”

My father’s eyes widened in realization, and I saw sudden panic in his expression. No, panic was a understating it. What I was seeing displayed now was pure terror. Why was he so worried all of a sudden? “Mach—”

“Shut up, Dad,” I snapped, shooting my father a death glare before turning back to the pony conducting the interrogation. “It was me, sir. I did it. I stole my father’s clearance keys and used them to access restricted Enclave files. I logged onto the maneframe, and I purged it of all information I perceived as a threat. If you’re going to arrest anypony, sir, arrest me.”

“Lieutenant, you do understand how serious these charges are, don’t you?” the interrogator asked. “High treason is a very serious crime, and carries the direst of consequences. Do you truly understand what you’re condemning yourself to if you confess to this crime?”

“I do, but I don’t really see how that’s relevant,” I said with a smirk.

The interrogator didn’t think it was funny. “As you have confessed to a crime against the Grand Pegasus Enclave and her ponies—in the presence of a member of Enclave Intelligence, no less—I hereby place you under arrest until such a time as you can be tried for these charges.”

Enclave Intelligence. A spook. No wonder why he didn't have any visible rank.

Even as the officer slowly approached me to place my hooves in shackles, my smirk didn’t fade. I stood still until he’d gotten close enough to begin fastening the first shackle, at which point I slipped my hoof free before it closed and drove upward into his jaw in a brutal uppercut. The interrogator staggered, dazed, and I rushed forward, taking advantage of his momentary incapacitation. I wrenched the shackles out of his grip before he could recover and rolled him onto his back.

"B-Backup. Backup!" The Intelligence officer cried, before I wrapped my foreleg around his neck and pulled tight. I held my grip until he stopped thrashing and went limp, taking the time to cuff him before I stood.

“What the hell are you doing!?” My father said incredulously as I rose to my hooves. “Have you lost your mind!?”

“Oh, you’re fucking welcome, you miserable old asshole!” I sneered, turning to face my father. “What am I doing? I’m saving your ungrateful flank from a life in prison, but apparently that’s not good enough for you!” I shouted, throwing my forelegs up in outrage. “What do I have to do to actually earn your respect for once? Should I dye my coat black and put on a fucking wig so I look more like your precious daughter?”

“That’s not fair,” my father murmured, and he cast his gaze down and away.

“Fair?” I snorted derisively. “Fair!? What would you know about fair? Ever since the day I joined the military, you’ve been throwing your weight around to keep me from applying for transfer into the Wonderbolts’ squadron, and you know why? Because you know I’d make the cut! You know I can fly—because you're the one who trained me! To pile on top of that, both of us are neck deep in shit because you pulled this stunt and got your ass caught. Now I’m stepping up to take the blame so you don’t have to, and—surprise, surprise—you’re not even grateful!”

“So you figured you’d ‘save’ me by incriminating yourself,” my father shot back, no longer at a loss for words. “What a wonderful plan you’ve devised. Tell me, why should I be relieved now that I know you’ll be rotting in a jail cell in my place? Did you really think martyring yourself was an appropriate solution to this problem? How am I supposed to be grateful when you’re about to be carted off and made to pay for my mistake?”

There were a million things I wanted to say to him, and naturally my first instinct was to argue with him, but I’d made up my mind already. It was going to take a lot more than pointing out how stupid I was being to undo everything I'd already done. My only option to stay out of prison was to flee to the Wasteland, and if I could do my family one last favor by saving my father at the same time, then damn it, I’d do it. I loved them, and they deserved far more than what little I could give them.

“Don't pretend that you care about what happens to me,” I sneered. "When I'm gone, the furthest thing from your mind will be my well-being. You're going to have to do a lot of ass-kissing to patch up this mess you made. Fortunately, scapegoating me will make things easier for you. As for me? I'm going down to the Wasteland, but not for you," I said, jabbing my old buck in the chest. "For Mom and Astral. They need you. I don't."

My father’s jaw dropped, and he looked at me like I was a blathering idiot teetering on the brink of insanity. “You’ve done plenty of stupid things in your lifetime, but this is by far the most monumentally idiotic thing to ever come out of your mouth. You’ve gone insane. Certifiably.”

“Let’s get one thing straight right now,” I growled, stepping forward so that we were nearly nose-to-nose. “I’m not doing this because I want to or because it’s the smart thing to do—I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do, something which I doubt you’re even qualified to judge these days. Do you even remember what it’s like to make sacrifices for your loved ones anymore, or has that lost all meaning to you ever since you earned those pretty silver stars?”

“If we weren’t already in dire straits, I’d beat you until you were black and blue for being so disrespectful to me, boy,” my father hissed angrily. “I was making sacrifices for my loved ones when you were still nothing but a twinkle in my eye.”

“Then stop taking the moral high ground on this,” I snapped. “What I'm doing is necessary. I'm the fuckup in the family. We don't lose anything if I disappear, so if shouldering the blame for your crimes and leaving the Enclave is what it takes to draw the heat away from you, then that’s what I’m going to do. I love Mom, I love Astral, and I… Well, I-I…” I averted my gaze and stared at the floor instead. “You’re my dad.”

I couldn’t say it. There were too many years of pent-up rage boiling just beneath the surface for me to ever say it, but he seemed to understand anyway, and nodded in approval. “You’re my family, and families look out for each other. If this is the only route we can take to ensure we all stay alive and free, then I’m more than willing to sacrifice everything to make it happen.”

My father opened his mouth to reply, but he didn’t get the chance. Before he could even utter a single word, the door to the room swung open seemingly on its own. There was a pregnant pause during which my heart began to race, and my father and I exchanged a nervous glance before the hidden figure standing within the doorframe spoke, revealing his presence.

“Oh, to be a fly on the wall during this conversation.” A shimmer of the air in the open space between rooms, and suddenly he was there. Those orange-lensed eyes glared out from beneath the grey cloak, and the mysterious armored pony from yesterday bowed his head politely as we held eye contact. “It was always so amusing to hear you two bicker like an old married couple. Good evening, General Silverbolt, Lieutenant Mach… I do hope you remember the details of our conversation yesterday.”

“Dad…” I said uncertainly, backing away as the armored pony made his way into the room. “He’s not here to talk.”

“What’s this about a conversation?” My father hissed under his breath as he backed up alongside me. “You met with this pony? What did you discuss?”

“The short of it is he told me that I really didn’t want to see him again, and uh… there he is,” I muttered back.

I had no idea how long this guy had been listening in, but the only way out I could think of depended entirely on him having heard little to none of our conversation. It was the only card I had to play, and I was going to have to lay it down on the table one way or the other, so I leaned over to whisper a quick message to my father. I just hoped he picked it up fast enough to play along. “I might need to do something a little extreme, Dad.”

“Like what?”

“This.”

I immediately lunged for my pistol holster, seizing the mouthgrip between my teeth and wrenching it free before leveling it at—not the stranger—but my own father, instead.

“Back off, or I waste him,” I mumbled around the weapon’s grip.

“What are you doing!?” My father hissed over his shoulder.

“Getting out of here,” I said, loudly enough for it to carry over to our unexpected guest. I had to really sell this if it was going to work.

The mysterious armored pony’s body language didn’t change. He didn’t show any signs that he was shocked at my actions, nor did he tense up and prepare to take me out if I made a move. I had to admit that this was a huge gamble. Enclave troopers were trained to never disarm in a hostage situation, but I was hoping my father’s high profile would swing things in my favor just enough to get us through this in one piece. Stars knew I didn’t have any other choice at this point.

“Don’t do anything hasty, Lieutenant,” the armored pony said calmly, and I narrowed my gaze suspiciously at him. What was his deal? Why was he trying to be so friendly? “I'm sure we can talk this out. Who knows? Pending a full investigation, all the charges could be dropped.”

“Just let me go and nopony gets hurt,” I said in as threatening a manner as I could manage, though I felt being severely undergeared in comparison to my opposition sort of dampened the impact.

“I tried to be reasonable, Lieutenant. I told you it wasn’t wise to lie to me,” the armored stranger said, his tone that of a scornful parent. “I told you that I would find out if you weren’t honest, and I do believe that I was quite clear when I said that you would not want to see me again. You don’t honestly think you can escape, do you? Where will you go? Nopony in the Enclave will harbor a fugitive.”

“Who said I was staying here?” I shot back, taking advantage of the opportunity to point out that this guy wasn’t as right as he thought he was. “By the time anypony else but the ponies in this room know about what’s happened, I’ll have already left for the Wasteland.”

“That’s your plan?” the armored pony said, cocking his head to the side. “Please, Lieutenant. Surrender and come quietly. You wouldn’t last a fortnight in the Wasteland. If the indigenous wildlife doesn’t kill you, the prejudiced against the Enclave sure will.”

“You sure about that?”

“I can see you won't be reasonable,” the pony sighed solemnly, and I felt my eyebrows rise as he stood away from the door. “However, I am willing to give you a chance. I’ll give you a ten-second head start. If you can manage to outrun me in that time, then all the more power to you. I’d advise you to start moving now if you intend to elude my pursuit.”

“What, are you serious?” I asked incredulously, my eyes darting from him, to the door, and finally settling on my likewise-confused father. “Is he serious?”

“One, one-thousand,” the pony counted off. “Two, one-thousand…”

The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I felt my confidence rapidly draining away. “Shit, you’re serious.”

“Three, one-thousand…”

Oh, sweet Cygnus.

I slammed my pistol back into its holster and galloped past the still-counting pony, taking flight the second I entered the hallway. My eye focused on the ScoutBuck’s clock as I fled, and I felt time distort, my heart hammering thunderously each time a second came and went. How the hell was I going to grab my gear and get out of here in seven seconds? I needed a stars-damned miracle, and I needed it yesterday.

I was so out of my mind with panic that I nearly collided with Astral on my way out onto the base grounds. She was waiting just outside the door with my gear—a machine gun cradled in her forelegs, my combat knife clutched tightly between her teeth and one more I hadn't expected her to bring—my lucky goggles, dangling loosely by their strap from one of her ears. As quickly as I possibly could, I took all of them and began fastening them to my person—knife over my right shoulder, machine gun to my battle saddle, and goggles firmly around my forehead. The whole while, I was talking to her as rapidly as I could without becoming unintelligible.

“Astral, I need you to do me one last favor,” I murmured as I finished cinching up my battle saddle and stood. “I can’t explain what’s going on right now. Talk to Dad as soon as you can, he’ll tell you everything. Duster and Solara… don’t let them know about anything he tells you. If they know what I’ve gotten myself into, they’ll probably rush to help. This is my burden. I can’t be responsible for ruining their lives, too. Can you do that for me?”

“Mach, what—”

“Olly, olly, oxen free!” a cold, modulated voice called out from within the command office, and my heart skipped several beats. “Ready or not, Lieutenant—here I come!”

“Oh, fuck me sideways,” I groaned, backing slowly away from the office and Astral, and colliding with somepony behind me after I’d only made it a few steps.

“Whoa there, Hoss,” the familiar drawl of Duster said as I turned to see who was behind me. “What’s all the ruckus, pardner? Ah been hearin’ some mighty weird things goin’ ‘round since y’all got back.”

“I see you haven't gotten very far.” I turned and saw the armored pony standing in front of the command office, the doors thrown open wide, and the moonlight casting his armored face into such dark shadow, the only thing I could make out were his eye lenses. “Are you sure you don't want to surrender? Innocent ponies don't flee justice, Lieutenant. I implore you to keep that in mind before making your decision.”

“Who’s this feller, Hoss?” Duster asked curiously, stepping forward so that he could get a better look at the mysterious pony. “Never seen him ‘round base before. Y’all got a bone t’ pick with each other?”

"I really don't have time to explain, Duster," I said as I backed away from my friend.

A sudden, subtle motion caught my panicky gaze as Duster jerked to a sudden stop in front of me, and my eyes immediately snapped over to the source—his grenade webbing. A pair of oddly cylindrical-shaped objects different from the usual apple-shaped explosives employed in combat dangled from the straps over the huge stallion’s armored shoulders. Pulse grenades!

"Mach, what are you doing?" Astral said as I lunged forward towards Duster. As she spoke, Duster turned to look at me and his eyes widened behind his visor.

“I’m sorry about this, buddy,” I said regretfully, charging my best friend and tearing one of the pulse grenades from his webbing. Before he could react, I gave him a forceful shove towards the pony, yanked the pin with my teeth and tossed the grenade at a spot somewhere between Duster and my assailant. The grenade detonated a moment later, emitting a powerful surge of electromagnetic energy that left me unharmed, but had an immediate effect on both Duster and the other armored pony, shorting out both of their suits’ systems and rendering them completely immobile.

“Ha!” I jeered, “Ha, ha! Take that, asshole! Try and chase me now!”

“You’ve only bought yourself some more time, Lieutenant,” the armored stranger said, his voice no longer modulated without system power, but still muffled by his rebreather. “I’ve already arranged for a pursuit team. They’ll track you for me, and once I’ve seen to this minor inconvenience I will find you, you can count on that. So go ahead, Lieutenant. Go ahead and run. I'll drag you back here to answer for your crimes one way or another.”

“Not a chance in hell,” I snarled defiantly, although the clanging of multiple sets of armored horseshoes caused my confidence to take a pretty big hit. Looking past the armored pony, I could clearly see that a group of several Enclave troopers were rapidly approaching from deep within the command office.

“Well, that’s my cue to leave!” In a flash, I had my wings to full span and I’d launched myself into the air. The pursuing troopers arrived a moment too late, and bombarded the spot on the clouds where I’d once been standing, boiling the small spot of cloud into steam and screening my escape. I’d really have to push it if I wanted to outrun all of those troops.

When I hit the outer limits of Neighvarro, I snuck a peek over my shoulder and saw a five-pony flight of pegasi formed up on my tail. Muttering a curse, I sped up a bit more as they started to gain on me, feeling the cool night air whip past my face. My blood was racing now—I hadn’t gone this fast in years, there’d been no reason to on a recon op.

Craning my neck over my shoulder one more time to check my pursuers’ proximity, I let slip a frustrated growl. Gaining, much to my dismay—and checking like this was only slowing me down. Damn it, why couldn’t the E.F.S. show distance to target? Or even have three-sixty degree coverage? I pushed it a little harder despite the burning in my wing joints, hoping I wouldn’t have to resort to my ace in the hole. I wasn’t entirely sure I could manage it with the way I was feeling.

As my airspeed indicator continued to tick up, the wind started whistling loudly in my ears, and I had to purse my lips tightly to prevent my muzzle from catching air and flapping wildly. Even as fast as I was going, the pursuit team was still steadily closing the distance. Well, that was it, then. They’d forced my hoof. Reaching up to my forehead, I slapped my goggles into place and accelerated in a sharp burst of speed, throwing everything I had into flying as fast as I possibly could. I’d only done this a hoofful of times before, but it wasn’t something you forgot how to do.

The very air itself pushed back at me as I sped faster and faster, but that was to be expected for a pony attempting to break the sound barrier. I’d had years of practice, of speed and acceleration training under my belt, so I knew I could do this… on a good day.

Today wasn’t a good day.

I hadn’t taken into account the fact that I’d barely gotten any sleep last night. After that meeting in Anemoi Park, I’d been up tossing and turning until the early hours of the morning. On top of that, I hadn’t eaten a thing all day, and if I didn’t keep up with my ravenous appetite, I always wound up sluggish and drained of energy. To pile on to all of that, I was already pretty worn out from the aborted recon mission earlier tonight.

All of these things coming together caused me to flub my concentration, and I suddenly felt myself halted and rebounded as I failed to break past the necessary speed for achieving supersonic flight. Colors blurred and ran together as I tumbled and flopped through the air like a gyroscope, spinning far too wildly to simply course correct. My altimeter was rapidly counting down, and I started to panic as the numbers dropped closer and closer to zero.

With a great amount of effort and counter-flapping, I was able to slow my spin as I broke through the cloud cover and plummeted towards the ground, but I was still very much out of control. Landscape and sky traded places over and over as I continued to drop like a stone. A small town entered and promptly exited my view several times when I was less than three-hundred meters from the surface, and it appeared as if I was about to come down straight into a forest.

Only when I broke through the canopy did I come to realize the true identity of my crash-landing site. While I was ploughing my way through the thinner branches nearer to the sky, I had mere moments for the sudden terror to build up before my head slammed into a particularly large bough, and I dropped straight down. I landed hard on the uneven earth at the base of the tree, cracking my head once again on a gnarled root. I probably could’ve shaken off one, but sustaining two blows to my head caused me to promptly lose all of the remaining strength left in my body, in one of the most dangerous places in Equestria, no less.

I’d just landed in the Everfree Forest.

Footnote: Level up.

Trait(s) Added:
Air Superiority – While in flight, your AGL is automatically raised to 10. However, indoors or on the ground, you suffer a penalty of -2 AGL.
Fast Metabolism – Your metabolic rate is twice normal. You are much less resistant to radiation or poisoning, but your body heals faster. Failing to consume food at least once a day results in a (stacking) penalty of -1 to your STR and END.

Perk Added:
Reconnaissance – At night, you gain +1 to your Perception stat.

Author's Notes:

Inspired by a buddy of mine, Adder1 (go read his story while you wait for me to finish the rest of the rewrites!), I conclude this chapter with a music track. I won't be putting the amount of thought and effort into it that he is, however. I think I'll just stick to main character themes.

Mighty Wings — Theme of Mach

You may also ask Mach questions over on the tumblr, if you so desire. Reader beware, spoilers abound on the older pages!