By the time we got back to base, I'd stopped thinking about the slaves we left behind and what might have happened to them. I was just too damned tired to care anymore.

I think everyone else must have felt the same way. Nobody really said anything to each other as we touched down and headed inside, except for Serge telling everyone to turn all of their gear in to the quartermaster for inspection and inventory. I didn't recognize anyone in the armory. No Otto or Sam. I guess one of the other platoons' personnel were helping man the base, but it didn't matter who I gave my gun and medical kit to.

After that we all filed back into the barracks and collapsed onto our cots. Leigh probably should have gone to medical to get her gunshot wound looked at, but the potion should have done the job anyway. If it was giving her trouble in the morning I'd take her there and look at it more closely, but just like me she seemed to want to just get some rest.

Sleep didn't come easily, as I should have figured. Like usual when I couldn't sleep, my mind was racing with the events of the day, as if the memories were just waiting for me to try to relax and calm down to come crashing back into the front of my mind. I must have dwelt on Rusty for an hour, trying to imagine what he was thinking or feeling the moment I shot him. I wondered if he suffered at all. Did my first bullet hit him in the head? I doubted it. He definitely felt at least some of it, but probably not for very long. How did I feel about that? I never did figure that out. He probably deserved to die several times over, but in the hour or so it took for me to finally lose consciousness, I certainly didn't decide how I felt about killing him.

It felt like about two, or maybe three, minutes later when someone prodded me awake. Serge said, “Wake up, Kaz. We'll be receiving our assignments after lunch, but you've got something else to do this morning.”

I cracked my eyes and saw scuffed and scratched metal plating of the wall. I didn't bother to roll over to answer him. “I'm in trouble.” Not a question. Guess the lieutenant got the inventory report and wanted to find out where the potions went.

“You will be if you're late. Come on, and let's not start the day with an attitude.”

I rolled onto my back and stared up at Amalia's cot above. “Sorry, sergeant. I don't have an attitude, I'm just very tired and not in a great frame of mind right now.”

“I understand, but we're still on a tight schedule. You've got guard duty this morning, so let's move.”

Guard duty? Everyone else was still asleep from the looks of things and a little stab of resentment boiled up inside me. Heidi knew I had insomnia but insisted that I get up early for guard duty. I guess I should be thankful that that was all she gave me for “wasting” a potion on a slave.

“Before you leave, I want to be absolutely clear on why. Yes, this is because of yesterday.”

“Figures.” I cut my eyes to the big orange griffon still asleep on his cot. My cheek ached just looking at him. “Guess the lieutenant doesn't care about fighting, huh?”

Serge didn't look amused. “Lieutenant Blackfeathers doesn't have anything to do with this. This is from me.”

Wait, what? Didn't he give me unspoken permission to give the slave the potion? Oh, if that was how this was going to be…

“You don't have to like it. You've just got to do it. That is what this is about. Whether the lieutenant finds out about the slave and what she does has nothing to do with this. It's simple. I gave you an order and you disobeyed it. That is entirely unacceptable. That gets people killed. So I'm giving you something to do so maybe you'll remember that next time.”

I groaned under my breath and dragged myself off of the cot. “Fine, I understand.” I should have shut up then, but my mouth kept going. “I also understand that fighting doesn't get people killed, so I'll just forget that part.”

Serge held a claw up and scowled at me. “Listen up, Kaz. I don't want to make this a big deal, but we definitely can if you want to. Isaac isn't getting off free either. This isn't the first time this has happened and he's going to get watch duty outside this morning. You just happened to be the first I talked to.

“This is the last time I'm going to tell you to knock it off with the attitude. If you keep this up there are much worse things you can be doing than guard duty. Now, report to the armory, collect your gear, and then report to the hangar. You'll be stationed at the entrance. You'll watch for any unusual behavior, and you'll do an excellent job. Clear?”

“...yes, sergeant.”

“Good. Get going.” Serge stepped away and toward Isaac's cot. “Ike, wake up.”

I sighed and wiped my face. Best get going before Isaac woke up and we had to deal with that tension...

With as much haste as I could manage, I got cleaned up and tried to make myself presentable before heading down to the armory to get my equipment. Like the night before, it was run by some big brown griffon I didn't know, so Sam and Otto must have stayed back in Fillydelphia while the rest of our platoon was deployed. He handed over my gun and medical kit without any questions, and to my mild surprise both of the missing potions had been replaced. Well, that had to go on a report somewhere that the lieutenant would read, so I resigned myself to just get on with my life while I still had one to get on with.

At that hour of the morning, the hangar was predictably devoid of significant activity. In fact, the cavernous room was completely empty aside from a few shipping containers and one white griffoness standing at the far end near the door leading to the mess hall. She turned her head a hair in my direction as I entered, then went right back to staring into the ceiling.

I stopped and scanned the room, wondering where exactly I was supposed to stand or patrol. Serge didn't explain that bit. Did it matter? Given my track record the odds said that it mattered an awful lot. Great. What now? I glanced back to her and figured it was best to just ask. “Uh, hey, I was supposed to have guard duty here today. Where do I stand?” I shouted over the distance.

“Hell if I know. Just pick somewhere!” she yelled back.

Okay then. Guess it didn't matter. She'd picked over there, so I guess that meant anywhere but there. I opted for the doors leading to the exit up at the landing pad. If Serge wanted me to “watch for any unusual behavior” then that was probably where it would happen if it did.

I slouched against the wall and did my best not to yawn, but had to hold my beak closed with a claw to stop it. Dammit… couldn't Serge have found some other punishment later in the day? Didn't he remember what happened to Ida? I mean, sure, if he wanted to irritate me as much as possible this was the way to do it, but I was operating on very little sleep over the course of several days now, and accidents were going to start happening again. My stomach hurt pretty badly too. How long had it been since I'd eaten? Yesterday at noon? And I'd be missing breakfast too at this rate. Fantastic. At least if I was hungry I probably wouldn't fall asleep, because I was pretty sure Stern would have me shot if she saw that happen again. She probably wasn't here anywhere though, so Heidi would have to do it. Oh dear. Wouldn't want to ruin her day with having to shoot me, so I'd best stay awake.

A few agonizingly long minutes ticked by as I checked my pistol a few times and stared up at the burnt out light hanging on my side of the ceiling. The only sound that pierced the silence was the scrape of talons on concrete as my “partner” adjusted her pose so she could pick at the claws on her back feet. Yeah, some guards we were. And how long were we supposed to stand here anyway? All day? Maybe I'd get out of whatever else was coming my way that afternoon if we did, but that seemed unlikely. Heh, well, Serge told me to stand here, so until he or someone else told me otherwise, that was precisely what I was going to do. Even if it did take all day. Just following orders, sarge.

It was only a few minutes later that I got my first distraction of the day. Heavy plodding down the hall preceded a certain large orange griffon lumbering into the hangar. Isaac immediately turned my way. Ugh, was he going to start something now for me getting him in trouble? What happened to Leigh was an accident, okay? A terrible one that could have gotten her killed, but it was still an accident.

He stopped at the doorway leading to the stairs and cut his eyes to me.

“…what?” I braced for another whack, but this time I had a witness that could say I didn't do anything!

He rolled his eyes, pointed a thumb to his chest and a talon through the doorway.

“Oh… oh, right. Heading out to watch duty?” He nodded, rolling his eyes again. “Fine, go on.”

A gravely and distorted chuckle followed him as he vanished through the door and up the stairs. What was that about? Just trying to be creepy like usual? The griffoness over by the mess hall was too busy preening a wing to have noticed or cared about the exchange, so that's what I'd leave it at. Must have thought it was funny that I was pretending to know what I was doing or something.

Whatever.

To both my relief and dismay, nothing else of note happened for the next few hours. A few griffons came and went to the mess hall, but it wasn't until lunch started that much happened. I guessed it was lunch anyway, since the thin trickle turned into a wave of troopers heading from the stairs down to the barracks over to the mess hall. With that many eyes on me I decided it was time to stand up straight and look like I was paying attention. And just in time.

“Private Longtalons?” I felt a little icepick stab my chest and found Heidi and Egon peeling off from the crowd. “How… unexpected.”

Hoo boy, was I supposed to answer her? She didn't ask a question.

“Why are you stationed here?” Ah, there it was.

“Sergeant's orders, ma'am.”

“I could have guessed that much,” she said without the tiniest glimmer of humor. Judging from the bags under her eyes, she looked like she'd slept even less than I had. I wasn't trying to be a smart ass, but I also didn't want to give away more than Serge did. “Penal duty?”

“Yes ma'am,” I responded with a nod.

She cocked her beak and grumbled. “I was hoping your first day in the field would go more smoothly. But if you're not going to be forthcoming now, I'll just read the after action report. Whatever you did, learn from your mistake and don't do it again.” With that, she turned away and rejoined the thinning crowd pouring into the mess hall, with her faithful purple assistant in pursuit.

Shit. She hadn't read the report yet, so I could still be in deep trouble. Couldn't say I was really-

“Kaz?”

I jumped with a start and found Serge standing off to the side. “Sergeant?”

“You're done. Go get something to eat, because we're heading out again after lunch. I've got to go find Ike.”

Well, that answered that question from earlier. “Uh, yes, sergeant.” I waited for him to depart through the door before stowing my weapon and trudging toward the mess hall. Lunch sounded very nice right then.

The mess hall reminded me far too much of the stable we'd just left. It was probably the cleanest facility in Talon ownership that I'd seen yet, including the clinic back in Fillydelphia. It had an almost sterile feel to it, like the dead stable that had been cleaned up by its last living inhabitant. Not to mention lots of tables like the stable's dining room. And forks for me to step on if I wasn't careful and wanted to look like a dumbass in front of the whole company.

I didn't, so I fell into line to get some food, keeping my eyes on the floor both to avoid eye contact and errant eating utensils.

Whatever was prepared for lunch smelled fantastic at this point, and I was almost certain I smelled freshly baked bread. I hadn't eaten that in probably twenty years. There was some nice pony that my family stayed near when I was young, and she baked bread and shared it with us. I couldn't remember her name, but I remembered that. Come to think of it, I had to wonder where she got the flour from. Wasn't there some way to pulverize bone into something kind of like flour? Maybe I didn't want to know.

The lunch line led back into the kitchen, which I was quite surprised to find was staffed by a few venerable griffons that probably should have retired a decade ago, a few griffawns that looked like they were barely over a decade old, and even a few ponies. They had to be slaves, but if the pink earth pony mare fiddling with the oven was any indication, they had been well treated. All were clean and looked well fed. Maybe this was some kind of cushy position the slaves dreamed of and fought to get appointed to?

Well, whatever, as long as nobody was yelling or hitting them I was- Oh, prancing pony princesses on parade, she pulled a tray of biscuits out of the oven! With practiced grace, she carried the steaming tray over toward the counter and spit out the pot holder, at which point one of the kids started grabbing and portioning them out.

My turn couldn't come quick enough, and I perked up at the counter while trying not to grin like an idiot. The old griffon didn't seem to notice or care, and handed me a tray with one of those glorious mounds of bread. And also some other stuff.

I hurried along to grab a jug of water and back out into the dining room to find somewhere to sit. The rest of my squad wasn't too hard to pick out of the writhing mass of troopers at the tables, but there was only one seat left open across from Leigh and- oh, wait, someone took it. Too bad, I was sure that was Isaac's favorite seat, and I'd probably hear the startled yell of him catapulting this poor guy across the room when he didn't give it to him.

Whatever, I had a fresh biscuit so I found an out of the way and vacant table along the edge of the wall and plopped down to take inventory of what all I'd been given. Aside from the bread, there was a little bowl of some kind of vegetable stew, a suspiciously fresh apple and some kind of meat slinky.

I held the peculiar length of meat up in my claws. Some kind of neck from something, judging by the vertebrae. What, did they butcher some radstorks or radcranes recently? This was a long neck. This was all neck.

Oh, this was a snake.

Well, I hadn't had snake in a while but it wasn't bad. There wasn't any picking the bones out of something like this though. I tested one of the exposed vertebrae to make sure it had been cooked soft and bit a chunk off. Hmm, not bad, although I was hungry enough it could have been a reproductive organ from a radstag for all I cared.

I sampled the biscuit next and took a blissful sigh. They'd even brushed it with lard before baking. This could have been the ambrosia for the gods! The next few seconds were a blur, but I think I might have stuffed the whole thing in my mouth.

As I picked up the apple to scrutinize it, someone else dropped a plate on the table. Oh crap, I wasn't in the way of another squad was I?

“This seat taken?” Serge asked.

Oh.

“Uh… no, sergeant.” Look, I picked this spot to be alone, okay? Why couldn't I have that?

“Things can get a little hectic here, as you can see. We usually don't all get to sit together.” He raised an eyebrow at the chunk of meat on his tray, which was not a snake. “The food here is usually better than what we get back at Fillydelphia. Helps to keep morale up I guess.”

Okay, yeah, I suppose we could pretend disciplinary action hadn't just been issued from you to me. He must have been trying to patch things over with that. A little soon, I thought. “Yeah.”

A minute or so passed as he made a little sandwich out of his biscuit and mystery meat and I confirmed that my apple was not a wax replica. He broke the silence with, “After lunch we'll be heading back out into the field. Something a little simpler this time. There's a caravan coming in from the pass up north and we've just got to escort them here. After that another team will take over escorting them to Fillydelphia.”

Attacking a caravan bound for Fillydelphia sounded like the worst idea a raider could ever have, especially this close to a Talon base. They'd have figured that out ages ago, so it sounded pretty safe. But, wait, wasn't this how Nadine was killed? “Uh, okay. Sounds easy.”

“It should be. We haven't had much trouble with the locals lately. Occasionally we get a druggie or five to charge the caravans at the choke points, but they never make it very far and never think to look up, which is where we'll be.”

“Okay, yeah, that's… good.” I scarfed down my vegetable soup without trying to guess what it contained and wondered if I could find somewhere less awkward to wait until deployment. Like my cot.

He raised another eyebrow. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.” Please just let's finish eating and get on with things?

I could only imagine what Serge was thinking as he chewed literally and metaphorically. He knew full well what was bothering me, but I guess he decided to keep it unspoken after all. A few tense minutes of silence followed while we finished our meals, ultimately broken by Serge saying, “Don't worry about what's coming up. It's a lot more straightforward than the stable, and should be quiet.”

Well, almost kept it unspoken. “That's good. I'm really tired.”

He nodded. “We all are. After we get back from this you should have some real time to get some rest. We aren't scheduled for anything tomorrow morning.”

Not scheduled yet anyway, and I hadn't screwed up and earned extra duties, but I'd cling to the hope that I'd get a full night's sleep after this stint. And, of course, since he said we weren't likely to get shot at we'd run into an angry Steel Ranger detachment. But, one thing at a time and all of that.

“When you're done, head back to the barracks. We'll assemble there before deployment. Don't take long.” He tapped the table, stood and departed.

“Yes, sergeant.” I got up immediately and went to locate wherever I was supposed to leave my tray. No chance in Hell I'd be late now.

The flight out to the canyon where we were supposed to meet up with the caravan kind of sucked. My wings still ached a lot from all of the flying over the past couple of days, and I was still dead tired. The flight was mercifully short at least, lasting maybe an hour and a half, and I was alert enough that the flying kept me awake. So far, so good.

We arrived at the pass without incident or fanfare, and from where we were it was just possible to make out the wagon train of the caravan winding its way through the valley. They didn't have any aerial escorts from the looks of it, so we must have been the first protection Red Eye sent. It was probably too expensive and impractical to send Talons all the way out to merchant hubs just to protect caravans en route to Fillydelphia, even for Red Eye.

To my surprise, nobody peeled off to go meet up with anyone in the caravan. Instead, Serge led us in a wide, high circle that gave us a complete view of the surrounding terrain while we waited for the caravan to exit the pass and start across the hilly plains that stretched from Canyontalon to the pass.

I felt dangerously exposed since the only cloud cover was a thousand meters overhead, but kept in formation. Serge said that the nutty raiders that attacked this close to the Talon AFB rarely bothered to look up and notice the Talons protecting the caravans, but you'd have to be blind or impossibly clueless to miss half a dozen of us circling around in the open like this.

I hadn't forgotten what Ida told me about Nadine either. If the raiders really knew what they were doing, a dozen snipers with halfway decent rifles could pick us all off in a single salvo. Guess it was good that most raiders weren't that organized or patient, and those that were probably chose easier targets anyway.

As the caravan began to pull out of the valley and stretch across the plains, the squad split up. Serge, Carmelita and Amalia veered off to cover the left side of the caravan, while Leigh and Isaac veered right. Uh, three went one way and two went another, so that must have meant I was supposed to go with them. I flapped hard to catch up and fall into place behind Isaac, but made it a point to not get too close. Wouldn't want to bump into him or anything…

I tried to focus on something else while I kept in formation. Of course, watching the landscape for raiders or hostile wildlife was a given, so I tried to do that for a while. Unfortunately, it turns out that's pretty hard to do for an hour straight, and by my math we were going to be out here for quite a bit more than that. Griffons could fly an awful lot faster than ponies could pull wagons, and even though we weren't exactly breaking our necks to get out here I figured we probably outpaced the caravan by a factor of four or more. That made at least six hours of lazy weaving and circling to keep up with a bunch of slow wagons in the most uninteresting stretch of the wasteland imaginable. That would exhaust even a saint's patience.

In my idle thinking and daydreaming of doing something more interesting, something interesting did catch my eye. I noticed that most of the wagons were a distinct shade of red. And it was hard to read the writing on them this high up, but a little jolt shot through me as I almost certainly saw 'Crimson's Caravan' painted onto the side of one of them.

I could send papa a letter!

Serge said that another squad would take over the escort duties once we got back to base, but maybe they would spend some time camped out nearby instead of just heading on to Fillydelphia. It would still be a day's travel for the caravan and the ponies would be tired, right? Yeah, they'd have to be! And if they stopped overnight I could write a letter and get it out to them to deliver to Oatsfield before they left in the morning.

It didn't do a lot to make me more attentive or careful, but I have to admit that knowing I'd have that opportunity fought back a lot of the fatigue and lethargy.

I never thought I'd say it, but I couldn't wait to get back to base.

My estimates on the return trip's duration were pretty close. I didn't have any accurate time keeping equipment handy, but it was just getting dark when we reached Canyontalon, so about six or seven hours must have passed. Pretty mind numbing overall, but Serge was right: it was straightforward and for a change nothing terrible happened.

I didn't think too much about it as we left the caravan to return to the base entrance, since I was still hyped up trying to rehearse in my head what I was going to write. I had to keep all of that in check while I waited to verify if the caravan would even be remaining at the base long enough for me to get the letter to them, and the very first thing I planned to do after we got down was to ask Serge about it.

He beat me to the talking. “Good job everyone. Head down to the armory to get your gear checked off and we can go get something to eat and get some rest.”

If I did that I probably wouldn't be allowed back outside, so I trotted around in front of Serge and asked, “Wait, sergeant, can I ask you something first?”

“Sure?” Everyone stopped and looked my way. Ugh, this might get awkward.

“Is the caravan staying here overnight? Can I have permission to go visit?”

Clearly not the question he was expecting. “They're probably staying overnight. Why do you need to see them?”

“I, uh, I was hoping I could send a letter with them. I know they're headed to Fillydelphia now but might be able to forward it back home.”

He ruminated on it for a moment. “Don't go by yourself.” He scrutinized everyone else present.

“I'm beat, sarge,” Lita quipped.

Serge rolled his eyes and pointed to Amalia. “Go with him.”

She clicked her beak and slouched. “Yes, sergeant.”

“Good. Be back as soon as you can. You've got half an hour. Get your gear checked afterward and meet us back in the mess hall.”

“Yes, sergeant.” No problem, I could hammer this out in half of that, I was sure. Well, I probably could have done it faster if I was alone, but still, I wasn't going to dally.

I patted myself down and checked my bag only to discover that I didn't have any paper or anything to write with. Great.

“What's wrong?” Amalia asked.

“I, uh, need to run down to the barracks. I'll be right back.”

She grumbled audibly this time and slumped back against the wall, crossing her arms. “Make it fast.”

So, I did. I didn't want to drag this out, even if it didn't mean irritating Amalia that she had to accompany me like I was a kid or something, so I rushed back, grabbed a notebook and pen and rushed back up. I probably should have written the letter then, but didn't want to risk the caravan leaving before I got to them.

As it turned out, Serge was right and the caravan was clearly making camp for the night, so I had plenty of time. Amalia and I found the wagon train pulled up in a neat circle surrounding the beginnings of a fire pit. Dozens of ponies trudged around and between the wagons, checking or moving stuff I couldn't make out from the air. A few armed ponies circled the defensive perimeter, apparently not leaving security detail purely to Talon Company.

I couldn't decide if I should feel insulted that they didn't trust us, or relieved that they were smart enough to realize that Talon Company would give approximately zero shits if they were attacked during the night. Well, maybe that wasn't true. We'd probably get in trouble if the caravan never showed up at Fillydelphia, but it was good that the ponies weren't letting their guard down anyway.

Speaking of said guard ponies, a pair of unicorn stallions with lever action rifles dressed in long coats and dust froze in place as we landed. They exchanged looks but said nothing. I guess any griffons to show up had important business and didn't wait to be asked about it.

“Hey, is your leader available?” I asked.

The pony on the left raised an eyebrow. “Cactus Thorn's probably helping to get the wagons checked, but it can wait. Look for a pony in a red jacket and cowcolt hat.” He stepped aside and raised a hoof toward the nearest opening between wagons.

“Thanks.”

Said pony wasn't difficult to locate, and we found him helping to dig a small firebreak around the pit. I flagged him down, to his clear concern.

“Ah, yessir, is there somethin' wrong? This is where the lady told us to set up for the evenin'.”

He'd be glad to know that no, I was just a griffon wanting to send a letter to his daddy like a good little boy, not here to tell him that he had to move the caravan ten meters further north. “No, no, nothing wrong, I just had some personal business here.”

Cactus Thorn sat and pushed his hat up out of his eyes. “Oh, is that it? Well, we appreciate the business, but I'm afraid we've got everythin' packed up and weren't plannin' to break it out tonight. Sorry, but it'd take all night and nobody'd be here to buy anythin'.”

“No, no, not here to buy or trade. I, well, you carry mail with you when you travel, don't you?”

“Yes sir, that's right. You got somethin' to send somewhere?”

“If you can get it to Oatsfield. Does Crimson's Caravan deliver there?”

He scratched at his cheek. “It won't be in the next month or two, but we make rounds out there. What'd you have to send? A letter?”

“Yeah, just one letter.”

“I reckon we can take a letter. Don't have to unpack for that. Standard postage out that far's five bits.”

...shit. How could I not have seen this coming? I didn't have any bits, and they weren't going to deliver for free!

“Somethin' wrong?”

“Heh, you, uh, you're not going to believe this, but I don't have any on me. Uh...”

Amalia divined my question and crossed her arms. “Don't look at me.” Gee, thanks. Of course, she might not have been paid recently and wouldn't have money on her anyway.

Cactus sucked a little air through his teeth. “Sorry, but that's the rate. We ain't running a charity here, you understand.”

“I know, I know! Dammit… took this job because I needed the money and look what good it's doing...” Everything got really quiet and awkward, so I tried the next best thing to pleading. “Don't you offer credit or anything?”

“If this was a proper trading post we might, and no offense, but I jus' don't see me ever bein' able to collect on that credit.” He scratched some more and pointed at my gear. “Got anythin' you'd be willing to trade for it?”

Yeah, how about five years of indentured servitude to Crimson's Caravan? I'd gladly offer that if it got me out of Talon Company. But, alas. “All Talon Company property,” I said, shaking my head.

He sighed and mirrored with a shake of his own. “Sorry to hear that, but I can't help you then. I want to, but I've got a job to do and my boss would have my hide if I started givin' out freebies, you understand.”

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I wasn't going to come this close and just give up like that. Maybe I could run back to our room again and grab one of ma's old medical textbooks to trade. It was worth ten times the postage but at this point I almost didn't care. Amalia would strangle me if I dragged this out for that though.

...okay. Okay, I was down to my last option: pleading. “Listen. Listen, I understand, but I've got no time to work this out and I might not have another chance like this. I just wanted to send a letter to my papa so he could hear from me one last time. He's really sick and probably won't last until I have a chance to see him in person.”

I held a claw to my forehead. “Look… he thinks I work for Crimson's Caravan. He'd disown me if he knew I was working for Red Eye, okay? And I thought, well, I thought if I could send him a letter through Crimson's Caravan he'd believe I really did work for them. Like, maybe I couldn't get assigned to a caravan heading home, but I wrote him at least, you know? I even applied and tried to get work with your caravan, but they turned me away.”

The hole I was digging couldn't get much deeper, so I kept going. “Talon Company or Red Eye are paying you to do this delivery, right? Can't that count for something? What's five bits compared to that? I'll pay you back double next time, I promise. Just, look, just write my name down or something. I swear I'll pay you back.”

Cactus waved both forehooves to shut me up. “Alright, alright, that's enough. I ain't got time to argue with you so jus' go ahead. Give your letter or whatever you've got to that pretty young lady over there and we'll get it to Oatsfield sometime.” He indicated a strawberry red mare with black freckles that made her look, well, like a strawberry.

“Thank you. Really, thank you. I'll pay you back, honest.”

Cactus nodded me off and followed it up with a “Yeah, yeah” and something about “weirdest griffon he'd ever met.” Or it sounded like that anyway, but it was hard to make it out exactly.

I grinned sheepishly at Amalia. “I've got to write it up now, but I'll make this quick, I promise.”

She gawked. “You haven't written it yet? Ugh, whatever. I'll be waiting over there.” She turned about and smacked my beak with the tip of her tail as she went. “Unbelievable,” she muttered, which I could make out exactly.

Well sorry that I was in such a hurry and didn't magically guess that we'd have a caravan to send letters on before Serge told me about it that morning! I glared after her and snorted, but kept my beak shut. I didn't want to waste more time in an argument.

The letter wasn't going to be long to begin with, and despite the infantile urge to make it longer just to piss Amalia off more, I kept it short. I realized I also didn't have any envelopes, so I capped off my half-cocked plan by just folding the paper up and writing “Jakob Longtalons, Oatsfield” on the outside of it. Good enough.

Just as I prepared to take it over to Ms. Strawberry, another thought hit me. Didn't Rusty Rivet want me to tell his fillyfriend he loved her or something? I probably never would see her, and now that he was free he could do it in person, but…

...yeah, who was I kidding? He was probably tossed in a ditch the moment they got him out of the crater.

Whatever. It was short, but I wrote another letter to Rolling Meadow and folded it up too. I probably wasn't remembering her name right and it was a long shot it would make it to her at all, but I felt better. Over, done, and given to Strawberry mare, who asked no questions and seemed to just be in a hurry to not deal with me.

Fine with me too. I joined Amalia outside the wagon perimeter and lifted off to head back. She didn't join me. “Coming?”

She cut her eyes up to me. “Hang on a second. I want to ask you something.”

I sighed and landed in front of her. “Go ahead.”

Her red eyes cut through the darkness as she asked, “Is this all some kind of joke to you?”

Hey, I hadn't had any drama in about 24 hours, so I guess it was time. “What?”

“This.” She patted her breastplate with a gauntlet-covered claw. “None of this means a thing to you, does it?”

“I told you before that I didn't want this job,” I replied with a little hesitation.

Amalia clicked her beak and nodded. “You did, but I didn't really get it before. But after yesterday?” She swept a claw over the wagons. “After that? Yeah, I get it now. This is all just a big joke for you, and we're the punchline.”

The hell? “What? Hey, look, just because I've got family outside of this organization and want-”

“I'm not talking about that!” she snapped. “Let's back up to yesterday. No, actually, let's back up to when we met. Remember that slave we found out in the streets? Remember what we did to him?”

Who? Slave… she must have meant Silver Rush. What did we do with him again?

“Exactly!” she spat, not giving me a chance to answer. “Nothing. We should have turned him in to his master for evading duty, but instead we just evaded duty right along with him. I should have known right then that something was wrong, but I kept quiet.”

No, really, what the hell was she going on about? “So, what, are you planning on telling Lieutenant Blackfeathers about it now?”

“Maybe I should. Because maybe you need it.”

“What the fuck? You're not making any sense!”

“It's what I said. This is a joke to you! Back when you told me you didn't want this job I thought that was the end of it. You wanted to do something else, but here you were. Okay, fine. But now I can see that not only did you not want the job, you've never had a passing interest in doing it right!”

To be blunt, I wasn't really sure what to say, so I settled on the first thing that came to mind. “That's not true.”

“Isn't it? Don't pretend you didn't just say that back there!” She jabbed a thumb back toward the wagons.

“Say what?”

“That you'd be disowned for working for Red Eye or Talon Company. You're ashamed of what you're doing here, aren't you?” Yet again, I failed to formulate a response in time. “I knew it. All this time, I thought the ignorance and incompetence were just you being new, but you don't want to do better.”

For just a moment I was tempted to grab her by the beak to shut her up. “What the fuck makes you think that?”

“For as long as I've known you, you've been bending or breaking the rules to suit you. You let that slave off back in Fillydelphia. You dragged that other slave all through the stable instead of following orders. I almost had to drag you up to shoot that other slave under the sergeant's orders. You tried time and again to second guess the sergeant or SOP during the stable clearing. And that's not even getting into the breaches in protocol that almost got the corporal killed or gave away our position in the stable!”

Some of the guards around the caravan were starting to take notice now. Or I guessed, since I heard a lot of confused chatter and swearing behind me.

Amalia placed a talon in my face. “And to top it off, you don't care. That is what pisses me off so much. Do you have any idea how hard I worked for this? I spent my entire life training and drilling so that when my deployment came up I'd be sent to Fillydelphia. Fillydelphia was the most competitive and prestigious deployment. And I got it. I got it because I worked so hard. I trained, drilled, followed the rules… and every day I try to improve because I'm proud to be a part of Talon Company.” She tapped my beak with her talon. “And you? You need to grow the hell up before you get someone else killed.”

If she wasn't wearing a gauntlet I'd have bitten her talon. “Amy?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don't call me that.”

“Fine. Amalia?”

“What?”

I brushed her claw aside. “Shut the hell up.” She opened her beak to speak, but it was my turn to interrupt. “You think I think this is a joke? You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I've been trying to get out of this running disaster of a career because I know precisely how much I don't belong here.” I thumped her breastplate. “Yeah, because people like you are the ones that deserve this job and know what the fuck you're doing.

“You think that Ida's death was funny to me? Or insignificant? Or you think that I don't care that Leigh was shot because of me? Or that I don't care that I don't know what I'm doing? You couldn't be more wrong.”

I punched the ground. “I don't think this is a joke. I know this is life and death, okay? I know how much this means to you and everyone else who wants this job. I didn't screw up on purpose. I've been trying to learn and improve so nobody else does die.” I nodded and added, “And yeah, I know that not shooting every slave on sight in that stable was risky. I know, but that's why I wanted to take all of the risk myself. I volunteered to carry the hurt slave and to be on point to accept the others' surrender.”

“But you can't accept all of the risk on yourself! It doesn't work that way!”

“I know!” I backed up and shook my head. “I know. I know. So, what? You want an apology?” She didn't deny it. “Okay, fine. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm awful at this job. I'm sorry that I factor the slaves' lives into risk assessments. I'm sorry that my perspective covers more than just Talon Company.” And that hers didn't, but I didn't say that. “But I'm not sorry that I care. And yes, that includes you and everyone else.”

Amalia looked uncertain how to respond. She was still pissed without a doubt, but arguing more wasn't going to help that and we'd wasted too much time already. So, I took what was arguably the low road and just took off to fly back to base. I looked down just in time to see her wheel on a pony and growl, followed by all of the ponies scampering back to the interior of the wagon train.

She took off too and flapped hard to catch up some, but kept her distance.

The next few days were going to be just lovely.

Gain Experience – You gain 1,500 experience points for learning to keep your beak shut.