Chapter 26: New Contact

Jackson awoke with a long, drawn out grunt of pain. At first, he didn’t know where he was. It was dark, pitch black, the kind of darkness you only got when there were no light sources to speak of, natural or artificial. He vaguely remembered the firefight, buying time for Sparks and the kid. He hoped they got away okay.

Then he remembered the end of it all. He remembered the attackers barging in and cornering him. He remembered the spray of bullets whipping through the air just centimeters from his body. He remembered getting shot. Then he remembered who shot him.

“Son of a bitch!” Jackson cursed loudly to himself. As if there were anyone else to hear him. He hoped there wasn’t.

He just hadn’t seen it coming. The betrayal tore at his head like a ravenous beast, its howl calling out for retribution. For years, he’d counted Blackjack among his friends—a shady, slightly odd friend—but a friend nonetheless. That the earth stallion could do this to him gave Jackson some horrendously dark thoughts.

Feeling around in the darkness, Jackson moved his fingers tentatively towards the pulsating pain that was his chest. The ends of his digits bumped into its edges, causing a spike of dull pain across his chest, but nothing he could compare to an actual bullet wound, let alone a cluster of them. When he took his fingers away, they came away with a sticky paste heavy with the sharp scent of anesthesia.

Jackson’s fingers began to turn numb so he wiped them off on his pant leg and began feeling around the dark space. His hands bumped into walls barely a foot to either side and brushed across some fabric to the front that felt an awful lot like one of his coats. It took him less than a second to put all the information together. Dark enclosed space, coats in his face.
He’d been shoved into a closet.

It wasn’t the first time Jackson had woken up in a closet somewhere, just the first time it had happened after he’d died. Except that he hadn’t, and why not? Jackson clearly remembered getting shot a few times in the chest, only with some kind of sedative powerful enough to almost instantly knock out a full grown man once absorbed through the skin.

It was quite a mystery to him, but one that would have to wait.

After feeling around his lap and the ground like a blind man, Jackson finally located his gun. After a moment of fiddling with it, he remembered that he’d fired it dry, so he pulled a few loose shells from his pocket, knocked the empty ones from the cylinder and replenished his firearm.

Getting his gun in a firm grip, Jackson rolled his chair slowly back until it lightly bumped against what he assumed was the closet door. He quietly turned his chair around and groped for the knob. Once he found it, he took a deep breath and counted to three. On three, he threw the door open and shoved the barrel of the revolver out into whatever waited for him.

Jackson blinked.

Instead of a hail of bullets, the dingy light of a late afternoon greeted him. He looked left, he looked right. Seemingly, there was no one left in the house besides him.

Cautiously, Jackson rolled out of the closet and into the light.

The house was a mess. The floor was covered and glass and debris. In some places, blood still lay splattered across the floor boards and walls like grotesque Pollock paintings, but the bodies had since been removed. Bullet holes seemed to puncture nearly every wall, letting in thin streams of dying sunlight that shot crisscrossing paths through the still settling dust.

In the ruined kitchen, Jackson found a towel that miraculously hadn’t been completely destroyed and started wiping the astringent paste from his torso. He used the water flowing across the floor tiles—a byproduct of the plumbing having been torn to hell—to help hasten the process. Whatever it was, the substance was stubborn. It flatly refused to come completely out of his tattered shirt and the fumes still wafting from it made Jackson dizzy. After fifteen more minutes of this, he settled for diluting it as best he could and leaving it alone. He still had a deep red stain around the impact area, but at this point Jackson didn’t really care.

Once finished, Jackson ditched the towel into the still intact half of the sink and rolled out into the living room. The wheels of his chair crunched over the glass and splintered like there was a gravel driveway now in the middle of his house. He swept his head back and forth as he moved, taking in the destruction.

Pictures hung torn and shattered on the walls they still desperately clung to, or hopelessly strewn among the rest of the debris all over the floor. Cotton stuffing was most prevalent, having been blasted from the cushioned furniture and spread around the house like dry, fluffy snow. If he really looked, Jackson could even make out the spot where he’d been shot.

He still could hardly believe it. When Jackson saw his old friend, the first thing he’d felt was happiness followed shortly be confusion, and finally and unholy dread as he understood the implications. Or at least, he thought he did.

Either way, the next time he saw Blackjack, Jackson was gonna—

“Damn, your place got torn up. Honestly, I think it looks better, but I know a good interior designer if you need one. Which you do.”

Jackson had his revolver up before the second word was out of Blackjack’s mouth. He glanced up and was satisfied to see that the barrel of his gun was nice and steady on the stallion’s head without even having to sight down it. His finger itched on the trigger.

Blackjack was standing on the remains of the porch with a shit eating grin, half hiding himself with what was left of the frame of the front door. He had a sheepish grin on his face that still managed to look cocky. But he wasn’t armed and he was alone. It aroused Jackson’s curiosity enough to keep him from pulling the trigger.

“You know, you’ve either got a death wish or some massive fucking balls to come back here,” Jackson said without lowering his weapon.

Blackjack took a half step into the doorway, keeping his expression the same, “Now, is that any way to greet the pony that saved your life?” he said with his usual southern twang. “Seems a might rude to me.”

“Seems about right to me.” Jackson cocked the hammer back on his revolver, even though he didn’t need to.

Blackjack stepped full into view now, one hoof held up in surrender. “No need for that now. I come in peace,” he assured.

Jackson narrowed his eyes, but didn’t lower the gun, “Explain.”

The stallion chuckled, but it came out nervously. I’m guessin’ that by now you’ve figured out that I didn’t actually shoot you. I mean, I did, but not with actual bullets.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“And that was the point,” the stallion argued. “Except it wasn’t so much to fool you than it was to fool the others.”

“Why?” Jackson asked.

Blackjack nodded his head sagely, “Why indeed.” He kicked a few shards of glass clear of the area around him as he stepped closer to Jackson, but then stopped when the wheelchair bound man’s facial expression warned him that he’d most definitely be shot if he moved any closer. “You see, Equestria’s never been quite as peaceful as everypony seems to think it is. Sure, there’s a load of down time between the odd draconiquis or changling attack, but the violence never really goes away, it just kinda simmers down until it builds back up into a boil.

“I know it, the Princesses know it, the trick was to do something about it without drawing attention to it.”

“Yeah, that’s why they started the RSTG,” Jackson countered.

Blackjack gave him a placating smile that bordered on the condescending, “Not quite. The RSTG is a great quick reaction force for things not suited for the Elements, don’t get me wrong, but it ain’t suited for the stuff that don’t fit into those two areas of expertise.”

“What are you getting at?” Jackson growled with a buzz of impatience.

Blackjack let out a tired sigh.

“What I’m getting at is that they needed a way to take care of the ‘in between’ . I just so happen to be that way,” he explained. “Long story short, we’re still on the same side so can you please be so kind as to point that thing somewhere else?”

Jackson considered the earth stallion’s words. If what he’d said was true, then that meant there were a whole lot of things going on in the background that he didn’t know about. That kind of pissed him off. It also meant that Spark’s forces were getting played and they didn’t know it either.

Things like this were the reason why Jackson had never gone for the Black Ops teams back home. Too much cloak-and-dagger shit, a straight fight with a clear objective was far more preferable to him. Plus, he liked to work with people he knew he could count on.

Jackson lowered the revolver, but didn’t quite point the barrel in a different direction or move his finger from the trigger. “So what are you, some kind of ‘deep cover’ agent?” he said with a drop of mocking skepticism.

Blackjack’s face lit up, “Correctamundo! I knew you’d get it.”

Jackson shook his head, “No, not really. And I still don’t trust you.”

“Close enough!” the stallion proclaimed as he started trotting towards the kitchen. “C’mon, I’ll fill you in on the small stuff over a drink.”

Reluctantly, Jackson turned his chair to follow. He didn’t like the things he’d heard and he was sure he wasn’t going to like whatever else Blackjack was going to tell him, but he was going to get some damn answers.

When Jackson arrived to the shredded kitchen, Blackjack was rummaging through some of the more intact cabinets to the symphony of burbling water that was his broken plumbing. If the former smuggler noticed he was walking through a veritable pond, he didn’t seem to mind.
Glass clinked and tinked as the stallion searched for a bottle of alcohol, “Brother, you gotta have a wider collection of hooch than this,” he commented.

“I did,” Jackson snorted. “Your friends kind of destroyed it.”

“Oh, those aren’t my friends.” Blackjack let out a little sound of triumph as he found a half empty bottle of cooking sherry that had impossibly escaped the deluge of lead that had perforated the rest of the house. “Not what I’d call a drink, but it’ll have to do,” he said while pulling out two mostly whole glasses with broken rims.

“Then what would you call them?”

Blackjack poured a glass for Jackson and set it on the crooked kitchen table before pouring himself one and taking a gulp. “Acquaintances, more like. Not the best ponies.”

“Yeah, go figure.”

“I know, I know. Thing is, they were on the fast track for trouble, the kind of thing I’m paid to look for.”

“So you joined them,” Jackson said, finally accepting the peace offering—even though it was his bottle. He was careful not to cut his mouth as he took a sip. The sherry was the wrong combination of bitter and sweet for drinking.

“Yeah, I joined them,” Blackjack continued. “That sweet little firecracker you met with the red hair dye? That’s Del.”

“Sweet isn’t the word I’d use for her,” Jackson said.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Blackjack smiled, “but I gotta be nice to her, she’s the boss.”

“The boss of what, exactly?”

“That’s a good question. You know how that one unicorn, a student of Celestia she was, went ahead and got promoted to princess?”

Jackson nodded. He was isolated out in the sticks, but he had heard of that happening.

“Near as I can tell, Del is part of a movement that disagrees with that. A lot of ponies had the same opinion, but at most they tended to limit themselves to peaceful protestation. Del, on the other hoof…well, she’s a bit more outward in her views. Radical, some would say.”

Jackson leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his smooth scalp. He’d seen this before. In fact, something like this was common in human history. He just didn’t expect to see it here.

“I’m guessing Del wants a change in management,” he said. “Probably someone she thinks is more deserving of the post. Herself, maybe.”

Blackjack nodded, “Bingo. Only she doesn’t want to be in charge. She just believes it shouldn’t ‘ve happened at all.”

Jackson downed the rest of his drink in one pull then set it down on the wobbly table with a loud clack. Blackjack refilled it without being asked.

This was just what he needed, a terrorist with a political agenda that didn’t care how she pushed it. Only she did in a way, she just preferred pain instead of words. It made a certain amount of sense. Even so, something gnawed at the back of his mind, some things didn’t fit completely and trying to make them felt like trying to force a puzzle piece into the wrong spot. Somewhere in the house, something clattered onto the floor as it lost its last bit of grip on whatever it had been holding on to.

“Ok, I get that,” he said, “but why come here? Why was she after us?”

“Hunting RSTG members is part of the plan.” Blackjack put on a grin that said he didn’t actually find the words amusing.

Again, that fit in an odd sort of way, but Jackson felt there was something else to it. “Before, you asked about the kid.”

“Really? I don’t recall…”

“It was right before you ruined one of my shirts,” Jackson growled in a way that made it clear he had no patience for bullshit. “You were after him weren’t you? That’s why my house got destroyed, isn’t it?”

“Alright.” Blackjack looked chagrined. “So I did. You’re not gonna like what I’m gonna tell you though.”

“I haven’t like anything you said.”

Blackjack snorted, “Fair enough.”

Now it was the stallion’s turn to down his drink. He slugged it back and put the glass near the bottle, but didn’t move to refill it.

“Del want’s the pilot. You humans have a history here now. A short and brutal one, but a history nonetheless, even if the rest of Equestria doesn’t know the full details. Y’all tend to be at the center of things, momentous changes in policy so to speak. She want’s the kid, thinks she can convince him to work for her, give her side some extra credit. Maybe even give her fighting tactics a little oompf.”

Jackson shook his head. It would make sense if it were someone like himself, someone like an old friend of his. But his friend was dead and Jackson was a cripple living out in the sticks, not much for ‘oompf’ . And the kid was just a pilot, not anyone with any experience in these kinds of things, even if he did have some fancy gear.

“But the kid’s just a pilot,” Jackson said aloud, echoing his thoughts. “He’s not going to be much help unless he’s up in the air.”

Blackjack’s grin widened, this one genuine. “She doesn’t know that. Besides, I think she’ll be just fine with just the symbolism she can get out of him.”

Jackson crossed his arms and set his elbows on the table, making the wood produce a sharp crack as he leaned his weight on it. “Well we can’t have that. Any idea on how you’re gonna prevent that?”

The stallion leaned towards Jackson, his face falling grim. “I was gonna let her have him and just kinda wing it from there. But you pretty much shot that plan to hell. Literally.” Jackson smiled at that. He didn’t like that he did, but the drink must be getting to him. His head felt a little lighter than it should “I got a new one now,” Blackjack continued, “but I don’t think you’ll like it.”

Jackson couldn’t help but smile now. That sherry was stronger than it should be. “Try me.” The words came out almost slurred. That didn’t feel right, but oddly, he didn’t care.

Blackjack sighed and took his hat off, setting it gently out of the way. “First, it involves that.” He pointed to Jackson’s leg.

The big man looked down and saw a syringe sticking out of his thigh, the plunger fully depressed. His thoughts were becoming increasingly flighty, but he could still bring enough of them together to understand what had just happened. What had been happening. The sneaky bastard had injected him where his disability wouldn’t allow him to feel the needle piercing his skin.

You son-of-a-bitch! was what Jackson wanted to say. But with whatever drug had been circulating in his system dulling his mind and robbing him of control of his muscular functions, all that came out was an angry spatter of thick saliva.

“Yeah, thought you’d feel that way,” Blackjack sighed as if he understood what Jackson had tried to force out of his rapidly numbing lips. “Sorry about this next part, but it’s the only option I have now until we locate the kid. Your little surprise earlier pulled my loyalty into question and this the only way I can see to remedy that.”

As Jackson involuntarily slumped in his chair for the second time, Blackjack calmly walked around behind his old friend and produced a cloth sack from inside his vest, slipping it carefully over Jackson’s bald head.

“You’ll be well taken care of,” the stallion said, affectionately patting Jackson on the shoulder, “I’ll see to that, have no worries.”

Jackson didn’t respond. He was either showing his disdain towards the former smuggler by ignoring him, or the drugs had reached their full effect. Either way, Blackjack bound the human’s arms, just in case. He briefly considered doing the same to Jackson’s legs, but decided it was unnecessary given the man’s condition.

In just a few minutes, he had everything ready to go. Blackjack put his hat back on and started wheeling his captive out of the broken house without another word.

* * *

Tiran was having some of the best sleep he’s had in a while since the unfortunate accident that brought him into his current situation. The kind of sleep that was dreamless, that made you believe you could have just traveled through time. Most people didn’t like that kind of sleep. He’d heard others complain about how it made them feel like they hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

For Tiran it was different, because it meant no nightmares.

He was comfortably deep into this kind of slumber when he was rudely awakened by a rough poke to his haunches. Tiran rolled over angrily to meet his oppressor and found Quick Fix staring down at him with a light smile.

“About time, you were in there, huh?” she said.

“What? What’s going on?” he asked, his voice still thick with slumber. “We under attack or something?”

Quick Fix cocked her head to the side and regarded him like he’d just asked something with an obvious answer. “No, not yet. But we did just get something interesting. You should get up and check it out.”

“Alright, alright.” Tiran sat up, knowing that she wouldn’t go away until he did.

Through bleary eyes, he noticed that something was different. The last thing he remembered was sitting outside. Now he was inside, and on a cot. The most alarming thing though was that he was wearing nothing but his boxers and a T-shirt.

“What the hell’s going on?” he asked. “What happened to my suit?” Tiran shot an embarrassed look at Quick Fix, “Did you—!?”

“Yeah, I did,” she replied with a disinterested tone and confirming his fears. “Don’t worry, I didn’t completely undress you, obviously,” the unicorn added with a roll of her eyes. “Not like you’re much to look at anyway…”

“Hey!” Tiran protested as he stood up and began hastily pulling on a pair of pants that were lying folded at the foot of the cot.

“Relax. I had to do something. Your gear needed maintenance and you were out cold. Just be glad I didn’t leave you outside.”

Tiran paused with one leg in. The pants were a little too loose for him, but that wasn’t why he stopped. “I fell asleep outside?”

Quick Fix chuckled, her expression turning into one that looked like she knew something he didn’t and was amused by the fact. “You and Miss Ruwa were cuddled up out there nice and tight.”

“What?” he said, his eyebrows going high in surprise.

Quick Fix snickered, “Yeah, it was so cute!” The tone she used was teasing.

Tiran’s expression twisted in a mix of annoyance and disgust. “Shut up.”

“You guys would make a cute couple, y’know.”

Tiran snatched the pillow from his cot and threw it at her.

Quick Fix danced aside, easily dodging the fluffy projectile and laughing. “The more you deny it, the worse it gets!” she said as she trotted off, giggling all the way.

Tiran ignored her and finished pulling his pants on, grumbling to himself all the while. Once he was done, he padded over to the Ops center where everyone else had gathered. Kai, Ruwa and Quick Fix were all clustered around a console near the back. When Tiran neared, he saw Flickr sitting at an old radio, the headphones pulled tightly over his pointed ears.

Tiran tried to keep relaxed when he approached the stallion, even as he felt his gut tighten, but all Flicker did was give him a dismissive glance and return to what he was doing.

Ruwa’s ears pricked up at the sound of Tiran approaching. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, “Good, you’re awake! Come over here and check this out,” she said in a hushed, but excited, tone.

Tiran moved into place behind the three gathered around Flickr just as the radio crackled.

“St…ing to…cieve you,” a gruff voice washed in static said from the speaker.

“Whiskey Five-Seven, you’re still coming in real patchy, please adjust,” Flickr said into is microphone.

“—opy.”

They waited in strained silence for a reply. This was the first contact they’d had since the run from Shady Hollows. Whether or not it was a friendly one remained to be seen.

After a moment, the radio hissed and popped. Then a new voice spoke from it, “Cloud Castle, Whiskey Five-Seven, comms check.”

Flickr smiled, “Lima Charlie, Five-Seven, good to hear you. I’m sitting pretty with a gun in my hand, what about you?”

“What’s he saying?” Ruwa began to ask, but Quick Fix shushed her.

“ Copy C-C, glad to hear it. We’ve been flying kites with pockets full of candy and no teeth to chew with.”

Flickr flinched, “That’s a shame, Five-Seven. We’ve got chompers, but no candy.”

“Any chance we can fix that?” the stallion on the other end replied.

“Wait one.”

Flickr clicked off the microphone and turned to the rest of the group. “So, what do you all want to do?”

Quick Fix wrinkled her nose, “You’re asking us?”

Flickr shrugged. “They want to hook up with us, but I can’t be sure they’re friendly. This involves everypony here, whether you like it or not, so I thought I’d ask.”

“What were you guys saying?” Ruwa asked, still confused.

“I told them we were holed up somewhere,” Flickr explained. “They said they’ve been tossing signals out for a while now and have a lot of ammo, but not many weapons. I told them we have the opposite. Lots of weapons, but low ammo.”

“The question is,” Kai said, cutting in, “do we need them?”

“Before, I would have said no,” Flickr started to say. “But because we have a bomb in my shop—“ Tiran flinched a little, but Flickr didn’t seem to notice or even glance in his direction “—I don’t think we have much of a choice at this time. No telling when that thing is gonna go off, the sooner we get to it the better, but we can’t assault a hardened position like that with just two combat effective operators,” now he shot a disdainful glance back at Tiran, “and a pilot.”

Tiran shuffled uncomfortably where he stood as the others turned to look at him. He knew what was going on. Flickr was putting him on the spot, even if the unicorn didn’t just come out and say it. It was a tactic he’d encountered before, so if Flickr wanted to play, Tiran would play.

“So let’s bring ‘em here,” he said as casually as if he were suggesting a place to eat.

“Just bring them here…” Flickr scoffed. “Without any way to identify them at the moment, that would be foolish at best.”

“Yeah,” Tiran said, “But they’re our only prospect at the moment.”

“The human speaks the truth,” Kai put in. “To turn aside any help, however uncertain, would be more foolish.”

Flickr eyed the big griffon, “And if it does turn out to be a mistake?”

Kai gripped the handle of the large sword on his back reassuringly, “My blade has yet to fail me.”

Flickr huffed and let out a long, weary breath. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll call them back and get them set on course. Just you guys be ready, alright?”