“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock...the rock was landed on us!”

Malcolm X

“Johnny and me on a strange locomotive!
There’s no-one drivin’ but we still keep feeling the need.
It takes 24 hours to make 25 miles to the borderline,
We need speed!

Five hours later out of Stonehaven Prison!
The engines thunder but there ain’t nobody onboard...
And my heart’s still beatin’ like a hundred guns,
As the train leaps off and leaves the ground...

I wear a ball and chain,
I know it has my name!
Ain’t gonna wear it no more
On this runaway train!

Over the hill far away, with the rain pourin’ down!
On the Midnight Express! On a Highway to Hell!
No one can pray for me now,
On this runaway train!”

Runaway Train, Ian Cussick

NOWHERE, NEVERWHEN

The mare drifted in a void. She might have been here mere seconds, or eons before the teardrop that set off the Big Bang. There was nothing, and she was nothing. No sight or sound, or fear or emotion. No conscious thought, just consciousness...and the faintest sense of expectancy, of a primed machine waiting for someone to open up the throttle…

But that aside, there was nothing, and she was nothing. A big, fat...nothing.

“Is she just going to float there?”

And then she heard a voice, echoing as if at a great distance. Brash and scratchy, yet definitely feminine. And strangely familiar...like the voice of a friend she had yet to meet. If she had ever had friends…

“As compared to what?” another voice responded. Thoughtful, inquisitive, yet naively confused. “Dying?”

“Not dying silly-billy!” whooped another, and this one was like a party manifest in a singular wavelength of sound. “Flying!”

“Flying?” the academic tones paused for a second, as if scratching at an invisible brow. “Had we planned on that?”

The three of them squabbled for a second, and then were broken by new arrivals, approaching with a faint clip-clop of hooves that at the same time seemed loud enough to make stars ring in their orbits.

“So is this dear the poor wretch we expect to shoulder the burden?” said a refined, yet unaloof voice, before tutting softly. The distant conversation stirred a few faint neurons in the drifter’s ephemeral mind, and she stirred a body that wasn’t there.

‘What’s this? Am I...dead?”

“No!” bounced back the voice of liquid joy. “And we do expect you to do some serious living!”

“And why is that, La?” posited a fifth speaker, the notes warm, rustic and welcoming. “Shucks - coming here was your idea after all.”

“My idea? You mean OUR idea!”

“Girls, we made it very clear that we all believe in the exercise,” the educated speaker responded, a spark of frustration fraying under the calm surface of her words.

“The flying?” responded the brash one, the one who had spoken first.

“No Loy, though I imagine that's wonderful exercise,” answered the regal voice of elegant reason.

“Then what Gen?”

“The entire transference balance experiment darling. Trading the soldier for her.”

Traded? That felt...wrong. And yet the listening witness felt eerily calm.

‘Excuse me. How much longer is this going to go on for?’

But the voices were ignoring her, seemingly going into a conclave. Her self-awareness growing like a stubborn flame against the dark, the disembodied mind turned herself to listen.

“Remember guys”, the brainy one said. “One goes into an experiment knowing one could fail.”

“But one does not undertake an experiment presuming one HAS failed, Magic darling”, the regal one said, before her entire attitude shifted into mourning. “...even if we have already failed, our poor girls.”

“Can we get back to the flying?”

Flying. Yeah, that would do. As more and more portions of the mare’s mind flared and blazed with activity, the idea of flight seemed as natural to her as breathing. That was what she had been doing before this after all...flying, flying faster than she ever had before!

“I suggest she does some flying ASAP, or she’s going to pancake into the Atlantic.”

Atlantic? What’s… where’s… that? the mare wondered.

“Oh my”, said a sixth, final voice, yet one the mare felt had been there all the time. This one was gentle and soft as a caressing wing, and conjured up scents of flowers and… and animal dung? “I’d mean she’ll surely appreciate it if we can assist her.”

“Sure Ky...” agreed the countrified voice, before her tone turned stubborn. “But Em girl, perhaps we should have asked this mare before nappin’ her.”

“Hrm yes, Honesty. I imagine she had a greater interest in staying put than the Commander did.”

“I suppose she did...” acquiesced ‘Smartie Pants’. “But there was no point in asking if she’d like to help.”

“Well why the heck not!?”

“Because Loy, she doesn't know us.”

“She doesn't know of Harmony!? Oh dear, should we tell her?”

“No, Ky. She doesn’t know, and for good reason.”

“Ah...I see what you mean.”

The mare felt vaguely insulted, and yet at the same time ashamed. It was as if this place had stripped away every little lie she had ever crafted around herself, and now the unseen voices were holding up a mirror revealing what was left...something small, nasty and mean.

Then her ears perked...wait, she had ears! And she could feel, yes...definitely feel two wings spread proudly at her side. And there was a faint wind in her face, and far off, the sound of waves breaking on a shore.

“Yippee! Earth get ready, Lightning Dust is about to arrive!”

Earth? Lightning Dust? Was that her? She was...yes, she was Lightning Dust, the Best Flier in Equestria, and no-one else could even compare!

After that brief rush of ego and endorphins, she disdainfully turned her ear back towards her kidnappers. How dare they make her feel so small and insignificant, how dare...

...they weren’t even paying attention to her. ‘Listen to me dammit!’

“Em, sweetie. Shall we tell her when our counterparts and their girls will be arriving?”

“Would that change anything Gen?”

“Well darn! It might give her some comfort sugarcube!”

“Yes Honesty, at least that's something the two of us can agree on.”

“Hey! Is somepony...somebody meeting her here?”

“I'd certainly hope so. It does seem like a dreadful place to be stranded.”

“Ah, well, maybe we can leave something inside...”

“Inside where?”

“Inside...her.”

“Oh, I love this part! If she be worthy, let this mare possess the Power of Harmony!”

“Laughter,” the other five sighed in unison. “You are so random...”

Then there was a flash of light, and a rising warmth that suffused the mare from mane to fetlock, and then...

SBA-DOOSH!

...then Lightning Dust was roaring through a leaden sky like an arrow shot from a bow, a howling wind tearing at her wings as she ripped a full-blown storm asunder. She tried to scream, and rain drove back into her throat. Below and above she could only see dirty black and grey clouds flashing by, when she wasn’t blinded by the salty spray in her eyes. She tried to raise a hoof to wipe them clear, and tumbled wildly. Sky, storm and sanity blurred into a deadly vortex as she careened out of control.

The words ‘Death Spin!’ flashed in the young flier’s mind, and she automatically tried to twist herself out of it, body bent in a banana and one wing slightly raised in an attempt to curve into the wind. No use. She lifted both wings, felt them strain against velocity and wind speed, felt her tendons burn. Still she plummeted towards a quick splash and a deadly dash.

‘Gotta aerobrake! But at this speed...what if this rips my wings off!’ she realised, before a louder part of her mind screamed. ‘Better living as a ground pounder than dying a pegasi! Right?’

‘Right?!’

She tensed herself and flared her wings as wide as they could spread, their sudden resistance hitting her like a lash across her back and a hoof in her stomach. Loadbearing muscles and bones screamed in tune with her voice...

...but she was not dead, and the brake had allowed her to pull herself out of the swirling dive. Now she was in a glide, still getting knocked around by wild gusts, but in control.

‘Now, work the problem…’ she told herself, remembering Flight School. She was in stable flight, but hurting bad.

‘Test flight surfaces’. She cautiously attempted to bank her wings, and nearly stalled as fresh lines of pain dug like gouging claws either side of her spine.

‘Great, I’m down to steering with my hooves...can’t flap either.’

Okay, so she was gliding only, wings held rigid and only capable of keeping her up so long as she had momentum. Which meant she had to get down...and soon.

‘My headspeed is...what?’ she thought, and carefully listed to the air blasting past her slicked-back ears...yeah, about 250mph. Altitude...a thousand feet, thereabouts. And descending...slowly but surely.

‘Okay, so I’m dropping about forty feet a minute in this glide...but with this tailwind I’m not loosing speed. So I’ve got twenty, twenty-five minutes and ninety to a hundred miles to find a landing spot. Okay, easy...

...if I only knew where I was!’

She tried to keep calm and get her bearings. Pegasus senses were adapted to picking out fine details while flying or traveling at high speed…

...which would have been helpful if there were any fine details she could have used, thanks to this driving storm (seriously, what weather team was so deranged as to summon up this monster?) Weather had not been her forte at flight school, but even she knew that storms like this were once-in-a-century events. And not only was she being buffeted from side to side, but she was also suffering from a weird feeling of absence, a sense that she was lost in the worst way possible. Not quite fear, as that was the kind of emotion she associated with being a daredevil pony and soon-to-be Wonderbolt; fear was something to overcome and destroy..

No, this was the pain of slowly eroding confidence. Slow, rather slight, but noticeable. And when she lost that core of herself, well she’d not be Lightning Dust any more, just a useless frightened filly.

Where in Equestria am I?! she raged mentally, her anger at the idiot weather team mounting, and she assured herself she was going to beat the daylights out of whoever thought this was a good idea.

Focus, Lightning, she told herself. There has to be something!

She leaned ever so slightly into a side-slip, pitching downwards and sacrificing altitude in an attempt to descend below the fringes of the cloud ceiling. Jarring and bumping through the turbulence, she finally came into clear air and was able to catch her bearings; now she was travelling over a grey, heaving sea, flying parallel to an unfamiliar coastline that was about five miles off...

...and below her, there were ships...dozens, if not hundreds of them, a linear fleet of all sizes, travelling beam-to-beam and nose-to-tail, all headed in what her internal compass told her was south-south-west, directly opposite to her own travel.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked closer...some of these ships were colossal, and looked nothing like the sailing vessels and state-of-the-art paddle-steamers she often saw along Equestria’s coasts and waterways. Many of them didn’t even have smokestacks, and the majority were sleek, clad in metal, and forging into the waves with unbelievable speed and power...

...and yet strangely, she got the feeling that something else here was terribly wrong. The convoy had a look about it she could only describe as desperation, all manner of craft lashed together in an obvious attempt to keep moving, as if they were charging headlong into danger...or running away from it. And their decks were packed with… something. She couldn’t tell what they were, but they weren’t ponies. It was hard to make out anything else, given the thick coats and life preservers they all seemed to wear, but she could see small farms of livestock on some of the ships, and a shanty town of lashed-together wooden shacks on the largest vessel of all, one that she swore seemed to have a runaway for an upper deck.

‘Where on Equus am I? The Griffin Lands? And what’s with those ships?! Who made them?!’

Wary, she used her rear hooves to gently steer herself away towards the coast, tacking slowly sideways and trying to spot a cove or harbour in which she could ditch herself safely on water...she wasn’t risking a hard landing, not at this speed, especially after her last aerobrake nearly crippled her.

Fifteen minutes later, she was beginning to feel nervous. Soon after breaking course from the strange fleet she’d passed over what looked to be a fishing town on a hilly peninsula, but wasn’t ready to try diving from her current altitude and coming in even hotter in an attempt to land there. Hugging the coastline took her high over marshes and woodlands, and she had spotted several more promising landing-sites.

But what else she saw frightened her even more. Towns and roadways as alien to her as Cloudsdale would be to a dirt-pony, all harsh angles and straight lines. At one point a larger city inland (a conurbation that dwarfed Canterlot in it’s sprawl) had drawn her eyes, and she spotted the blinking lights of what was definately a runway, only for a huge metal bird to launch off of it and pass in front of her in a scream of noise and acrid fumes. For a moment, she swore she saw pale, flat faces pressed against its portholes, felt herself shiver in fear, and tried to keep her nose up and press on to a safer spot.

‘Celestia...Luna. I know I’ve never spoken to you much before, but please, please, please get me out of this nightmare… I don’t know where I am!’

But her prayers had gone unanswered, and she had sunk lower and lower, dropping down from the broiling cloud-cover until she was only two hundred feet above the churning, hungry sea.

As the coastline veered away from her in a huge sweeping bay an unbelievable realisation began to dawn on her...she was going to die. Just a few miles ahead the shore curved round in an arc and blocked her path in yet another peninsula. Trees and fields filled her vision, and she was too weak and injured to try and turn back.

‘Losing altitude fast...course locked, won’t survive a dirt landing. That’s it - those fields are going to be my grave.’

She wanted to roar in rage, howl in fury at how unfair it was. Instead, she made a single choking sound, so pale and feeble as to not even be a sob. She felt cold, and horrified to realise that in this moment of finality, she had no dreams or desires or even regrets, just a pitiful hope that she’d die quickly and painlessly.

And then, as if nature itself was not willing to stop torturing her just yet, a gust of wind caught under her wings and carried her up another hundred feet, the sudden lift tearing hard at her already tender wings.

And then, tears pouring from her eyes, Lightning Dust soared over the protruding spear of land, and saw the light.

To be specific, she saw a lighthouse, rising sheer and defiant on a tiny islet in the mouth of a broad estuary, lamp blazing and flashing like a blinking eye. Churning water either side of it suggested a reef, and those hidden rocks were acting as a poor-mare’s breakwater, creating a tiny pocket of calmer water on the lee-side of the tower.

There, there was her landing site, the only option left to her.

Painfully, slowly, she struggled to configure her stiff, torn wings for landing. The waters of the estuary flashed below her, waves foaming around the rocks like saliva over teeth. The lighthouse loomed to her right as she made her final approach, an ominous grave marker if she didn’t pull this off.

‘Best Flier coming in hot, fast and broken...preparing to land,’ she thought, before tucking her legs in, extending her neck and closing her eyes.

Then, she snapped her wings shut, clenched her teeth against the pain, and transformed from a gliding body to a simple projectile with a streamlined snout. Sir Isaac Neighton’s laws of motion took over, gravity cocooned her in its hold, and she arced down into the water like a fish leaping a fall...

There was a splash, and a crash, and a terrible, infinite minute of water, waves and darkness all around. Her legs paddled furiously and she struggled for air whenever her head broke water, salt burning in her eyes and wings burning at her sides. She was mad and frenzied, a lone mare struggling off death and despair and failing...sinking, dying.

And then, ragged and screaming, she dragged herself onto a wooden jetty that extended from the side of the lighthouse. Her limbs ached as if she had just flown a marathon, and her throat, lungs and barrel seared as if she had bathed in acid.

She lay there for a long time, prostrate in the flashing glare of the lighthouse’s brilliant beacon, pinned in Celestia’s metaphoric gaze. The sense of shame and unworthiness she had felt earlier was back in full force...and she’s wasn’t sure why. She pulled herself into a miserable ball, a foolish action that screamed for a mother’s touch.

But the light felt warm on her soaking body, and finally she uncurled herself and rose to her rickety legs. Then, inch by shaking inch, her wings hanging limply at her sides, she dragged herself towards the lighthouse and trembled in fear and confusion.

There was the door, fifteen feet above her, and accessible only by a ridiculous vertical ladder.

Lightning Dust trembled for a moment, and then she screamed.

“Why! What kind of equine would build a ladder like that! Not even a mud pony could climb something that sheer!”

She stamped her hoof down on the jetty, feeling her joints jounce and grind, but needing the pain, craving it. Anything to keep the fire of righteous indignation burning.

“Why!” she howled again, and again, impotent screams hurled against the expressionless stone monolith, and against the injustice of everything. “All I wanted to do was fly over Ponyville, pull a Sonic Rainboom, and prove I’m better than the small-town hick who dumb-lucked into it as a filly! What did I do to deserve this!”

She pounded her hoof again.

“Why! Why-why-WHY!”

Then there was a snap, and the board collapsed beneath her final stamp, causing her hoof to drop through and painfully knocking her onto the jetty, her sobbing tears falling through the slatted gaps to the waves rolling below.

“It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair!”

Her flank tingled. Lightning glanced back towards it, and then felt her expression fall slack as she saw past her plot and out into the harbour...

A single, growling swell of water was rising just inshore of the reef, a surging wave pushing impossibly against the current, and churning straight in her direction.

Horrified, she couldn’t move, or even scream, as the wave swallowed the jetty, caught her, lifted her up, and hurled her into the air before exploding into a mountain of spray that shimmered brilliantly in the light of the lamp...

...for a single wondrous moment, she flew in a sky made of rainbows...

...and then momentum threw her straight at the door, straight through it, and straight into the foot of a spiral staircase, shaking and quivering and bleeding from fresh wounds. Splintered hunks of wood fell around her, their falls echoing dully in the enclosed space. The last broken plank plunked to the floor, and for a moment there was silence.

Then Lightning Dust threw back her head and screamed. Screamed with pain, screamed with fear and rage, and screamed with the sheer euphoric joy of still being alive. The shriek rose and resonated up the shaft of the building, until even the glass panes of the lamp-housing quivered in harmony with her tortured voice.

And so too did a plaque mounted beneath the beacon; dirty and dusty, but still readable, and humming softly in tune with the cries of a feckless, careless mare lost and far from home.

SHEARWATER AIRBASE, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

“Evacuee group one-eight-zero for Paris, Texas,” a tannoy announced into the cold night air, the words tinny and faint against the sound of several thousand frightened, milling voices. “Please proceed ASAP to the Volèe Airlines 747 now standing on ramp 46.”

Cabin Service Manager Ishmael Crane had the worst name in the world (thank you classics-obsessed parents), the worst complexion in the world (thank you a childhood diet of Big Turk candy bars and Big Mac burgers), and right now, in his opinion, the worst job in the world: telling desperate evacuees why they could not board the plane he was guarding.

Thank you, Your Royal Fucking Highness Celestia.

“Please!” he insisted, his breath steaming as he nervously gripped his granddad’s old hunting rifle, trying to remember to keep it held barrel-down. Most of the guns around had been grabbed up by the HLF, the PHL, or civilians desperate to survive, and it was all he had. So he kept the thing. “This flight is reserved for cultural salvage; it’s a cargo plane!”

He desperately tried to inject some humour. “Besides, the food onboard is even worse than the usual airline fare.”

The gun felt heavy in his hands, especially in the gaze of the small crowd that had gravitated towards him on the spotlit taxi-ramp, offshoots of countless people being marched, filed and directed out of the city ahead of the barrier. Even the jets gathered around, their engines idling, felt like judgemental giants looming large in the dark.

Behind him, other baggage-handlers were loading vases, paintings, carvings and furniture, trying their best to ignore the pitiful tableau in which he had been cast. Far above, even the moon hid her face behind the clouds, just as unable to look.

It was sleeting softly, a filmy shower of liquid ice settling out of the night sky and freezing over immediately into a slippery film on the zero-degree surface of the jetway.

“Why!” demanded one woman, her clothes torn and cradling a crying baby in her arms. “Why won’t you let us escape!”

“There’s enough flights for everyone!” Ishmael lied, nodding towards one of the dwindling number of passenger airliners, just as the tannoy buzzed again from a pole-mount.

“Passenger group eight-one-five for Sydney, Australia via LAX, please proceed to the Oceanic 777 on ramp 23…”

Words weren’t enough, not for a weeping child and a half-starved mother; both cold to the bone and looking on the verge of death. Ishmael remembered pictures of African children with that hollowed-out look, pictures that just a few years ago had been easily ignored with a few dollars donation towards some ‘worthy cause’; he’d never expected to see the third world come all the way to North America. The shame that accompanied those thoughts was heart-breaking.

So too was the plight of the desperate huddle he was trying to keep back from an old FedEx MD-11 that was being loaded with artworks and treasures from across the city.

“Please!” the woman begged. “The Barrier arrives the day after tomorrow!”

More people, desperate and harrowed, took up the chorus of pleas.

“We’ll die if we don’t get out!”

“Make room for us!”

“Windsor Flight 114 to Washington Dulles cleared for takeoff – be advised of 30 knot cross-winds and ice on the runway.”

“Let us on the plane you fucking dipshit!”

“Crew call for Viktor Navorski, Chuck Noland, Carl Hanratty and Captain Richard Phillips – please report immediately to FedEx Flight 88.”

“See!” Ishmael insisted, drawing attention. “That call was for this plane – it’s scheduled to go in less than thirty minutes. Please clear back so we can finish loading.”

“Load us! Take us now!”

“I can’t,” he pleaded in return, the gun in his hands coming up. “Please understand, you need to await calls to your own flights!”

Another lie. Halifax’s population had been reduced to almost nothing in the weeks preceding the barrier; these people were the last, the dregs that had been overlooked or refused to leave, now all of them clambering for a way from the area. But even then there was too many to get out entirely, even with every available plane pressed into service both here at Shearwater and up at Stanfield International. Ishmael doubted he even had a ticket to ride, though if push came to shove he’d try and outrun the damn barrier...these poor wretches would have to do the same.

Then one man strode forward and tried to wrench the gun out of his hands. Ishmael stepped back, whipped the barrel up and fired over the man’s head...or tried to, anyway. He got the safety off, but then the bullet jammed in the dirty barrel and the gun jerked back into his face, the butt smashing into his chest like a hammer-blow.

The crack of the misfire shattered the crowd instantly, just as quickly as it shattered Ishmael’s composure. Winded, he flopped back on his ass, back propped up by the van of irreplaceable treasures being hastily loaded onto the FedEx flight. His would-be-attacker, the man who had possibly come within seconds of death took two horrified steps back, gasped a few times, and then spat before turning and running after his family.

“Fucking bastard!”

Ishamel stayed down, too shocked to even wince as chips of asphalt pressed themselves gently into a fresh cut on the palm of his hand.

“Animal handlers to South Pacific Air Flight 121 immediately; dangerous wildlife loose onboard.”

He snorted a laugh; even the animals were trying to abandon ship. Behold the end of the human race, going down like the Titanic and fighting for a seat in a lifeboat.

And then, he heard the rapping trot of approaching hooves. Unable to rise his head he lolled sideways and found himself looking into a pair of large hazel eyes that had clearly seen far too much grief in a short amount of time...they were like polished stones set in the face of the pony to which they belonged, as hard, cold and bright as the twin combat shotguns mounted on her battle-harness. The letters PHL were stamped on her flak-vest...Ponies for Human Life.

“Ishmael Crane?” the earth pony mare said evenly, her gaze unflinching. He nodded in silent response, and she used her teeth to pull a photograph from her saddle-bag.

“This bitch flew into Halifax a week ago,” she said bluntly, having dropped it into his hand. “I’ve been told you talked to her.”

Ishmael slowly looked down at the photo – it was a cheap black-and-white instant Polaroid, but he didn’t need colour to recognise the subject – monochrome was a good match for her natural colouration, and her personality.

“The Pie girl?” he said at last, nodding his head. “Yeah, she spoke to me.”

The mare took a step forward and rested a forehoof on his cut hand, drawing a wince.

“Where is she!” she breathed softly, and dangerously.

“Shit!” he swore, feeling the pain for the first time. “Get your foot...whatever...off me!”

She pressed down and in; yanking a scream from him as she all but rammed her snout into his face and his hand into the ground.

“Where is Maud Pie!” she repeated, a shrill neigh edging her voice and her eyes blazing – up close he saw they were not just hazel, but instead seemed to have bright, bluebottle marbling around the edge of the irises.

“Inland!” he shrieked. “She jumped a train that was heading north, up towards Bathurst!”

“Why!”

“I don’t know! She was gabbling on about rocks, and leylines, and something about PMS deposits, or EMS, I don’t know - she said it was official PHL business! Now please get off my hand!”

She stepped back and recovered her photo, making a harsh whinnying sound. Then she directed her attention back at him, and the old hunting rifle that had jammed. She rested her hoof on the barrel, and with one push, bent it at ninety degrees.

“I saw what you tried to do...” she hissed venomously. “People are more important than any of this junk, you fucking traitor!”

The sight of Granddad Roland’s old Nitro Express reshaped into expressionist art angered Ishmael more than her insult crushed his ego, and he lashed back verbally.

“Rich words coming from somepony who defected to our side!”

She snarled, and this time her stomp smashed the gun’s butt into splinters. “I am NOT a damn geldo! Never was!”

Ishmael blinked, and looked askance at her. “Four legs, oversized eyes, mane, tail and a PHL uniform – the only thing you’re missing is one of those damn butt-tattoos. What are you, some newfoal that came out of the oven half-baked? That would be a first.”

The mare growled again, but when she spoke, her words were soft as poison dripped in the ear. “We met once before, when I was a kid – on a Trans American Air flight out of Boston. I remember that fucking dumb name of yours, and you’ll remember my Dad; he was your Union Rep, and he’d be very disappointed seeing you waving a gun at people you should be helping escape from the cud-munchers!”

The moment hung, and then Ishmael started. “Verity? Mike Carter’s little girl Verity!? But your whole family were with the Human Liberation Front! What the fuck happened to you!”

But the mare...Verity, didn’t answer. Instead she turned with a final hateful snort and stomped away into the dark.

For his part, Ishmael did not follow, or do much beyond breathe and stare into the dark after her. He only moved when he heard voices and sirens raise into screams, and small glass phials began to rain from the sky...

As he ran, he briefly trod on a stained-glass window that had been dropped by one of the fleeing baggage-handlers. The artwork had been salvaged from the airbase’s Faith Center, a tribute to nine crewmen killed in a fire aboard the HMCS Kootenay in 1969.

‘To be worthy of those who served before us,’ it read.

*

ONE MILE AWAY

“Potion Attack!” announced the trainmaster at Howard Avenue, hearing the alarms sounding up the hill at the airbase. He spun on his heel and ran across the tiny yard at the end of a shoreside spur-line. “Get ready to move, tout suite!”

His charge was eight short sidings that used to be used for transferring containers between road and rail. Now they held ramshackle consists of freight cars and passenger carriages that had been tied onto whatever motive-power was available. Dispatch papers in hand he ran down the yard, throwing switches and slamming his hand on the side of locomotives as people - soldiers, railroaders, bystanders and chancers all milled around him, desperately climbing on board the trains.

“We’re rolling now! Starting from track one and working through to eight! Run the trains as close together as you safely dare - make sure you’ve got lights and bells configured for street running, and set tail lights on the last vehicle of each train! The emergency radios, signal flares and track torpedoes are all in the maintenance shack, make sure every crew has a set!”

Someone grabbed him by the arm and he lurched to a halt. Glancing down he scowled.

“Not now Miss Jones!”

“You promised me an engine Monsieur Labiche/!” the young woman insisted, expression matching his own in grim determination. Her accent was British, and a grease top cap sat on her mousey brown hair. Despite her small frame, her grip was surprisingly steely.

That did not stop him from dragging her along behind him as he began handing out dispatch orders to conductors and engineers.

“One engine Paul, that’s all I need!” she persisted, jamming her foot against a rail and causing them both to stumble.

“There are NO SPARE ENGINES Tess!” he roared, not caring for her tone. “Can’t you hear the music! Pegasii are bombing the airbase, which means everything has gone to hell! Everything that can turn a wheel, goes now! I’ve not got time for your pet project!”

He pointed to a crew hanging onto the steps of their engine. “Frank! Will! Lash your loco up with Al Turner’s and drag the Grand Continental carriages out of track three. Press up to Moncton and then turn off down the coast line towards Maine. Pick up passengers wherever you can and get them into the US!”

“What about the military fuel tankers on Track 7?”

“Jean-Eric’s rostered on that consist with two AC4400 units. He’ll follow you straight on down to Boston.”

“Cancel that Paul!” came another call, from a heavyset man in fatigues, breathing roughly as he ran towards him. “We’ve got a special cargo stuck up the line in Truro; can you obtain us an engine to shift it ASAP?”

“Oui Colonel Hex, we can break Jean-Eric’s pair up, that leaves...”

“...a spare engine for me!” insisted Tess. “I’ve got a cargo that needs to be moved too!”

“No!” Labiche snapped. “That engine’s staying here on the fuel train, and you’re getting out of my hair! You can ride shotgun with Jean-Eric up to Truro – he’ll need a conductor. From Truro you’re on your own!”

“I don’t work for you Paul!” she shouted back.

His answer was cut off by a sudden scream of turbojet engines being pushed to the limits, and the three of them covered their ears as a 747 howled overhead, hard over and struggling to bank away inland.

“Merde!” Paul swore. “Is that the Volèe flight!? What are they doing!”

“Trying to escape!” Hex shouted, pointing at several tiny bodies that was harassing the jet, pegasai in blue uniforms swarming around the engines and ailerons. One attacker stood out, a lightning contrail blazing arrogantly behind her as she led the assault.

“Flying fuck, it’s Lightning Dust!”

Paul and Tess stared in mute horror as Hex grabbed a radio and began screaming for any pegasi support the PHL could sent their way.

“Duststorm is in play! I confirm, the First Lieutenant of the Wonderbolts is in play, and she’s going after an evacuee flight. All combat units respond now and defend that plane!”

But it was too late. Before he had even finished speaking, flames erupted from all four of the airliner’s engines and it began to fall, plunging towards the harbour.

“Pull up…” Paul pleaded under his breath. “Pull up...please…”

There was no hope. Seconds after the plane disappeared from their view there was a distant, flat boom as gallon upon gallon of aviation fuel burned off in a single pyrrhic explosion. Paul averted his gaze, and found his eyes alighting on Tess, who was gazing towards the crash-site with almost inhuman calm. How could she be so unaffected?

She met his eyes and guessed his thoughts.

“They’re dead Paul,” she said, rolling a crick out of one shoulder as she did. “No sense in crying over something that can’t be changed.”

“Do you ever cry Tess?” he muttered back. Having only known the girl for a few days, he found it unnerving how she only ever seemed to show emotion for the things that interested her. Everything else, from crashed planes to the plight of thousands, had as much luck of drawing a response out of her as Canute had in turning the tide: nil.

“Report.” Hex numbly spoke into his radio. “Control, please report status of the Air Volèe 747.”

[i[“She’s down Colonel,” came the muted answer. “Crashed into the suspension span of the Angus Macdonald bridge. From the way she went in, it looks like some of the Wonderbolts were physically steering her into the bridge.”

“Shit...that only leaves the Murry Mackey bridge connecting both sides of the city. If they take that out…” Hex spoke aloud, echoing internal fears. “Control, vector all fliers we have onto the remaining bridge. I’ll be there ASAP with ground support. It’s our primary line of retreat south when the barrier arrives, we cannot let it fall now!”

“Roger Colonel - what about Search and Rescue for possible survivors from the downed Volèe Heavy?”

Hex shook his head and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to block out the growing scent of flash-burned flesh and fuel. “Is there any point in even looking?”

The radio was silent for several seconds, before hissing out a soft acknowledgment. “Roger that Colonel.”

The transmission cut off with a apathetic ‘click’ and Hex glared in disgust towards the distant fire.

“We’re into the endgame now,” he said, a fatalistic note dancing around his words. “It’s going to start falling apart quickly.”

Paul nodded grimly, and then directed his attention back to his unwanted hang-on.

“Tess, I need everyone who’s got any train-handling experience to help me get as much done as possible in the shortest time...you’re from a railroading family and I trust you to know the meaning of duty - we keep the trains moving, no matter what. If you need to go to Dalhousie, then you’ll have to hitchhike your way on from Truro.”

He straightened the cap on her head and then pointed across the yard. “You’re on unit 9782. The engineer is Jean-Eric Voight. I’ll send you out first and the rest will follow on.”

He scribbled out a dispatch order, marking the waybill with the locomotive’s number and the prefix ‘CPX’ - Canadian Pacific Railway, Extra-Priority Working.

“The two of you are now responsible for train CPX-9782; light-power from here to Truro, and from there it’ll be under military control and you’ll be free to do your own thing. Show this waybill to any dispatcher from here to the border and they’ll try their best to fit the train into the schedules. Make sure you hand it over to whoevers takes responsibility for the train off you in Truro”

Tess took the slip from his hand, mouth momentarily opening to argue. Then she frowned moodily and ran off, a backpack hanging from her shoulders.

“Resourceful girl, or pain in the ass?” Colonel Hex asked.

“Both,” Paul answered. “She’s been round these yards for a week, trying to beg, borrow or steal an engine to shift some worthless consist out of the port at Dalhousie...”

He shook his head and glanced at Hex.

“Paperwork counts for little now I guess, but on whose orders am I releasing an engine into military service?”

Hicks answered immediately. “Commander Marcus Renee’s – he’s assembling everything we can put together in Boston – he says we’re going to draw the line there, whatever that means.”

Paul stared up at the moon for a second, feeling the rain settle on his face.

“At the rate it’s going, the barrier will reach Boston in seven days...and us in two. Ah well, c’est-la-vie.”

He turned to face the trains under his command and cupped his hands.

“That’s it, madams et monsieurs! Roll the trains!”

The iron horses replied with a chorus of air-horns, roaring their defiance into the unfriendly sky.

TWO DAYS UNTIL THE FALL OF HALIFAX: ONE WEEK UNTIL THE FIRST BATTLE OF BOSTON

*

“A week...how the HAY did we drop her a week into the past?”

“I...I don’t know . I mean, she was attempting a sonic rainboom, and there’s the mass effect differential, but I thought I’d accounted for all factors...”

“You did Em...hic...you did...sniff.”

“La...why are you sobbing?”

“I knew girls...I knew.”

“Laughter, what did you do!?”

“Pinkie’s Sense told me this had already happened, so I made it happen...poor Dust...sniff. Poor, poor Lightning Dust...”

CHAPTER ONE END

Author's Notes:

Chapter One down, who knows how many to go.

Feedback and opinions are always welcome, so feel free to take this apart to your hearts content - that's the only way I'm going to get better.

As an aside, every location described in the text is a real place. You can track Dust's flight from Boston all the way to Portland Harbour on Google Earth, and the events in Halifax as well.