“So, Frescas, would you like to explain what we have them up here for?” Pastel pulled my attention back to the nervous looking cloudship captain who looked oh so happy to have the subject changed for her.

Honestly, I knew that awkward feeling all too well after bluntly blurting out everything I have so far on this trip. But something was off here. These Rangers were definitely hiding something from us.

“Yes, of course!” Captain Frescas nodded as she spun around and waved for us to follow. “The trouble began after we captured the Arcturus from the Enclave following the battle of bunker mountain. While the captain at the time did have the decency not to scuttle her, she did manage to put her core data processing systems into some sort of security lockout mode.”

“Hence the need for the clearance codes.” Hispano chimed in as the two of us followed the Captain towards a sealed bulkhead at the back of the control room. Just above the door, the words ‘core systems’ were painted in white. “Still, if it’s as good at surveillance as it’s been made out to be, how did you toasters manage to get aboard this ship in the first place?”

“We had… help.” Captain Pastel spoke slowly as he put himself right on our rear. “It’s not important. What is however, is that the workaround we were given only halfway worked to bypass the lockout. While we have control navigation and some of the basic sensors, we still haven’t regained access to the advanced sensor suite. Which as you may assume, is the real prize this ship offers.”

Opening the sealed door, Captain Frescas stepped through into a small room. The flickering of terminal lights, and buzzing of arcane instruments bled out into the control room from inside, and a wave of warm air smacked me in the face. Following her in, I was met with more of the same bulky terminals lining the back wall feeding messes of wires all over the roof and floor. However, a vertical shaft rose from the floor, feeding all the wires through into yet another one of those silverfish drone things.

“Another one?” My muzzle spat the words out as I trotted up to the device. Like the one that was up in the air control tower, this one seemed to be networked into everything around here.

“So you noticed the one in the tower then.” Captain Frescas nodded as she stepped up. “A shady trader had stopped by, saying that they had downed it with a lucky shot…”

“But you couldn’t find a single damaged part on it, could you?” I spoke up, looking back to find her narrowed eyes suspiciously glaring at me. Slowly she nodded, rolling her hoof for me to continue. “This is now the third of these ‘silver fish drones’ I’ve seen in the last day, but so far nopony can explain what they are, where they came from, or what they’re even doing in the wastes.”

“What can you tell us about them?” Hispano stepped up beside me, leaning in close and inspecting the drone meticulously.

“Not much.” Pastel turned his gaze elsewhere as he spoke, probably deciding on just how much he wanted to say on the subject. “These peculiar devices are incredibly powerful and complex processing machines, with no standard vacuum tubes or spell talismans running their central matrices. Rather, they have these tiny little black boxes made of silicon that somehow act as highly effective processing units.”

“They’re a hundred times more capable than anything we've ever seen, though we have no idea how they work at all.” Reaching out, Frescas ran her hoof over the sleek silver casing, almost caressing the small machine lovingly. “We've run multiple tests on the two units we have, and they always appear to boost our computing capabilities with no adverse effects. There's no extra code being written in, no altered records of whatever we run through it. Yet, they still run through our commands and do as we ask and we can’t really explain how or why.”

“We still don't understand where they come from either, or what their original purpose was.” Captain Pastel continued on as he shut the door behind him. “They contain far more advanced components than any piece of Equestrian archano-tech or Zebra tech we've seen thus far. Instead, it looks to have the perfect melding of both societies’ technology. They can be seen all over the north if you look hard enough, yet no group has so far claimed to own them.”

“Huh, guess my dad was being serious after all…” Reaching up, Hispano jammed her talon up under her flight cap and gave a few good scratches at her head feathers. “He had a theory he told me a while back, but I thought he was only joking with me seeing as I’d never seen one of these until today. He’d proposed that this was how that stallion on the radio gets his news.” Hispano spoke up as she stepped back from the device. “Think about it. They have no weapons, only visual and audio sensors that feed data through an extremely high bandwidth transmitter. Hundreds of these silverfish things flying around, only there to observe and report.”

“A solid theory of course, but neither of these ‘silverfish’ as you call them, are transmitting anything at all. Their transmitters are functional, but we’ve detected no signal from them. They simply process what we tell them to, and that is that.” Captain Frescas almost sounded annoyed by Hispano’s theory, offended even. “They are fascinating little mystery devices if anything, but harmless from what we've seen so far.”

“So if it’s that damn good, why can’t it override the lockout?” Hispano fired back, crossing her talons with a smirk across her beak.

“Because the lockout requires a pegasus to be present, along with somepony who has a high enough clearance code to reset the system. With you two here, the drone should be able to do most of the heavy lifting in cracking the lockout.” Reaching behind the silverfish, Captain Frescas gave a yank on a pair of cords. Squeezing them in her fetlock, she turned to me and held them out. “These clamps must be worn around pegasus wings while they both channel their flight magic through them, and enter the codes.”

“Alright, sounds easy enough?” I reached out, grabbing the cords and bringing them up to my face. The small ceramic spring-locked rings had some sort of metal strip set on the inside which I assumed would detect the flight magic. Otherwise, the two clasps looked fairly plain and simple.

“Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.” Hispano groaned as she snatched the clasps from my hoof. Within another few seconds, she had easily clamped them around the base of each of my wings. She slung Suiza snugly over herself before turning and sitting down in front of one of the many terminals in the room.

“Just, one moment.” I spoke up, turning to look at both Captain Frescas and Captain Pastel. “You said you took this ship from the Enclave, and that the captain locked it out. But you never explained what happened to them afterwards.” My words hit each of them differently, with Captain Frescas looking ashamed, and Pastel looking somewhat sorrowful. “What happened to the crew?”

“Fifteen of her crew escaped and fled the combat zone before we even got to her.” Captain Frescas stepped forward and took her Enclave captain’s hat into her hoof. “The officers however, chose to take their own lives as we boarded.”

“You have to understand, we were going to strip them of their weapons and let them go.” Captain Pastel stepped up beside Frescas and extended his wing around her. “We had no interest in killing any of the Enclave soldiers when they brought their fight down to us, and even though we won that fight after three long days, we still didn’t wish to see them killed.”

I… can’t really be mad at them then, can I? I mean, they could be lying to me by just telling me what I wanted to hear so I’d help them. But somehow, just looking at them, I felt like that wasn’t at all what they were trying to do. For once, it felt like a stranger was genuinely telling me truth when they wanted my help.

Then again, I’ve been a gullible sucker this whole damn trip so far...

“Thank you.” I nodded before turning to Hispano. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

“Alright then, it’s going to suck, but when I tell you to, you’re going to have to hover for about a half a minute while I enter in the codes and start the reboot.” Hispano grumbled as she put talon to keyboard and started to run through whatever it was that she did to make terminals listen to her. “Switching over to reboot protocol. System moving into standby mode…” The lights inside the cloudship flickered out for a moment, being replaced by the flashing red emergency lighting that was standard on all cloudships. “Alright, start hovering now, Dum Dum. The rest of you, hold onto your butts!”

I groaned as I pushed myself onto the tips of my hooves and flared out my wings. I concentrated as hard as I could into pushing myself up off the floor. But between the almost boiling air in the room, and the awkward weight of the jump pack still strapped to my back, I couldn’t get myself to lift off. Fucking stupid flat feathers!

“Uhhhh… that’s not good enough!” Hispano squawked as she hammered at the terminal harder. “You need to fly, Dum Dum! Right now!”

“I’m trying!” I snapped at her before letting myself rest for just a moment. Come on, Night, you can do this! Hell, Bombay could do this with her eyes closed, right? It’s easy, just channel her and you’ll be good in no time!

I nearly jumped out of my skin as a loud alarm began to blare above me.

“The whole core system is entering failsafe mode!” Captain Frescas shouted. “We only have one minute to perform the reset or the whole ship fucking blows itself to bits over the tarmac. So you fix this shit right now!”

“I know!” Hispano barked back as her talons flew over the keyboard almost as nothing more than a blur. “I’m trying to slow down the failsafe scripts, but it’d be a whole lot easier if Night here could just fucking fly!”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Come on, what the hell is wrong with you? This isn’t even about your stupid disability, it’s about just forcing yourself to stay in the air for thirty seconds. That’s never been a problem before, it’s just always sucked to do is all. So why is it such a big deal now? Buck and I talked about this, it’s a choice to fly, and I’m choosing to! So why can’t I…

A bolt of electricity snapped out from the silverfish at me, and the sudden pain from it in my chest made me jump back. Instinctively, my mind took over from the jump, forcing me to hover where I was as I rubbed at my sizzling coat. Still, the moment I was in the air, a countdown timer appeared on the screen that Hispano was working at.

“Alright, that’s good! Just hold it there for another twenty five seconds!” She never even looked up as she spoke, quickly hammering at the keys with her talons and working through line after line of what looked like gibberish to me.

Still, I tried my best to keep my wings flared and pushed myself upward. I knew that it was only a matter of seconds, but each one began to stretch into twice what the previous was. My wings, legs, and back felt like they were starting to burn, and the thick warm air in here felt like I was almost breathing in water now.

But finally the alarms stopped ringing, and the flashing red emergency lights flickered away. The normal lighting in the cloudship popped back to life, and a resounding cheer went up throughout the whole ship. With that, I felt my wings give out, and I was dumped down onto the wire covered floor in a panting heap.

“Message coming through the VLF system, Captain!” The voice of a mare came through an intercom in the room. “EAM broadcast signal confirmed. Celestial tier emergency response authority has been granted to the Arcturus. All cloudship systems now showing ready across the board!”

“We did it!” Captain Frescas giggled excitedly as she practically threw herself into the arms of Captain Pastel. Looking up at them, again I found myself timed perfectly to watch as she pressed herself against his beak in a short, but passionate kiss.

“Oh Celestia, that sucked.” I groaned as I moved to pick myself up. As I did, I felt Hispano’s talons wrap around me and help to pull me up. In what should have been a totally expected turn of events, as I turned to look at her, she too kissed me. Then as soon as the bliss from that washed away, the pain from her balled up talon across the top of my head snapped me back to reality.

“What the fuck were you doing just then? This wasn’t a pleasure cruise!” She snapped at me. “It’s almost like you want to keep fucking up.”

“What happened to it being Buck’s job to scold me for that?” I whimpered as I rubbed at my head. She rolled her eyes as she flashed a smirk and took a step back.

“Still, you two performed admirably.” Captain Frescas muttered as she wiped at her muzzle a bit. Looking back at Captain Pastel, I found that he was probably still in his post kiss bliss phase. Huh, I wonder if that’s what I look like when that happens... “Though if it’s not to much to ask, in case we need it again, what is the Enclave code you used?”

“The code is twelve zeros.” Hispano responded so starkly that I had to run it through my mind again to make sure there wasn’t some sort of sarcasm that I was missing. “It’s pretty genius when you think about it.”

“They hid access to all their systems… behind twelve zeros?” Pastel grumbled as he facetaloned and wiped away his blissful look. “That’s not genius, that’s the dumbest thing they could have ever done! That’s just asking for a disaster to happen!”

“Not exactly.” Hispano crossed her talons as she looked over to me. “Hey, Dum Dum. If you were to start with trying to crack a twelve digit code, what number would you start at?”

“I’d start with eleven zeros and a one because twelve zeros doesn’t make a distinguishable code.” I shrugged. “I know the logic behind it, Hispano, but for what it’s worth, you’re both correct. It’s both genius and stupid at the same time. And to be honest, it explains a lot to me about how backwards the whole of the Enclave turned out to be. They lied to us about the ground when we could have come down and help. Instead, they go and do their ‘Operation Cauterize’ or whatever, and gave us all a bad name.”

“They weren’t the only ones to be idiots.” Captain Frescas offered as she looked back at Pastel. “Idiocy was what got the world to where it is now, and there’s no one party to blame for that.”

A small beep came from the terminal beside Hispano, causing her to wander over and read whatever message had popped up on it.

“What the…” She spoke up before giving a few taps at the keyboard. “Hey, Night? You should come and see this report that’s come up.”

“What is it? More records of the Enclave’s atrocities?” I know that I shouldn’t really hate the government that at least allowed me to exist above the clouds for as long as I did, but I couldn’t forgive them for their shit. And while I could move on from the events in my life, the Enclave was something I’d never be able to outrun or get away from. And I hated that more and more each day.

Plopping myself down next to Hispano, I stared at the lump of text on the screen.

Due to the unique overperformance observed by the prototype sensor pods and cloud stealth systems on cloudship NX-19 Arcturus, Ministry Head Rainbow Dash has given her authorization for Operation Skyburst to be put into action by General Turbulence by the end of the week. Ministry Head Rainbow Dash, agrees that should any of the planned Mistral class cloudships fall into the hooves of the zebras, the tactical advantages those captured ships would give to the enemy would far outweigh the benefit the ships would offer in the first place.

Therefore, Operation Skyburst will be set up a staged accident. It will appear to the zebras and to the public of Equestria that the prototype ship and all its test crew perished. A staged investigation will then commence, and present evidence that will point to flaws in the design of key systems. The still-in-dock fleet of Mistral class ships will be refit with standard surveillance equipment, which will still perform within the required parameters for the project contract. All existing documents, mock ups, and schematics for the prototype sensor systems, as well as those already installed or slated to be installed on the Mistral class, will be destroyed totally and thoroughly through magical incineration.

Following the staged accident, under your command, the NX-19 Arcturus will then continue on under a black title commission as vessel CSN-140 HMS Arcturus. Ministry Head Rainbow Dash has authorized your stationing outside of the zebra capitol of Roam for long term surveillance operations, as well as the use of the remote activation of her failsafe systems should she be for any reason detected.

The continued belief that the Arcturus was a failed prototype will not only protect the security of Equestria, but is a necessity to ensure that we maintain the operational and technological edge over the Zebra Empire.

As the Captain of the Arcturus and her crew, it is now your duty to uphold this knowledge no matter what the implications or cost may be. Should this worst case scenario come to pass, the Princesses, the heads of the Ministries, and Equestria all thank you and your crew for their sacrifice. Good luck, Captain, and may the glory of Equestria guide your mission to success.

“So… they hid her away because she was too good at being a spy ship?” Hispano slumped back a bit, seeming just as confused as I was.

“I guess.” I shrugged, not sure what to think of all that. “But somehow now I feel like maybe I shouldn’t jump on hating the Enclave. Maybe like the risks this ship posed, there was a reason behind the choices they made. Something we just don’t know, you know?”

“That’s the problem when you’re at war.” Captain Pastel spoke up, “You make compromises that you think are for the best. And sometimes, they aren’t. But I’ve read that memo several times, and you know what I took away from it?” Looking up at Hispano and I, he smirked and chuckled. “You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, because sometimes there’s more going on than you think. For example, despite what us rangers might think of you outsiders, you two turned out to be pretty alright, as did the unicorn and buffalo down there.”

“Yeah, while some of you might be weird, I’ve talked to plenty who seem like genuinely nice folk.” Captain Frescas spoke up before she froze and nearly turned white. “That’s not… what I meant to say is… you see…”

Again, something saved the Captain from her awkward situation. However, this time it was the lights on the sub flicking over to the emergency reds again, and the alarm bell ringing.

“Ma’am, we’ve got a security breach in the base!” The voice of a mare called out again over the intercom. “There’s an outsider in containment area one. A mule appears to have been led inside by one of the occupants. What are your orders? Should I inform the elder?”

Wait, a mule?

“Goddess dammit, Happy.” I facehooved myself hard as both Captain Frescas and Captain Pastel raced to get the bulkhead door open. “Alright, Hispano. Let’s go see if we can keep them from shooting him.”

“I don’t think so.” Captain Pastel turned as Frescas threw the door open and bolted through it. “You two are going to sit right here until we get the truth out of you.” From behind his combat armor, the griffon captain pulled a fairly large revolver out and pointed it at Hispano as she went to unsling her sister. “That would be a bad idea.”

“You want us to be truthful?” I didn’t even need Bombay’s help as I spat at Pastel. “We already fixed your ship, we just want to know what’s going on so we can help.” Seriously, was there ever going to be a time where somepony who asked me to do something for them didn’t end up with me sitting at gunpoint somehow? “If you don’t want our help, then tell us what the fuck you do want from us.”

“You can start by telling us who sent you here.” Captain Pastel used his talon to drag back the hammer on his revolver to pull my attention onto him. “Back Breaker? Swift Runner? Or has Mister Wizard himself finally become so desperate to reclaim his property that he’s hiring any convoy he can?” Property? What the fuck was he talking about? “Regardless, until you tell us, you and the rest of your hired friends aren’t going anywhere.”

“See Dum Dum, what did I tell you outside?” Hispano sat back and folded her talons across herself. “Shit always gets interesting around you.”

“We have been nothing but cooperative so far.” I facehooved as I grumbled. Seriously, I knew that Happy had this amazing ability to piss ponies off, but putting a whole settlement of rangers on alert had to be a new record for him. “The least you could do is consider that maybe this is all some sort of big misunderstanding.”

“What happened to all that ‘don’t judge a book’ bullshit you were just talking about?” Hispano thought it best to be more blunt in calling out how unfair this shit was. Not sure I agreed it was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t knock her for it really.

Gazing past the armed ranger griffon, I glanced back into the control room and at one of the terminals displaying images of the area below. I should have realized it before, but that one camera pointed at the mountainside should have felt a bit more odd to me. Moreso as now that happened to be the monitor that Happy was on, while what looked to be a zebra mare lead him up through a thin path on the rocks.

Then Happy and the zebra mare disappeared into thin air.

Just what in the hell was going on around here? And why couldn’t I get a single goddess damned answer out of Captain Pastel? He seemed perfectly fine to chat it up earlier!

The throbbing in my wings from hovering myself flared up, bringing with it the aches and pains of the rest of my body. My stump in my prosthetic, the gouging scars that Galina put across my chest and barrel, and even my fucking eye started to ebb again. My pain wasn’t going to wait for the Rangers to feel like trusting us again, and more than anything, I wanted to get back down to the convoy and get some more painkillers in my system. Then we could work shit out from there.

“Ma’am, the tower reports long range doppler pings! Multiple incoming airborne contacts from the Northeast!” One of the robed mares in the command center shouted loudly enough that both Hispano and I winced.

“Damnit, what now?” Captain Frescas groaned. Well, at least I wasn’t the only one feeling like today could be going better than it had so far. “Alright, rig the ship for silent running. Scribe Navigator, turn us along heading zero nine zero. Get the RWR talismans warmed up, I want to see if anything out there has an active radar talisman pinging away at us.”

“Heading zero nine zero, aye ma’am.” A robed stallion called out from the navigator’s station across the bridge.

“I’m sorry that I can’t answer your questions right now, nor can I let you go.” Captain Pastel sighed and shifted so he blocked my sight into the command center. “Steel Ranger protocol dictates that we deal with imminent threats to the compound before any internal matters. So for the moment, I’m going to have to ask that you sit tight.”

“Ping complete.” The mare at the radar station shouted back. “Thirty one active returns!”

“Seriously? What, have they sent a whole damn fleet of buzzbombers at us?” Captain Frescas pinched her muzzle between her fetlock, thinking for a moment. “Alright, call the tower. Tell them to get Channel four and five in the air, and get the arms crew to load up the Claymore and have her take off on runway one ASAP. The defence of this airfield is now priority one.”

“Ma'am, we're also getting a distress call on an open frequency.” The mare who spoke up before called out again. While he could block my sight, Pastel couldn’t stop me from hearing things. “The craft is fifty miles out, same range as the incoming contacts, and the transponder talisman is reading Seven Five Zero Zero.”

“Set the broadcast to bridge coms and play it back. I want to hear it.” Captain Frescas didn’t sound all to enthusiastic about this interruption, but I had to wonder what she would do. With a fuzzy crackle, the sound of a stallion came over the radio.

“This is callsign Bandit squawking seven five zero zero, coming in from your bearing zero eight two, about ten minutes out. If any of you fine rangers would love to help a stallion out with a bit of a buzzbomb problem, I'll gladly hoof over Foul Line's personal ride. The alternative of course is finding out how long I can make this bird dance before you have to salvage the pieces of her from the nice puritan village I'll be exploding over.”

“Of course it’s fucking Double Delta.” Captain Frescas’ audible facehoof came almost at the same time that Captain Pastel rolled his eyes. “Get the tower on the line. Relay what I said before, and get me the Elder.”

“Hey,” Hispano scrunched up her beak as she looked up at the Captain pointing the gun at her. “Isn’t Double Delta the king of the Skyraiders? I thought I’d heard that somewhere.”

“Was the king, in the same way he was once a Ranger.” Pastel deadpanned as he sighed. “Honestly, he shouldn’t have come back. He’d be better off crashing into that village and burning it to the ground. He’d be doing us all a favor for once in his fucking life.”

“How could you say that?” I spoke up without thinking, but immediately forced myself to continue. “What’s so bad about that place that you’d want to let him destroy an entire village? From what you had on the screens in there, it’s just a bunch of farms.”

“They’re Puritans. Their whole kingdom just wants to destroy technology, rather than preserve it. The whole lot of them would be better off dead than living as the simpletons they pretend they are.” He spoke with a sort of complete sincerity to his words that left me without a doubt that this was a fact to him. Like somehow it justified what he was implying should happen to them.

“So… you’re really okay with letting them all die, along with this Double Delta person?” I understood that Double Delta was a skyraider, but he had supposedly been a Ranger. And if Violet could ever prove to be a more viable example of redemption than right now, I wouldn’t ever have let the next words come from my muzzle. “I think you should get out there and help him. He doesn’t have to die, and neither does anyone in that village.”

“Yeah, well it’s not my call to make.” It was easy to see in that moment, how Pastel glared at me and bristled up his plumage. He’d gone from someone who commended my friends, to someone who was suspicious of Hispano and I. And even now, he went straight to a look like I’d stabbed him right in the back. “That decision rests on the Elder, and is none of your concern.”

You know, if it weren’t for the fact that I could almost feel my blood boil from that dismissal, I wouldn’t have remembered that I had exactly the pony I needed to call on for this. Even better than that, I had a poorly thought out plan that I could almost hear her whispering in my mind to jump on. Taking a few deep breaths, I doned the mindset that was Bombay, and flashed a wide grin across my muzzle. Which of course, made Pastel’s expression shift to confusion.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate what you should be doing.” I did my best to saddle up next to Hispano and used my wing to pull her in closely. Even she seemed uncomfortably confused by this, but I’d just have to trust that she’d go with whatever I said. “Look, you’ve obviously got more to worry about, Captain, and it’s been a stressful day for all of us. And you see, I haven’t really been able to spend any time alone with the love of my life here.” From the heat I could basically feel radiating off Hispano’s cheeks, I knew she would at least sell this to him for the time being. “So how about this? You take us back to the bunks, lock us in, let us have some alone time to destress a bit. Then you can come get us when you’re done with this emergency stuff.”

It was a huge risk in seeing if he would be lenient enough to put us in the bunks, rather than the on ship brig. But at the moment, it was basically my only card to play. The Enclave would publicly flog an officer for a decision like the one I wanted him to make, but I had to trust that the rangers were at least a little more loose about their rules. Thankfully for me, Hispano was the most brilliant griffon I knew, and wrapped up this deal in a neat little bow.

“Look, from one griffon to another, I know how hard a father can be when you want to have a relationship outside your own species.” She spoke softly, pressing her talons together as her cheeks continued to burn brighter than the emergency lighting in the other room. “Just… a half hour, that’s all we need. Then we’ll answer every question you have.”

“Fine. You get a half hour.” Pastel sighed, lowering his gun slightly, but reaching out with his other talon. “But of course you have to give me your gun for the time being.” Nodding, Hispano reluctantly dragged her sister off her back and gave her over. “Alright, follow me.”

The locking lugs on the bulkhead door squealed as they were forced shut. Hispano and I had been thankfully left alone inside the bunk room, though I had no idea if Captain Pastel would end up stationing some sort of guard for us just outside. Considering he was the only one onboard who even seemed to be armed at all, I had to guess that it wouldn’t be the case. Guess we’d just have to find out and deal with it then!

The small bunk room only contained about sixteen bunk beds, and was meant for only about half the crew to sleep in at a time. A few extra open bunks in the rear were more lavish compared to the others, and normally reserved for Shadowbolt teams to occupy if they were onboard. But of course, that was a full wartime complement. If I had to guess, seeing as she wasn’t sailing anywhere, this ship had substantially less crew than even the Enclave would have liked. And seeing as there wasn’t anypony in here now, I’d have to think that they only had a staggered crew of one or two running things through the night.

“Alright, Dum Dum.” Hispano cooed softly as she pressed against me, running her talon along the edge of my wing. “You want me? You’ve got me.” She gave her eyes a sultry bat, and brought her beak up to my ear and whispered into it. “And you know that as a talon, I love nothing more than when we can get right down to business.”

Oh goddesses, did she actually believe me when I said we needed some alone time? Gazing down at her with what I’d hoped would come across as an incredulous glare, she couldn’t keep up the act. Her own look cracked as she giggled and rolled her eyes at me.

“Oh come on, you can’t blame me for that.” Reaching up, she made me scrunch my muzzle with a quick boop from her talon. “I know you just wanted to get us alone so we could figure some way out of this. Please tell me you already have some sort of plan in mind. Because while I do know a lot, the specifics and interiors of cloudships aren’t really one of them. This Enclave shit is more your forte.”

“Oh thank the goddesses, you were joking.” I sighed as it felt the slightest bit of pressure lifted off my mind. Now was not the time to go about reminding Hispano about why she shouldn’t be asking me things like that! Still, I gave her a nod, eager to get us both out of here. That stallion wasn’t far out when he called, and we needed every moment we could get. “Well, it’s not so much a solid plan, but I have an idea how we can get off this ship and go help that stallion on the radio.”

“Oh, that’s such a relief!” Hispano deadpanned as she prodded at my chest. “Lets see, you can't sneak worth shit, so that option is out. You refuse to kill ponies unnecessarily, even though they'll gladly shoot and kill us of course. Plus, we don’t have Suiza, so good luck with intimidating them.” Oh come on! She makes it sound like I’m always the bad guy for wanting to be civil, and though it never really works out that way, we could still fucking fucking try! “Which means your plan somehow involves talking us off this ship, which right now, I'm highly doubting will even get us back onto the bridge, let alone out through it. Great plan, Dum Dum, but try harder next time.”

“I love that you wholeheartedly believe in me, I really do. But I’ve noticed something about this ship.” I grumbled and sat down on the floor and grasped my forehooves around my prosthetic. “Tell me...” With a sharp yank, I pulled my stump out of my prosthetic. The warm air inside the ship felt good against my skin, and the light ebbing pain in it dissipated slightly. “How many armed soldiers did you see on this ship?”

“Just Captain Pastel, but I don’t really get what you’re trying to go for.” She huffed, looking about the room. “He’s got his gun and Suiza. There’s also the fact that he’s standing between us and the exit out of this flying tin can.”

“An exit, sure.” I smirked as she canted her head quizzically. “Mistral class cloudships are more than simple airborne listening posts. They were designed to carry six pony teams of Shadowbolts on covert missions, able to use their vertical launch tubes to drop them over any operation zone quickly and quietly.”

“Goddesses, you’re such an Enclave dweeb.” She gave me a playful punch on the shoulder that I returned with a smirk. “So, that’s fine if that’s our exit. But if it’s where they keep the armaments for this ship, I’m pretty sure it’ll be guarded, or at the very least, occupied.” Eyeing me with a grimace, she shrugged. “We may have to hurt them to get out of here. You going to be okay with that?”

“Well, they’ll think twice when you sneak up on one of them and hold them at knifepoint!” I grinned and held out my prosthetic to her. Of course, she looked quite unamused at my idea.

“That’s not even sharp, Dum Dum.” She grunted.

“But they don’t know that!” I offered, waggling the leg in my hoof. “And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just have to knock them out or something.”

“Pft.” Hispano snatched the prosthetic from my hooves. “That could be hard. Not everypony finds themselves knocked out as easily as you, you know.” Oh har har. She probably wouldn’t be making those sort of comments if she’d lost a leg and an eye! Then again, she’s been smart enough to have avoided that issue in the first place… “But I have to give you this one. As a plan, I don’t hate it. It’s going to go to shit of course, but I don’t hate it.”

“It’s something my mom used to tell me from her training days. A message they’d beat into the heads of all the Enclave soldiers.” Getting to my hooves, I turned and hobbled over toward the sealed door. “No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, so get used to improvising.” Reaching up, I grabbed onto a few of the locking arms with my fetlock and started to yank down on them. “Now, help me open this bulkhead, and let’s get out of here. We’ve got a stallion to help, and a village to save.”

“Of course we do.” Hispano nodded and hefted up my prosthetic leg. “Why? Because then we’ll both be big damn heroes.” Rolling her eyes, she fed the leg through one of the levers and used it as a pry bar. “And nothing bad ever comes of being a hero in the wasteland...”

As much as Cloudships like this borrowed their design from naval submarines, I was finding myself increasingly glad that it didn’t resemble Mrs. Tapit’s beached boat. One of these days, I’d climb into a ship and actually get back out the way normal ponies were supposed to. Then again, my life in the wasteland has been anything but normal...

The launch bay laid midship, only two rooms away from the bunks. Thankfully, the only room that had been occupied was the galley, where the cook was too embroiled in making something and dancing to the tunes of DJ PowerColt to even notice Hispano and I walk by. Both of our stomachs gave off ravenous growls as the scent of boiling vegetables hit us hard, and I had to force myself to keep going. First, we’ll get out of the ship, then we’ll save the stallion and the village, and then we’ll get food.

Peeking my head into the launch bay, I had to stifle my own gasp as I pulled myself back around the corner. This ship was fully stocked with Cloud to ground munitions. Dozens of gravity bombs, chemical warheads, and cluster munitions sat ready and waiting on the loading racks. Along with them, sitting on an articulating arm, was a rotating rack with a few Cloud to Cloud missiles still sitting on it. Given this loadout and the right positioning, this ship could probably annihilate any ground installation faster than they could ever hope to react.

Only a pair of robed ponies walked around inside the bay, hastily scribbling stuff down as they looked over the various instruments that controlled the weapon and launch systems. Jeez, these Steel Rangers really did like to write things down! Maybe the reason they have hallways crammed full of papers in the administration building was because it's full of these reports and logs split between counting every blinking light in this ship and how much damn kitchenware they'd taken from outsiders!

Hispano pointed over to the closer pony, motioning with my leg that it would be her target. The mare looked to be a unicorn with a bright orange coat that practically outshone the red robes draped over her. I nodded to Hispano, hoping that our little deception would work. Or at the very least, that it would buy us some time to figure out how to escape.

“You can come in, you know.” The orange mare spoke up, pulling the attention of the stallion across the room to her, as well as making both Hispano and I press ourselves further against the door. Her voice made her sound like she was a younger mare, probably somewhere between Hispano’s and my age. “I could literally hear you hobbling your way over to the doorway, let alone that gasp you gave out.”

“Were we expecting visitors, Tofu?” The stallion asked slowly before pressing his old and cracked glasses up over his violet colored eyes. He however, sounded kinda like my dad’s age, so he was probably not somepony who’d be easily fooled by Hispano and I’s trick. “I don’t like this, you didn’t say anything about anypony showing up.” His dull white coat was mottled slightly with tan patches, but what stuck out about him was the coatless skin that ringed around his neck.

“No, but if they’re on board, you can bet that the Captain knows about them.” Tofu sighed. “Don’t be so nervous, Spackle. You’ve made an excellent scribe since you arrived, so keep logging the metrics for the autoloading system and make sure it hasn’t deviated to the settings it was on before we received full fire control authority. Okay?”

Glancing over at Hispano, she gave a stabbing motion with my prosthetic. Guess she still wanted to follow the plan. Shaking my head to her, I was pretty sure our plan went out the window the moment they knew we were here. I however, had a different idea of how to do this now. Hopefully it didn’t take all that much longer to do though, as we need all of the time we can get.

“I didn’t want to disturb your work is all.” I spoke out as I leaned my head around the corner. “I hope I’m not too much of a distraction to either of you.” Alright, maybe if I can actually be just that, Hispano could slip in quietly and get to opening the tubes. While she may never have done anything like this before, I was hoping that she was smart enough to figure it out.

I watched as the young mare pushed back her hood and looked in my direction. Her eyes paused as she looked at my fake eye for a moment, but then flashed me a smile as I hobbled into the doorway. Then her eyes drifted to my sides and a realization hit her.

“Oh, you’re a pegasus. Well, I’m journypony scribe Tofu Crisp, and my friend over there is my apprentice, Sprinkle Spackle.” Tofu waved me to come in further as her magic set down her clipboard and papers she’d been writing on. “You must be who we have to thank for the release of the lockdown! Now that everything’s back on, there’s so many bits and bobs that I’ll be able to investigate and maybe even improve on! You have no idea how great this is, as I’ve literally been dying of boredom watching the same gauges everyday.”

“Why.” Spackle spat at me, throwing down his own clipboard. It skittered across the floor before Tofu grasped it in her magic. “Why would you, a pegasus, want to help the Steel Rangers? After all you Enclave fucks did, you think this just makes everything all better, don’t you!? Like you don’t need to pay for everything you did to us down here!”

“Calm yourself, apprentice. You need to chill.” Tofu snapped at him, though from his aggressive stance and the glare he had locked on me, I’m not sure he was listening. “This mare had nothing to do with your past. So you’re going to drop it, and that’s an order by your superior.”

“I don’t care if the Captain vetted you, or even if their Elder did! All you Enclave cowards deserve to be put down in the dirt.” Spackle snarled before turning and heading for the door I’d come in from. Shit, he was heading right for where Hispano was! “I didn’t sign up to work with fucking turkeys, so come get me when she’s…”

Hispano growled as she came around the corner and slammed right into the stallion’s chest. The two of them went down hard onto the metal deck. I couldn’t really make out whose whine was louder, Spackle’s as the wind was knocked from him, or Tofu’s as she immediately threw her hooves up over her muzzle in surprised. With a growl, Hispano swung my leg down and knocked Spackle out cold.

“Sorry about that.” Hispano groaned as she picked herself up off the floor. “We were just trying to…” With a meaty thwack, the clipboards that the two scribes had been using were quickly and repeatedly being beaten against Hispano’s head. Not that the hits would do much damage anyway, her leather flight cap at least made them little more than an annoyance to her. “Gah… stop! We’re just… hey!”

Tofu’s focus on the clipboards broke as she turned and bolted for the open door. As she did, Hispano lashed out with her talons and grabbed around the lengthy crimson robes. With a torquing twist, Hispano dove towards me and pulled Tofu back away from the door. The orange mare was yanked back with a squeak, coming down onto the deck plating with a thump.

“Dum Dum?” Hispano grunted as she quickly pulled more and more of the cloak, dragging Tofu closer to her. “The door?”

“Oh, right!” I gasped and hopped over the two of them. Quickly getting to the open bulkhead, I hoofed and swung the door inward. As softly as I could, I shut it, and began to twist the locking lugs into place. With a clunk, the door mechanisms locked, and we were in the clear for now.

“W-what do y-you want!?” Tofu whimpered, sniffling as she started to tear up.

“We don’t want to hurt anypony,” I spoke up as I trotted back over to HIspano and picked up my prosthetic from the floor. “we just want to leave, that’s all.”

Sitting down, I shoved the prosthetic cup back over my stump, and relaxed a bit as the familiar pressure of it’s suction came back to me. Now, if only I could get rid of the ebbing aches all over me, things would be tolerable for once...

“You don’t want to hurt anypony!?” She whined, looking over at the unconscious form of Spackle next to her. With a speed that I wasn’t expecting, Tofu rolled herself and attempted to push back onto her hooves. As she did, Hispano rolled the opposite way and used her robes to pull her back down to the floor. “Shit!” She whined as she dropped back down with another thump. “But, you… you literally killed Spackle. Why would I ever believe you?”

“Listen, lady, he’s not fucking dead. So calm down and listen up.” As she spoke, Hispano got back to her paws and used her free talon to adjust how her leather flight cap sat on her head. “Can you open the launch tubes?”

“What?” Tofu whimpered again, raising a hoof to wipe away the tears in her eyes.

“Like I said, we’re trying to leave, and it would really help us if you could just open the fucking tubes.” I tried to keep my tone soft enough that maybe she’d get the point that we were telling the truth. But a few moments went past where Tofu hadn’t even acknowledged I’d said anything at all. “Look, we’re running out of time. If we don’t get out there soon, lots of ponies are going to die.”

“If you leave, you’ll just bring ponies back here to attack us anyway!” She grunted and glared up at me. “So you can sit in here as long as you want. I’ll take my chances that we’ll get through any assault, while you can go fuck off…!”

She went wide eyed as Hispano stuffed a bit of Tofu’s robe into her muzzle to silence her. Her horn lit up, but Hispano gave it a smack with her talon, drawing out another whine as the magic fizzled. Folding her arm across Tofu’s neck, Hispano leaned down against her, and after a few moments, the orange unicorn passed out. I really didn’t want to have to hurt them, but this is too important right now.

“Alright, if you want to save that stallion on the radio, we don’t have anymore time for distractions.” Hispano grunted as she pushed herself back up. “How do we open the tubes?”

“I was hoping you could figure that out…” I gave her a nervous grin and nodded over to some of the terminals, as I did, I looked at the launch tubes themselves. “You get the terminals, I’ll look for a manual release.”

“Just so you know,” Hispano spoke up as we both headed to opposite sides of the room. “The second we open a tube, they’re going to know what we’re doing.” Turning and running her talons across the buttons faster than I ever could, she got to work. “And once that happens? They’re going to get the whole base on our asses unless we have a distraction.”

“Let’s just worry about it when we find out how to open these things.” I nodded as I walked up to the first tube and looked over it’s control panel. Alright, there has to be a button on it like the ones on Mrs. Tapit’s sub. Squinting, I could hardly make out the faded and nearly completely rubbed off writing on half the buttons.

“Damnit, I can’t override bridge authorization from inside the launch bay.” Hispano sighed as a set of soft beeps came from her terminal. “We’re going to have to find the manual override button on the thing.”

“Well,” I grumbled as I slowly swept my eyes across each button. “Come and help me look then.” Come on, there had to be a manual override on here somewhere. Ah-ha! Literally, the last button on the panel had ‘ergency’ still legible on it. “Found it! Of course it’s the last button I check. Now we just have to figure out how to keep them distracted.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Hispano spoke up as she stepped up beside me and pushed the button. “Remember when I said I was going to stop you if you tried to go running off on your own again? Well, I lied.”

A set of alarms went off, and the emergency lighting kicked on as the tube swung open. It was all so fast that only after I’d looked at it, did my mind process what Hispano had just said. Turning, I found her put her talons onto my chest and felt her shove me. I stumbled backward, dropping into the tube before the outer hatch gave way and dropped me into the clouds below the ship.

“Be careful, Dum Dum!” Hispano shouted out as I started to panic a bit. As I began to fall, the outer tube shut tightly again, locking Hispano inside.

Fuck, why would she do that!? Damnit, I can’t do this on my own. I always screw shit up when I’m on my own!

No. Bombay’s voice resonated in my mind. We can do this.

Flaring my wings, I snapped my tail and began a wide bank back around toward Bertha. Looking outside the compound and over the imposing guarded walls, I found myself looking across the open farming fields I’d seen on the cameras. The failing daylight highlighted the far off village in amber light, but the massive dark stormclouds on the horizon behind it made it feel off to me.

Among the stormclouds, I could make out the thirty or so blazing exhausts of the approaching skycrafts. Right, we need to stop them and we don’t have much time. Luckily, I knew just the pony who could help me with taking down a whole fleet of hostiles at once.

Coming down through the air, I came around via the front of the Hauler. I did my best to flare my wings to drag my airspeed down as I aimed for Boiler and Gearbox’s blasted out container. Bracing myself for a bit of a rough landing, I prayed to Celestia that I didn’t do something stupid like knock myself out from this stunt. I mean, I understood Hispano’s concern earlier, but I couldn’t be that easy to knock out...

My vision went white for a moment, and my hearing dulled as pain flowered across my body from the impact. Though, the fact that I could feel the awkward bulge of the jumpack on my back, and could hear my own pained whines, I at least hadn’t blacked out! Hooray for me…

“What the fuck was that!?” Cora’s voice was a welcomed sound as I could hear both him and Buck heading for the door at the same time. Pushing it open, he smacked it right against my side, making me yelp. “Oh, it’s just Night.” He grumbled as he looked down at me.

“Are you alright?” Buck asked as Cora stepped aside to let him through.

“We’ve got a big problem.” I groaned as I sat up. My vision spun as it returned, and my body protested in moving anything by lancing me with pain as I struggled to get back to my hooves. The line of crimson dripping down my muzzle from my forehead gave me a moment of pause, but I did my best to shake it off. “Where’s Hardcase?”

“Well, I was having dinner.” Hardcase grumbled as it sounded like he got up from his seat next to the radio. “What’s going on?”

“Buzzbombers are coming in, and we need to take them out.” I spoke as I looked up to find two fuzzy looking Buck’s staring at me. After a moment and a few blinks, my eye adjusted and merged him into a single, unhappy looking Buck.

“Oh, is that all?” Hardcase scoffed and rolled his eyes dismissively. Waving his hoof, he went to go sit down again. “I’m sure they can handle a few Buzzbombers. Why do we need to get involved.”

“Because they’re not coming here. They’re chasing somepony through the air who was calling for help, and the rangers are just going to ignore them and let them crash into the village across the way!” Reaching out, I felt as Buck wrapped his paw around my forehoof and helped to steady me a bit. “We need to find a way to take them out before they kill that pony and destroy the whole village.”

“Oh, sure, leave it to us to save a bunch of puritans while the rangers sit on their flanks doing nothing. Why is it again that we must always be the better ponies?” Hardcase whined as he stopped just short of his bench. “Alright whatever, I’ll get the SFG prepped.” Turning away from the radio, his horn lit up as he opened the door to his container.

“Make it quick, because the rangers are going to show up here any minute to detain us all.” I spoke up to him, wincing as the increased volume made my ears ring painfully. With a hiss, I raised my hoof and pressed it against my head.

“I think you may have a concussion.” Buck spoke as he softly reached up and used his paw to guide my eye towards his. He studied me for a moment in silence before taking a step back. “Give me one moment and I’ll get a bandage for that cut on your head.”

“A painkiller would be nice as well.” I groaned as he retreated back into our container. Turning, I looked back toward the village and the oncoming buzzbomber fleet, unfortunately finding the wall blocking my line of sight.

“I really shouldn’t. If you do have a con…” Buck started, but I turned around and glared at him.

“Look, if I lose focus up there, then I could screw this up.” I snapped at him. A bit harsh, Night? He’s more than your boyfriend you know, and you probably should listen for once when it comes to medical advice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I just don’t want to screw up again with as many ponies as there are at risk out there...”

“It’s alright, I understand.” He said as he disappeared back to our room.

After a few moments, Buck stepped back into the open blue container and lifted up his paw. There was a sharp prick against my foreleg as he pressed in the syringe of Med-X and gave me about half of it. Immediately, the warming numbness of it pushed through me, and I could feel myself think straight again. Lowering my head, I also let him wrap an old bandage around it a few times.

“Alright, so I haven’t degaussed her since what happened on the pass, so I’m not quite sure how she’ll perform.” Hardcase groaned as he snapped in both lines of sparkle batteries along the hefty weapon. “Plus, you’ll be firing her from the air, which I’ve never tried before. You’re going to want to pray that you don’t get any magnetic feedback once you pull the trigger...” With a few flicks from his magic, the gun hummed to life as pulses of spark energy ran along the contacts.

“Are you sure this thing of yours is safe?” Buck asked with what I’m sure was just a reflexive question. “Not that we shouldn’t be trying to save that village, mind you.”

“We’ve talked about this before. It’s a weapon, it’s designed to not be safe.” Hardcase groaned as he pushed the gun past Buck and levitated it into my hooves. I strained to hold it at all as I realized that this thing was going to be even worse to maneuver when I got up into the air. Fuck, how was I going to even fly with this thing? “Just be sure that when you pull the trigger, the village isn’t in the path of the plasma wave, or you aren’t going to save anypony.”

“And you’re going to need this.” Cora called out, tossing over my patrol radio cap. “Hardcase, if this pony is using coms to contact the rangers, we might be able to pick him up on your radio here. If we can reach him, we need to instruct him to fly well away from the village to somewhere Night can get a clear shot. Preferably toward the mountainside just to be as safe as possible.”

“Alright, contact me when you’ve got him on the line.” I nodded, setting down the SFG to put on my radio cap. Flicking on the coms switch, I heard a crackle of static in my ear to tell me it was working. “Oh, right, the stallion asking for help said something about seventy five hundred. Don’t know what it meant, but it might be useful to you.” Reaching down, I grabbed the SFG and yanked it up.

“Seven five zero zero?” Cora perked up at hearing that. “That’s old aviation talk for a highjacked flight.”

“The stallion did say he’d stolen the skyraider king’s ride, so I guess that’s it?” I remarked as I struggled to find a good way to keep ahold of the SFG. Maybe if it comes to it, we can just duct tape it to me or something...

“Well, we’ll deal with that as you get out there. But for now, you’re probably going to want to hold the SFG with all fours when you take off.” Hardcase remarked as he stepped up and used his magic to orient it against me in a way where it was semi-looped through the jump pack’s harness. “Look, Night, be careful. I built this thing to protect Violet, and even though I couldn’t save her, if it looks like you can’t help this village, dump it and get back here safely. I don’t want to lose anymore of us.”

“I’ll be careful, but thanks, Hardcase.” I offered him a slight smile before scooting myself to the edge of the blasted open container and straightened myself up to face toward the where the village was. Reaching my hoof up, I tapped the button under the leather flap on my rig, and heard the jump pack begin to charge. “Here goes nothing.” Looking straight up into the sky, I closed my eyes, and pinched the button under my fetlock.

The sharp bang met my ears again as the pack thrusted, as well as the extreme force of the air against my body as I was rocketed skyward. Holding the SFG tightly to myself, as I took off, had of course altered my center of gravity. I could feel myself arc forward through my flight, and if the pressure from the air was any indication, I was going to end up at a lot lower of an altitude than my last jump.

Still, it would have to be enough.

As the sound of the wind around me died down, and the weightlessness from before came in, I flared my wings. My slight arc and lower altitude had been a boon, immediately letting my wings catch the air under them. My horizontal speed from the launch had been quite impressive, though, I’d only made it up half as high as my first launch. I found myself quickly zipping over the open farm fields and toward what I could now see as a swarm of buzzbombs chasing a very odd looking skycraft.

“Alright, Bombay, I’ve got the pony on the radio.” Hardcase’s voice came over the headset with a crackle. Wow, that was quick! “I’m patching you in.”

“This is callsign Bandit,” Double Delta’s voice came through with the tone of sarcasm, but a feeling of real worry behind his words. “I don’t know what kind of convoy you all are, but I’m pretty sure just one pony isn’t going to be enough. But I guess it’s the thought that counts.”

“Bandit, this is Bombay.” I snapped over the coms, letting Bombay do the talking. “We’re the only assistance you’ve got, and we’re more than capable of helping. But if you’d rather us call it a day, maybe you could do us all a favor and at least find another place in the wasteland to die at rather than that village.”

I glanced down as I passed over the village. The buzzing from the thirty crafts following Double Delta had attracted plenty of onlookers below, which thankfully hadn’t really noticed or shot at me. Yet, at least.

“Alright, alright.” Double Delta’s exasperation could almost be felt from where he was. “I assume you’ve got some sort of plan?”

“Well, it’s not so much a solid plan,” Smirking to myself, Bombay’s confidence was barely holding back the incredibly loud and obnoxious panicking that was going on in the back of my mind. “but I do have an idea.”

Please, please Celestia, don’t let me screw this up...

Author's Notes:

Many, many thanks to TheFurryRailFan for helping to shore up this chapter. This one was a bit rougher than my normal work, yet he put in the time to make it presentable. You're the best, man!

And of course, thanks to Kkat for letting us all use this wonderful wasteland setting!