“Night? Hispano?” Double Delta seemed surprised as Hispano and I climbed down the ladder into the bridge of the Arcturus. “Is something wrong?”

“Came back for Suiza.” Hispano grumbled. “Got a fucker to find and shoot.”

“What?” Delta sounded even more surprised for some reason. Did he not understand that the one thing I wanted more than anything in the wasteland was somewhere in that city!?

Uh… actually, now that I thought about it, I don’t think he did know.

“Solomon is here.” I grunted as I hopped the last few rungs off the ladder. Spinning, around, I was immediately met with his stark and unimpressed expression. “The Prince? Who killed my entire convoy?” That seemed to kick some sense into him.

“Right.” He gave a single firm nod before stiffly bringing his hoof up in a salute. “If that’s the case, Captain, then what do you need from me?”

“Find him.” I snapped before spinning to follow Hispano back to our room. “I want to know where he is at all times.” If we could just get the jump on him...

“Uh… how?” Delta’s quick reply stopped me right in my hooftracks.

“What do you mean how!?” I flailed at him as I wheeled around on my hooves. “You’ve got a whole fucking spy ship to…” My words were cut off as my eyes wandered across the still staticy and allover non-functional sections of the bridge. “Oh, right.”

“I’m sorry, Captain.” Eliza’s frowning mare flickered across half of the consoles. “Most of the critical ship systems have priority over the sensors when it comes to repairs.”

“Fuck. Without the Arcturus, it’s going to be like looking for a needle in a stack of hoof grenades.” I sighed and hung my head, lightly tapping it against Eliza’s console out of frustration. The only advantage we had right now was the fact that they didn’t know we were here, so there was no way we could go down there and look on hoof. There had to be another way.

“If I may make a suggestion, Captain?” Eliza offered as her mare flicked back to the one with the bright smile. “You could always ask someone you trust about the location of Prince Solomon.”

“Yeah, but I can’t just ask Laika. Word would inevitably get back to Rofia, and then back to Solomon.” Again, I lightly hit my head against the console as I tried to literally knock an idea free in my head. “What we need is somepony here who we can trust who isn’t somehow connected.”

“What about Tail End?” Hispano spoke up as she stepped back through the bulkhead.

“Who?” Double Delta scrunched his muzzle up in confusion.

“Tail End.” Hispano repeated flatly as she hoisted Suiza up across her shoulder. “The Enclave officer Night helped back in Filly Crossing.”

“That’s a great idea!” I laughed and clapped my forehooves. And this is why Hispano is amazing!

“Great!” Delta forced out a sharp laugh before deadpanning. “You’re still in the same boat. How do you find the guy?”

“Lieutenant Commander Tail End, Federation service number TX-120-A12. Is that the one?” Eliza’s mare flickered for a moment as the rest of us just blinked. “While overriding the Albedo’s computer system, I was able to keep a backdoor open. I simply took a quick peek into the Spectrum Federation’s service files, but if I’ve once again overstepped my bounds, then I can refrain from doing so in the future. However, if that is who you are looking for, it says here that he should be on shift and in command of the flight deck aboard the Albedo.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Eliza!” Alright, a lucky break for once!

“Of course. After all, I’m here to help.” Eliza’s monotone voice came across the speakers with a bit of static before she pulled all her mares from the screens, returning them to the fuzzy static filled pictures the’d previously been.

“Alright, ready to go then, Night?” Hispano lifted her talon and tossed my battle saddle across the bridge to me. The gravity gems on the back of it hummed to life as it floated through the air right into my waiting hooves. “We’re probably only going to get one shot at this, so we need to make it count.”

“Shouldn’t we wait on this? At least, to get the others in on it?” Delta’s words alone made me trip up as I started to put on the harness, getting my leg caught on one of the straps. In an attempt to recover my balance, I slipped and instead slammed my head down against the console before flopping onto the floor.

“Ow…” I groaned as I rubbed at the fleshy side of my head. “No, we aren’t waiting on this. We need to strike and take him down before he has a chance to even see us coming!” Shoving my leg through the harness, I wiggled enough to get it mostly on before picking myself up. “Look, normally I’d agree with you, but you don’t know Solomon like we do.”

“He’s right.” Hispano nodded as she made sure Suiza was firmly strapped to her. “We miss this shot, and we might not get another chance.” Wrapping her talons around the rungs to the ladder, she let out a grunt as she started to work her way up.

“Alright, but let it show on the record that I think this is a bad idea.” Delta just sighed and shook his head as I got my harness secured and readied.

“Noted.” I grunted as I made sure the six grenades on it were secured. The overlay on my head popped up, giving me all of my navigation and flight data. “Alright, wish us luck.” Turning, I trotted over to the ladder and grasped it.

This is it then. A chance to kill that fucking bastard. One shot to make sure that he’s never a problem for anyone else.

Ever.

“This is Albedo flight command. Approaching wing, identify yourselves.”

While I hadn’t quite remembered him by name like Hispano had, I definitely knew the tired voice on the radio belonged to the same worn out stallion I’d seen in Filly Crossing.

“This is Night Flight and Hispano from the Arcturus, requesting permission to come aboard.” I called out, listening through my head as it sounded like he spit out whatever he was drinking.

“Ah, shit. Copy that, Night! Permission granted to land at bay one. And for what it’s worth, it’s good to know you’ve made it down here safely.” Well, while that wasn’t entirely accurate, I’m sure like with Laika, once he sees me he’ll understand that. “Just… give me a minute to meet up on the flight deck. Gotta go dry off my uniform…”

“Copy that, Tail!” I laughed to myself as I adjusted my wings.

Hispano and I circled around the aft end of the old generation one cloudship. The warm exhaust air from the cloud drive was a nice change from the incredibly cold air, and allowed me to get a small kick of altitude. The afternoon sun, the light southern breeze, and not an ache in my body. With a smile across my muzzle and the air under my wings, I wanted nothing more than to just keep flying for hours like this. But alas, that was not to be today.

“Alright, there’s the main flight deck.” Hispano called out as she lined herself up next to me and pointed at the wide bay that cut through the interior of the old cloudship. With a smirk, she reached up and gave me a nudge. “Bet you never saw yourself ever landing on one of these things, did ya, Dum Dum?”

“Definitely not.” I tried my best to stifle the colt-like laugh that came from my muzzle. Goddesses, I wish Mom could be here right now to see this. I mean, even if it was just an old Cloudship, I never thought I’d ever step hoof on one outside of school trips. Raptors were a point of pride for the Enclave, they were the posting that everypony wanted. Well regimented, and filled with the absolute best the Enclave had to offer, they were a true marvel to behold.

Flaring my wings slightly, I did my best to mitigate my incoming speed. I followed the flashing landing lights that had been laid out, watching as the few ponies on the flight deck shuffled about their duties. However, as Hispano and I came in for our approach, I was surprised to find a rubber ball bounce across our landing strip, with a small yellow coated colt dashing after it.

“Shit!” I snapped my wings shut and pulled up my legs. It had just barely been enough clearance to avoid the kid, but ended up with me unable to regain control again. While my flight pack had kept my fall slower than normal, I still came down onto the polished metal flight deck with a meaty smack, skidding to a stop pretty much on my face.

“Shit, you alright there, Dum Dum?” Hispano could barely contain her own giggle as she wrapped her talons around me to help me back up.

“I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” The panicked voice of a mare called out as she trotted across the deck. As I stood up, a very pregnant chocolate coated pegasus mare trotted over with a heavily distressed look across her muzzle. “Cloud Duster, what have I told you about watching for incoming flights?”

“Sorry, mama.” The small yellow pegasus colt whimpered as he quickly galloped back over to her. “I didn’t mean to, I swear!”

“It’s fine, Night here crashes all the time.” Hispano laughed as I finally got my hooves under me again and shook the stars from my head. Oh har har, Hispano. So what, you crash a few dozen times and suddenly it’s ‘all the time’. At least this time I didn’t end up losing a limb…

“Yeah, I’m… all good.” I blinked a few times as my vision fuzzed for a moment. Reaching a hoof up, I gave a light tap against my metal head, watching as my vision sharpened up again.

Glancing over at the mare and her colt, I found them staring up at me with two seperate looks. The colt predictably seemed completely enthralled with my augmented head, while his mother… offered me a look of pity and disgust hidden behind a nervous smile. The way she looked at me forced me to turn my head away out of shame. It was more a reflex I think than actual shame. After years of dealing with my wings, I guess, that part of me still existed in my mind to help hide me away.

One good thing about looking away however, was that it let me look across the expansive and admittedly empty flight deck. While there were a good dozen vertibucks, and a few bombing chariots stored on board, there wasn’t really any flight crew around to service them. Several other pegasus mares and stallions populated the deck, each one watching over one or more foals as they played.

“Wait… where’s the crew?” The words slipped from my muzzle like normal, but as I turned back to the mare, her confused expression didn’t offer me much hope of an answer.

“If you’re looking for a Spectrum officer, then you could try looking on the command deck. Which is...” The mare flashed up an even wider and even more nervous smile as she looked around like she was looking for a rescue. “I’m… sorry. You’d think after two months on this ship, I might have learned where most things were.”

“You’ve only been on this ship for two months?” Again, the words came out of my muzzle before I could process them. Right, being on the road again meant being the queen of bluntness again. “So… you only got on this ship when the Enclave…” She nodded with a somber look falling across her muzzle.

“We were lucky.” The mare’s sad smile only brightened as she reached down and wrapped her forehoof around the young colt in front of her. “We’d been drifting for days after the breakup. We were low on food, water, when on the horizon these three cloudships came sailing by.” Looking back up, she let her vision run across the flight deck to the other ponies and their foals. “They rescued so many of us, and they weren’t even from the government.”

“So who were they, then?” Hispano cooed as she looked around with the mare.

“Civilians, mostly, led by Admiral Blue Cross.” The tired voice of Tail End came from behind us, prompting Hispano and I to spin around. The green stallion looked much the same as when I’d last seen him up at Filly Crossing, short stubble adorning his chin and everything. “There’s a few of us who used to be in the service aboard each ship, but after the collapse, they filled up on everyone in need that they came across. They’re the true heroes of the Enclave, if you ask me.” Tail End paused as he got a good look at me, offering something between a cringe and a genuine smile. “Celestia, you really look like you’ve been to Tartarus and back. Now I feel awfully ashamed for not taking you with us...”

“It’s fine.” I for once resisted the urge to lie. “I’m just happy you all made it down here safely.”

I want to say that if I had to make the choice again that I’d take up his offer for a ride. But I already knew that if I hadn’t stayed with the Convoy, I’d never have realized I loved Buck, or realized my feelings for Hispano were real after all. And worse is, even if I hadn’t been there, Solomon still would have destroyed the convoy. But… I wouldn’t have been there to save Buck or Happy, and both Hispano and Cora would have never been sent up north to get the book if Delilah hadn’t tried to kill me.

“Eh, if I’d known making it up here meant I was going to get promoted to a glorified desk jockey, then I might have flown somewhere else. That, or demanded to be Lieutenant Colonel. At least then I’d be in command of the whole vertibuck fleet rather than just a pile of flight plan request forms.” With a sigh, he shook his head like he was trying to get rid of a bad hangover. “But, you didn’t fly up here just to hear me complain though, so why don’t you come up to the command deck? I’ll show you around and introduce you to Captain Raychaser.” He waved for us to follow, spinning around fast enough that he didn’t have time to see me cringe at hearing the Captain’s name again. “Oh! And I think you may just have arrived in time to still catch Ram. She’s normally down here with the Vertibucks, but she’s been trying to expand her mechanical aptitudes to more Archano-tech by working on the Enclave inter-ship database.”

“I’m sorry, Enclave inter-what database?” Hispano asked as we both picked up into a trot after him.

“Oh yeah, it’s quite impressive, let me tell you.” Tail End let out a short lived laugh as he nodded. With a glance over his shoulder as he passed through a bulkhead off the flight deck, he looked right to me. “Say Night, have you ever seen a Raptor quite like this one before?”

“This is a generation one Raptor.” I replied, unsure of why he’d cared to point it out. “Any foal in the Enclave would be able to spot that fact.”

“Yes, but do you know why these three ships here weren’t put into the continued service retrofit program?” His tone told me that he was going somewhere with this, but… I didn’t actually have an answer for him. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about it. Every Raptor in the Enclave had been upgraded and refit over the years, to the point that they didn’t even look like the same ships that floated out of the cloudyards back during the war. “You see,” He broke my thoughts off with a flash of his tired smile. “The Albedo, the Aurora, and the Albion did in fact undergo retrofits around fifty years ago, but under a different Enclave program.”

Pushing into a tight stairwell, we began to wind our way upwards. The cramped space was barely wide enough for us all to fit single file in, and made me pine just a bit for the degraded ship stairwells from Hispano’s hiding spot on the Empirica. I mean, while these stairs weren’t exactly trying to fall out from under us, I had to wonder why they were built so cramped. I mean it wasn’t like they’d been designed by the Enclave with other races in mind…

Wow, that wasn’t true at all. They had been built for others, you know, during the war. The moment I was back around the Enclave again, my mind instantly fell back onto the years of Enclave propaganda.

“So what was this other ‘program’ then?” Hispano grunted as she nearly pushed at my flank with her talons for me to go faster. “I’d thought Raptors were scarce enough that even the Enclave fought itself over who got to use them.”

“Yes, most of the time that was true. But, Project Legacy was something more important to the survival of the Enclave as a whole.” Midstep, Tail End paused at the landing of E-deck. With a shifty eyed look, he lowered his voice slightly. “Actually, it’s thanks to the inter-ship database that we found that fifty years ago, there was an incident that made Project Legacy a thing in the first place. A pony with a unique pipbuck almost brought down the whole of the Single Pegasus Project, and with it, the Enclave itself. So, with the blessing of the council, these three Raptors were commissioned to be refit to hold a single Crusader mainframe split up between them.”

“What’s… a ‘Crusader’ mainframe?” I had no idea what it was, but it sounded impressive at the least. It was probably still peanuts to the level the Factory was on, but I’m sure Hispano would probably understand it and explain it to me later.

Or… she could just lay it all out like that right now.

“It was the most advanced computer system ever proposed during the war.” Hispano spoke up softly as she looked deep in thought. “But.. I didn’t think they built any before the war ended.”

“Well, it had supposedly been a highly kept secret in the Enclave, but one had been built that controlled the weather towers of the S.P.P. With the Lightbringer getting control of it though, that cat’s out of the bag.” Tail offered as he spun and pushed open the E-deck bulkhead door. “Back to these ships. We couldn’t build a Crusader ourselves after the war ended, at least, not a perfect copy.” Pushing into the hall, Hispano and I followed him. “Each ship got a part of the database, split and encrypted in a way that it would be useless unless the other two ships were in close enough proximity to each other. All together, it was a backup for every project, file, and communication from before the end of the war, to the day the clouds came down. Everything the Enclave thought important, all logged within these ships. All their dirty laundry left as a contingency so they wouldn’t have to begin from step one if they needed to start over.”

“Well, that didn’t work out for them as planned.” I spat out without thinking.

“No, no it did not.” Tail End forced out a laugh that ended in a long sigh. “Honestly, it’s terrible to say, but it’s almost worse that everything fell apart so quickly. The amount of chaos in just the few days following the collapse meant that by the time we’d had time to comb through even a small fraction of the files to find out the true extent of what they’d done? It had already become impossible to bring justice to those who’d made so many suffer.”

“Well as long as the truth survives, then we can stop it from happening ever again. That’s all that matters now.” I grumbled, fighting against every tick of rage I felt for my former government. They’d lied to us about everything, and this just felt like one last fuck-you to the citizens they’d left behind.

“It’s not all bad though.” Tail End again offered as he turned a corner down another hallway. A few ponies in Spectrum Federation outfits walking ahead of us stiffened up and flattened themselves against the wall with stiff salutes. “At ease, cadets.” He nodded to them, making the young mare and stallion nod to him before turning their uneasy gazes on Hispano and I.

“As I was saying,” He continued, “we’ve managed to find some good on the servers. There’s years worth of files to comb through, but we’ve already found, located, and recovered dozens of old Pegasus Airforce caches of supplies. For example, we already bolstered our fleet of Vertibucks by almost double what survived the collapse purely on obtaining the old search and rescue emergency beacon frequencies from the database. But the biggest and best thing we found, were plans copied from an advanced food production greenhouse the Enclave found and then ‘lost’ a half a century ago. All we need to do is source the materials and we can build it here.”

“That’s… actually great.” If there was anything on those servers that us Ex-Enclave ponies could use to help ease things in the wasteland, then we had an obligation to use it. So much damage that we could help to undo, even if the wasteland still didn’t trust us all that much.

“While your lack of enthusiasm is understandable given all that I’ve said, I can’t help but think that catching up isn’t why you came to see me.” Tail End sighed, stopping just in front of a large sealed bulkhead. Familiar words sat printed in bold black lettering above it, reading Core Systems. “You… wanted to see if I would keep up our end of the bargain, right?”

“What bargain?” Hispano scrunched up her muzzle sharply as she squeezed at my shoulder. “Night, what’s he talking about?”

“It’s… I asked him to look into what happened with Four Peaks.” To be honest, I’d completely forgotten that I’d asked him to do that for me. And given the events of the past few months, I could honestly say that I’d finally moved on from that part of my life. I’d gotten closure with Salt, and now maybe I could finally put it to rest for good. “Actually, Tail, I already found out what happened. I wasn’t the only one to survive after all.” Forcing up a sad smile to him, I found it mirrored back at me. “Turns out, it was an accident after all. Sometimes, that’s all things end up being. Just… unfortunate accidents.”

“Well, I’m sorry to bring it up again, but…” Reaching forward, he planted his hoof on my shoulder. “Whoever said that to you, was wrong.”

“What? That’s… that’s impossible!” I don’t know what he thought he knew, but he had to be the one in the wrong here. Why would Salt have lied to me about what happened?

Pushing open the bulkhead behind him, he let a wave of luxuriously warm air wash out of the room ahead of us. The humming of arcane machinery and the crackle of sparkle energy pulsed through the ship flooring as we followed him in. Through the doorway, we entered a cavernous room that spanned multiple decks in height. A bulky, towering terminal sat at the base of what looked to be a modified arcane reactor that had been intermixed with various computing towers. On the large terminal screen, sat lines of code that flicked by one by one, being read over and checked up by a sharply dressed yellow pegasus mare.

“Hey, Ram! Look who finally showed up!” Tail End called out, pulling the bright eyed mare’s attention back to us.

Her gaze swept over Hispano and I, not even stopping on my eye for a single moment. Her muzzle sprouted a smile, and her wings flared out. With a short hop, the young former Enclave cadet practically dove into a hug around me, squeezing me tightly.

“Hot damn, girl! It’s good to see you made it!” She laughed as my eyes wandered over to the deadpan currently plastered across Hispano’s muzzle. “First, I gotta ask, are all the stories about you true?”

“We can catch up with Night in a moment, Ram.” Tail laid his hoof on her shoulder, almost effortlessly prying her off of me and making her stiffen up at full attention. “First, I need you to pull up what we found on the two-six-two incident.”

“Uh…” Ram’s bright purple eyes flittered between Tail End’s and mine as her voice wavered. “You sure that you want me to…” She paused as Tail End gave her a single nod. “Alright. But… you might want to sit down for this.”

Turning, she trotted back to the terminal and started to enter commands to it. I looked back to Tail End, hoping he’d give me some sort of indication of just what I should expect. As I should have expected, his tired expression didn’t offer me anything more than apprehension and regret. Honestly, the more he held that look, the worse I started to feel. Just what did they end up finding?

With a final keystroke, the scrolling coding gave way to a grainy security video. The video itself was of the reactor room to another raptor, where a few Enclave pegasi were tied and bound on the floor. One other Enclave dressed pegasus was frantically working the controls of the reactor systems. It had only taken me a split second, but I recognized one of the tied up ponies sitting closest to the camera.

It was my Dad.

“Please,” Dad spoke up, leaning forward and pulling against his bindings. “You have no idea what you’re doing. If you just untie me, I can reset the reactor, I can stop the cascade…”

“Quiet! I know exactly what I’m doing!” The pony at the controls shouted. From what Salt had said, I could only infer that that was his brother, Pepper. “It’s ponies like you Enclave monsters that make me sick. The kind that blindly follows orders, who’s only interested in their own survival while leaving every creature else to suffer. Well I’m going to show you what happens to creatures like you. I’m going to give you all what you deserve, even if it costs Salt’s and my life! It’s a price I know we’re both willing to pay if it means making you ponies suffer like we have.”

“Please, we don’t know what you’re talking about!” It… was heart wrenching to hear my Dad’s desperation. “I… I have a son. At least let me warn him… let me warn all of…”

Dad was cut off as an alarm rang out. As soon as it had, the door to the far end of the engineering bay blasted off its hinges. Two small cylinders bounced across the floor, streaming smoke from them. The eyeglow of the two suits of power armor that stepped through the door frame only lasted for a single moment before the magical energy weapons on their side lit up the room.

A half a dozen shots went off, and I watched as Salt’s friend vaporized into nothing but a pile of ash. And… I felt nothing for him. Salt hadn’t lied to me, he just… didn’t know that he was supposed to die as well. Nopony was supposed to have gotten out of Four Peaks alive because Pepper wanted everyone to die.

“Quickly!” One of the other tied up ponies called out. “Untie us! We need to…”

There was a flash in the reactor room, and with that, the image disappeared.

“It wasn’t an accident. It was a deliberate and malicious act.” Tail End sighed, hanging his head. “If you still want to know more, then I’ll have the accounts of the survivors sent over to your ship. It’s not much, but...”

“Excuse me… survivors?” My muzzle spat out the words as my mind did a complete flip in my head. “As in, multiple?”

“Yes?” Tail End nodded as his ears perked up. “I thought you said you’d met another one? Though, I guess maybe there was another like you, who slipped past the incident response team.” Looking over at Ram, he gave her another nod, making her pull up a new set of images on the screen. “The ones I know of were a few who survived the blast as those… ghoul things.” Oh, right. Though, I wasn’t sure if Mrs. Chalk could have even given a coherent report to anypony before strapping Shimmer to her desk and going absolutely fucking insane. “I don’t know if any are still in the Federation, but I could send a courier down to Sanctuary to ask.”

“You mean… they’re here!?” Okay, so while they still could be as crazy as Mrs. Chalk, there were at least others who survived. Others who maybe I knew during my short time in town.

“Well, of the original six ghouls here, a few are known to have already moved on to other places in the wastes.” Tail End lifted his hoof and waved to the six pictures that came up on the screen. Six ghouls popped up, four mares and two stallions, each with their service records listed along side of them in font small enough that even Ping would have had a problem reading them. As far as ghouls went, they all looked pretty much the same now, with knotted, burned, and missing skin all over them, and not a single hair on their body left. I was busy glancing over them before Tail waved his hoof to Ram. “Why don’t you instead show their Enclave identification photos? Spare us the… intricate look into the particulars of Equine anatomy.”

With another tap of the controls, the pictures flicked over to much happier, and healthy looking pegasus ponies.

Of which, one was my Dad.

“He’s… alive.” My rear legs gave out, dumping me back onto the floor as an elated giggle slipped through my muzzle. He hadn’t died, he’d survived, just like me. Tears streamed down my muzzle, even as it stretched into the widest smile in my life. “He’s actually alive!”

“Who, Dum Dum?” Hispano asked before perking up. She looked over at the board again, and then sharply back to me. “Is that… your Dad?”

“Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Ram snorted before getting a death glare from Tail End. “What? Just saying that she’s a tough little thing. Only makes sense her Dad would survive a disaster like that.”

“Where is he now?” Hispano did what I couldn’t in asking, as my mind was still to busy with the fact that my Dad was still fucking alive! Finally, some good fucking luck rolls my way! I’m not alone again! I mean, I had my new family still, but… my fucking Dad is still alive!

“One moment.” Ram said as she spun herself around again. With a few taps, the other ghouls went away, leaving just my dad. “Guster Graycloud… says here he was staying with a pair of ghouls in Sanctuary to help him adapt to things until a couple of weeks ago. Then the logs just… cut off.” She spun around and shrugged at me. “Guess he’s felt comfortable enough that he hasn’t needed to check in. That, or he left with some of the refugees from Cantercross who likewise moved on southward.”

“Seriously?” Hispano mumbled into my ear. “Your dad’s name is Guster Graycloud?”

“What’s so terrible about that name?” I shot her an incredulous look that felt weird when paired up with my unending smile. Honestly, it probably looked weird from her end…

“Oh, nothing.” She shrugged and tried to brush it off. “Just… a lot of G’s in there for a pony. Sort of a griffon thing, to have names with G’s…”

“Your name is Hispano.” I fired back, finding my rolling eyes caught by a deadpan of her own.

“Hey, H is close to G.” She prodded at me. “Besides, I only brought it up because it’s nowhere close to Night Flight. I thought all you ponies shared similar names in your families.”

“Well, my parents had wanted me to be named ‘Glorious Dawn’.” I spat out again without thinking, instantly regretting that as Hispano had to stifle a snicker. Even worse, I visibly watched as both Ram and Tail cringed at that. “But, that didn’t happen, even though my mom wanted to free me from the alliteration type names she and my dad carried.” She’d told me that she’d wanted to protect me from mean hearted foals from easily making fun of me. Yeah, which was great until my flat feathers meant her good will would have been for nothing.

“What… was your mother’s name?” Ram asked.

“Dewdrop Drizzle.” I felt the words form in my muzzle, felt them push right out like it was nothing to utter her name again. It had been so long since I’d even said her name, or even my dad’s name, that… I was afraid I’d almost forgotten them. “As I’d said, she… died in the Lightbringer’s attack.”

“That fucking bitch.” Ram groaned before turning back to the console and tapping at it sharply. “If I had one wish, it’d be to go back in time and strangle that fucking filly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she brought to light just how corrupt the Enclave was, but did she really have to megaspell us?” With a sharp hammer of her hoof, the image on the computer changed. This time, the service picture of my mother appeared on the screen. “Oh… oh! Never been into older mares myself, but damn, your mom was gorgeous.”

I felt my breath leave my body, like I’d been kicked in the barrel. It was almost unreal to see her again. The blue of her coat was even brighter than I’d remembered, and her officer-tier managed mane was still just as bright as Celestia’s golden sun. Worst of all, the proud smile she wore across her muzzle flew completely in the fact of the fact that… she was gone.

[Dewdrop Drizzle]

[Current Service Status: Presumed K.I.A.]

[Service Terminated Pre-Operation Cauterize]

I… didn’t know what I’d expected to see there. Again, Dad might have made it alright, but Mom? There was nothing that could change the fact that she was dead.

“Presumed K.I.A.?” Hispano snorted and jabbed her talon at the screen. “What sort of shoddy work is that?”

“When the council’s Thunderhead was lost to the Lightbringer’s megaspell, there were a lot of soldiers who’d been burned beyond recognition, or outright vaporized.” Tail End shook his head. “And with Operation Cauterize being a response and mobilization of every Enclave asset in the area, I doubt that anypony could have even sifted through the debris to catalogue the dead before the clouds came down.”

“So then she could still be alive, right? Maybe she turned into a ghoul as well!” Hispano offered a smile, prodding at me. “I’d heard somewhere it could be a genetic thing or something, so who knows!”

As much as I wanted to agree with her, I couldn’t. Even my body betrayed that fact, bringing my hoof up to my neck where her dog tags had hung for what I now realize was an embarrassingly short time. Which reminds me…

“No, I know my mom’s gone.” I growled, finally forcing back the smile from my muzzle. Looking over at Ram, I pointed my hoof right at the screen. “Who isn’t gone, is that Saddle Arabian bastard who’s still in this city.” Just saying that made Ram tense up, and a look of guilt wash across her face. “I need you to find him.”

“Why?” The seasoned voice of a very annoyed mare carried through the room. “So you can kill him?”

Turning toward the door at the far end of the room, I found a older pegasus mare in a Spectrum Federation uniform. Her coat was a sort of autumn orange color, and her red mane had a few streaking gray hairs running through it. The slight hint of forming wrinkles around her eyes spoke of a tough life, but the two nearly identical sleeping foals she carried on her back said that she had a different job these days. Seriously, the two young colts looked exactly like her, down to the white hairs in their manes.

“Ah, Night, this is Captain Raychaser.” Tail End offered a nod to her, only pulling half a sneer in return from the mare.

“Yes, well what our intentions are happen to be none of your concern.” Hispano answered for the both of us as she crossed her talons and glared at the mare. “If you have a problem with us, then by all means, take it up with your superiors.”

Seeing as how telling Laika what we were doing was exactly what we didn’t want to do, I bit my tongue and stepped forward.

“Look, I’m sure you can understand that we don’t want to cause any trouble for this town.” I ground my teeth as I forced out the words. Seriously, how could anypony stand up for someone like Solomon and his ilk? “We simply want to know where he is, so we can…”

“So you can murder him.” The completely calm tone that she held as she cut me off was a Delilah level sort of passive aggressive stance. And honestly? It alone was making my blood boil. “Yeah, I figured as much. Well, I don’t stand for such mindless acts of violence. So if you attempt any such aggressions towards anypony in this town, then the Spectrum Federation will have no choice but to respond in kind.”

“You… can’t be serious.” I growled. Turning back to Ram, she seemed surprised to have my gaze locked onto her. “You asked if everything you’d heard was true? Well, it is. All of it and more.” Turning my gaze again, I found Tails tired eyes giving me a look that read ‘you don’t deserve this, but my hooves are tied’. “I lost everyone to him. The whole fucking crew, all because he didn’t care about rules.” Turning my gaze back onto the unimpressed and still annoyed Raychaser. I ground my hoof against the floor rather than strike out at her stupid fucking stubborn muzzle. “You do what you have to do, but I will not sit idly by while a real murderer is protected by old mares who know nothing about the good I’m trying to bring to the fucking wasteland.”

The older mare’s muzzle twisted into a smirk.

“I’ll tell you what.” She snorted and again leveled a Delilah tier glare down the end of her muzzle at me. “If you can prove that you’re indeed the good mare you say you are trying to be, then perhaps I’ll consider authorizing Ram here to find him for you.” Her smirk dropped into a sharp frown. “However, should you immediately go after him, I will report you and have you detained before you even get a shot off on him.”

“Celestia, what’s your fucking problem, lady!” Hispano snapped, puffing up her breast and standing tall. “You have no fucking right to demand anything of...”

“You’re right, I don’t.” She cut Hispano off as her muzzle twisted back into a smile. “But you see, I’ve dealt with too many hot-headed fliers in my time. I’m not about to let a risky situation spiral out of control without at least having gotten something good out of it.” Turning her gaze back to me, she sharpened her glare. “So, you do something good for the community, and I’ll help you find him. Deal?”

“What do you want me to do?” I spoke flatly. Seriously, I knew I’d have to do something while in the Federation, but I’d at least thought it’d be for Laika. However, at least Raychaser wants me to do some good, even if that’s a bit of an open ended request.

“Since whatever it was happened up in Cantercross, we’ve been getting a large influx of refugees.” Raychaser’s glare softened as she took a moment to look back at the two foals across her back. “Innocent ponies that deserve a fair shot at joining our community. However, there are those who’d rather leave them at the door to die than see that happen.” Turning her gaze back to me, she narrowed her eyes sharply with a sneer. “Go see Rofia and find a way to convince her to let the refugees stay. If the stories of you are actually true, then this should be something right up your alley that you can easily accomplish.”

“Lady, I don’t know what stories you’ve heard,” Hispano cooed as she brought her talon up to Suiza’s sling. “But generally things don’t end up going so well for those we deal with.”

“Oh, I’m counting on it.” Raychaser let out a soft laugh that almost sounded a bit too cold for somepony carrying foals on their back. “You can find a way to convince Rofia, or everything falls to pieces and one side tears apart the other. Whatever way it ends up is your problem to deal with now.”

“Captain Raychaser, I am appalled that you’d even suggest something so crude.” Tail End snorted as he ruffled his wings on his back. “You can’t just throw somepony under the skybus like that!”

“Would you like to join them for their task, Lieutenant Commander?” She perked her eyebrow, shifting her narrowed gaze over to him. “Or would you I rather send a report to Laika detailing how your unauthorized use of the Legacy system was accessory to an attempted assassination plot on a foreign dignitary? Because if that’s the case, then you and Ensign Ram here will find that being booted from Federation service might leave you out in the cold for good.”

“The moment Night provided the Sky Marshal and I with the means to fly my vertibuck down here, Laika authorized the use of this system to help Night Flight.” Tail End’s tired voice turned hollow, and his sharp glare was joined by Ram’s as she got to her hooves.

“No offence, Ma’am, but you aren’t the captain of a simple long range courier ship anymore. Intimidation only works so far as everypony keeps their muzzles shut.” Ram snarled as she stepped up and stood tall along side Tail End. “If Night and his companion are going to have your ‘blessing’, then that comes with the understanding that you will be going under the same skybus that they do. And while it may be barbaric, if you want to act like the Enclave is still around, then both Tail End and I would be happy to make sure to follow Dashite protocol.”

That pulled a sharp laugh from the captain’s muzzle.

“You think I’m afraid to lose my cutie mark?” She flicked her tail sharply, almost swatting at the image of a magical energy weapon with wings.

“Oh, I’m sure you could live without it.” Tail End smirked as he brought his hoof up to his chin. “It’s whether or not your daughter’s foals would miss it is all. But seeing as they’d be placed in a more loving and loyal family, I’m sure with time they’d easily learn to live without it and their grandmother as well.”

Okay, this had gone far enough.

“We’ll do what you ask, Raychaser.” While I wanted nothing more than to kill that Saddle Arabian fucker, it wasn’t worth destroying the lives of other pegasi if I didn’t have to. “But just so you know, what Hispano said was right. This will probably only end one way for Rofia.”

“Night, you don’t have…” Tail End spoke up, looking horrified at even the proposition of me going along with this.

“There always has to be an exchange.” I cut him off. “I told you that back at Filly Crossing, and that hasn’t changed. I’ve sacrificed too much to think I’m owed anything without consequence.” Looking at him, I could watch as my words sunk in and made his anger boil up under his skin. But to his credit, he seemed to almost take it in stride. “While I’m thankful to have somepony else have my back for once, you and Ram have already done more than enough to be considered even for the help I gave to you.”

“Besides, this is what we’re good at.” Hispano smirked as she unslung Suiza and gave her a loving caress. “We’ll try things your way, and when it inevitably fails, we’ll get the job done our way.” Glancing over at me, I could see just how much Hispano believed those words. “Isn’t that right, Night?”

And just like Hispano pretty much always had been, I knew that she was right.

“Yeah.” I nodded to her, looking back at the still horrified looks of both Tail and Ram, as well as the smirking, overconfident muzzle of Captain Raychaser. “Just remember, Captain. I do this for you, then you deliver Prince Solomon to me.”

“You do this for me, and I’ll bring him to you myself.” She spoke softly, pausing as one of the two foals on her back let out a soft yawn as it woke up. “Now, I’d asked to be excused due to more important matters in my life, but I know you understand and have your own errands to be getting to.”

“Let’s just get this over with, Night.” Hispano nodded as she placed her talon on my shoulder. Looking over, I found her wearing a soft, but hopeful smile. “And hey, assuming everything goes well enough, we’ll still have time to kill Solomon and relax for a few hours.”

“Assuming everything goes well enough has never exactly worked for us.” I sighed and watched as my augmented vision flicked over to it’s combat and flight mode. “But, as long as Solomon ends up dead at the end of the day, then I’m ready to do whatever it takes.”

“So how do you want to do this, Night?” Hispano’s voice hummed through my head as we flew downwards towards the stacks of containers below the mass of parked cloudships. “Are we just going to bust in and blow that feline cunt to tartarus, or…”

“We’re going to attempt to solve the refugee problem here first.” I watched as my words made Hispano deadpan, but she still kept pace with me as we banked around to bleed off a bit of speed. “There, we’ll land on top of those containers by the stairwell.”

With a flare of our wings, we both slowed down only slightly before coming down at a galloping pace. My hooves clacked on the container under me, pulling more than a few angry shouts and curses from the ponies inside. However, as quickly as they’d yelled, the ponies went back to not caring, and both Hispano and I made our way to the enormous metal trussing that made up the Terraced tower.

“Come on, Dum Dum.” Hispano sighed as she switched off her com’s and adjusted Suiza on her back for easier access. “You don’t really think she’s going to agree to any of this, do you?”

“No, but it doesn’t mean we can’t try.” I rolled my eyes as we reached the stairwell.

The broad stairs that ringed the central cargo elevator were wide enough that you could probably fit six power armored ponies side by side and still have room between them. Each section of stairs went up maybe twenty steps before a short and flat landing that allowed the stairs to slightly adjust to follow the outside of the central hexagonal elevator shaft. The scale of the whole construction was hard to appreciate from on these stairs, but on our own, I’m guessing it would take more than an hour at a walking pace to get all the way up to the Raptor skyport if you wanted to go on hoof.

That is, it would have been an hour if there hadn’t been literally piles of sleeping and weary looking ponies lining the edges of them. As we stepped onto the crowded stairwell, the groan the old metal gave under me reminded me that while there was room for them on the impressive structure, it probably wouldn’t hold the weight of six power armored ponies on it, let alone the sheer number of ponies who sat and rested on them. That groan alone made Hispano hesitate and flare out her wings. With a hop, she was back to hovering beside me as we started the climb up to the first terrace.

The first of the terraced city levels was absolutely crammed full of tiered sheet metal shacks, each with open bottom floors that were used to show off goods of one sort or another. Races of every kind shouted and called out from their shops, vying for the attention of the literal hundreds of ponies that wandered the cramped streets and alleyways. The pungent smell of dozens of small food stalls, as well as the incredible noise was almost enough to make me wish I could turn off my ears and nose like Buck could.

Pushing further up the stairs, small tents and canvas covered wooden boxes lined both sides of the stairwells. They mostly housed ponies that looked incredibly malnourished and sickly. There were a few larger hovels that held other races, such as a small two headed brahman calf whose four different colored eyes stared at us as we went by, or an eyeless elderly Yak who was muttering incoherent things to herself. Overall, I felt sorry for these unfortunate folks who were relegated to living in such conditions, but now I was beginning to understand how they could be having refugee problems.

Reaching the next terrace, Hispano and I found that it was much the same as the first. However, the buildings themselves were bigger than below, and built out of a mix of scrap metal and wood. The ponies up here included a group of ghouls wearing Cordite tanker gear, and there were even a few ponies in Road Crew high visibility outfits. Traders with bags loaded down with scrap, tech, and weapons argued and bartered with those in the shops, and those who ran them seemed less inclined to shout for attention.

Hispano gave me a tap on the shoulder, nodding for us to continue the long spiral upwards, and I nodded to her. As interesting a place as Terrace seemed to be, we still had work to do. However, the further I climbed, the more I noticed something. The hovels and tents along the stairs thinned out the higher we climbed, and likewise became a bit bigger and more intact the higher we went. Some of the canvas tents were decorated with paint or bits of old tech, while large enough for the families that inhabited them on each side of the stairwell, only a single pony wide gap was left between them at points. The ponies inside had hammocks to sleep in, strings of glowing lights, and a few even had tables with portable stoves set up on them.

But as soon as we grew close to the next terrace, they just simply stopped. The stairwell itself for the last loop around had been painted rust red, and like it was covered in something toxic, the tents rose up only just far enough to stop a few steps short of them. A hoof-painted sign with a depiction of the red stairs on it had been bolted to the central elevator shaft the stairs ran around.

‘No class one citizens beyond this point!’ Sat on the crude sign in bold red letters.

“Wait, you think that means us?” Hispano cooed as she finally felt comfortable to land on the stairs next to me. I shared a look of confusion with her for a moment before she chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I’m just kidding, we don’t follow their rules. Now come on, only a few more levels up to Rofia’s place.”

Pushing forward with a sigh, my mind went back to the sign. Seriously, I couldn’t even begin to comprehend why they thought separating citizens was a good thing. While it hadn’t been the best setup, even the Enclave knew that all Pegasi needed an equal chance to succeed if you wanted to keep them all working together. Having a system like this only invited those at the top to abuse the system and extort the ponies at the bottom.

Then again, that still seemed to be the case in Cantercross, in Mare’s Lake, in Destruction Bay, and they didn’t share this system at all…

Yeah, now that I thought about it, I guess it didn’t matter what system it was. If those at the top were corrupt, then those below would suffer, and that was that. It sounds so… simple to lay it out and just say that everything was always destined to be terrible. Really, it was moments like this in which I desperately wished I could go back to how things were when both Buck and I could at least see some hope that ponies could be better.

“You two, stop where you are.”

The stern voice of a pony from just up the stairs of us broke me from my thoughts. Looking up, I found a pair of pegasus stallions in Federation uniforms pointing their rifles at us. Their uniforms looked almost brand new, and were tailored to fit both stallions better than I was willing to admit to even Buck or Hispano. On top of that, the visored combat helmets they wore looked freshly cleaned, and even held a shine to them in the afternoon light. However, the rusty bolt action rifles looked incredibly worn to the point I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t blow themselves apart if the stallions even tried to fire them.

“Yeah, I don’t think these two are Fed citizens, sarge.” The definitely younger sounding stallion spoke up as he lowered his rifle. Still, he looked us over from behind his visor, shifting his wings uneasily as he studied Hispano.

“Mercs.” The other stallion snorted, lowering his rifle only to jab a hoof at us. “You two can move along, but remember, there’s no violence on terrace three. You cause trouble for the Federation on my terrace and there won’t be enough of you left to bury. Understand?”

“Crystal clear.” Hispano flashed up a bright smile before nudging me to follow her.

Picking up the pace as we passed the two guardstallions, I wasn’t sure if I should’ve felt offended or proud that they thought I was a mercenary. On one hoof, I wasn’t being treated like just some kid anymore. On the other it meant that any ounce of leniency and ignorance I could claim was gone.

Hispano’s squeal of delight however, told me that she didn’t feel the same concern.

“Did you hear that, Dum Dum!? They think we’re Mercs!” She let out another excited squawk as she pranced on all fours for a few steps. “Finally, some fucking respect from wastelanders!”

“Having their respect is one thing.” Cora’s voice sent a chill down my spine as the flutter of his wings behind me preceded the sound of him landing between Hispano and I. “Keeping it is another.”

His sudden appearance had somewhat dulled Hispano’s mood, but as she reached up and tightly grasped around the broken compass she wore, she bristled out her feathers and stood proudly to him.

“And that’s exactly what Night and I are trying to do, Dad.” She gave him a sort of dismissive wave of her talon as she shot a glare at him. “What are you even doing here anyway? How’d you find us?”

“You found me.” Cora snorted as he turned and shot a sideways glare to me. “Not that I answer to you.” Oh I see how it is. You can’t argue Hispano’s point, so now you’ll direct your anger to me, got it. “I’ve decided to keep busy while we’re here. Seeing if some of the rumors I’ve heard about Terrace are true.”

“What rumors? What have you heard about this place?” Again, the words slipped out before I could realize what I was asking. Without saying a thing, Cora nodded for us to follow him further up the winding stairwell. And while Hispano simply deadpanned at him as he walked past her, she turned to follow him all the same.

Stepping up to the small landing to the third terrace, there was another sign that had been put up which Cora turned and simply faced as we came up behind him. While it had been made to look a lot like the previous sign, it held the silhouette of a pony on it rather than stairs. ‘Missing persons reports are to be taken to ground level.’

“Oh come on, Dad.” Hispano grumbled and dragged her talon down her face. “People go missing in every city. “Sometimes ponies leave and never come back for any number of reasons. That’s just life.”

“While that’s true,” Cora fired back in just as annoyed of a tone as Hispano’s, “do you know of any other city that has signs up because it’s so common? Because I can think of a few, but they were all on the east coast of Equestria...” His words implied something that I guess I just wasn’t quite privy to, but Hispano scrunched up her muzzle at that.

“Well, maybe it shares some similarities, but even you haven’t been to every city in the wastes, Dad.” She sat down and crossed her talons with a grunt. While she had a point, something in my gut started to feel off. I don’t know why exactly, but now that Cora’s brought it up, something did feel off about it. However, as off as it was, Hispano and I still had a job to do.

“I think he’s right, Hispano. Maybe something is going on here that we don’t know.” I offered up, receiving a sharp glare from her in return. “However, while he looks into it, maybe we should get back to the task at hoof?” And just like that, Hispano’s mood flipped back around as her determined smile crept back across her beak.

“And what task would that be?” Now it was Cora’s turn again to level a glare at us. You know, for as often as he’d done it, I think I’d finally started to get used to it from him.

“Night and I are… going on another date.” Hispano’s beak twisted into a wicked grin as she copied the glare her father held. With a sharp grasp, Hispano reached over and snatched my forehoof right up off the floor, nearly making me fall over as she dragged me closer. “Is that a problem for you, Dad?”

The way his glare sharpened at that actually made me freeze up. Fear filled my mind as the thoughts of him choking me on the Empirica flooded through me, making it harder to breathe. Right, maybe I wasn’t so immune to his glares after all…

“Stay out of trouble. I mean it, Hispano.” Cora growled as he flared his wings out and jabbed a talon sharply against my muzzle. “Remember your promise to me, Night. Not. A. Scratch.”

“Yes, sir.” I nodded to him, full knowing that while this was all going to go to shit at some point today, that was one request I planned to follow in its entirety.

Seemingly satisfied with my answer, Cora flapped his wings hard and took off into the hustle and bustle of terrace three. He disappeared amongst the dozens of other pegasi and griffons flying around above the crowded streets. While the terraces below had been comprised of dozens of different races, this one seemed different.

Griffons were the standout race up here, but even so were outnumbered by the sheer number of unicorns and pegasi who went about their daily business. Weapons and armor shops seemed to dominate this level, as well as a few stands selling what looked like old but well preserved arcane tech. I’d started to wonder why Cora had chosen to look for the answer to the missing ponies on this level, but was torn from my thoughts as Hispano’s tight grip nearly pulled me right up off the floor.

“Come on, Dum Dum. We’ve still got further to climb!”

“Don’t cause any trouble, outsider.” The heavyset stallion pulled his impeccably cared for shotgun away from my muzzle as the equally impressively muscled mare did the same to Hispano.

I got it now, why this place separated their citizens.

Each level we’d climbed had shown an improvement in living conditions. Each terrace we’d gone up had been better cared for, and had far more protection than the ones below. It was all built for maximum separation, to keep those unfortunate enough to live below, far too afraid and incapable of ever standing a chance at taking down those who lived above them.

The terrace just below Rofia’s house had been the worst one I’d seen so far. Immaculately constructed compared to the shacks down below, a dozen different ‘high class’ restaurants, brothels, and lounges were all that this level consisted of. Only a dozen ponies were out on the empty and spacious streets, and half of those were dolled up mares propositioning the few well dressed stallions who walked by with a feel of indifference to them.

“Goddesses, have you ever seen something so ridiculous?” Hispano nudged me as I stared at the sheer opulence of this terrace. “How could anypony live like this without being bored out of their minds?”

“Good question.” I answered without thinking about it, only feeling the hole in my gut slowly widening. “Maybe we should ask Solomon before we blow his head off.”

“Yeah, maybe!” Hispano giggled as she folded up her wings and dropped onto the stairs with me. She was about to take a step forward before freezing up. “Wait, in that window… is that…?”

Squinting, I followed her gaze up toward one of the brothels. The laughter of a naked mare preceded her front half from sticking out of one of the second floor windows. Her torso was joined by the forelegs and pleased looking muzzle of Happy as he nuzzled along her neck softly.

Okay, I’d seen just about enough to know how he’d felt on the other side of the captain’s quarters door yesterday…

“Right, moving on!” I wrapped my fetlock around Hispano’s talon and got to pulling her forward. The blush across my muzzle probably shouldn’t have been a surprise, but the glow across hers was joined by a hesitant look. She fought against my pull for a moment, stopping me after only a few steps.

“Night, I have to ask…” She looked like she was fighting to get the words out of her beak, and the glow she gave off was only getting brighter by the moment. “When you said you wanted to do anything today, did that mean…?” Her words drained off slowly as her wide, hopefilled eyes begged to hear the answer I’d been ready to give her earlier today.

“Yes, it does.” I nodded and fought to keep the smile spreading across my muzzle from distracting us from what we needed to be doing. “I care so much about you, Hispano, and it’s not fair to you if Buck and I…”

That was of course as far as I’d made it before she all but dove against my muzzle.

While my mind was busy exploding from the sensations coursing through me, I closed my eyes and just tried to enjoy it. My augmented vision flickered as a new box opened up on it while I was lost in the moment. Situated at the center and top of my vision, was what looked like the navigational compass I got when I was flying. However, it had a small green circle in it that moved with Hispano. Sitting just off center to it, was a single red square.

Opening my eyes, heavy beats of wings filled the air in the direction of the box, and the glowing bug-like eyes of a suit of Enclave power armor became locked on me.

“Survivor.” The voice of the mare from the train who’d attacked us forced Hispano to quickly pull herself from me and spin around. Before she could even get her talons on Suiza, the articulated scorpion bladed tail of the armor whipped out and wrapped itself tightly around Hispano’s neck. “My boss wishes to speak with you about destroying her train.”

Author's Notes:

As always, a HUGE thanks to TheFurryRailFan for all his help in going over my chapters. It's a godsend to have a second pair of eyes, and I can't thank him enough!

And of course, a huge thanks to Kkat for kicking all this off in the first place, and allowing us all to run around in this shared wasteland!