True to their word, the techies and greasers present at the listening outpost yesterday didn’t say anything about what we saw or heard. Mum was certainly the word, and all anypony said about the whole ordeal was that they’d gotten the dish and its recording machinery to work, but they couldn’t say whether or not they were hearing anything yet. It was a white lie, but so long as everypony held their tongue, we weren’t going to get caught.

As for myself? Well, I couldn’t explain how the dish or signals or any of that shit worked to begin with, but my lips were sealed regardless. Even if it meant having to avoid Mom for the rest of the night, or at the very least, blow it off as nothing. Unfortunately, that’s a little hard to do when you share a single-room shack on the top of a mountain, so distance was my only privacy. That was why I’d grabbed Fortitude at the break of dawn and made my way down to the shooting range to wait for Brass Casing to show up.

By the time said earth pony finally made his way to the shooting range, I was at least a pound of brass through a brick of ammo, and I’d chewed out the inner two rings of the target I’d set up at the end of the rocky clearing. I happened to notice him standing a few yards behind me between reloads, and smiling, I took off my ear protection and set it aside. “Hey, Brass. Took you long enough to show.”

True to his name, Brass Casing’s coat resembled its namesake alloy, and his mane and tail were a sooty black like gunpowder. For all intents and purposes, he looked like a spent cartridge, and the perpetual exhaustion on his face only completed the metaphor. I never understood why he always looked so tired. Auris has twenty-eight hour days; even in the height of summer, we still have ten hours of darkness.

I mostly point that out because I’ve learned that Equus only has twenty-four hour days. Seriously, if you’re from there, how do you even find time to do everything in a day? Sometimes twenty-eight hours doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

Anyways, Brass’ response was to shake his head and sit down next to me. “I figured somepony needed to see what was going on. It sounds like a warzone, and half the town is still trying to sleep.”

Did I mention I was up at the crack of dawn? Because I was up at the crack of dawn.

“Just trying to get out of the house,” I said, grabbing a bunch of rounds from the open brick and sliding them into Fortitude’s magazine. It didn’t even take any thought on my part; I’d already gotten in a rhythm from the half hour of shooting earlier. I flicked my mane over my shoulder, adjusting the cord keeping most of it bunched up behind my head and draping the remaining knee-length hair over my left side, and shot him a smile. “So, wanna talk business?”

Brass sighed and shook his head. “Stardust told me that… something went down at the dish yesterday.” He paused long enough to yawn, a motion which seemed to take his entire body. “Didn’t say what, though. Only that I needed to keep the militia on a tight leash.” He eyed me up, squinting through his baggy eyes. “You know what happened? I thought I saw you hanging around the outpost yesterday.”

I only gave him a noncommittal shrug. “Sorry, Brass. Lips are sealed. Stardust’s orders.” I smirked. “Just like how he told me to meet you today to talk about the militia.”

“Right. That.” He watched me slide the magazine into Fortitude and load the first round, then take sight at the target downrange. He flattened his ears against his skull as I took my first shot, and calmly watched me go through all twenty rounds before speaking again. “Well, you’ve certainly got the basics down.”

“Basics? You’re funny,” I scoffed and set the rifle aside. “I can chew the black out of a bullseye at fifty yards. I’m probably a better shot than half of the militia.”

Brass shrugged. “I’m not denying it.” He gestured downrange at the painted plank of wood I’d been using as my target. “You’re probably a better shot than anypony but the old guys. I would’ve loved to have you sooner.”

“Well… thanks,” I said, trying to shrug away the unexpected compliment. I fidgeted, then ejected the magazine and began loading it again. Sighing, I shook my head. “I’ll be honest, I was trying to come up with a list of excuses and reasons to convince you to take me. I didn’t think about what I’d say after you did.”

“Happens,” he said. “Really, I’m not sure what took you so long to get to this point.”

“Mom,” I muttered, shaking my head. At Brass’s raised eyebrow (he did that a lot, now that I think about it, kinda like Gauge), I crossed my limbs and leaned back against a rock I’d been using as my backrest. “She thinks the militia’s a waste of time. She just wants me to be a forgemare and a machinist until the tools finally bite back and kill me.”

“Or maybe she’s just worried that something bad will happen to you,” he offered.

“She thinks I’m going to use it as an excuse to go exploring Auris.” I scowled down the length of my muzzle. “Thanks, Dad,” I muttered, frowning at the dirt between my hooves.

Oops, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that. That’s… well, that’s not relevant until later. All you need to know now is that my father was a pegasus, and like pegasi tend to do, he took wing and left shortly after I was born. I didn’t even remember his name, and Mom sure wouldn’t talk about him. Ever. Like, even in passing. He might as well have never existed.

But like I said, not relevant, and definitely not important at the moment, considering how Brass just glossed over it. “It’s just what mothers do,” he said. “They worry.”

“I’d sure appreciate a little less worry.” I tapped the magazine against the black rock to make sure it was fully loaded, then slotted it back into Fortitude and chambered a round. “At least now I’ve got the boss’ permission,” I said, hoisting the rifle in my magical grasp. “So, we good?”

Brass simply found another rock to lean back against and put his hooves behind his head. “New guys have Sundays, Mondays, and Fridays on patrol. Five until twelve. Got that?”

“Mornings?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Mornings,” Brass said, nodding back. “The old guys need their sleep. And I know your mom would throw an even bigger fit than she’s going to throw when you tell her about this if I had you on patrol during the day. She’d complain I’m taking you away from her forge.”

Well, on the one hoof, I certainly enjoyed my sleep (twenty-eight hour days!), but on the other, I’d been trying for a long time to actually join the militia. Really, it wasn’t even a choice.

“Deal,” I said, turning around and sighting down the target. I put one round through where the bullseye should’ve been, if there was any wood left, and smirked at Brass. “Wanna shoot a bit? I’ve got a whole brick to get through.”

He gave me half a shrug. “If we didn’t have enough ammo to last another two hundred winters in storage down here, I’d tell you to stop wasting so much.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Wasting?”

“Well, yeah.” He pointed at the target downrange. “Take it out to a hundred yards. It’s not all that hard to sight a two by four at fifty. And if we did ever have to defend this mound of dirt, you have some long sightlines down the side of the mountain. If you can hit a target at a hundred yards without a scope, you can drill a pony between the eyes at fifty.”

“Fine,” I said, standing up, setting Fortitude on safety, and putting her aside. “I needed to change planks anyway. We’ll play a point for every bullseye.” I stopped long enough to grin at him. “You sure you don’t need a stand or something? I’m using my magic after all; it’d only be fair.”

Brass just yawned and kicked back against the rock. “I’m good. I’m certain you’ve still got a few things to learn yet.”

Turns out, he was right. I won’t say what the final score was… but I didn’t win. It was close, though, I promise.

Like I mentioned earlier, my home was a little single-room shack near the back of the mountaintop, where the surviving wall of the caldera that the town was built in stood. It was a good spot, as the steepening rock and ash meant we didn’t have any neighbors behind us, and we had just enough space to cram a forge in between our house and the rock. Although it didn’t have the scenic mountain views of the shacks closer to the open sides of our mountain, the area was nice, secluded, and peaceful. I could spend entire days working in the forge without even noticing the day passing by.

Of course, I had to share that peace with Mom, just like I had to share everything else with her. When I got back from the shooting range, Fortitude and wounded pride in tow, I already saw smoke rising from the single chimney in the workshop behind my house. I had a nagging suspicion in my gut that our upcoming conversation wasn’t going to be that pleasant, so I took my time eating a late breakfast and rewrapping my mane in cords so it wouldn’t get caught in any machinery before I wandered out back.

My hooves crunched against the stiff and springy pink grass that grows everywhere on Auris as I made my way to the forge. The door was open, meaning that Mom wasn’t busy with any heavy machinery, and thus it was safe to come inside. With a deep breath to steady myself, I gripped Fortitude tighter in my magic and trotted inside. “Hey, Mom.”

Blue ears flicked in my direction at the far end of the forge. “Ember, there you are,” Mom said. Her blue magic dumped a bucket of charcoal into the bin at the top of the furnace, which hummed and flared to life as the temperature inside began to rocket to upwards of a thousand degrees. Setting the bucket aside, she turned around to face me and rested her forelegs on a workbench in the middle of the room. “Have fun shooting today?”

“Yeah,” I said, setting our rifle down on the workbench across from her and disassembling it with practiced skill. “A little target practice with Brass. He’s good.”

Mom raised an eyebrow at me, and by the soot staining her blue coat and blue mane, I could tell she’d been working for a while. Blue eyes watched me, waiting, prodding for me to finally spit out whatever I was holding back.

Her name was Blue Spark, by the way. Just figured I should point that out to complete the theme. Blue coat, blue eyes, blue mane, blue name… Really, I’m surprised that I don’t have any blue on my body whatsoever with genetics like that.

When Fortitude was completely disassembled, I grabbed my cleaning supplies from a nearby shelf and began to get the gunpowder off of all the parts. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I waited until I’d cleaned the receiver before adding, “I also joined the militia.”

“There it is,” Mom said, shaking her head. Sighing, she placed her head in one hoof and tapped the other against the table. “Ember, we’ve been over this. I need you at the forge. Frankly, I don’t have the time to run all of Blackwash’s orders myself while you play soldier down by the station.”

“It’s not full time, Mom,” I insisted. My magic took hold of another part, which I promptly began to clean to give me something to expend the dread that comes when you have to confront your parents after doing something they disapprove of. “Brass has me on patrol in the mornings, three days a week. I’m hardly missing any daylight to work here!”

“I just don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with carrying a gun all day, sitting on your flank and doing nothing,” Mom said, deflecting the topic away from my logic and positioning her soapbox. “You’re not lazy, Ember, and I don’t have any problem with you going to the range and just shooting. Why does this have to be a job, too?”

Every once in awhile, you make a mistake that lands you in hot water. Right now, I’d describe my situation as ‘simmering’. It was a slip of the tongue that turned up the heat. “Because Stardust told me to.”

Immediately, Mom frowned at me. “Stardust?” she asked. “Is this related to that thing that happened yesterday?” When I didn’t answer, she smiled and trotted to my side. “So it is about that. Just what happened, Em? Nopony seems to know what’s going on.”

“It’s… complicated,” I said, hooves fidgeting. Did Mom put too much charcoal in the furnace? “We just got the dish up and running. That’s it.”

“That’s it?” she asked, rubbing coats with me. At my obstinate silence, she took a step back and tapped a hoof to her chin. “Then why would Stardust tell my little filly to go put herself on the road to ruin if that was it?”

“It’s not a ‘road to ruin’, Mom,” I protested, finally deciding to put the pieces of Fortitude aside and turn to face her. “I don’t know why you’ve got it in your head that just because I join the militia, I’m going to end up like Dad!”

Now that... that was a fucking mistake.

Mom didn’t even have to narrow her eyes at me for me to know I’d fucked up. Without another word, I sullenly glanced down at my hooves, turned back to Fortitude, and began quietly reassembling the pieces, save for the barrel. That was going to be today’s project, assuming I didn’t have any more mishaps like yesterday. And assuming I survived the next thirty seconds.

It must’ve been my lucky day, because Mom was in a ‘silent, piercing glare’ kind of mood. “I’m going to get lunch with some friends,” she said, coolly, in a voice that I knew was attached to a face I didn’t want to have staring at me. “We have a lot of work to do today. Brass put in a huge order of replacement parts for the rifles last night, and he said he wanted them done as soon as possible. Okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered back, looking anywhere but at Mom.

I saw Mom nod out of the corner of my eye, then rigidly turn around and march to the door. “Be back in an hour or two.” Then she was gone.

Sighing, I shook my head and set to work. Might as well do Fortitude’s barrel now while Mom wasn’t here to get mad at me. So, throwing some steel into the melting pot, I gathered the tools and molds I’d need to get the job done, and simply waited. Hopefully, when I was done, I’d have a rifle that could shoot accurately to a hundred yards. That was the real reason why I lost to Brass. He was just better at adjusting his fire than I was. Or he was a gun wizard. Or something.

Thinking back to it, I’m pretty sure the reason I’m alive to even tell my story is because of that gun barrel. I certainly needed it much sooner than I thought I would.