Gilda thought about giving the swagger-stick to Gump, and asking him to transcribe everything he heard.

Then she remembered Gump was functionally illiterate, and scrapped that.

Eventually she and the lieutenant worked out which ranker was most useless while still retaining the capacity to write down the important points, and stuffed Gene into a closet with Gleaming Shield's stick, a notebook, and a pencil.

Meanwhile, the war went on, and there were hijackers to ambush, and a supply sergeant to kidnap. The latter took priority, so Gleaming Shield put Gilda on that, while the lieutenant issued herself a pass and went to see her 'Uncle' Brass Tacks to get some sort of color of authority.

It was starting to get wild out there in the streets, and the time for the Territorials to freelance their enforcement of the Duchess's Peace was coming swiftly to an end.

The supply squadrons operated out of a permanent set of fortified warehouses in the massive chain of fortresses that squatted outside the old city walls on the landward side of the city. Normally, it took a lot of work to get inside those warehouses if you didn't have authorization.

Gilda had bits, for now at least. And friends in low places. The combination of the two got her and her strike team inside of the 38/11th's little blockhouse easy peasy, although they had to use one of the brigade's heavy carts for the sortie, with a clearly obvious Territorial blazon and the obvious shine of Territorial equipment. It required both that look of official business and Gilda's ongoing relationship with the carter-pony driving the cart. Short Haul had been one of her first recruits into the delivery scam for Lady George's business's long dissolution, and he'd made a good many bits for his large and burgeoning family back in Salt Lick City, smuggling jadestone and Abyssinian rugs with his usual deliveries.

It made her cry on the inside, spending those damn bits. Like her mother’s debts, screaming into the night, Gilda was sure she’d be reliving the moment she handed over those poor orphaned bits in her dreams.

This time, he just hauled a quintet of Territorials plus Gilda into their own supply squadron's sanctum. It was almost legit.

The weapons they brought with them weren't really in the schedule, nor was the way they cut Longshanks off from his retreat when he saw them pile out of the 38/11th cart with mayhem in their eyes. He tried to run, of course.

But Longshank's own assistant just backed into a corner when Gilford held up a few bits in one talon, and a short spear in the other. "Plata o plamo, mate. You can't fix this. Just let it 'appen, and you'll be brill in the mornin'. A 'ero, even, when it all sorts out. Longshanks, 'e's been a bad colt, 'e 'as."

"You see that, Longshanks?" asked Gilda of the cornered supply pony. "You've been shorting too many, too long."

She punched him in the muzzle, and stuffed his head in a sack.

"Maybe you shouldn't have tried for top bit, you pillock," Gilda gloated as her own assistants bound their target hoof and cannon.

She looked around at her 'griffs. "I used that right, right? Pillock?"

They all laughed at her as they bundled their victim up. Gilford and his partner prodded the 'intimidated' Short Haul and the terrified supply assistant to unload the rest of the cart they'd come in, and start moving the prepared load for the next leg of Short Haul's usual supply run.

Gilda found the expected cart heavy with supplies for one of the other Territorial battalions, probably heading out to the batteries or the harbor fortress. She ordered her griffons to steal it along with the stolen pony they proceeded to hide under a tarp behind the driver's bench.

Gleaming Shield had given Gilda a prepared spellstone with 'an imager matrix preloaded to copy a likeness'.

"Hey, pony, look lively!" Gilda yelled at her co-conspirator, looking menacing for the supply assistant's benefit.

Short Haul looked stupidly at her as the spellstone flashed brightly, and suddenly Gilda was seeing the world through a magenta haze.

"How's that look?" she asked Gilford.

"Crikey, lance corporal, you're the very livin' life of 'im. Feel any different?"

"Nah, it's just a light show. Let's go before it wears off."

They took off in the stolen cart, Gilda driving and wearing over her feathers the lieutenant's 'Changeling Cantrip' that hung an illusion of the little pony carter Short Haul. The gate guards barely gave her a glance on the way out. They barely checked the outgoing carts in the normal course of affairs, anyways, something that in the past had no doubt facilitated Longshanks’ own dubious operations.

Gilda almost had them take their prisoner back to the Fifth Territorial's barracks, where at least they had lots of backup and griffons everywhere, but remembered at the last moment that they were operating without a letter of marque. She took the path of the better part of valour, and hurried her strike team back to the 93/1st's nest in the back ghettos west of the Boulevard of the Corbids.

She beat Gleaming Shield back to their base, and found the compound around Tinker's Alley empty but for the Fifth Territorial guard-posts. The sounds of chaos and pain inside of the operating theatres told Gilda all she needed to know about what was going on with the medical squadron. The war was keeping the doctors and their support ponies busy, which meant that she and her griffons had a free talon.

They found an unoccupied supply stable at the back end of the Alley, one where nogriff could see blood from the street, one that could be easily cleaned. They parked the newly stolen cart outside.

If nothing else, it was a replacement vehicle for the one they'd lost to Chop Shop.

Longshanks had stopped squawking after the third time she'd bopped him one when he'd made noise through his hood on the way home. He barely said a peep when they propped him up in the painting shed, and yanked the hood off of his bedraggled head.

Gilda stalked up to him, holding a box that Gleaming Shield had enchanted before she'd gone off to talk to her honorary uncle the Provost Marshal. An enchantment recorded for this very purpose. She shoved it in front of the corrupt supply-pony's face, and triggered it.

"Longshanks.He's not kicking back like he used to, you know? We wanted to cut our own deal. One that's all upfront, no more backside, you know?" Gilda's tinny voice came out of the little box, almost true to the life. Longshanks’ little beady eyes narrowed as he took in the recording, glaring at his captor.

Then Chop Shop's thick Trottish tinkled out of the little recorder-box, and his eyes widened. And then...

"But Longshanks, 'e's been shortin' more than 'is own, and that's the naked 'onest truth. Bring me Longshanks' 'ead wit' the next load, and Oi am interested."

Gilda closed the little box with a click, and looked at her target, slumping in his bindings. This was a pony that knew he was a dead pony. The tears trickled down, leaving him empty-eyed and a bit blank.

"You have the idea, Longshanks me colt?" asked Gilda.

"Is this you gloating? You damn birds, you have to gloat, don't you? Predators, playing with your food…" said the sergeant. It wasn't even whining, not really. He just sounded… sad. "Get it over with if you're going to do it. I just wish I'd sent off the last bit for home. My momma…"

"Fuck your mother, you pony bastard," spat Gilda. "I don't give a cloacal squirt for the whorse who farted you out of her saggy cunt. You sold us, you vaginal discharge. You sold the Territorials for what - a couple bits for home? A filly for your leave? Some griffish hen to suck your pitiful pony cock?"

"Fuck off, you meat-eater. You can kill me, but I won't take shit from an inharmonic carrion bird! Kill me, cut my goddamn head off, but I won't take shit from you!"

"Well, bugger me, my toms and cocks, the colt has some fire in him yet, doesn't he?" asked Gilda. She turned and looked at the old birds who crouched in the corners of the stable, staring at the supply pony who had been selling Territorial equipment to gangsters. "You think the little herbivore has some reasons? Do we give a pigeon's shit for why the fucking grazer's betrayed the Duchess for a mess of pony pottage?"

The griffons growled their contempt for this line of argument, clacking their beaks in agitation.

"You were one of the Duchess's own ponies, Longshanks," Gilda yelled in his face. "You're the Equestrian ideal, you are. What are you doing, shitting in the Duchess's ear? Why do we gotta find you in the middle of this shame? We're the fucking Territorials, we are, you traitorous boar's tit. Mare up, you ball-less wonder! Show me why we shouldn't chop your worthless grazer head off and hand it over to this gangster piece of shit!"

The crooked supply pony's eyes opened at the idea that his death wasn't a forgone conclusion. "Wh-what- why?"

"Fuck your whys! Tell me how, grazer! How does it work! Tell me the hows and wherefores and the howcomes and the thises and the thats! I want to know Celestia-damned everything! EVERYTHING!

"Give us everything, you worthless sack of horseshit, or we'll take your last bit and bury you somewhere even your dearest will never find your bones!"

Longshanks started talking, and he didn't stop.

Longshanks' information got them the names of his co-conspirators, and his methods, and all of his dirty deals. Grant sat in a corner and wrote down everything.

They sent for Gump's buddy Bubba, who got Gilda some drugs, and they doped up Longshanks and stuffed him in one of the new pony wounded wards. Bubba agreed to look in on the new 'patient'. Bubba was generally a very agreeable pony, Gilda liked her.

Longshanks also got them the procedures and the time-frames they needed to work with. Chop Shop's in with the Territorials was shut down, and that wasn't anything to spit at. But Gilda wanted more, and they still needed more.

She took her griffons out on a raid while they waited for Gleaming Shield's gambit to pay off. The pony lieutenant hadn't returned yet, before Gilda and her griffons set out again.

The fourth raid was as much a success as the third, and they rolled right over the 'militia' which was taking carts on Falls Road. Three carts came back along with the dozen captives, one of which was a 'block boss'. The boss kept trying to sell out his pony connections, and couldn't seem to understand why his information wasn't buying him his freedom.

Gilda stabbed him twice in the thigh, and left him for the doctors to patch together. The painkillers shut his damn mouth.

They used the extra carts to haul most of the remaining survivors of the Crab Bucket out to the POW camps, and since Gilda rode along with the prisoners' caravan, all the carts came back without any losses to Prench leave or to hijackers.

When they got back, Gleaming Shield was back.

Finally.

"Am I under arrest, lieutenant ma'am?"

"No, Gilda, you aren't. Neither am I, and thank you for asking."

"I didn't ask, lieutenant ma'am."

"Yes, I understand, that was sarca- nevermind, Gilda. I have good news."

"I figured as much, lieutenant ma'am. If you didn't, I rather thought you wouldn't have returned. Just MPs swarming the whole of Tinker's Alley."

"Well, bully for you. We have leeway."

"Leeway! Well, la dee da. Leeway! What the hades does that mean?"

"It means that the Provost Marshal knows what we've been doing, and we're not under arrest."

"What a paragon of pony virtue he is, then. He's not taking over our investigations?"

"We have investigations?"

"Well, I've been doing my best, lieutenant ma'am. I haven't had a chance to check in with Gene. But I have my hopes. And Longshanks on ice. And some more hijackers in custody."

"Hijackers! Who told you to go out and do that?"

"My initiative, lieutenant ma'am. Since I had no idea if you were coming back. Since I don't know your clutch uncle from Apple."

"That's a pony saying, you're getting corrupted, Gilda."

"We're all getting corrupted, lieutenant ma'am. Do we have license to continue arresting hijackers?"

"Not that you waited for it, but no, we don't."

"That doesn't sound like good news. At least I picked up a couple carts before the boom lowered."

"Well, Uncle Brass didn't forbid it, either."

"Such a lawful regime you ponies have given us lawless griffons, lieutenant ma'am."

"Shut your beak, and take what your given, Lance Corporal."

"Yes, lieutenant ma'am.."

The lieutenant had brought Instructions back from her meeting with her uncle-the-Provost-Marshal. You couldn't call them orders, because Colonel Brass Tacks wasn't in their chain of command, and there wasn't anything actually written down, not where Gilda could lay eyes on it, at any rate. But Gleaming Shield insisted that the provost marshal had written out 'orders' and put them on file, in a locked safe.

Nopony could know, but it was legal. Their detachment had been undetached, and re-attached. Or detached again, Gilda didn't understand that part.

"The bad part," Gleaming Shield continued, "is that Uncle Brass doesn't give a hoot about the stolen carriages."

"What! That's the whole point of the exercise!"

"Yes, well, from our point of view. He says it happens every day in the city, and that's the business of the local police. Which - have you ever laid eyes on a Trottingham cop?"

"Not outside of the pony neighborhoods I haven't."

"Exactly. But he still doesn't care. What he does care about is that slug-thrower that Chop Shop's thug used to not-exactly-put-a-hole-in-you."

"Glad that someone cares about that."

"Well, they didn't perforate you, so no harm, no foul. I almost didn't mention it to Uncle Brass, and mare, would that have been a lost opportunity. But I did, in passing, and he cared a lot more than I thought he would.

"Slug-throwers, Gilda! That's what they care about right now. Uncle Brass sent out a message, and that creepy charcoal stallion came in with friends."

"Charcoal - oh, that guy. Yeah. He scares me."

"I think he scares everyone, Gilda. He scared Uncle Brass, I could tell. But he was the one who told me that we had official cover."

"Did you get a name this time?"

"What? I must have. Hold on. Let me think. Uncle Brass must have called him something!"

"Nothing?"

"No, blast it. I have perfect recall!" Gleaming Shield did not have perfect recall. Gleaming Shield thought she had perfect recall, because she'd read a book that claimed to offer memory retention techniques that supposedly allowed for improved recall. Gilda hadn't told her that memory palaces required constant maintenance. Sometimes very smart ponies could be remarkably dense. "I don't understand this. I don't even recall his cutie mark!"

"He has one, right?"

"Of course he had a cutie mark. Everypony has cutie marks, this isn't magical kindergarten!"

"So he was a unicorn? Must be someone else, the one I'm thinking of is an earth pony."

"No, he didn't have a horn… and he was wearing uniform trousers. No cutie mark, no name… this is going to drive me mad!"

"At least it'll be a short drive."

"Oh, please. But it's good news! We're on an undercover operation, Gilda. And we're on the hunt for griffons trading in slug-throwers! It's like a novel!"

"Great. Wild. Can we still steal ambulances for the doctors?"

"Sure, why not. When we're not working on more important matters."

"Very good, lieutenant ma'am."

"Oh, don't start that up again!"

Author's Notes:

Thanks for editing and pre-reading help to Shrink Laureate, Oliver, and the general Company.