Despite the day being far from over the group is still feeling a bit run down from everything that’s recently happened. Given the change in plans, and the temporary splitting of the group, they set about redistributing their various supplies and equipment. Everything that’s deemed useful for the stable is going back with the foal escort. Whatever spare salvage they have is earmarked for sale at Megamart. Although, a rapid fire debate flares up when Gearing suggests Swift and Handy carry all they can, so they can do the trading while he’s enroute. After extensive negotiation, where all parties not only remain civil but objective as they discuss their various points, Gearing ends up agreeing to haul pretty much everything he was already carrying. And the reason why is pretty simple.

Swift and Handy are already carrying the majority of what extra salvage Sable and Nahlah had on them, on top of their own hauls. And they need to be able to move quickly if and when the situation calls for it. Which is something they can’t do if they are pinned to the floor by the practical general goods store Gearing has somehow managed to cram into his bags.

As they are finalizing what needs to go where, and with whom, Andante trots in a figure eight pattern encircling both Swift and Gearing, making a game of leaping over the various supplies in between the two, as he continues to argue his own point. No one was paying attention to him before, so he decided to make himself more visible, and noticeable, by hopping around in front of their line of sight. “We don’t need no escort! We’re tough! Just tell us where to go and we’ll get there. On our own. Yeah! So you don’t have to worry about your junk.” Andante starts hopping back and forth over the bag that Gearing sets down in front of himself, like it’s a hurdle in a race, as he says quickly, “So lets go go go go go. GO!”

“Andante, hun,” Swift asks softly causing Andante to draw up short as he’s about to leap over the bag again, but instantly gives her his undivided attention.

He hops over in front of her and sits down, looking up at her with a wide grin, as he asks, “Yeah, Swift? What is it? Huh?”

Swift smiles widely and leans her head down to look at him eye to eye as she partially closes her eyes and asks, “Could I ask you a favor?”

Andante’s eyes go wide and his grin explodes across his face. “Sure! What is it you need? Whatever you want, Swift!”

Swift nods lightly and then gives a slight nod in Nahlah’s direction. “I really need you to go with them. Please?”

Andante’s grin falls off his face, as his ears lay back and he looks down and to the side, as he mutters, “Awww I don’t need no help getting there…”

“But they do,” Swift says softly. Andante perks an ear and looks up at her as his eyebrow raises quizzically. Having earned his attention again, she continues, “I know you’re a big strong buck that doesn’t need any help… But Nahlah’s hurt…. She’s hurt bad… and she needs to go to the doctor. And it’s a loooong way off… So I don’t think she can make it on her own…” She pulls back a bit and lets out a sigh as she looks off to the side and gently puts a hoof to her mouth in mock thought. “But if you reeeeeeaally don’t want to… I understand… I suppose we’ll just have to stop what we’re doing… turn around… and make the long trip back now ourselves… We’d be wasting the entire trip and time to get up here and potentially won’t be able to get back up here for a very long time. We won’t have the parts we need to fix home so there’s no telling how long we can stay there before it’s falling down around our ears… But it’s a lot to ask, so I understand you not wanting to do me such a big favor…”

The little blue pegasus in Gearing’s head points a hoof at Swift as he asks, Do filly’s get some kind of special class for that level of guilt trip when they become a mom, or is it just genetically triggered by the birth of the next generation?

Andante’s eyes go wide and he throws his forehooves around defensively. “Oh no, I didn’t say that!” He gives his head a vigorous shake. “I’m happy to help! Yessiree, no problem! I thought you were only wanting them to take care of us!” He puts a hoof to his chest, raising the other high in the air, as he closes his eyes and declares proudly, “I’ll make sure she gets home safe and sound! Don’t you worry, Swift!” He looks around quickly then spots the saddle bag that Gearing had set in front of himself not long before. “See! I’m strong too; I can carry a bunch back!”

He jumps over, slips in under the strap, and starts standing up with a massive grin chiseled across his muzzle. But his sudden ascension comes to a jarring halt as the straps are pulled tight and the bags do little more than shake lightly from his attempt to jump up with them. He keeps pushing up, the massive grin across his muzzle turning forced and strained, as he tries to make any further progress. His legs start shaking and his entire body follows suit a moment later as the straps dig deeply into his pelt, but the bag refuses to so much as slide across the ground.

Gearing’s eyes dart around for a moment as he looks at the others, and catches eye contact from both Swift and Handy. The later of which waves a hoof at Andante in a blunt demonstration of his point that Gearing’s bags are ‘just too damn heavy’ for anyone else to carry. Gearing reaches over with his wings, and gently pushes down on Andante’s shoulder, keeping him from wrapping his spine around the strap any more than he’d already managed to do. “Whoa there, young buck, that’s the wrong bag you got there. If you’re headed back with Nahlah and Sable, don’t take my stuff! I need to sell that at Megamart!”

Andante looks around, panting as he slacks the force he was applying. “Oh… So… so I don’t need to carry this one?” He looks around a bit and locks eyes with Swift, looking for some form of guidance and getting a gentle nod and a wave of her hoof towards Gearing in response. He hops out of the straps and sits off to the side as he sheepishly rubs his upper-foreleg with his hoof and says, “Sorry. I should have asked which ones to carry.” He stretches and tilts around, working the sore spots where the strap had dug in so deeply, as he groans, “Is that thing wonder glued to the ground or something?! It wouldn’t budge!”

Gearing chuckles as he reaches over with a foreleg, grabs the straps with his left fetlock, lifts it off the ground a bit and pulls it closer to himself to sort through further as he says, “Nah. It’s just a security feature...” He looks over at Handy and Swift and grins as he adds, “Nopony can pick it up but me.”

Handy raises an eyebrow as he mouths ‘Security feature?’ and Swift puts a hoof to her mouth as she giggles at the ridiculousness of it.

The little blue pegasus in his head floats around flying belly up and backwards with its forelegs lazily crossed behind it’s head as it shrugs and comments, It’s not that heavy…

Andante hops over and starts sniffing at the bag. “That’s amazing! You’ll be rich with bags like that! How’s it work?! Is it an enchantment? Is it like some kind of super duper magnet inside? Huh? How you do that?!”

Gearing sifts through his bags as he gives a sly look sideways at Andante. “Sorry, can’t tell you. Trade secret. If I told anyone, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore…”

Andante lets out a long disappointed sigh, “Aawwwww… that’s fair I guess…” He reaches over and taps the bag a few times, making sure the outside really is a pliable cloth and not really some super hard statue.

Gearing pulls out a set of saddlebags and then sets them in front of himself as he gently pulls out the improvised protectapony extended storage box he’d made from scraps of Sarge. He turns it over for a bit and says softly while looking into its camera, “I think it’d be best if this is brought home too. Just in case.” He opens the bag and stares at its contents as he goes silent for a few moments.

Despite the morbid jokes at the time, neither he nor Swift had actually gone through Gauge’s personnel effects since he’d died in the Freight Cars’ fight arena. Gearing had simply carried it since then. With no real intention of actually doing anything with it. Except keeping Gauge’s PipBuck out of anyone else’s hooves until he’s managed to thoroughly sanitize it of anything problematic that is. But, now that he’s looking into the bag, he can’t help but notice that there’s far more in here than the cloth wrapped PipBuck that Gearing shoved in without even looking.

Including a set of leather armor. One that obviously wasn’t with him when he’d gotten robbed in that office building and sold out the filly and her mother to save his own skin. Which makes Gearing wonder where it came from. He hasn’t seen it before, and no one else has mentioned anything about it.

Gearing grabs the leather with a hoof and gently pushes it around inside of the bag as he wonders why Gauge hadn’t worn it. It would have provided him far more coverage than simply walking around in his own hide and nothing else. After a few more moments of stirring around the contents of the bag aimlessly, lost in thought, Gearing eventually shakes his head and forces his focus back on the task at hoof.

As Gearing is carefully placing the control node box into Gauge’s saddle bag, Sable walks up next to him and says quietly, “I would prefer if my darling Gearing kept at least part of me with him.” He looks up at her and she continues after achieving eye contact with him, “I do not like the idea of being apart from my Gearing. My Gearing should not be left alone.” She reaches out a restraining cable and slowly starts snaking it over his body and under the cloak. The cable gently massages his shoulders, the back of his neck, and the strange segment of his body where his withers would be if he were a typical pegasus.

Despite himself he lets out a low moan of approval as he leans towards her, and against her, as she leans into him. After a few moments of this form of fondling he says softly, “I need all of the pack space I can get… and I don’t want to risk it getting damaged in transit with all of the scrap we’re going to be hauling.” He shakes his head lightly, nuzzling into her neck in the process as he lets out in a gush, “I need to harden it. It’s a miracle it didn’t get seriously damaged when I got shot down…”

Sable lets out a light giggle and kisses his cheek. “Gearing, my love, it’s just a copy. A redundancy of my systems. If anything were to happen to it, we could simply make another. It is not a critical system.”

Gearing readjusts himself so he’s looking her right in the eye before he says softly, “It may be a redundancy backup, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Every. Single. Piece. Of. You. Is. Important.” He punctuates each word with a soft kiss in a trail up her muzzle before he says into her ear, “I don’t like the thought of you getting hurt, at all.”

Sable shivers in delight and leans into his affections before she turns to look at him muzzle to muzzle. “My Gearing… it is not fair to use my own words and sentiments against me like this.”

Gearing grins as he uses the end of his muzzle to trace circles around hers as he says softly, “Fair or not, you can’t disagree.” She smirks and stops his motions with a hoof, staring into his eyes for a moment before giving her answer by kissing him. At first it’s a soft tender kiss, but she slowly leans more into it until it devolves into looking like it’s headed for a full blown make-out session right there in the middle of the wasteland.

“I love my darling Gearing,” Sable says as she brings her forelegs up and around Gearing’s neck, holding him right where she wants him as she reciprocates his affections.

The three little fillies lean into each other sideways as they stand in a row watching with massive grins on their muzzles and harmoniously let out an endearing sigh, “Awwwwwwww.”

Andante smirks as he watches, and then turns his head and opens his mouth to the side, pointing a hoof into his mouth as he lets out a forced gagging sound. “Bleecchh.” He looks at Swift and nods towards Gearing and Sable. “Well, I can see why you like to be around them… but aren’t you worried you’ll get fat?”

Swift’s eyes jump wide open as she snaps her attention to him and her jaw drops open loosely.

Andante waves a hoof towards Gearing and Sable as he continues, “You know… with all this lovey-dovey stuff? You know, because-”

Swift zips over, slaps a hoof over his mouth, as she wraps her wings around him in a massive hug and pulls him in tightly. She looks around with a wide grin on her face as she giggles, though it’s more than a little forced, “Oh you, Andante… So adorable. Your jokes about them being so sweet. You’re funny.” She looks over at Handy. “Andante’s funny, isn’t he Handy?!”

Handy smirks as he replies, “Yeah, hilarious… a real riot… so clever.”

Andante manages to get his muzzle free and shakes his head. “I didn’t mean that Swift, I meant because you’re-” He snaps his mouth shut, his eyes go wide open, and his ears lay back as Swift snaps a focused scathing scowl right at him point blank. They stare at each other for a moment before he says softly, “Oh… right… I’m not supposed to-” Again he stops as she gives him a slight, but firm, nod as she maintains eye contact with him. He lets out a long sigh as his eyes trail around, keeping his ears back before he looks up at her with just his eyes. “Sorry, Swift, I almost goofed…”

She smiles and pulls him into a warm hug as she rocks him gently. “It’s okay, Andante. I know you mean well.” She sets him back down as she says, “So how about we get everyone packed up and get on our way?”

It doesn’t take them long to finalize the weight distribution plan, and, while the foals are busy packing their own individual shares of the load, the general paths they are going to take is mapped out. Gearing and the escort group will convoy their way back down and through a train tunnel system Gearing knows about to return to their side of the rocky range that makes up the Hoofington bowl. Handy and Swift will follow a trail, laid out by Gearing and Swift to get to Megamart, as closely as possible so Gearing will have more of a chance of meeting up with them on the return trip.

After the foals manage one extra round of hugs from Swift, the group splits up with the majority of them headed back south.

They’d barely been separated twenty minutes when Nahlah’s heavy panting and grunting became the only thing anyone could focus on. Despite her best attempts, tears flow down her cheeks, even with Sable’s cables holding up most of the weight of her hind end.

Gearing waves for everyone to stop as he comes running over from his position on the outside where he’d been keeping watch on the more empty space beyond. “Whoa. Hold on, guys. I gotta take a look at this.”

Sable gently lays Nahlah out on her side, injured side up as Nahlah lays there and buries her face in her paws and weeps quietly. Gearing undoes the bandages and it only takes a few unwrapping for him to start noticing blood.

Fresh blood.

He unwraps her wound as quickly as he can, and is left standing there gawking at what he uncovers.

“Ewww…” Sonata comments as she peeks from the side.

“That makes my head hurt worse…” Aria adds from the other side.

“That… doesn’t look right,” Adagio says as she looks over the injury.

“Why’s it look like that?” Andante asks as he cranes his neck and rocks side to side to try and see better.

All of which are valid concerns from Gearing’s perspective. Troublingly valid. Even more so given he has no idea why, and no answers to give. Especially since he’s mentally asking himself the exact same thing the foals have verbalized.

“My darling Gearing… I am not a medical technician, and my experiences are rather limited, but this does not appear to me to simply be the results of a gun shot wound,” Sable comments as she looks over Nahlah from the other side. “What has caused this?”

Gearing shakes his head slightly. “It’s gotten worse. How could it-” he pauses speaking long enough to get his eyes inches away from it as he examines the bloody pulpy flesh closely. “It’s not an infection. It’s like the wound is just opening up on its own… seeping… and just not looking healthy…” He leans up towards Nahlah’s ear and frowns even harder as he can hear her sob despite her best attempts otherwise. “Nahlah… when’d it start getting like this?”

Nahlah shakes her head and pulls back a paw enough to look at him with waterlogged eyes. She gives a sniffle and replies, “It’s gotten worse here and there as we’re traveling. Sometime’s it’s almost okay, and more of a dull throb. But other times it’s a screaming stabbing pain that just pops up and goes away after a bit.” She waves back the way they’d come. “It was really bad about a block or so that way.”

Gearing looks back the direction they’d come and runs through the trip in his mind’s eye. One thing that becomes crystal clear to him is that at the time Nahlah says it had gotten worse, she wasn’t using her hip. Sable had been carrying her. For Sable’s cables had been carrying her entire back end for the last four or five blocks at least.

Which means it’s not simply a matter of using an injured limb causing it to get worse. Something else is going on. Potentially environmental.

Gearing rummages through one of the bags Sable is carrying and pulls out a potion bottle. He stares at it for a few moments before he mutters quietly, “Where the hell they get these potions from?” He swishes the liquid around inside of the small glass bottle as he eyeballs it suspiciously. Again, while he’s used to potions of vibrant purple, with a thicker viscosity like motor oil or paint, this one isn’t anything like that. If it’s to be likened to paint, then it’s a bottle of water color with far more water than color. It’s practically transparent like a watered down sun tea. He pops the top and gives it a curious sniff, before slipping his tongue inside to test it.

Again, as had happened before, he gets the same familiar tingle telling him this is indeed what he thinks it is. But this one’s even more faint than the last one. He lets out a sigh as he makes a mental note to make sure he tracks down the source of these knock-off potions and find out what shenanigans they are pulling to do this to them.

As he’s holding it for Nahlah to drink she snickers, and makes a painfully forced chuckle, as she asks, “You keep tonguing the bottles to make me jealous, or you too bashful for the real thing so going for an indirect kiss?” She smiles at him as she drinks. But the fur on the sides of her face, matted with moisture, betray her ongoing torment and tears.

Gearing watches the wound and, sure enough, thankfully, the wound starts closing up again. It regains a bit of its healthy look, and the wound shrinks in size. But, it still persists. Gearing sighs and looks over at Sable as he asks, “Sable, gimmie a potion out of your bag please.”

Sable nods and quickly complies, pulling out a bottle with one of her restraining cables and passing it off to Gearing.

Gearing goes back to looking at the wound, and doesn’t look up until he sees the motion out of the corner of his eye. He grabs it with a wing blindly and pulls it around to uncork it. But comes to an absolute unnatural dead stop as the potion enters his central cone of vision. He brings it over in front of his nose and eyeballs it with ever narrowing eyes. Again, the liquid in the bottle is far less opaque than he was expecting. It has more in common with a sugary drink for foals than it does with a healing potion in appearance. Gearing lets out a sigh as he asks the universe, “Who the hell Handy and Swift buy these things from? Honestly somepony needs an ass beating for passing these off as potions…”

Andante quickly hops back, his eyes wide, as he uses his forehooves and covers his flanks with them. “Not it! Wasn’t me!”

Gearing glances over at him with an amused smirks as he says, “I didn’t think it was, little one.”

“My Gearing…” Sable begins, interrupting whatever Gearing was about to say, then continues after he looks over at her, “That potion was not acquired by neither Swift nor Handy.”

Gearing looks at the potion again, and shakes it as he looks over at her. “Then where’d this thing come from then?”

Sable reaches out a cable and taps on the glass gently with the tip a couple times. “You acquired this potion, Gearing.”

Gearing’s eyes open to their fullest as they zip back and forth between looking at Sable, and the potion he’s holding up. “What!? No I didn’t! Where? When?”

Sable nods and taps on the glass again. “Yes. You did.” She taps on the glass again. “You packed this from your personal stock of supplies before leaving.”

Gearing’s eyelids flutter for a moment before he slowly turns and looks at the potion. “You mean to tell me we’ve had this the whole time?”

Sable nods again as she stares at the potion. “Yes, my darling Gearing, we’ve had it since leaving 68.”

Gearing rolls the bottle over a few times and looks at it, and, sure enough, he finds the faint markings on the bottom that he uses to help him keep track of supplies with his inventory control methods. It’s a rather common bottle of ubiquitous design. On some level he’d thought it’d simply been refilled, and didn’t recognize it. But even without Sable’s adamant declarations, the evidence is clear. This wasn’t a potion acquired by some shyster who was cutting potions with unknown liquids to increase stock. The inventory control markings make it clear it’s been in his possession the entire time, long enough for him to manually count and mark it as part of his personal stock, and he certainly would have noticed something like this previously. He would have done an analysis of it, then, in all likelihood, pitched it afterwards if he came across a potion looking like this. Because potions, by design and constitution, don’t have a shelf life. Or, more accurately, its shelf life is so long that it becomes a moot point. A potion doesn’t just randomly go from vibrant paint viscosity to this nearly transparent watered down mess for no reason at all. Not on its own. He’s never even heard of anything like this before. The more he thinks about it, the more the area between his shoulders twitches.

It’s a bad sign when even his withers doesn’t like what its hearing.

Especially when this makes it rather clear that his previous hunch had been correct. Some outside force is causing this. And, though he can’t prove it at the moment, his withers are telling him that whatever is screwing up the potions, is linked to whatever is making Nahlah’s wound worse. If not having the exact same source.

Gearing quickly gives the potion to Nahlah to drink as he looks at Sable. “We got to go. I don’t know what’s going on, but we can’t stay here. Something’s wrong. The sooner we get back to 68 the better.” He quickly rewraps the wound, resorting to using non-magical strips of pre-sanitized cotton given they’d already used up the last of their healing bandages when they first wrapped her wound. He carefully goes about storing the used bandages in a jar and securing it with a lid for later analysis, as Nahlah carefully drinks down the entire potion.

“I agree, my darling Gearing,” Sable chirps with a prim nod.

Gearing pulls out the little module that he’d gotten from the ghoul caravanner on the way to Megamac the first time, and starts typing in commands into his PipBuck. He glances up at Sable and comments, “We’re far enough out that I’m going to start testing the relay system we set up for 68. I’ll send information packets with updates and keep copies on my own system. That way we can compare later to see what gets through and what doesn’t.” He bobs his head around as he looks down at his PipBuck again. “The range should be rather significant, but might be limited by power. If that’s the case I’ll need to make use of boosters or other power sources.”

Sable glances down at his PipBuck as she asks, “Forgive me for asking, my Gearing, but wouldn’t a broadcaster transmit on all open channels? Are you sure that is wise to do from a security standpoint? Given the lengths we have gone to keep 68’s location hidden?”

Gearing looks up at her and his eyes go wide in disbelief. “If I was a complete idiot that simply used the default settings and broadcast to the entire world, completely unencrypted, then… maybe… Yeah.” He closes the PipBuck and smirks as he says, “The system at 68 doesn’t transmit, it only receives, so it can’t be traced that way. Only passive listening.” He holds up his PipBuck, “And short of breaking the encryption on this, all anyone would be able to do is triangulate my position… at the time of transmission. So the worst that could happen would be them knowing where I was… and I’m not dumb enough to do that anywhere I’m trying to hide.” He throws the cloak back and flares his wings in the air, scattering the light around himself as he tilts his head and gives her a profiled grin. “Have ya met me?”

Sable giggles and leans in, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before she comments, “Of course I have, and I am glad to have done so.” Her smile fades a bit as she says softly, “I am still concerned with what may happen if my Gearing draws too much attention to himself.”

Gearing turns his head, showing the golden spider web-like pattern on his face before rotating it back to the other side and pointing at his own face. “Don’t worry, I’m pretty good at staying out of the spot light when I want to.” He frowns as he stores the empty bottle in his bag and hears Nahlah quietly whimpering. He leans towards Nahlah and asks as he gently rubs her shoulder with a wing, “Nahlah… I think it’d be a good idea if Sable carried you the rest of the way. I don’t know what’s making this worse, but walking and using it isn’t helping matters any… What do you think?”

She lets out a sigh then look up at him with just her eyes as she says softly, “I… I think you might be right but… and please don’t think bad of me… but…” her voice trails off to nonexistence as everyone leans in to hear her, but do so in vain.

“What was that, Subject Nahlah?” Sable asks as she leans close to hear.

Nahlah sniffles and looks between her and Gearing. “Can I have some more of that shot you gave me earlier? Just enough to get me to the stable?”

Gearing shakes his head and smirks. “Nahlah, if I tried to give you enough meds to get you all the way to the stable in one go, you’d definitely die from an overdose of Med X… but… yeah. I can mix some more.” He leans in close to her as he smirks in her face. “But I’m cutting back on the nepetalactone… you don’t need to be that much of a space case to get the benefits.”

Nahlah shrugs and grins as she says, “I’m not complaining… was a wonderful vacation from the pain.”

Gearing gently caresses her cheek as he nods. “I’m sure it was… but I’m not going to get you better, only to have you turn into a deranged addict.”

“But, my darling Gearing, nepetalactone has no recorded incidences of dependency. Would it not be wiser to maintain the higher ratio of it, to minimize exposure to the components in Med X that do have a known history of dependency?” Sable asks as she looks back and forth between them.

Gearing bobs his head around as he says, “Yeah. But she needs to be alert in case anything happens.”

Nahlah lets out a sigh as she lays her head back down and gives him an awkward smirk. “Gearing… in case anything happens, I’m screwed. I can’t run away like this. And I’m in no condition to fight. I hurt so bad I can barely see straight, let alone try and shoot. Which, in case you didn’t know, I’ve never been too great with guns anyway.” She gives a light shrug. “The best I can probably do is just keep myself quiet so I don’t attract any problems to us.” She lets out a sigh and closes her eyes as she says quietly, “You’d be better off just leaving me here and getting back as quickly as you can, I’m just slowing you down.”

“Welp, that settles it then,” Gearing comments with a tone of finality.

“Settles wha-raawwrrr!” Nahlah jerks, and jumps and lifts her head to look at her side where Gearing has buried a needle into the side of her haunch, right next to the wound and in a particularly tender part of the flesh. “Hey! Warn a girl before jumping in like that, I wasn’t ready!”

Gearing looks over at her and scowls as he says, “I heard enough of that ‘Leave me and save yourself’ bullshit during the war. Not happening. Not an option. Not this time.” He stows the syringe in Sable’s bag as he comments, “Carry her. Drag her if you have to. Scraps, bruises, and broken bones can be mended, but only if she makes it back to the stable.”

Sable nods and wraps Nahlah up with most of her cables, leaving just a single pair to hold her minigun aloft, as she picks their feline companion up and carefully rests her along her own back. Nahlah is indignant about it at first, grumbling about the rough and inconsiderate treatment with a huff as she does. But then the huffing and grumbling gives way to slight chuckles and giggling as the group carries on along the route to Stable 68.

Gearing takes flight and zips around over head as he both needs to work through some very problematic thoughts and emotions, and keep an eye out for trouble before it gets close enough to be a problem. If things work out, he’ll be able to kill two birds with one stone, by venting some frustrations on whatever raiders or bandits they come across.

It doesn’t take long for Nahlah to completely relax on Sable’s back, getting comfortable on the pile of bags and inside of her own little nest of restraining cables. She nuzzles into it, brushing against the cables and the bags as she turns around and lays lengthways along Sable. When she starts purring, and nuzzling the side of Sable’s neck, Sable finally comments, “Subject Nahlah, I am simply trying to assist you given your condition.”

Nahlah nods, rubbing against Sable even more as she quite literally purrs, “Mmmhmm, I know… You sucha good friiiiiend, Sable. So sweet. A sweet lil mare.” She starts kissing and licking along the side of Sable’s neck.

“Subject Nahlah… I belong to my darling Gearing… not Subject Nahlah…”

Nahlah nuzzles her some more as she uses her forepaws and half massages half kneads Sable’s shoulders. “Tha’s ok…”

“Subject Nahlah…”

“Hmmm?”

“If you continue to try and take advantage of my generosity… I will drop you and make you walk!” Sable says as she turns her head and looks over her shoulder at Nahlah.

Nahlah looks at her with her tongue partially hanging out of her mostly closed mouth as she was in mid lick of Sable’s neck. They stare at each other for a few moments before Nahlah stretches closer and kisses Sable on the cheek. “Ooooo-kay… no hanky panky…” She gives Sable another kiss on the cheek that she trails up to a gentle ear nibble. “Til I get better n’ you say iz kay.”

“Subject Nahlah…” Sable starts before she lets out a sigh of resignation as Nahlah partially pulls back and settles in for the ride, while regularly rubbing her head and neck on Sable’s neck ceaselessly.

Overhead Gearing’s PipBuck alerts him to a new message from Sable, which he quickly reads.

[My darling Gearing, have you checked the supplies you acquired from the bad ponies known as Wild Ones? I’m afraid they may have been laced with some sort of aphrodisiac, judging by Nahlah’s reaction to them.]

Gearing chuckles and shakes his head as he types out a rapid fire response.

[I’m pretty sure that’s just Nahlah.]

Sable’s reply is instantaneous.

[Just so you are aware, my love, your ‘BILL’ for this delivery shipment is increasing each time she kisses me.]

Gearing rolls his eyes and replies back.

[You could always tell her to stop, you know.]

Even from up here, Gearing can see Sable turn her head to look at him sideways, and can easily make out the mischievous grin she gives him before his PipBuck alerts him of her response.

[Why would I want to do something so foolish, when my goal is to bankrupt the Great Bank of my Darling Gearing’s Flank? Or at least enjoy every moment of trying to do so.]

Gearing facehoofs so hard Sable can hear it at ground level. She giggles as she smiles up in the air and adds another quick message.

[I can hear your ears whistling from here, my love.]

---

Footnote: Beginning Gravity Differential alignment, please stand by. . .

Calculating Mass Augmentation thresholds, please stand by. . .

Mass Augmentation thresholds set, please stand by. . .

Gravity Differential alignment at 12%

Next Chapter: 47 First Things First Estimated time remaining: 35 Hours, 58 Minutes