Fallout Equestria: Sola Gratia
Chapter 6: Radio Nowhere
“Sometimes the smallest roles in the Good Fight are the most important.”

Scavenging the toll and the area surrounding was… unpleasant. We worked quickly but thoroughly, though the chance that one of the seventeen dead raiders or three dead slavers had any useful information on them was slim. We had essentially failed our mission. I didn’t ask how she was so sure, but Caliber told me that the Slaver she had interrogated was not going to give her anything, especially not with the prospect of release and survival off the table. The family of would-be Slaves that we had liberated were willing to talk, but knew nothing about their prospective buyer’s intentions.

We had staked out all night to wait for the arrival of this information, and then initiated the violent deaths of its bearers. I couldn’t help but feel directly responsible for the failure, as I was directly responsible for the failure. Caliber was a good pony, better than most even by the Stable’s standards, but she would have done what was necessary to complete the mission. I had stopped her. She hadn’t let the Slavers leave, prisoners in tow, and information imparted because I had prompted her to do the moral thing. She hadn’t misled the Slaver she was interrogating and promised him a mercy we could not give, to get him to confess. She hadn’t lost another part of herself as she followed more orders instead of doing what she truly believed was right. And for that she was happier, perhaps better, for our failure we were proud.

“Okay, we had better get a move on. There’s nothing here but corpses and casings.” She announced.
We had fired less than a dozen shots between us and yet the area was completely stained with blood, and none of our kills were even in sight. Mine lay to the North in the dust while Caliber’s lay further east down the road. These bodies had died fighting each other.

“How are we going to get into contact with Damascus if we can’t go into town?” I asked, my muzzle buried in the last slaver’s saddlebags as I re-checked it on our way.

“With this,” she prodded a small radio strapped to her dark blue vest. “I’ll call him out, and then we’ll talk.”

“How far is the range on that thing?” I picked up my pace to catch up.

“This is probably one of the best personal radio transmitters and receivers in the E-questrian Wasteland… so obviously the range is tiny.” We walked side by side on the highway as we passed the final corpse in the series, leaving a stretch of open road between us and Hell.

“I see, I assume you’re going to get him to bring you your gun?”

“I might not have to; Damascus knows I love that sweet piece of dysfunctional steel. If he has plans for us, then he’ll bring it to me.” She replied confidently.

“What do you think he has in mind?” The ghoulish buck had acted like we’d have a lot of time to talk after the Slavers were gone, but thanks to us, they weren’t going to be leaving anytime soon.

“Once we tell him that the Slavers might not be the ones at the top of the food-chain, I assume he’s going to need us to get whatever plan he has in motion” The streetlights had flickered off and now stood, waiting for the distant night to come, so that whatever force triggered them could put them to work.

“The Slavers seem pretty formidable; they control a whole railway, for Celestia’s sake. Who could they possibly be working for?” I didn’t know anything about the forces at play in the wasteland, but I was curious to find out what we could be up against.

“All it would take to control them is somebody with something they want, something they could dangle over their heads to make them follow orders, or possibly somebody who’s a threat to them.” She paused to think for a moment. “The groups who are strong enough to oppose them are more likely to try and wipe them out rather than control them. I honestly don’t have a theory, what d’you think?”

“Don’t ask me, I could be working for the wrong side for all I know.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, as long as you’re working against people like the Slavers then there’s gotta be some merit to what you’re doing.” She reassured me.

The landscape around us was getting rockier and more obstructive; the flat expanse of the east was gradually rising into the sharp-cut, unpredictable terrain of the West. Earlier I had noticed that the highway eventually picked up off the ground because the land was too angular. For now though I just knew that we were getting close to the intersection where we got off.

“How was your first?” Caliber asked after a moment of silent trudging. Her tone was serious and I immediately knew what she meant.

“Uncomfortably close, the whole fight I mean, we both got disarmed and had to wrestle it out.” The gray raider mare had seemed to enjoy this immensely.

“Tell me you didn’t have to beat him to death.” Concern sparked in her eyes. Concern for the sanctity of my sanity over that of my physical state.

“No, it got gritty but I pinned her eventually. Her head was severely injured, she was bleeding, and I heard a crack when I…” I just waved my Pip-buck in front of her to finish my sentence.
“Then I floated my gun back over and…” The scene played itself over intensely in my head causing me to stammer and pause. “Her entire face… just melted. Years of life, growth and development, just to have her face disintegrated over the course of a few seconds.”

“You don’t feel like you did something wrong, do you!?” she asked urgently.

“No… It’s just a lot to take in, the parallels, one moment was all it took to make every other moment of her life irrelevant.”

“I’m sure her existence didn’t seem irrelevant to the ponies she tortured and killed. Do not think for a second that you could’ve avoided killing her. Don’t even think that you should’ve!” she sounded angry.

“I get it, she deserved it, it was self-defense, she was a murderer, I can justify it all I want but I still…feel… different.” I didn’t really understand it myself.

“I think it’s because, in that moment, you realized what you were capable of.” She had calmed down and spoke soothingly. “What we’re all capable of. People don’t realize how easy killing is, how easy it would be for somebody to kill us, until they’ve experienced it. It doesn’t matter one way, but the other way alters your perspective, makes you think.” She explained.
“Do you think that’s what it was like with the bombs?” I drew a connection. “They didn’t realize what they were doing until it was done, they didn’t understand what they could cause even though it was right there in front of them, proven in paper and practice. They didn’t think we were powerful enough to cause this level of destruction, until it was done, and by then it was too late.”

“Except what you did was the right thing.” Caliber continued to reassure me.

“They probably thought they were right too.”

“Yeah, well you didn’t blow up the world by doing what you thought was right, so stop comparing yourself to them. Whatever screwed up sense of patriotism or glory motivating them… led to this.” She gestured around us.

“And whatever motivated me led to one less raider in all ‘this’.” I mimicked her gesture and smiled at her.

“I was worried you weren’t going to be able to handle being a killer.” She said, relieved. “My first was difficult, and I was used to death, I’m glad to see you’re handling all these changes.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Let me know if you ever feel like you aren’t.”

“Thanks, what was your first kill?” I was curious as to what could have shaken her cold reasoning.

“My first kill was, and still is, a story for another time.” She skipped into the middle of the intersection. “We’re here.” She seemed happy to have avoided the question.

“So what now?” I asked as I planted myself down in the middle of the four colliding roads.

“I’m going to go up over that hill to where I can see the town, I’ll get the signal as clear as I can then try and get in contact with Charon or Damascus. I’ll ask them to meet us here so we can tell them what happened.” She explained, already heading up the road North. “Just wait there, I’ll be right back.”

I couldn’t tell if she was more excited or afraid to talk to Damascus about what we had done. She had had a longer relationship with him than I, so she would know how he was going to take it.
We had information for him, nothing concrete, but the slavers HAD shown up and they HAD strongly implied that they were there to buy slaves rather than recruit raiders to whatever cause Damascus thought they were working towards. We had also learned that they weren’t the ponies running the whole thing, from an admittedly unreliable source, but still.

The problem wasn’t that we had failed to collect the information as we were instructed; it was that we had put the town and Damascus himself in danger. We had essential attacked the Slavers who were currently taking up residence in his home, fully armed and held back only by a flimsy deal he had struck years ago. If they learned that the raiders hadn’t been the ones responsible, they would kill us all. Damascus seemed like a fighter, maybe not a bleeding heart, but somepony who wasn’t afraid to use direct methods. What worried me was that a pony like that was being so careful.

Caliber came trotting back down the road, she looked relieved. I felt guilty for the worry I had put her through, but felt comforted by her subtle gratitude. She was glad to have proven her morals still intact, that she could still be good and think for herself. At some point in her past she must have learned that disobeying orders was a dangerous game, because she respected them on high. I could imagine that some pretty bad ponies could have need for a mercenary’s services.

“We’re all set, town looks alright and they’ll be here in just a minute.” Her improved mood was evident.

“You look relieved; did you really think it was going to be that bad?” I asked

“The Slavers sent out a search party for the ones we killed. I half expected them to just start tearing into the town as soon as they realized there was a problem. If Damascus is at good at lying as I think he is then later, when they start asking questions, he’ll point their blame in the wrong direction.” She almost laughed. “I just can’t believe we got away with that!”

“You thought we’d get into trouble with Damascus?”

“What? No! He sounds kind of pleased about the whole thing.” She corrected. “No one has stood up to the Slavers and survived in a long time. And No one in Hell has ever, ever, done so by getting seventeen raiders killed and four slaves freed in just one day!” She bumped my hoof. “We’re bona fide heroes!”

“What we did just makes sense to me, I mean, I wasn’t trying to be a hero. Are you saying that kind of thing is really that rare? I don’t want to think that common decency deserves the label of ‘heroism’.”

“Chucking a live grenade into a pacified area of potential hostiles is not just common decency!” she exclaimed. “No one does that!”

“You remember we did it for a reason, right?” she hadn’t mentioned the rescuing intentions of that grenade.

“That’s what makes heroism different from bloodlust or suicidal tendencies. We had a reason!” she seemed incredibly happy that nothing had gone wrong yet. I realized that I was playing the same role she had when we had first regrouped at the toll. I was dissuading her enthusiasm and sense of accomplishment just as she had done mine.

“Of course we did!” I initiated another hoof-bump and cheered up. It upset me that an act of bravery or kindness was considered such a rarity, but I ignored that disappointment and focused on our win.

As we were laughing and celebrating together, the first and only two ghouls I had ever met came into view over the curve of the road north. Charon halted at the hill’s precipice and Damascus continued down alone, Charon turned his gaze back onto the town and stood guard. The approaching buck wore a small, decorated box, strapped to his side. Its gold trimming glinted as he walked.

“And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.” Spoke the approaching buck, his voice still sent shivers down my spine. “In a world filled with misery and uncertainty, it is a great comfort to know that, in the end, there is still light in the darkness.”

“You sound… well, you don’t sound upset.” The scarred pony didn’t smile or frown as I spoke.

“I am glad to see you alive, glad to see things went the way they were meant to, and glad to see hope.” He replied. Caliber stood by, trying to disengage herself as Damascus stared intently at me.

“What do you mean? Do you know what happened?” I wondered how much Caliber had told him already.

“Oh yes, I realized as soon as they sent out their recovery party. I realized they would bring back nothing but bad news and tragic tidings. And I am always happy to see the Goddesses’ will done.”

“What do your Goddesses have to do with this?” I asked, tentatively.

“They are the ones that people of the Faith strive to impress for their entire lives. It is by their word that we live and their rules are what we adhere to. What we aspire to succeed in is their perpetration, to continue their good work through our living.” He paused and regarded me. “And whether you realize it or not, you have done so.” He looked at Caliber, “Both of you.”

“How much do you know?” I wondered if he wanted a full recount of our rescue.

“Enough to speculate as to what you two did, once our visitors became concerned for their friends, they began to talk. They were harvesting Slaves from raider groups that had offered to collect for them in the past, I assume you saw that.” Replied the potentially ancient Stable-pony.

“We stopped that.” Interjected Caliber, adding after a pause: “It was Grace’s idea.”

“How?” he seemed genuinely intrigued.

“We triggered a fight between the Slavers and the Raiders, threw a grenade at the toll from a concealed location. Grace herded the prisoners to safety while I mopped up the runaways, twenty enemies dead, and only a single casualty.” Caliber reported proudly. “Unfortunately one of the Slaves didn’t make it.”

“All the… Slavers… are dead?” asked Damascus.

“All the raiders too, she meant it when she said she mopped up the runaways.” I gave Caliber a nod. “She wanted to make sure it looked like a two-way fight, no outside involvement. The last pony left alive was a Slaver, he was nailed up to the toll, we… we let him bleed to death.” I admitted.

“Did he say anything?” he addressed Caliber knowingly, it was clear that I wasn’t the interrogator.

“Nothing useful, Ominous… but not useful. He said that we should forget the raiders and be more afraid of who the Slavers themselves are working for. Mean anything to you?”

“People will say anything when their dying, they’ll pray to Gods they’ve never believed in, they’ll turn to people who they’ve always hated for help and they’ll do anything to make their last moments important.” Damascus dismissed, presumably drawing from experience. “I wouldn’t invest any concern the last words of some dying coward. I wouldn’t ignore them either…”

“I didn’t think so either.” Caliber offered.

“We’re taking action whether or not there was any merit to the sinner’s words, I assure you. If he was telling the truth and there is another player in this game then they will undoubtedly make their intentions more obvious in time, and we need to be ready. If he was lying and we already know what were up against then we will be free to make our own intentions known, and we will need to be ready.”

“So all the truth changes is who will be surprising who?” I asked.

“So we need to be prepared, regardless of whether we are going to be on the giving or on the receiving end.” Concurred the mare beside me.

“Exactly, and I would ask assistance of you in this trying time.” Damascus gave us a moment to reject his request. We stood listening, intrigued together. “Thank you, I have a daunting task to ask of you, though any task is daunting when compared with complacency. But from what I know, you value doing good work over the appeal of concession, and I doubt you will balk at the responsibility I wish to bestow.”

I started to think that the raider mission had been some kind of test. How else could he be so sure that he could trust me, he now practically acted like he knew me.

“If being ready matters more than any information we could possibly find, why send us to the toll in the first place?” I investigated. “Was it a test?”

“I didn’t intend it to be, and yet it worked out that way, as things of relevance tend to do. I need to know I can rely on you to make a decision when faced with such a choice,” he spoke directly to me. “Caliber is the most capable mercenary I have met, the one I trust the most, but to succeed in this she needs somebody like you travelling with her.” The mare didn’t look offended, just interested. “Because not everything is black and white, and sadly, in the world we live in, it takes someone who is a little naïve to see things differently. I was the same way when I was damned, the reason I seem to know you is that, decades ago, I was faced with the same tests challenging you now.” He backed up. “But I failed.”

“And now you’re making up for it.” I deduced.

“Every day.” Confirmed the mutilated buck. “Over the last few decades I have taken a new challenge upon myself, protecting from those who seek to destroy. I thought that if I couldn’t save the wasteland I could at least make it my mission to defend a part of it. I could found a place where the word of the Goddesses was taught to those who would receive their teachings. It was to be a place where travelers from the West and outcast from the Stable could take shelter, but again I failed.” He professed.

“You couldn’t have predicted the Slavers.” I said, attempting to comfort the constantly remorseful buck.

“A group taking control of the largest functioning mode of transportation to expand their growing choke-hold on the wasteland?” he chuckled. “A child could have predicted that. But legends of the Steel Rangers, the buffalo tribes of the Great Plains and the wilds of the North gave me hope. And my faith made me blind. Selfishness, cowardice and honor were rife and every light I thought I saw, proved to be nothing more than an illusion of old-world glory or false promises.”

“There’s nothing deplorable about having hope.” I argued.

“I believe that, and that is why I now want to reach out to those illusions, turn them into the lights they could be. The survivors of this wasteland may not have taken action on their own, but they could be rallied, coerced into a unified force that could cleanse the land.” he held. “It would be so easy for all those power-armored traditionalists to wipe the slate, come down from the skies or march across the earth and purify the land, but they don’t. My hope persists that there are still some that would be willing to help within the ranks of the dormant powers dotted across Equestria. We just need to call them out.”

“Is that what you need us to do?” asked Caliber

“Yes, we need to find allies, build a resistance. Otherwise we might as well run for the wilds and leave the stragglers to be picked over by the Evils that inherit the land as we abandon it.”

“How can they just ignore the threat of destruction? Why wouldn’t they fight?” I inquired.

“They aren’t under threat of destruction, we are. Some of the groups you may find will be strong, strong enough to have survived the war itself, but the longer they have survived the more secluded they have become. The wasteland itself is a threat to them, something they wish to detach themselves from. They will not die out, but they will let everything around them. Convincing them to care is the challenge.” Damascus explained.

“Sounds like you’re talking about the Steel Rangers.” Caliber piped in.

“They are the primary example of this mentality, others share similar beliefs but none do so in such extremes. Despite this, I have learned that they are also vastly different from themselves in some examples. Their group is based on an ancient order; they follow a common set of laws that, like religion, is interpreted in many different ways. This makes them both vitally important and incredibly dangerous.”

“How do we deal with that kind of uncertainty?” I continued to question.

“Information will give us course. I have heard rumors that some members of the Rangers would kill dozens of innocents to claim a single technological prize, approaching a sect like that asking for help, could be suicidal. But there is a chapter located somewhere in Calvary, essentially our only option as I have heard of no others that are anywhere near this area. The North is not a place that they spread to, but during the war they came to that city, and there they have stayed, for generations.”

“You’ve been alive for decades,” Caliber pointed out, “Why don’t you know anything about them?”

“The distant reaches of the South have taken most of my years, and besides, I know just as well as Charon does… they don’t take kindly to ghouls or the like. They’re nothing if not patriotic puritans. Others made that very obvious.” I imagined there was a story behind that.

“If we don’t even know where their base is and, even if we find it, will most likely be turned away, how are we supposed to get any information, or decide if we should even try to convince them?” I felt a little out of the loop after the mention of these ‘Steel Rangers’ but it seemed nopony here knew much more than I did about them, which was comforting.

“Because you two aren’t going to be the ones getting the information. You will simply find a means for the pony who can. If we have a reliable source of information, this whole process will become a lot more manageable. We need somebody who can have eyes everywhere, but first we need to give them sight.”

“I see where this is going!” exclaimed Caliber excited to have figured it out. I stared on in ignorance.

“You need to talk to the DJ.” Damascus revealed.

“DJ Pon3? But his signal cuts out just East of here,” I had tried to tune into his frequency again, earlier this morning, to no avail. “And Calvary must be in that dead zone. Surely he can’t know about a place that his broadcast doesn’t even reach.”

“I don’t think we’re going east, Grace.” Again the worldly mare was a step ahead of me.

“The only way that DJ could possibly be spread as wide as he is, is through the MASEBS system. A buck whose logs I read while in the Stable, worked on the construction of one of the towers.” I suppressed my desire to question Damascus as he spoke. “It’s supposedly to the west; I know it must remain intact because it’s still broadcasting the Galaxy News Radio frequencies this far. If you can contact the DJ through it then you can find out why he is blind and mute in the North East, and if there is a way to fix the problem… then we’ll have our eyes.”

“That tower must be very far away,” Caliber expressed “If the signal cuts out just nearby then we’d need to travel the range of a powerful broadcast of radio waves to get to it.”

“That’s why I needed ponies that I could trust, commitment to this kind of journey takes more motivation than money could possibly provide. More likely anybody I sent would head south to Canterlot or even Manehattan as soon as they got out of this valley.”

“If you couldn’t trust them to go alone.” I pressed him. “Why not go along with… why don’t you?”

“The safety of Hell is, as ever, unsure; even if the Coltilde had left I would have to decline. I have some fires to start.” He answered vaguely. “You won’t be able to come into town until the Slavers leave Grace, but if you would like to pick up anything I assume Caliber will be heading down to collect her… baby.”

“Wait you mean I can go into town?” Caliber had assumed she wouldn’t have been able to.

“Until the search team comes back, the town is open and you can get whatever you need, once they return it will most certainly be on lock-down until the Slavers leave or… take action.”

“Alright, then I’d better hurry.”

“Charon will take you.” Damascus dismissed. The mare understood that he wanted to talk to me, gave me a nod, and then ran up the road to meet her fellow gun for hire. I watched her go, glad to have made a sort-of-friend before I was given this task, a sort-of-friend who I was tasked to work with no less.
“I need you to trust me, Grace.” Damascus said, after his two employees had gone.

“I have no reason not to; we share the same intentions after all. I wouldn’t be taking this job if I didn’t trust you.” I reminded him.

“I think you would have.” He countered “I think you are.”
He unstrapped the ornate box from his side and stared at it, emotively, with a forlorn look of nostalgia.
“Do you value memories?” he asked.

“Of course, they make up everything I know of my past, and everything I do will be recorded as one, there the fabric making up what I know of my life.” I recited.

“What if you could see somebody else’s memories, pieces of the fabric that make up another’s past?” His sharp blue eyes almost seemed to glint, spiting the face around them and its decayed appearance.

“That would be amazing!” the hypothetical excited me. “I’ve always been interested in logs and memoirs from the past, and from another’s perspective. Viewing a memory, would be like… reliving a moment in time, sharing it with the pony who first felt the experience.”

“It’s possible. There were technologies produced that allowed one to walk in the steps of another, to take a glance at the paths that they had followed, through their eyes, while still retaining the presence of consciousness to feel it for yourself.” He placed the case on the ground between us.
“There were also technologies available that could alter your own mind, achieve the opposite effect, and record a moment from your own life for others to see. Make you able to give your most intimate moments so that another could understand who you truly are.” He left the case and looked back at me.

“Do you have access to these devices? Have you ever had that experience?” I wondered if the contents of the box were the marvels he spoke of. If they could actually be real.

“I didn’t, but a long time ago I met someone who was learned in the field. Not as we understood it, but who held another branch of understanding and knowledge. I had never recorded a memory on any other medium than my own mind, but to share was not my intention, to receive was not my request. I asked her to tear parts of my life away, to sever the link I held to certain moments and place them in a medium that I could not access.” He clicked open the box. “To store them in a way that kept them separate, but safe.”

I stared down at the row of small spheres cushioned in the soft material of the compartment. They were pure, undaunted and smooth, and they reflected the white misty sky in their perfect faces. Each was tinted a different shade, they were predominantly a deep silver but their cores shone a deeper, symbolic color. I counted and registered all six before Damascus snapped the case shut under his hoof.

“Those are…memories?” I guessed, tantalizing the implausible possibility that he was implying.

“Yes, they used to be mine. Now they belong to whoever I impart them to.” He met my eyes.

“Did you wipe away things you regret?” I wondered why he would choose to give these to me. “What right do I have to see the things you no longer want to remember? Why should I know what you have done?”

“They aren’t regrets, at least not meaningful ones. Every mistake I’ve made, every sin I’ve committed: I’ve kept. You cannot simply erase your actions, as you must repent for them.” He winced in the cutting breeze. “These are things I no longer needed, sentimentalities and history that was holding me back, clouding my judgment, keeping me in the past.”

“Parts of your old life, the Stable?” The buck had not said much about the circumstances that had resulted in his damnation, he had claimed that he was falsely extradited, but maybe he simply could no longer remember.

“Partly, yes, though I retain enough memory of that place to know that I do not miss it.” He thought he did not miss it, maybe this was the reason he wanted these memories removed, to forget what he had lost. “My curiosity got the better of me when I was younger, I tried to have one relayed back to me, recited by somebody with the capabilities to view the shards of my life that I could not.” His expression was grim. “The fact that I gave up after just one should tell you that I did not like what I heard.”

“You kept them though.” I pointed out “They have to mean something to you.”

“They are extensions of myself, sometimes I wonder if there are truths stored in there that I need to know, pieces of my past that could possibly affect how I am seen in the eyes of the Goddesses. But I’ve always believe my actions have consequences; it would have taken a great moment of weakness on my part to erase something that I deserved to remember as punishment for my sins.”

“Why give them to me?” I was perplexed. “I don’t even know how to use them. Surely they are safer here with you.”

“Their safety is part of the reason you need to keep them. With you safeguarding them, they will not share the same fate that I am threatened with here.” I could tell this wasn’t enough reason for him to give them to me. “But I give these gifts… these burdens, to you as an offering of trust. I wanted to talk to you, explore my theory that we have more in common than is apparent, but we no longer have that option.”

“I’m not as important as you make me out to be.” I admitted, insisting my own incompetence. “I achieved nothing in the Stable; I would never need to erase my memories of that place because there isn’t anything there that’s relevant enough to miss.” Mother exerted. “My life is barely worth remembering.”

“So you’ve achieved more in one day outside of that cowards den than you have in your entire life.” He pointed out. “There’s so much good that can be done out here, so much that needs to be corrected. Your willingness to try makes you important.”

“Trying doesn’t make anypony important, we still have to see if all your faith in me pays off.” I rejected his assessment. “Besides, these are as unusable to me as they are to you.” I prodded the box.

“That horn on your head, says different.” He smiled “New Calvary was always beautiful, but during the war it became industrious, factories and working towns dot the ancient landscape, the fires of manufacturing and war still burn in some places in the city. It has always been a place for the earth, a place where magical revolution only occurred during the war, the home of traditionalists. A unicorn is a rare thing amongst the descendants of that great city.” I had met just as many unicorns as I had Pegasus out in the wasteland. Perhaps one or two of the dead raiders or slavers had been unicorns, but the only one I had actually spoken to had been the little filly at the toll.

“They’re magical devices?” I couldn’t imagine being able to unlock such complex pieces of archano-technology with my modest abilities. “Don’t they require a specific spell to access?”

“They create an intimate magical link with the user, this can be created by any focal spell on the orbs, a telekinetic hold would presumably be the simplest method.” He explained. “Once bonded you stay within the memory for as long as it runs. I warn you that unnatural attempts at escaping the link can cause massive magical and mental damage, similar to the effects of a broken or corrupt orb.”

“You know an awful lot about the usage of these for an earth pony.” I commented.

“The mare who extracted and stored these shards was a great friend to me, I demanded an in depth explanation of the magic behind these devices before I let her expose my mind to them. Few know the value of these orbs; you may even find them in abandoned, scavenged ruins or other remnants of the old world. I even met a roving trader who offered me one for an ashamedly low price.” He reminisced. “They are ornaments to the every-man, trinkets to someone out of the know, but to those who understand them, they have potentially infinite worth.”

“Sounds like even more reason you shouldn’t give these to me.” I didn’t think I wanted the responsibility of protecting and invading pieces of his life. “I trust you, you don’t need to justify your motivations...”

“It’s about more than trust. You could learn from my losses.” He picked up the box and forced it into my saddlebags. “There are moments in there that could give you insight on the Stable, on the wasteland, on anything. And I have held onto them for too long.” I didn’t remove the case from my bags, as my curiosity outweighed my insecurities. “I removed those memories to forget the past, and yet I never let them go. Taking them, even losing them, would be a kindness to me.”

“I won’t lose them, but I understand your reasons.” I assured him “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me until you know what I have given you, be careful not to attach yourself to pieces of the past like those, I have seen sane ponies become lost in them.” He referred to memory orbs in general, not just his own. “My soul is as scarred as my body, if I did resort to cowardice; there could be fragments of wrongdoings I no longer remember held in those orbs. Remember who you are when you enter one; never forget you are a watcher, not the sinner himself.” He warned.

Before I could even struggle to think of something to say, Caliber came bounding over the hill and down the road. She was skipping and bouncing, I laughed as I watched Charon come trudging along behind her, grim as ever, like a frustrated parent forced to follow an exited child. Damascus turned to regard his two loyalists as they approached. The reason for Caliber’s happiness became clear, ridiculously enough, as I noticed the long black gun strapped to her side. It was an admittedly beautiful marksman carbine, ordained with symbols like tattoos on its magazine port and back. Most distinguishable was Caliber’s own cutie-mark, the black and white crosshairs, blazoned just above the ammunition magazine. It didn’t look like here ‘battle-saddle’ was operable as the gun was strapped onto her body rather than equipped.

“The team is back together!” she exclaimed as she landed from her last bounce. I felt a pang of jealousy towards the gun and gave it an intimidating look, remembering it was inanimate, I stopped myself short.

“Are we ready to go, Caliber?” I asked, as Charon began to talk quietly to Damascus.

“Picked up some of my ammunition,” she chucked some boxes into my bag, though they didn’t look like energy cells.” And my satchel,” se wiggled her side showing off the tan bag slung over her. “And all my relatively edible food, along with non-lethally radiated water to wash it down.” She passed me a few bottles of dirty liquid. “Don’t worry, I got enough Rad-away to negate the serious effects. “

“Sounds…good” I would worry about radiation later. “I have to ask though: why bother bringing your gun considering that you can’t even use it?”

“Well, I figured since you gave me your pistol from the Stable” she extended her leg to display the holstered weapon. “I owe you.” I smiled back at her, picking up on the incomprehensible severity she held to the act of sharing her prized ordinance. “Besides we might find somebody who can repair it.”

“If you’re both ready to depart, then I will leave you. Charon has expressed his concerns for what may happen if I am not in town when the search party returns.” Injected Damascus “I need to be there, put their suspicions to rest, if not…”

“Understood, boss.” Replied Caliber “Good luck.”

“The West is barren, danger, raiders and unknowable atrocities abide, few allies will you find. However you should not overlook any potential friends you encounter. The more help we can get, the better.” He concluded. The four of us exchanged formal nods before the two bucks made their way back to Hell.

“That went well.” I said, disguising the question as a statement.

“Damascus will let you know if you’ve failed him, but he won’t gripe about risks or danger if he thinks the motivation or outcome ahead of them is sound.” She pessimistically countered. “Just because he isn’t upset doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be repercussions. He may even suffer under them.”

“Does he think that the ends justify the means? No matter how abstract?” we began walking along the highway, heading west towards the end of the valley.

“Probably, it’s hard to tell what he thinks.” I thought about the pieces of his mind that I now carried along with me in the ornate box. “Though I haven’t known him long, I got here pretty recently.”

“So which direction did you come from? Where were you before Hell?” I kicked a small pebble along the path with me, making a game out of it as we walked down the highway.

“West, I lived on one of the farms in what open land there is under the forests.” She began to kick her own pebble. “Haven’t been back that way since the Slavers arrived in force.”

“You grew up on a farm?” The idea of Caliber as a farm-filly was an odd thing to imagine. Heck, a functioning farm in the wasteland was an odd thing to imagine.

“Barely, and it only used to be a farm. As you can imagine there isn’t much of a food industry anymore.” She validated my doubts. “I was born there but left soon after; it was a shelter for us.”

“You and your parents?” I asked. Caliber kept walking but stopped kicking her pebble. The small rock was left behind, another piece of ruin on the highway.

“Me and my mother mostly. She didn’t really have a choice but to be there when I was born, and she was kind enough to try and raise me for a few years. I appreciate her for that.” She sighed. “My father was a trader apparently, moved around a lot, so I didn’t see him much. He just didn’t come back once.”

“I’m sorry. My father was the same; he was damned from the Stable before I could even speak.” I confessed, feeling that the loss of the relationship between father and daughter weighed heavily on Caliber; though I had always felt unaffected by the missing buck who I had never known.

“Trust me, it’s better that you never met.” She pined. “What did he do to get the boot?”

“I never asked, my mother passed away before I was old enough to know about stuff like that.” I had lost my pebble down the road a ways and focused on the conversation. “It would have had to have been murder, or something almost as severe to warrant… ‘The boot’” I used her jovial term for damnation.

“Doesn’t sound like life in the Stable was as ideal as it was meant to be, huh?” she chuckled.

“Just look where I ended up. The problem with a system of authority is that it can be abused.” I thought for a moment. “Although I suppose that also applies out here, in a simpler way.”

“Power may not be held in the form of any kind of government, but the pony with the most guns can create his own authority. And he would probably use it for nothing but abuse.” She confirmed.

It upset me to see the patterns we drew between the Stable’s corruption and the wasteland’s cruelty. Seeing what the ‘civilized’ ponies in the Stable were capable of made me hope that the old world hadn’t descended into war for the same reasons as that I was damned: Because of a few traditionalistic bigots who deceived the public and assumed control to get their way.

I could see the end of the Middle Passage’s northern mountain range through the mist. The implied black form of the largest mountain on the horizon suggested that the mountains beyond the closer range stretched further than it. As did the mountains of the Middle Passage’s southern range. Looking at it another way, the two valleys could be considered a single one, with a smaller line of mountains running down its middle. I would ask Caliber what the other valley was called when we started heading north.

For now we walked along the cracked and charred highway, it served as a guide through the thinning mist. This area must have been used exclusively for transport before the war, a transit valley judging by the highway and train tracks. No ruins dotted the landscape around us, the rails lay to the north, like a long spine stretching across Equestria, but apart from it the land was undeveloped and empty. I assumed that since we had seen a railway station for maintaining and fuelling the trains passing through the passage then there must be a similar station for the cars on this highway.

“Is there a gas station coming up?” I inquired out of curiosity.

“You running low?”

“No,” I giggled. “I’m just curious.”

“Yep, just ahead in fact. I was only planning to get off the road as soon as we reached the uplifted stretch of highway, so we’ll pass it.” She seemed confused as to why I cared.

“Okay.” We settled back into the comfortable silence caused by the world’s distracting effect on me. While Caliber marched quietly next to me, my eyes and mind were desperately taking in everything around us. It was all so new to my perception, and the most mundane, simplistic things attracted my interest. The mist was slowly peeling back, revealing more and more of the landscape for me to see.

“You seem to like it.” Caliber noted on my fascination.

“It’s so different from what I’m used to.” I justified. “I know it sounds weird but there seems to be more life out here than there ever was in the Stable, at least in terms of personality, or beauty.”

“Would you trade it? Willingly I mean.”

“I don’t think I could live in that kind of security ever again. Knowing about what ponies out here have to survive. I would feel guilty to sit idly by in safety while they suffered.” The road cut through the uneven landscape, I stopped looking around as we passed through a ridge that blocked my view on either side.

“That’s honorable, but you can’t blame somebody for wanting to feel safe.” She mused. “What I meant was, forget what you know now, and think to what your life was like before. Would you trade it back?”

“No.” I didn’t need to think hard. “I had no sense of purpose in there, I was unemployed and alone, even now the prospect of having a job, a task even, feels foreign and exiting because of that.” I took pause to consider how others might have felt. “But I suppose if you were happy, content with your contribution to the Stable, then leaving would feel like losing your destiny.” I struggled to imagine how ponies like Mint Julep, whose cutie-mark was a triplicate of flowers symbolizing teaching, could find purpose in a world where other ponies had cutie marks of mutilated organs or instruments of imprisonment.

“I’ve never felt safe, that’s why I ask, I can’t remember a single moment when I felt absolutely, unarguably secure. There’s always something to be afraid of, no matter how tough you are.” Caliber looked forlorn. “So I wonder sometimes what it would be like.”

“I would be in the wrong to act like it wasn’t better in there.” I confessed. “Life was simpler, ponies were happier, if I ignore what happened to me and Shady Sands, it was almost a utopia. I wouldn’t go back now, realistically, but I do wish everypony could live like that, without the obvious flaws of course.”

“Even the world before the bombs had flaws, evil, it’s still what we compare ourselves to. The closest ideal for a good life we can imagine is to live in old Equestria.” She looked up into the now visible black and gray clouds. “And the surviving Stables are the closest things to that ideal. That’s why I wonder about them sometimes.” I stopped in my tracks.

“What do you mean, surviving Stables?” She had made a mistake, there was only one.

“From what I hear most of them failed some way or the other, and now there are only a few dozen left operational.” She answered calmly.

“A few…dozen.” I was aghast “There were dozens of Stables!?”

“How many did you think they made?” she asked dryly.

“One.” I was paralyzed; my eyes fleeted to the gravel as I processed this new information. Dozens of Stables, hundreds of ponies, we weren’t the only ones. We weren’t the last light of Equestria.

“Grace, there’s a company called Stable-Tec, STABLE-tec! How could you think there was only one?” she admonished me.

“This is impossible… my whole life… the responsibility we had… The basis for Ascension was that the purest inhabitants would eventually come to rebuild Equestria. We were supposed to be all that was left! We had lived our entire lives under that obligation, the Commissary had killed to protect the last safe place in the world, not just one of dozens! Why would we lie to ourselves like that?!” My internal monologue had burst out and I muttered and stammered the thoughts that raced through my head.

“You lost me at ‘Ascension’” I wasn’t listening to Caliber. She was too calm, too relaxed. My world was spinning too fast for me to keep track of her.

“Where are they!?” I demanded.

“Grace, what’s the big deal?” she asked slowly, recognizing my impending volatility.

“Ponies have died because we didn’t have this information! They’ve committed themselves to living a lie! Damnation puts you out in the barren wasteland that is Equestria, no civilization, no security. Ascension keeps you alive until the Stable rises up to take back the land, to revive Equestria! It was supposed to be simple! It was supposed to be our job to save the world!” what little merit I saw behind the Stable’s system came crashing down, we weren’t the only ones, some had even opened their doors and yet Equestria was still the same mess that Stable’s were supposed to be able to fix.
“Are there Stables open? What happened to the ones that failed?” I frantically asked.

“I’ve never been inside one, but apparently most of them didn’t even make it a few decades after the war. That’s what Damascus says anyway.” She tried to keep calm, grounding me in my panic.

“We would have failed…” I realized. “We couldn’t have changed a thing.” If Stables had opened simply to be destroyed by what awaited them in the wasteland then Shady Sand’s plan had truly been destined to fail. The world had become a place beyond damnation, it had become worse than any of our ancestors could have predicted. I was starting to think Equestria could no longer be saved. “Saber was right.”

Caliber sat by as I curled up onto the road. I needed to think, to try and convince myself that we would have done better, that our Stable could still fulfill its destiny. How was I supposed to make a difference when entire technological marvels had failed? When bands of educated, healthy, uncorrupted ponies had succumbed to the Wastes. Shady would have opened the doors… the Slavers and the Raiders would have come for us… we weren’t fighters. I had seen more guns out here than I had ever seen in the Stable. We weren’t going to fix Equestria by being educated and generous; we would have been snuffed out before we had the chance. All our technological gifts would have been stolen. All the ascended would have extracted from their pods and turned into slaves. Saber had saved the Stable. I deserved to be out here. The Commissary had done its job and Shady Sands had died for her wrongful ambition, justly.

“I don’t understand what you’re going through.” Caliber placed a hoof comfortingly on me. “But I’m sorry that you’re upset.” She was speaking slowly, carefully, as if I was insane.

“My Stable was taught that we were all that was left…” I explained, hoping to justify my reaction, stroking my tail for some semblance of comfort all the while. “We built our lives around this belief, our justice system, our aspirations…” I sat up. “I was kicked out because I believed we could save Equestria… on our own. My friend was killed because she wanted to open the doors and try to heal the world. I’m realizing now that we would have failed.” I looked into her eyes. “I’m realizing that the ponies who killed my friend and framed me for her murder… lied to the whole Stable and ruined two lives… did the right thing.” It was bitter, the truth, it cut deeply into my body, making me feel cold and sick all at once.

She didn’t say anything, I knew she couldn’t understand. The world being dangerous and seemingly untamable was nothing new to her. She never thought that it could be saved; no one I had met had referred to this land as Equestria, just as the wasteland. They all knew how much it had changed, how many of the old-world values and privileges had died. I should have realized after I heard that Slavers controlled the Railways, that raiders terrorized the roads, that small towns cowered in the darkness as ponies evacuated to the few remaining places where they might survive, I should have realized that a few hundred ponies from a hole in the ground would not have been able to save the world.
Caliber hugged me, she knew I was upset; I was shaking but couldn’t move from where I sat. It was too much to take in, too much to think about.

“Just because you can’t bring Equestria back to what it was, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try. Most will die before anybody can rescue them, and no one can kill every evil. Even if we liberate the railway and kill hundreds of Slavers and Raiders, there will be slavery and cruelty surviving in the wasteland, and you will never do as much good as you wish you were able to. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try.” Caliber spoke softly and passionately. “I’ve lost a lot of hope, a lot of my innocence and faith, but I still go on, for better or worse. You’re the purest embodiment of those traits that I have ever seen Grace, so you can’t let this change you. Remember what you believe and why you believe it. Don’t let the truth of the wasteland ruin you. Please… tell me you won’t let it change you.” It seemed as if I had become her paragon, a harbinger of the Stables, an ideal for the ponies that a better world was supposed to create… If I couldn’t beat the wasteland, if the old-world couldn’t win, how could she think to even try?

“Thank you Caliber…” I couldn’t promise that, but I could act. “It’s a lot… too much to take in at once.”

“If you could see some of the things out here,” she promised “You could realize that there is good that still needs to be protected.” She was right; I would be strong for her, she was the evidence to her own reassurances. I forcefully corralled the biting doubts to the back of my mind, they weren’t important now; they didn’t have to cripple me if I could just ignore them.

“I don’t need proof.” I returned her hug, shakily standing up. “Maybe the Stable couldn’t have succeeded in its mission but we surely could have done something. Anything is better than sitting and waiting in an excess of benefits without even acknowledging those suffering just outside a door. Shady Sands wasn’t right to believe we could have changed the world alone, but she was right to think we had to do something, and I agreed with her for that very reason.” I smiled at Caliber grateful for her encouragement.

“Keep up that attitude and you’ll be able to convince that DJ to do anything.” She was glad to see me feeling better, I was glad to have a more-than-sort-of-friend.

“Do you think the signal is any clearer here?” I asked, desperately taking the opportunity to change the subject from my near loss of faith. The wasteland seemed more daunting every minute; hopefully Galaxy News Radio would have something positive to report.

“That Pip-buck is a technological marvel compared to my radio; I’d give it a try with that if I were you.”

“A technological marvel with no broadcasting abilities.” I noted as I slid through the menus on the white screen. ‘Galaxy News Radio’ stood out, labeled, in the radio section. I picked up the frequency.

I cut into the middle of a song. I turned a dial and the sound radiated from my Pip-buck, loud enough so that Caliber could easily hear it too. Violins were playing, softly and sweetly with the deeper sound of a bass instrument in the background. The sound was much clearer than it had been in Acheron, but a little static still came through. Despite it, I noticed a distinct difference in the signature of the instruments from- what I was used to. The Stable music had always been produced magically, I had never heard an actual instrument before, but something about the natural flaw of the radio broadcast made me think it was the real thing. Were it not for the Static it would have felt immersive, as if somepony was playing the music live somewhere nearby, just for us.

Sadly, the song was coming to an end, the violins and bass were signing off a singing voice that I had not heard, ending a song that I did not know. They slowed and swayed together as, one by one, they seemed to stop, degenerating perfectly into a brief moment of silence.

“That was Sweetie Belle, the voice of another time, with ‘Wish upon a Star’, a song that’s been topping the charts for nearly two hundred years.” The usually, previously explosive buck spoke with a soft respectful tone, as if he wished to honor the age old music.

“You’re listening to Galaxy News Radio, we’re Radio Free Wasteland and we’re here, for you.” For a moment I thought a different buck was speaking. Then the DJ picked up his energetic mannerisms once again, breaking the air of calm as he let loose into his usual hyper-charged persona.

“Boy, do I have some news for you! It’s going to be a little bit of both sides of the coin today, children. We’re living in a bipolar time so get ready for some ups and downs in today’s report…” Caliber and I walked along in our personal silence, listening intently.

“First things first, the dark and gritty, I know this isn’t what you always want to hear but unless you’ve got your head in the clouds you’ve got to expect some bad news once in a while. So you kids know all about what’s been going down across the railways of the North recently, don’t you?” he paused “Of course you don’t! That’s why I have a job! Now we all know raiders are trouble, but they’re unorganized, stupid, savages... No offense mother.” I hoped he was joking.

“Slavers on the other hand, have both the brains and the weapons to outwit and outgun most any raider. But unfortunately, that’s not who they’ve been appointing their attention to. One group of Slavers has spread themselves wide, and I mean wide folks, further than yours truly can even broadcast in fact. And they’ve been snatching up ponies all across the North. They got themselves comfortably situated far above dearest Canterlot, and from there they send out collectors to any settlement their railway passes by.” Looks like the DJ shared our concerns.

“Now this is one line, children, with one set of tracks, and they’ve taken ponies from east to west. But you’d think it’d be easy to stop them right? You’re feeling like a hero thinking you’ll go set some explosives on that ‘one line’ and stop those Slavers short, right? Not happening children. These tracks are nearly indestructible; war-time defense regulations demanded it. You want to know how I know. DJ Pon3 will tell you. A settlement far to the north-east of Manehattan… has gone quite. And this wasn’t some shanty town that got blown away in a radiation storm, this was Fairmount. I don’t know what happened there but from what I’m hearing, the place no longer exists.” I wondered if the Coltilde had been responsible for this, though it depended on how fresh the DJ’s information was.

“What did they do to deserve this? They resisted. All I know is that a train was bearing down on that town, and now all that’s left of it is silence, apart from the rumors of blast marks around the tracks.” Concluded the DJ, ominously.

“Turn it off, Grace.” Caliber whispered.

“He’s about to get to the good news.” I protested.

“Look ahead.” She insisted. The mist had dispersed almost completely, so the road ahead was clear. A gas station lay a few hundred feet away from us, a safe location at a safe distance. At first I did not see what was causing Caliber’s alarm. The roof over the exposed gas pumps was large, it extruded above the station itself, a garage door opened out at one side. Fluorescent lights still flickered despite the midday light and a tall sign stood, narrow and appealingly curved to announce the station to oncoming travelers. Then I saw them. In the shadows, hung underneath the roof, swaying slowly in the wind, were corpses.

Footnote: Level Up!
Perk Added: Bloody Mess: Death is just gorier around you. It should also happen more often now that you have +5% damage. Make some Friends!

Next Chapter: Chapter 7: Gravedigger Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 20 Minutes