"Mama!" A voice stirred me from my slumber. "Mama!" I slowly opened my eyes to see Bridget looking back at me. "Wake up Mama. Ya said you'd won't sleep in today."

Groggy, I slowly got up and rubbed my eyes. "Right, darling. I did promise that."

Over a day had passed since the incident with sheriff Ashy. She fortunately hadn't returned for another attempted shootout. Miss Percussion Cap had made tracks as soon as she was able, putting in an order for a few guns and plenty of ammo before she left.

For such a grouchy mare, she quickly grew on me. I hope we meet again without some trigger happy bitch breathing down our neck.

Speaking of which, we could only hope that with PC out of town, Ashy may calm down, though until we know for sure, Hardballer and I had been watching our backs more than we had been before.

As for the two not-stable ponies, Slowtrot had become a bit jumpy, but Harp seemed to have taken the incident like it was normal, making me a bit worried about how such a prim and proper mare can just brush off a near massacre.

It was my day off today. Well, it started yesterday. Since I did not have to go to work at the Ruffled Feathers, I spent much of that day cleaning up our home, washing clothes, and taking care of a few other cores before going to sleep early. Now it was the day Bridget and I got to spend more time with each other.

"Good. You're awake," Prism spoke up, standing by the door in her nurse uniform. "I'm going to be at the clinic today. If you can, pick up some more food while you're free."

I gave her a nod, and she left, leaving me with my adorable daughter.

"Alright, first things first, let's get cleaned up." I told Bridget, she groaned at first, but quickly followed my lead as I pulled out our hygiene box and made our way outside to our water barrel. The box was just some old candy tin the Followers of the Apocalypse repainted and put the hygiene tools inside. They gave it out to everypony, but unfortunately, most ponies just forgot about them and continued to smell like shit and cigarettes until it rained, and it hasn't rained in weeks.

Pouring some of our water into a bucket, we got to work cleaning our hooves and talons before brushing our teeth, then moved onto washing our mane, tails, and lastly our coat. We shared our one good towel. Drying off left us a bit poofy, so we went back inside to brush ourselves down. Bridget's mane was coming along nicely, now looking just like mine did right after I gave birth to her. Gently brushing it down, I heard her give a little sigh. "What's the matter darling?"

She hesitated for a moment before answering "I, I heard grandpa say that he might have to move away. Is it true?"

I decided to be honest. Lying now would only make her sadder if he did move away. "It all depends on if it's safe for him to stay here. You know that grandfather Hardballer is not well liked, so it might be best for him to go back to Fillydelphia."

"Will we go with him?" she then asked, catching me a bit off guard.

"That… that depends if it's safe for us to stay. Are you worried about leaving your friends behind?" I then asked.

Bridget nodes. "Ya. But also, if we leave, then how will daddy find us?"

I froze, having forgotten about the Skipper dilemma. With Bridget having never met him, I was sure she didn't think about her father. For all I knew, Skipper had died out in the wasteland, like so many others had. I did hold out some hope that one day he will return out of the blue, like some big hero, and help me raise Bridget, though I doubt I would still feel the same about him as I did six years ago.

"I'm sure finding us would be the easiest part for him," I said nervously, knowing that Hardballer was still quite mad at him.

She seemed to perk up at that answer, "Ya, he must be fighting some evil raider, just like the Lightbringer."

Chuckling, I put the brush down, having finished her mane, "Maybe he is. Now can you help mama brush her mane?"

Excitedly, Bridget grabbed the combe and got herself ready to brush my mane. "Can you tell me about that time you and grandma fought that raider ra… resor…"

"Razor Storm?" I clarified.

"Ya, and her army of raiders!" She said excitedly.

It was going to take time to straighten out my mane and tail, so a story wasn't a bad idea. "Alright darling. It all started after the first time I ever stepped on dry land…

"... well with the raiders driven off, and the ponies in Bold Harbor unified, grandma thought we might as well stay. She did need to recover after losing her wings, and I was still not used to being around land ponies, so it was the best idea at the time." I finished the story. Bridget climbed onto my back as we made our way to the Gunrunners.

"Then what about when you left? Can you tell me about Night Strike?" she eagerly asked.

"That's a different, and much longer story, my darling. Maybe later if we have time for it. Now let's go see grandpa Hardballer. I heard Javelina is having a good day. I'm sure she'd love to see you," I told her. Though she seemed disappointed about not getting another story, she was excited about seeing her Grampa and auntie.

As we approached the compound, I saw the rare sight of Longslide smoking outside. It was a rare sight because he was both outside the compound and that his wife got him to quit smoking while she was pregnant. Seeing us, Longslide quickly dropped his cigarette and stomped it out. "This is a bad time, Star." he said with a sigh.

This got me worried. "Was there an accident?"

He shook his head. "Fortunately no, but if we didn't do our daily safety check. There might have been. Makes little difference, as all the machines are out of commission. So much for having fully charged spark batteries."

"Wait, all of them? But that's impossible! Unless," Longslide just nodded, confirming what I was about to suggest. "Sabotage!"

"Dads cussing up a storm in the workshop right now, so best not bring Bridget inside." he warned.

"Great! Just what we all need right now." I huffed. "Can you watch Bridget for me? I'm going to see if there's anything I can do."

Longslide shrugged. "Alright, but I wouldn't get my hopes up."

Turning to Bridget, she seemed to understand a bit of what's going on. "If Grandpa is sad, help him be not sad." she told me as she hopped off my back.

"I can only hope my darling, so be nice to your uncle as I talk with grampa," I asked her, and she nodded.

The lobby was uncharacteristically full of griffons. The Gunrunners looked gloomy as they sat around, drinking cheap booze early in the day. Passing them by, I made my way through the courtyard and decided to not put on the safety gear before I entered the workshop. Inside I found Hardballer alone with a bottle of griffonstone vodka, surrounded by the remnants of a smashed wooden stool.

He looked over at me, a bit red in the cheeks. "Do I even need to explain?"

"Ashy clearly had somepony fuck up the machines," I answered.

"Bitch got balls. I'll fucking give her that," he shouted. "When my mates back in Fillydelphia hear about this, she will wish she fucked with a talon instead."

I trotted up to the old buzzard. "At least no griffon got hurt, so there's that."

He looked over at the belt sander. "Silver linings, but no less a problem. Those machines aren't just something my clan found in some pony ruins. They’re cultural relics of our ancestors, older than the fucking pony war itself. I was entrusted with them to help the Gunrunners grow along with our youngsters as my apprentices. This is a fucking big deal."

"Can't you fix it? Longslide is good at that." I mentioned, knowing that if he was outside, then the answer was probably a no.

Hardballer pulled out a piece of metal from a pocket. It looked like a part of a gear, but warped and chipped. "The fucker that did this knew exactly where to brake shit. Luckily we spotted the damage, or the machines would have gone out of control and then exploded.”

“Still, these parts can't just be hammered out. We'll need to return to Fillydelphia to even make the parts, and that's only for what we know is broken." He sighed good and long. "We need to dismantle everything and check it part by part, something that's going to take all day."

He then passed the bottle of vodka over to me, but I pushed it back to him. "Sorry. I'm with Bridget today."

He chuckled. "You really have changed, Star. I still remember when that idiot son of mine brought you over and all I saw was another irresponsible kid. Didn't want ya two fooling because I couldn't see either of you able to raise a kid, but here you are, making me wish you were my daughter." Hardballer took a swig of his vodka. "Anyways, probably best you return to Bridget. I got to start the dismantling before packing everything up."

Reaching out, I wanted to tell him that things will be fine, but those would just be hollow words.

Leaving the workshop, the two not-stable ponies were standing in the courtyard, both tapping on their pipbucks. I cocked an eyebrow at them as I asked, "See anything interesting?"

"Maybe," Slowtrot said, not looking away from his pipbuck.

Harp pulled away and trotted over to me. "We're seeing if we can locate a factory through our pipbucks, Slowtrot thinks if we can find a Stable-Tec or Ironshod factory, then we can find replacement parts."

"Is that even possible?" I asked.

Slowtrot looked up from his pipbuck. "Well Stable-Tec, Ironshod, and the Ministry of Wartime Technology were all run by members of the Apple family, so It was well known they all got their factory parts from the same company, GriffinStone Mechanics. That company had a monopoly on repairing those big factory machines, so if anything went wrong, a griffon would always show up to boss everypony around until it was fixed." He then looked back down at his pipbuck, frustration on his face. “The only problem is that we need administrative access to unlock the sight locations on the pipbuck mapping spell.”

“I was able to get mapping information off the pipbuck network, but it seems that Stable-Tec has blocked sensitive sights from being seen without proper authorization,” Harp explained as she showed me her pipbuck. “So we’re trying to see if we can at least get a general idea where a factory might be located.”

“That's amazing!” I exclaimed as I looked at her pipbuck. “You do know there's an old Ironshof factor not all that far from here?”

Harp then sighed, “We know, and passed it by Longslide. He told us that it had long been picked clean of any useful parts, something about a pony killing all the robo brains that guarded the place which allowed scavengers to move in.”

That made sense. “So then do you even know where to look?”

“Not really,” Slowtrot explained, “but Spot Weld has a very intact Stable-Tec pipe wrench he got from a scavenger. He said that they found a factory, but they got scared off before they could get much out of it. If we could locate that factory, then maybe it has the parts the Gunrunners need.” He then let out a long groan. “If only I didn’t lose Healing Herbs pipbuck, then we’d have access to the locked information.”

I then felt the pit of my stomach drop a little. “Lost pipbuck?”

“Ya, it’s a bit of a story, but I also had an overmare’s pipbuck with me. I’m not sure how much authority she had in Stable-Tec, but I know that Applebloom was meant to take over the R&D stable, so Healing Herbs had to have been high up in authority.” Slotrot further explained.

“And that’s the only way to unlock the map?” I asked, hoping for a no.

“Unfortunately yes,” Harp answered. I felt a cold sweat. “I tried to use my advanced VI to unlock it, but the data is too encrypted, and needs a spell matric key. Not to say that Order cannot decrypt the data, but it would need to be done location by location, and each one would take time to do. Order, what is the progress of decryption?”

Her pipbuck then spoke. “Madam, the decryption is currently at seven percent with fourteen hours and forty-two minutes until full decryption.”

“Thanks, Order. That will be all.” She lowered her pipbuck and sighed. “As you heard, it will take a long time, and I only blindly picked a spot, so the decryption could still just give us a load of nothing.”

I did feel a bit guilty, but more than that, I knew I was about to lose a huge payday, bigger now with how important that pipbuck was… “I have it,” I confessed.

“Have what?” Harp asked in a confused tone.

“The pipbuck Slowtrot lost, he didn’t lose it, I… I stole it...” this got both of their attention. “I mean he already had one, and pipbucks are worth a lot of caps to the right pony. With the caps I could get from it, I could feed Bridget for a year, and… I’m sorry.” I avoided their gaze, feeling shameful of what I did.

“So it’s not lost?” Slowtrot asked, and I nodded. There was a moment of silence, and I heard him trot up to me, clearly angry, as I had taken what was not mine, and… I felt two hooves whap around me and squeeze. “That's wonderful!” he shouted as I was hugged. “And I thought I must have drunkenly thrown it when trapped in that dark place!”

“You're not mad?” I asked as I peed at him.

Slowtrot let me go and backed up. “Wait, I probably should be… but I’m not.” He then sighed, his cheery disposition turning a bit solemn. “That pipbuck was never mine to begin with, and the pony who owned it, I…” He mumbled for a moment and then sighed again before putting on a fake smile. “Let’s just say that I’m just happy that it’s not lost. Everything else doesn't matter right now.”

“I agree,” Harp chimed in, “If we have that pipbuck, then we can help the gun runners. That’s all that matters right now.”

They both looked at me, eyes a bit too wide with hope. “Alright, but keep this quiet until we know this will help the gunrunners. The last thing I need is word getting out that I stole from an unconscious pony. Goddesses know, the deputies would love to use that against me. Anyways, I’ll be right back with that pipbuck.”

Passing through the lobby of depressed griffins, Longslide was waiting for me outside. Before he could say anything, I shoved my hoof into his beak. “No time! I might have a solution, so keep an eye on Bridget until I get back!” I told him before galloping off.

Fortunately, the town was mostly empty at this time of day. Most of the ponies were working at the quarry or scavenging outside of town, so I didn't have to dodge anypony. Unfortunately, I did see a deputy on their rounds, clearly watching me as I passed. Maybe they were just on their patrol, nothing to be concerned about, but right now any attention from the deputies was bad news.

It didn't take long to get home. I spent a little extra time wiping off my hooves on the dormant before entering. I did spend most of yesterday cleaning, so I was not going to just track dust in.

Inside, I trotted over to our one good drawer. It had several metal tins on top filled mostly with useless junk I thought we could use at some time in the future. They were covered with a cloth and had candles on top of that. This also made a good hiding spot as removing all this junk would be too much of a hassle and make too much noise for a thief. Anyways if a pony was willing to tear up my home to find anything of value, they were going to find it no matter how well I hid it.

Putting the candles, cloth, and smaller boxes to the side, I pulled forward a larger tin. It rattled with the sound of rusted nuts and bolts. Carefully opening it, there it was, a pipbuck. I had left it unlatched and spread out so to fit inside better. It didn't look all that different from any of the other pipbuck I had seen pass through the town. I mean I was no pipbuck technician, but I could tell it was in a far better condition than the pipbuck Spot Weld owned who was almost religious about taking care of it. Knowing what I know now, this thing is worth far more than double that what I was going to sell it for. Maybe it’s even being the only one of its kind.

With Ashy breathing down our necks, maybe it is a good idea to leave. With this, I could start a new life with mom and Bridget anywhere. It would be hard at first, but if we budget the caps, then we can take things slow. We’d build a new reputation and get a stable job. Or we could just go back west in order to reconnect with old friends. The two not-stable ponies were planning on heading that way too, so we'd have some safety in numbers.

Taking a deep breath, and sighing it all out, I closed the pipbuck and put it down as I grabbed a saddlebag. "I'll leave that as plan B," I muttered to myself as I put the pipbuck into the saddlebag, I then threw it onto my back and trotted out the door, leaving the mess on the counter for later.

"I hope you're not up to anything, Miss Star Charter," Stopped Clock spoke up, standings outside my house while smoking a cigarette.

I rolled my eyes at him. "I could say the same thing to you. We all know it was you or False behind the Gunrunners sabotage."

"Old machines tend to break down. Maybe that old Redeye slaver should have kept it all in Fillydelphia," he said, not even denying my accusation.

"Have you ever tried letting go of the past and accepting that things have changed? Redeye is dead, and slavery has been outlawed in most of Equestria," I said in an annoyed tone.

He spat out his used cigarette. The butt falling near my house. He pulled out another, struck a match and lit it before taking a long drag. The smoke slowly blew out of his mouth like some smoldering gun barrel.

"You were not here when Redeye first showed up,” Stopped Clock told me. “You weren't even here when he finally fell. Red Eye was not some slaver lord's child inheriting his position, or a raider warlord carving out his own empire. No, he was a stable pony, and one who used words, not guns, to get what he wanted. Within a short few years, he convinced the bickering slaver clans to stop killing each other and focus on everypony else. What was a manageable problem for us honest folks quickly turned into a nightmare."

Stopped Clock took another long drag from his cigarette before dropping it, pulling out another to smoke, then continued.

"If we had been as vigilant back then as we are now, there never would have been a Red Eye. That smooth-talking young stallion would have been hung at the gallows as soon as he became trouble. So, Miss Star Charter, I'll explain this once again; that’s the reason why I don't forget or forgive. The wasteland has never changed. It will always be a shithole, and as soon as we let our guard down, that's when the next Red Eye will show up."

"And let me guess, if that happens, Ashy will be the next Lightbringer?" I mockingly asked.

"I assure you, as long as Ashy breathes, there will never be a need for another Lightbringer." He said sternly.

"I get it, I get it. Ashy is a super Sheriff, but there is always going too far, and she's dangerously close to the edge, or have you forgotten what she did two nights ago?" I pointed out as I began to trot away. "Anywho, I can't keep my daughter waiting, so if you would pick up your litter before leaving yourself, that would be neighborly."

Stopped Clock spoke with a stern cold tone."Maybe crossing the line is what Ashy needs to do. I still don't know why she even tolerates an evil pony like yourself. You're nothing more than a bomb waiting to go off. The sooner you are disposed of, the safer we all are."

I ignored him, both because I knew responding to his provocations is just what he wanted, and that I had better places to be.

Quickly making my way back to the Gunrunners compound, I found Bridget and Longslide playing patty cake. The hippogriff looked over at me. He showed some annoyance on his face. "So what's this solution you have, Star?"

"Come with me and I'll show you," was all I said as I entered the compound.

Passing through reception, Longslide, Bridget, and I trotted over to Harp and Slowtrot.

"Did you find it?" Slowtrot asked hopefully.

I pulled the pipbuck out of my bag and passed it to him. "Here you go. So, now what?"

"A pipbuck? Where did you get that, Star," Longslide asked, sounding as if he suspected me of theft.

"Hardly matters right now." Slowtrot cut the question off as he pulled out a few cables and attached them to both pipbucks. "Alright… any moment… and… nothing?"

"It might be bio locked," Harp spoke up.We cocked eyebrows at her. "Some pipbuck have a biolock spell built-in. It's a security function to ensure that some pony can't just steal or hack into another ponies pipbuck. From what I can remember, it requires the owner's approval to unlock it."

There was a pause as we all looked at the overmare pipbuck. "So then, this is just a dead end?" I asked, feeling frustrated.

"Maybe put it on?" Slowtrot suggested.

Looking down at it, I had a strange feeling that if I did put it on, it was not coming off any time soon. From what I read in the Lightbringers book, her own pipbuck had fuzed to her fenlock, becoming part of her. "I don't know…"

"Mama's going to be like the Lightbringer!" Bridget excitedly gasped.

I had to keep myself from cringing as I imagined a pipbuck fused to my leg. "Well, no. I don't think that will…"

"Can I put it on! I wanna be like the Lightbringer!" my daughter said excitedly as she reached for the pipbuck.

I pulled Bridget back and held her close to me to calm her down. "If I did put that thing on, can you take it off later?"

Both Harp and Slowtrot looked at each other, then back at me. "Maybe…" both said, sounding unsure.

"Can somepony explain to me, why the pipbucks?" Longslide irritably asked.

With a sigh, I then explained. "They think there's an untouched Stable-Tec factory somewhere out in the local wasteland, but the location is locked behind administrative access which this pipbuck should have. If we can locate the factory, then we can get the parts for the workshop."

"I see…" Longslide said, sounding concerned. "If this is true, then we can stay in New Appleloosa."

"Maybe leaving might be for the best," I suggested, which got looks from everycreture. "Come on! You saw what Ashy did the other night, and now the sabotage! Face it, if we stay, it's only going to get worse. If I sell this pipbuck, there will be enough caps for me to take Bridget and mom somewhere safer."

Everyone became silent. Bridget putting a talon on my shoulder.

Then the door to the workshop flung open. A less than sober Hardballer stepped out. "You think there's someplace safer?! Ha! It's the wasteland! Nothing in the wasteland is safe. All you will be doing is trading one problem for another."

Longslide sighed, "Dad, you should lay down…"

"Shut your beak! I didn't come here just to run away with my tail tucked between my legs!" Hardballer shouted as he trotted over. "I came out here to give my family an opportunity to succeed, to give my apprentices the ability to express themselves. If we go back to Fillydelphia, then we all go back to living under my cousin’s claw, and fu…" he looked over at Bridget for a second. "Let’s just say it will not be fun. So, if there's any way to get the workshop back up and running, I say we take it. We can then talk about moving our operations later."

"That's true. As long as the machines work, we don't have to return to Fillydelphia. There are a few settlements further in the wasteland that would love to have us nearby," Longslide added.

I let Bridget go as I looked at the pipbuck for a few seconds before relenting. "Alright, I'll put it on." Reaching out with my hooves, Slowtrot passed it back to me. Slowly, I latched it around my left fenlock until it clicked, then I waited for it to respond. After a moment, the green light of its screen turned on.

The latch came loose and I shrugged. "I guess not," was all I said before I heard a click.

Looking at the pipbuck, Harp had attached another cable to it and one to Slowtrots pipbuck. "I was thinking that Order might be able to help. It is an advanced VI, and that pipbuck is 200 years behind programming," she explained. "Order, can you set Star Charter as that pipbucks new owner?" Her pipbuck then beeped, and she then nodded at me.

I re-latched the pipbuck, and again waited.

My vision blurred for a moment as a cascade of green zeros and ones flooded my vision for a few seconds. When it was over, I could see numbers and words along the edge of my vision, causing me to tilt my head in an attempt to read what it was.

"Ya, took me a while to get used to that," Slowtrot commented before looking back down at his pipbuck. After a moment, his eyes went wide. "It worked! We unlocked the map!"

Everycreature crowded around Slowtrot as he showed us the map. All I could see was a green screen covered in lines and little squares with a crosshair highlighting one square which showed us the name of the town. Harp then cleared her throat, "Order, show me the location of the closes Stable-Tec, Ironshod, and M.o.W.T. production factories."

"Several locations found madam," her pipbuck spoke.

Harp nodded as she looked at her pipbuck. "Alright, there's no M.o.W.T. factories nearby, and the Ironshod factory is the one we already knew about, leaving us with the Stable-Tec production sight 13."

Looking at my own pipbuck, I saw the location as well as several other markers between it and us. Some of it I recognize as places near a former radiation hotspot, and was more than a day's trot from here.

"Problem; if I was to guess the distance, it's going to take us around three days to get there and back, and that's if we don't run into trouble." I explained.

"Only if you go by hoof," Longslide spoke up, a smile forming in the corner of his beak. "If we take the Smuggler, we can get there in no time, and it should make bringing back the parts just as easy."

Catching all of us by surprise, Hardballer laughed. His despair from earlier seemingly gone.

"So we have a goal, a destination, and transportation. I guess we atta get that Smuggler ready. Time is caps, and we'll run out of both if we just sit around." Hardballer bellowed.

I don't know why, but I couldn't stop myself from smiling as a sense of excitement bubbled up from within me.

-Item Obtained- (Pipbuck 3100) an administrative pipbuck used by the higher-ups of Stable-Tec. New locations are now open up to you.

-Pipbuck Function Obtained- (Advanced E.F.S.) The Eye Forward Sparkle spell well now comes with Friend or Enemy function, along with height and depth detection. It will mark friends as blue, neutral as yellow, and hostiles as red, and will tell you if the target is above or below you.

-Pipbuck Function Obtained- (Advanced S.A.T.S.) The Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell will now allow the user to perform precision attacks and noncombatant actions.

-Quest Start- (Burning Rubber) Obtain the machine parts from Stable-Tec production factory 13.