Seafire and I lay low on our stomachs at the crest of a slight mound in the terrain, peering down into the slaver compound below. We could just see over the rag-tag collection of fencing and fortification to the network of crude buildings, rusting huts and makeshift tents inside.

Hearing a rustle behind me, I spun round with Jury raised and ready. When Xyalia crept out of the darkness, I let myself relax. If she noticed, she made no show of it and settled beside me looking down into the compound.

“It is planted,” she said before I even asked, “attached to the fuel truck.”

“Will anypony find it?” I asked.

“It is hidden inside the engine compartment. I doubt it.”

“What took you so long to get back?” I asked, checking my PipBucks clock. “Heck, that thing is going to blow in ten minutes.”

“I got stuck between a pair of tents with a group of ponies at either end. I had to wait until one moved aside, and I could slip by.”

The three of us returned to watching the camp, waiting. I wondered just how big the explosion would be. Would it be enough to destroy whatever was under the tarpaulin? Would it kill enough ponies to let the ghouls even the odds?

“Where did you get that necklace?” Seafire asked Xyalia as we watched the compound. “I wouldn’t have thought it something you typically find in the wasteland.”

“I found it inside an overturned truck while traveling. The padded case it’d been locked inside had rusted, allowing me to kick it open.”

“So, you found it by luck?” I asked.

“In short, yes. The convoy of vehicles looked to be of military origin. They tend to contain the best loot. A pair of hovering robots guarded it, with the corpses of many would-be salvagers as testament to their skill.”

“And you got past them?” Seafire asked, amazed.

“By taking my time. I eventually got up on top of a vehicle and was able to jump onto one robot and rip out its power unit. The other robot tried to kill me with its arm saw, but I was able to dodge its attacks and take out the jet that allowed it to hover.”

“Hang on, you were able to dodge a robot?” I asked, my eyebrow raising with doubt.

“Yes.”

“How?”

Xyalia gestured at the necklace. “The pendant of course. I believe the necklace was for use by special operatives who performed covert infiltration missions within Equestrian borders.”

“So,” I tapped my hooves together, “how does it work?”

“The gem is enchanted with an invisibility spell, the necklace allows that effect to be transferred to the wearer. I simply touch the gem, and,” with a hoof tap Xyalia vanished, “I simply disappear.” After a moment she reappeared, a slightly disturbed expression on her muzzle.

“What is it that makes ponies act this way?” she mused, gazing down into the compound.

“Huh?” I replied, caught off guard by the Zebra’s rather sudden topic change. “How do you mean?”

“The history of this war isn’t something I am particularly knowledgeable of but…” She paused, perhaps searching for the right wording. “We, as in all of Equus were at harmony for a millennium and probably long before that, but now we die in droves, war and hate consuming every aspect of our existence.” I found myself struggling to respond, a look at Seafire suggests she was just as bemused by Xyalias musings as I am.

“Perhaps in time things will go back to the way they were,” she continued, “but from what I have seen, I doubt it.”

Completely clueless as to how to respond, I simply let her be. I considered my own knowledge of the war to be reasonable, given my stable upbringing, but after being in Twenty-Five it was clear that not every stable was privy to the same level of information as Seventeen; ‘That’s because it was technically not a stable,’ my inner pony reminded me.

“Equus?” Seafire’s quiet voice broke the silence. “What is Equus?”

“I have been told it is the name of our planet,” Xyalia replied softly. “I have never heard another name given to it, but I suppose it’s logical. We may all be different, but at our core most of the creatures in this world are Equine. There are exceptions, but before the war most lands were Equine controlled, be it Equestria, Saddle Arabia or my ancestors own homelands.

“Do you know much about your homeland?” Seafire asked. “What is its name?”

“I’m afraid that is one thing I have yet to discover,” the mare replied solemnly. “I have never heard ponies speak of it directly, it is understandably a sore topic in this land. But it’s only a matter of…”

Xyalia stopped abruptly, her body tensing up, eyes staring.

“Look!”

All our eyes snapped to follow her hoof. I slammed down the talk button. “All radios, this is Francium. They are moving the fuel tanker. I repeat, they are moving the fuel tanker.” I whispered frantically, wishing I could give them more information.

Twenty or so ponies were attaching ropes to the front of the truck, while one climbed into the drivers seat. They all quickly looped themselves into their harnesses and began to drag the tanker though the compound.

“Shit, shit shit.” I heard Tungsten grumble over the radio. “What do we do?”

“Everyone stay put,” Smoking commanded. “This just means that we will need another way of taking out whatever is under the tarp. Detonation is in one minute.”

“Wait, where are they taking the tanker?” I asked slowly. “There isn't another vehicle in the compound.”

I heard anxious voices before Smoking responded. “From our position it looks like they are heading into the stable’s tunnel stable. Fran, you know the most about the stable’s structure. Will it be able to survive the blast?”

“I haven’t got a clue,” I replied hurriedly. “It could bring the whole tunnel down. Shit, detonation in thirty seconds” All of us watched from our vantage points as the trail of ponies disappeared inside the mouth of the tunnel and out of sight, but then my gaze was drawn back to the object under the tarp. It wasn’t going to be under it much longer.

“They’re uncovering it.” I barked into my PipBuck. “They’re—”

BOOM.

The ground shook from the force of the enclosed detonation. Everything in line with the tunnel mouth; ponies, crates, tents, barrels and building were sent flying by the shockwave of air that blasted out of the tunnel. The wall of air was followed by a wall of blue fire roaring from the tunnel, ripping the entrance into a million lethal fragments of concrete and rebar. A deathly silence, then the void imploded, a sonic boom shattering the air as everything seemed to be sucked back into the tunnel.

All of this passed in mere seconds. When I’d blinked away the white afterburn that filled my vision and my ears had stopped ringing, I was able to take in what was left. Hell.

Everything before the tunnel mouth was ablaze with blue fire. Ponies ran screaming as they burned alive. In the seconds that followed, barrels and boxes filled with ammunition detonated, sending shrapnel flying. Blue fire turned to yellow as it consumed the fabric tents in a growing inferno.

I watched in horror as the compound was consumed by fire.

An urgent voice broke over my radio. “Minor to Francium, Minor to Francium.”

“I’m here.” I replied quickly.

“What in the hay happened? The door to the hangar has just been blasted into the sta—” Minor cut off, overcome by a hacking cough.

“Is everypony ok?” I asked hurriedly.

“Yeah, but whatever you just did killed half the ghouls that were gathered in the core. They—” he was cut off by an terrifying, earsplitting wail. “They’re charging.” I heard him yell over the death siren. “Every last one of them.”

It was not pretty to watch. Ponies, bleeding and dying, armour smouldering and torn, stumbled out of the smoking tunnel entrance only to be rundown and eaten alive by packs of ravenous ghouls. Occasionally, a pony would be left alive by the pack, limbs missing, blood oozing from their bodies, abandoned to die a messy agonising death.

Some of the slavers fought back, gunning ghouls down in frenzied blazes of automatic fire. But it was only a matter of time before they ran out of ammunition or were simply overrun. A few groups of slavers took cover in hastily formed rings of bodies and debris, able to hold their own against the hoard. When they moved out of cover to help their friends Mantis and Smoking put them down with precise sniper fire.

“This is horribly clinical.” I heard Seafire mutter next to me.

“How do you mean?” I asked, unable to pull my gaze away from the bloody show.

“It’s a balancing act, isn’t it.” She peered down her Monocular. “We have to kill the slavers but not leave any ghouls behind either. Having a bunch of ravenous ghouls roaming the wastelands is almost as bad as a group of slavers.”

“Minor to Francium. Minor to Francium.”

“Go ahead.”

“Is it safe for us to start our attack. We’re just waiting on your signal.”

“One moment.” I switched channels. “Smoking, the stable is ready to start its attack. Do you reckon the numbers are right?”

“Yep, should be an easy clean up.” Smoking replied dryly, a hint of disgust in his voice. ‘So even the trained soldier isn’t enjoying the view.’

“You are good to go Minor. You can start your attack.” Then I added, “Good luck.”

“Thanks, Francium, Minor Out”

Inside my head I could see Minor and the other residents of Stable Twenty-Five gunning down the surviving Slavers and Ghouls in a hail of mixed gunfire. I wondered what the pressure wave from the explosion had done to the ponies in the hangar and what it had done to all the vehicles still parked inside. With nowhere to go, the wall of air thrust before the explosion would have been strong enough to toss ponies through the air like ragdolls, rupture arteries and probably compress a ponies chest so far it would break their ribs. ‘Seems you forgot about the clean-up’ my inner pony mentioned glumly.

“Francium! Francium! We need help in here! Shit!” I was startled out of my stupor by Minors panicked voice. “There are survivors, lots of them. They’re—” An explosion cut off Minors words before he simply yelled. “Fall back! Everypony fall back! Fall—” The transmission cut out in with a blast of distortion.

Shit!

“Everyone! The stable is in trouble. Did you hear that?” I launched myself over our little ridge and began to barrel towards the compound. Seafire and Xyalia were right on my tail. “Smoking, they need help.”

“We’re on our way.” Was all he said but it sounded like he was sprinting.

With nopony guarding the compound it wasn’t hard to find a pony sized gap in the rough metal construction to slip though. Holding Jury before me, I made my way cautiously through the wreck of the compounds tents and supplies. There were a few survivors, of sorts. They were alive but badly burned, lacerated or missing limbs.

A pair of ghouls were ravaging their way through the stomach of a raider who was impaled on a pile of scrap metal. To my horror I saw the buck coughing up blood and viscera as his lower intestines were devoured by the creatures.

Xyalia wasted no time, ending their lives with a swift motion of her bladed hooves into the back of their skulls, and didn’t even flinch as she drove both home into the heart of the dying raider. ‘If a mercy killing was ever appropriate, now would be the time...’

The area that had been burned by the blue fire crunched under hoof as we galloped across it. The fire had been so hot that it had turned any sand into little lumps of glass that cracked the moment you stood on them. Bodies were everywhere, the stench of burnt skin and scorched hair was overpowering, forcing me to breathe through my mouth to try and stop the smell. When I realised I was probably breathing flakes and particles of barbecued pony, I tried to stop breathing altogether.

“Did Mantis tell you the bomb was going to do this?” Seafire coughed as we ran. “I know they were slavers, but this is just horrible. I don’t know which is worse, this or the warehouse.”

‘Its a good job he didn’t, else I would have pulped his stallionhood.’ I fumed. “Right now we need to get inside the stable,” I replied fiercely, ignoring my inner ponies angry outburst. “I just hope the tunnel hasn’t collapsed.”

It hadn’t. Whoever had built it, probably Stable-Tec, had done a superb job. The entrance looked like a regular cave or tunnel, but it was just a façade hiding a combination of cast concrete panels with one inch rebar and steel support rings that, despite twisting and warping in the blast, were able to hold aloft the shattered and fractured roof.

There was nothing left of the tanker. The biggest piece I could see was the engine block. which was embedded up to the third row of cylinders of its V10 configuration in the concrete wall. The fuel container was nothing but rolls of twisted metal. Drive shafts were twisted back on themselves and there was no sign of the chassis at all except a network of melted silvery lines.

“Celestia buck me!” For a moment I was torn between which was more surprising. The lack of a vehicle or that Seafire had sworn. “It’s just gone.”

“Let’s keep moving.” I galloped through the debris to the edge of the stable door.

Shaped like a massive gear, the door had two hydraulic pistons to push it into its matching hole in the wall before being rolled sideways by a massive top mounted pinion. It was at least twice the diameter of Stable Seventeen’s door, perhaps more. Inspite of the massive explosion that had occurred just a few meters away, the door and its mechanism had little more than charing to show for the inferno that had enveloped it, a testament to Stable-Tec’s serious overengineering.

My PipBuck began to click. With the door now down, radiation was beginning to seep out of the stable, one rad per second wasn’t to dangerous, but I quickly chomped down on a RadX tablet to be on the safe side.

Crouched at either side, the three of us waited for the bucks to join us. It was hard to ignore the yells and sounds of gunfire from inside the stable but I knew the three of us would be easy targets if we just charged in. Looking around, I spotted the lone security camera Minor and I had been looking through less than twelve hours ago. It was charred but didn’t look broken, much like everything else around the door like the door control console which was covered in a thin crust of black soot.

Shuffling along towards it, I wiped away the grime from the controls to get a proper look. It was hard to tell, but if I was interpreting the mass of mangled wires looping out of the main compartment correctly, the door had been hot wired so that it would open. Somepony out there was good. Very good. As good as me, even. I tracked what wires I could to see what components had been bridged, checking the board configuration.

“They hacked the door,” I whispered to Seafire and Xyalia. “They tricked the door into thinking it had received an override from within the stable.”

“Does that help us at all?” Seafire asked, clutching her shotgun close to her chest.

“Not really. It’s just amazing that they found somepony with the skills.”

“Could they have done it by trial and error?” Xyalia asked.

“It’s possible but… what are you doing?” Xyalia was running the edges of her blades against the spine of the other over and over again, the short blades ringing with each strike.

“Sharpening them.”

“Friendly.” I turned to see Mantis, Smoking and Tungsten galloping as quietly as they could towards us. We all huddled on either side of the massive doorway listening to the carnage inside.

“Everyone check your weapons. Make sure you have at least two more reloads on hoof.” Smoking barked as he loaded a double barreled shotgun. “Security, have your backups ready too. We’ll split into two teams, one heads left, the other right. How we are split now is fine. Seafire and I are leads. We will be alternating our shots so fire when we reload and reload when we fire.”

“What about Xyalia?” Seafire asked fervently. “She is C-Q.”

“Stick with me,” He instructed the Zebra. “Take out anything that gets to close. Just make sure you don’t get hit.” Xyalia nodded then vanished with a hoof tap.

“Fran, Seafire take these.” Smoking tossed Seafire a bag from which she pulled six grenades. “Three each. Throw them all together with some scatter. Hit as many as you can.”

“I ought to stay back. My rifle is better at long range,” Mantis cut in.

“Fine, but keep up. Target the heavies. Alright, everypony on three.” Smoking slung the acquired shotgun on to his back and took his Blackhawk in his muzzle. “One. Two. Three.”

We broke cover. Smoking pressed forwards before me, heading to the close remains of a decimated chariot. Tossed up on its side by the explosion it was perfect cover for us both with Tungsten and with his battle saddle close behind. Breathing fast I snuck a look round the edge of cover at the battlefield.

Bodies were scattered everywhere, slaver, raider and ghoul alike. Scorched vehicles tossed from their pedestals mixed with shrapnel from the tanker left shards of razor sharp metal all across the floor. My eyes were drawn, however, to a massive craft that was piled up on top of the crushed carcass of a luxury limousine. The Military Vertibuck. Its paint smoldering, the windscreen obliterated, and the nearest corner shredded by shrapnel, it looked like its life was over. ‘Good thing too’ my inner pony added firmly.

Combat was concentrated around the door at the room's far end. Slavers crouched behind makeshift cover, and behind a substantial piles of ghoul cadavers, took pot shots through the doorway at the residents of Stable Twenty-Five. There had to be around two dozen survivors. Not many but more than enough to be giving Minor and his companions trouble. With no real training it was only a matter of time before they made a mistake. ‘You have no training either’ my inner pony cut in. ‘You just make it up as you go.’

Why did I have to remind myself?

Seafire caught my gaze and I pulled out my three grenades. Three nods later I breathed deep, tossed myself out of cover and engaged SATS. The meyhem froze, I acquired the three highest percentage targets in my field of view and let the grenades fly.

Ponies cried out as two grenades landed in prime positioned and promptly detonated. A mare in leather barding and toting a bolt action rifle, who’d begun a desperate leap to safety, was literally ripped limb from limb as the grenade exploded right beneath her. Her rifle flew through the air as her body was turned into a pink and red pulp in a fraction of a second.

Target two fared only marginally better as his heavily armoured body, some kind of power suit perhaps that supported twin automatic shotguns , deflected most of the blast. Stupidly the buck wasn’t wearing a helmet. His muzzle was torn off by the searing fragments leaving him clutching at his upper jaw, blood pouring from his exposed throat.

Seafire’s targets all exploded at the same time, their bodies convulsing as they were ripped apart by the shock wave and the wall of tiny frags that radiated out from each explosion. Five down in less than three seconds.

My third grenade missed its intended target of a crouching unicorn, wielding dual revolvers that were painted blood red to go with her blood red mohawk—I really doubted it was actually paint. The grenade bounced off and over her wagon-based cover and detonated in the middle of the doorway.

All gunfire stopped for a fraction of a second as everypony tumbled backwards to avoid the blast. In the confusion two heads exploded from high calibre rifle rounds before the slavers worked out they had more company.

I felt rounds ricochet off the field around my EVA suit before I managed to take cover again. Dust hung in the air from stray rounds as Smoking and Tungsten began to fire back but they couldn’t get off more than two shots before returning fire forced them back into cover.

“Fran, can that suit take a direct hit?” Smoking slammed home a new magazine. “You need to fire first. We can’t break cover otherwise.”

“What do I shoot at?”

“Anything, just make then get down. Surely that gun of yours has a suppression setting. Low power, high volume.”

I jumped straight into the options for Jury. Swarf was right, I had a ton of options. The presets were self explanatory, but none seemed to indicate they were any good at suppression. But one seemed it might be just as good, ‘Cover Breaker: High Energy, High Speed Shot, Slow Detonation with a delay to encourage detonation inside the target. Effective on metals and masonry.”

“Let me give this a try.” I checked the charge on Jury, breathed deep and swung up out of cover.

SATS locked the scene before me again. The Slavers had changed cover, moving closer to us and putting themselves out of sight of the doorway. Even in the chaos of battle the Slavers were good enough shots to be hitting our cover nine times out of ten. I set up four shots into the cover of three ponies and the prospective cover of another pair dashing through the open. The chances were all around the sixty percent mark but it was the best I could do. One final check, and I opened fire.

Two hits resulted in their targets scrambling for better cover, one miss sent up a plume of concrete fragments, the other hit a charging pony in the rump of her armour sending her spinning across the floor, injured but still dangerous.

Tungsten stood up and let fly with his battle saddle, the spray of fire was impressive but he was well out of effective range. Smoking got three good hits on a Slaver in a rusty power suit, but the rounds didn't even have him stumbling. Across from us, Seafire was now joined by Mantis who was firing shot after shot as fast as he could but only a few of the rounds found their targets. Xyalia was no where to be seen. That was until a pair of ponies that had been closing in on Seafire’s position to her left were suddenly slammed to the ground as an invisible force grabbed them by their necks. Xyalia must have moved on as both were left to bleed out messily from their throats.

“We need to get closer,” Smoking yelled as we continued to fire. “Fran, on your right!” I entered SATS and turned the flimsy cover of an overturned desk into splinters forcing the Slaver to rush back. “Good shot, damn.” Smoking toppled backwards with a face full of splinters as a round decimated the ornamental arm of the chariot. “These guys are good.”

“Seafire, give us covering fire. We’re going to advance.” Smoking commanded. “On three again. One. Two. Three.”

Our trio dashed out, aiming for the next vehicle. I blind fired Jury as I ran for my life. Rounds struck my suits shield. I stumbled and tripped, landing hard. Then my world turned upside down. The grenade tossed me forwards, end over end before I slammed into the cover I had been charging towards. My PipBuck went crazy when the suits shield failed. My head spun as I tried to pull myself the right way up. Smoking made the cover but barely, his left hind leg bleeding badly from numerous shrapnel wounds. Tungsten was no where to be seen.

“Fran! Fran, are you alright?” Smoking was groaning in pain but he didn’t seem to care. “You dropped Jury.” He kicked my gun towards me with his good leg. “Fran, answer me damn it!”

“I’m ok, but the repulsion field failed and isn’t charging. I’m not even getting a reading from the energy cell.” I turned back to look at the cell and groaned. My hard landing had bent my modified mount The cell was still in place, but it was no longer linking with the original deconstruction talisman socket. “Celestia buck me!”

“Can I help?” Smoking asked as he downed a healing potion. I watched the blood flow from his leg slow to a trickle before he bound it with a magical bandage. “If you cover me, I’ll try and get it back in place.”

I picked up Jury and turned my back to Smoking. Jury was fine despite having gained a few more scuffs and served me well by letting me lay down a stream of blind fire shots from my cover as Smoking tried to force the socket back into place.

“Thats it.” I yelled as the readings from the EVA suit sprang into life. “Still got enough charge to- Fuck!”

A pair of Slavers appeared right before me with their pistols pointed straight at my head. Both fired simultaneously, my head snapped backwards hard and was sprayed with blood as a pair of blades punched through the necks of both ponies. By the time I pulled myself up again, the Slavers were lying on the floor in a growing pool of blood and Xyalia was gone one again.

“That mare may be a Zebra, but damn she’s good.” Smoking added, “Your neck alright?”

“Yeah, just stiff.” I massaged it with a hoof trying to work some motion back into. Damn that hurt.

Smoking and Seafire began to lay down heavy altering fire, not giving the salvers a chance to raise their heads. With the cover this provided, Mantis moved up to join Seafire and was able to take his time lining up rifle shots, getting good hits on several slavers, but not being able to take them out of the fight entirely. Their training was giving the edge over our more numerous assailants but they wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever. I joined in with Smoking when I could, but with that initial rush over, we were now engaged in a tight fire fight and it would only be a matter of time before someone made a mistake.

“Tungsten,” I called on my PipBuck. “Can you hear me? Where are you?” If I could get to him, help him begin fighting again, it would help us all.

Relief broke over me at his voice but it didn't last long “Keep fighting Fran. I’m fine. I’m in cover.” He didn't sound fine at all. More like he was gritting his teeth in agony.

“Tun, where are you?”I was becoming more desperate. I brought up my EFS. A lone dot was off in the direction of a what looked like a combine harvester.

“Tucked in next to some big yellow vehicle. I told you, I’m fine. Just finish the fucking fight!” He gave a horrible groan and his transmission ended.

“Tun!” I snapped. “Damn it.”

“He’ll be all right Fran!” Smoking yelled. “He can handle himself.” I bucking well hoped he could.

“How is your leg holding up?” I yelled to him.

“I’m good. Bandage is doing its job. Can you get Minor on the radio, we need him to draw some fire. Try and get the slavers to turn…”

A massive explosion cut Smoking short, more concussive than a fireball. The ground lurched, and dust fell from the ceiling above us. The steel girders were holding out well, but I wondered how long it would be before something failed. With the repulsion spell back to full strength, I swung up out of cover again and made four wild shots before slipping into SATS. Only one of my manual shots hit home, but that wasn't what I was interested in.

Through the clarity of SATS, I watched a dozen Stable Twenty-Five ponies pressing through the door en-masse. The slavers had been forced to fight on two fronts and were scrambling for cover behind the combine harvester… where Tungsten was hiding.

“Shit.” Smoking realised at exactly the same moment I did. “Shit, shit, shit!”

My PipBuck snapped into life and I felt my blood run cold.

“If you don’t want your friends brains to be splattered all over the floor of this warehouse you are going to call off your stable friends!” The incoming male voice was from Tungsten’s PipBuck, but was definitely not his voice.

“Shit.” Smoking kicked the ground. Before getting back on his radio. “You kill him and we will slaughter every last one of you. He is only any use to you alive.” I watched on my EFS as a swarm of blue dots charged towards the red ones. “You don’t kill him and we don’t kill you.”

“You’re right, he is.” The buck replied. “Doesn't mean I can't…” Tungsten screamed as I heard the sound of snapping bone… “hurt—”

The other buck was cut short by what sounded like a hard hoof to the face before Tungsten’s panicked voice yelled over the radio.

“Kill him, kill them all! It’s him! The one Aramid told us about! It’s Storm. Electric blue, Red lightning b...urgh!” Tungsten grunted as some pony winded him. “Fuck you.”

“Shut up!” Storm barked. “Keep your fucking muzzle shut or I’ll break it off.” We heard Tungsten groan again, coughing and spluttering. “So then, what’s it going to be?”

Smoking and I exchanged a worried glance.

“Fran. Tell Minor to cease fire,” Smoking commanded. “Do it before I change my mind.”

I nodded, my mind empty. “Francium to Minor, cease fire, I repeat, cease fire.”

Slowly the cacophony of gunfire subsided to be replaced by the groaning of dying ponies and the trickle of blood.

“Good choice,” Storm’s voice announced with an air of smugness. “Now, what are you going to do next?”

Smoking slammed his hoof into the ground. “Fuck, what are we supposed to do! We can’t let him escape. We can’t!”

“He’ll kill Tungsten!” I snapped. “He slaughtered everypony else without a second thought. If we don’t let him go, he will kill Tun.”

“He’s one pony Fran. One pony against the rest of our stable.” Smoking glared at me determinedly. “I know he’d rather die than let this chance slip through our hooves.”

“Chance for what?” I shot back. “Storm won’t tell us anything. We need Tun more than we need him, and Tun would never want to die like this.”

“You haven’t spoken to him properly for weeks. You have no idea how he feels! This stopped being a formal mission a long time ago for him. It’s personal now.”

“What do you mean ‘personal’?” I asked, confused. “This is about our stable, our friends, our family. When was it not personal!”

“I’m waiting,” Storm’s magically amplified voice barked viciously. “Or do I have to help things along?” I heard Tungsten scream as another bone snapped.

“Kill him!” Tungsten yelled, his voice barely holding together. “Just kill him!”

“I told you to shut -Smack- Up! -Thump-” Storm yelled, his voice echoing in the now silent hall.

“Smoking, please!” I begged. “We need to help him. I don’t want him to die.”

“And you think I do?” Smoking replied fiercely. “If we let him go we lose any chance of knowing for certain where everypony is and how to get them back.”

“Trick him, stall him, anything. Just don’t let him kill Tungsten!”

Smoking stared at me for a moment, the internal turmoil visible on his face. I could tell he was out of his depth. All his training and all his experience in the stable was just too controlled, too safe in comparison to the real thing. And if he was out of his depth, the rest of us certainly were.

“Wait.”

Jury whipped round only to be pointing right at Xyalia’s muzzle. “Damn it, can you give me a warning?” I whispered sharply.

“Not really.” Xyalia replied, slightly confused as to what I was asking. “Its purpose is to surprise.”

“Fine. Wait, you said Wait? Why?”

“I believe I can free your friend. Just give me time to get in close. Draw them into the open. I can take them out. Be ready. Make sure you hit your targets.”

Before Smoking or I could respond, Xyalia vanished once more. I still couldn’t get over how perfect the invisibility was. In the movies there was always a little shimmer in the air or a slightly odd refraction that let the heroes defeat the evil monster. Thankfully, the metaphorical evil monster was on our side.

“Well?” I prompted. “Weapons down?”

After a long moment Smoking shook his head with a sigh. “I don’t want to, but I can’t see any alternative. We will just have to trust that she can pull it off.”

“Everyone, weapons down!” Smoking ordered. “Lower your weapons.”

He tossed his Blackhawk to the ground angrily, before stepping out into the open. I holstered Jury and nervously followed. Looking back as I did so, Minor and the rest of Stable Twenty-Five were still holding position behind the barricades just beyond the door. Minor gave me a ‘what are you doing?’ look, but I had to ignore him.

“Good choice,” Storm remarked coolly. “Now, come out slowly. If I see a single horn glowing… well, you get the idea.”

Slowly, Smoking and I moved out of over. A rough looking earth buck stood at the front, touting a twin rifle battle-saddle, followed closely by a pegasus mare in a suit of very menacing but rusted armour with an articulated stinger covering her tail. Seafire and Mantis walked over slowly, their movements tracked by the battle-saddle buck. I glanced at Seafire and just got a serious stare in return. They kept us all covered as Tungsten was dragged into view by the back of his security barding. A trail of blood followed from his legs that were lying limp and twisted, his whimpers and cries of pain drilling into my skull. How could I have let this happen?

Then he came. Storm. As tall and imposing as an earth pony could possibly be, his electric blue coat contrasted sharply with his battle scarred barding, the bolt on his flank the same red as the blood dripping from Tungsten’s smashed forelegs. His battle saddle seemed to be for some kind of energy weapon with the near side taken up with a trio of energy cells and what looked like a radiator with two large fans.

There was something else too, something off. The way he walked, how he stood, how the skin of his neck seemed a little too tight and how his muscles shifted unevenly.

Storm huffed dismissively at Smoking and I before turning his attention to Seafire and Mantis, the rest of the surviving slavers gathering around him. I counted just eight left, but there was no way that Xyalia could take them all down in one go. I should have told her to take down Storm first; too late now.

“Stop where you are.” Storm raised a hoof emphasise the command; too far for a charge but close enough that any weapons fire would hit its mark. He smirked at us, his snide expression a mixture of anger, smugness, and satisfaction. He looked arrogant. “I never realised that taking a few ponies could cause so much trouble.” He gave a crude laugh. “Seems you’re different from the usual breed of stable wimps. Very different. Laying waste to an entire compound, slaughtering over a hundred ponies, destroying ancient Equestrian artifacts. Are you sure you aren’t Zebras in disguise?”

No pony replied. Smoking was silently seething, the tension in his body growing as he forcibly kept his anger in check. Seafire’s glare was such that it was like she was willing Storm to spontaneously combust. Mantis just looked bitter, perhaps he was used to stand offs like this given his history. I, on the other hoof, had been distracted by his choice of words. Where was Xyalia?

“What do you want?” Smoking asked, his voice filled with a venom I’d never heard before. “Going to make us slaves as well?”

To my total astonishment, Storm’s laugh was filled with mirth.

“Ha! Are you serious? After everything you have done? I might as well be setting you free.” He shook his head with a humoured grin, somehow making me even angrier. “I doubt I’d make it a week before one of you took it upon yourselves to kill me and die a martyr for your cause. Not that I’d blame you, but needs must when the devil calls. You may have actually given me pause for thought. Maybe stables are too much trouble… then again…”

My eyes widened as as the gun at his side crackled into life, first in fear and then in shock. The barrel may have been triangular and the crystals emerald rather than sapphire, but there was no mistaking the design.

“Where did you get that!” I blurted out, taking everyone by surprise but I didn’t care “Tell me!”

“Oh, this old thing?” Storm smiled, as if we were talking over tea and biscuits. “Just something I picked up in my travels. She’s nice, fairly light weight, good rate of fire and ever so good at blowing apart anything that gets in my way. And even better, she has a name.”

“A name?”

“Oh, yes. Her name is Judge.” Storm laughed, his voice now sinister and malevolent. “And she, like everypony else here,” I took a step back as every other slaver readies their weapons, all aimed straight at us. “Is about to bring the hammer dow—”

Storm let out a blood-curdling scream. A crimson soaked blade pierced right through his neck. Two more ponies fell from strategically placed knife wounds before any pony reacted. I wrenched Jury out and dropped into SATS. Three shots screamed towards their targets caving in two heads and sending the third flying across the concrete floor.

Xyalia reappeared with a scream, her pendants chain breaking free, as one of Storms guards flailed wildly with his hoof mounted mace, catching her across the face. She slashed out with her hooves, cutting deeply into her assailants fore leg, bringing him down on top of herself. The four remaining slavers unleashed hell.

Driven backwards by the hail of fire from three assault rifles, my suit’s upgraded capacitors dropped like stones. I lurched backwards, out of the lead rain just in time. Smoking leaned out of cover and bit down on my tail, pulling me to safety only for both of us to be blown off our hooves by a deafening blue flash and a hail of concrete and dust.

“Storm’s back on his hooves!” Smoking yelled as he dragged himself back up. “How the fuck?”

Head bowed to avoid the ricochets and chunks of concrete whizzing over our heads, I slammed home another energy cell into Jury. ‘Think!’ I told myself. ‘Think! How can you end this?’

“Seafire, How you doing for ammunition?” I heard Smoking shout into his PipBuck. ‘Think!’

“Blackhawk is almost gone. A dozen rounds left for the Combat Shotgun.” Was the hurried reply. ‘Come on, something.’

‘Anything.’

“Cover me!” I yelled into my own radio. “I’m going to try something.”

“Like what?”

“This!”

I leapt out from behind the concrete plinth. Slipping into SATS, I sent one shot straight into Storm’s leg making him fire his own LAW weapon straight into the ground and blasting yet another crater in the floor, another four sent his henchmares scattering as I deliberately aimed at the ground beneath their hooves. This brought me the time to focus my horn and pull a vacuum around each of their heads.

I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want the one spell I was good at to become a weapon. But I didn’t have a choice. In that moment, it was such an obvious course that it seemed ridiculous that I’d never viewed magic as a goto tactic before.

Rather than their heads exploding, all four ponies gagged and gasped for air, their lungs collapsing inside their chests, before toppling to the ground, clutching at their ears. I pressed forward, flinging their weapons away with magic before they could regain their composure. Storm looked up from the ground, his bloodshot eyes narrowing to focus on the barrel of Jury, mere inches from the bridge of his muzzle.

“Move, and I will end you!” I hissed. To make my point I dialed Jury up to maximum, making the gems glow and spark with energy. “Don’t think I won’t.”

Seafire, Smoking and Mantis closed in behind me. Three swift rifle buts to the head had all Storm’s remaining backup out for the count. Xyalia finished off the buck lying on top of her by breaking his neck with her bare hooves, the crunch of bone echoing in the silence as we stood over Storm.

“Seafire, cuff him,” Smoking ordered, keeping his gun trained on Storms head. “We will talk again soon.” He shot derisively at the buck. “But first, we have wounded to attend to.”

In the early hours of the morning, I found myself sitting outside, atop the remains of the stables tunnel entrance, watching the clouds turn blood red as the sun roze behind the Platinum ridge line; a red dawn for all the blood spilled that night.

When Helix had burst into Stable Twenty-Five’s infirmary, she stopped dead at the sight of her brother. “Wh-what happened?” She’d stammered as she looked down at her brother’s smashed body. “How?”

“Helix, this isn't the time,” Smoking pressed, trying to get her to focus. “He has three broken knees, shrapnel wounds to his left leg and some broken ribs.”

With a gulp, Helix had nodded slowly and got to work. We watched as she and Foxglove carefully cut away each piece of Tungstens barding. All the while Tungsten grunted and groaned, trying in vain to hide his agony.

My EVA suit lay beside me as I stretched out on my saddlebags, looking down on the smouldering wreck of the Slaver compound. At some point, this whole mess would have to be cleared up, the wall probably consolidated and shrunk to make a proper defensive fortification. ‘Something without holes’ my inner pony suggested dully. We could probably count on Swarf and his dad to help us set up some decent defensive weapons to replace the ancient machine guns and single flame thrower overlooking the main gate.

But all that was some time away. Right now, Helix was still working to save Tungsten. Surprisingly, keeping him alive wasn’t difficult, but giving him back his life was.

“Storm bucked his legs so hard he shattered each metacarpus, both his front radiuses, and turned his campus into splinters,” Helix had sobbed uncontrollably into my shoulder just outside the infirmary. “It’s a miracle he didn’t bleed out internally there and then.”

“But he’s alive. You have time to make sure he can fully recover. He’s going to live.”

“I can’t fix them!”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t fix the bones!” Helix wailed. “They’re in too many pieces. Maybe I can heal his rear leg but his front ones are just…” She couldn’t finish. She’d collapsed against the wall and slipped down into a ball, crying silently.

The only upside I could think of was that Storm was going to pay for what he’d done. I’d argued at first, when Mantis and Smoking had wanted to torture him for information. It was one of the few things that made us different from Raiders and Slavers. But, eventually, I decided it was the lesser evil. The information he could give us could save not only our stable but many other ponies in the region. It was one life against many. Quite what they had in mind, I didn’t really know, then again, I’m not sure I could stand knowing exactly what they had planned.

Taking a long steadying breath, I decided to check out my newest weapon. When I’d first picked it up my PipBuck had identified Storm’s weapon as Judge, just as he’d said, probably thanks to the software from Jury’s memory orb. How that twisted buck had gotten his hooves on the thing, I had no idea, but now it was in mine. I was sure I could make better use of it than he could.

Getting to my hooves, I slipped the main harness around my tummy and buckled it in place. There were additional straps that went up to my neck to distribute any backlash across my shoulders and a strap that went between my hind and back up to the end of my spine to stop the weapon rolling from side to side. For now, I let them dangle as I lifted the weapon off the ground and clipped each part into its respective mount.

The main gun looked like a scaled up, tri-barreled version of Jury. The rail of gems was almost as long as I was, going from my cutie mark all the way to my forelegs. I suspected that this thing had a substantial range, even if it was intended as a shotgun. Along the main body of the gun barrel, there were several copper blocks linked by heavy-duty braided piping, similar to various hydraulic units back in Stable Seventeen. All these linked to a large block at the back of the gun were there was space for not one, but five energy cells. Lastly more heavy-duty flexible conduits ran over my back and to a unit on the other side. Here were three additional energy cells and a pair of radiators that looked like they had been taken directly from a Stable-Tec computer.

“Quite a weapon that.” Smoking settled himself down on a nearby lump of concrete, looking up at the sky with the same saddened and exhausted expression I supposed I had done. “I thought I should let you know, Helix has done all she can for Tungsten, but it doesn’t look good.”

“I know. She said she was worried if he would ever walk again,” I mumbled back. “Is that still the case?” Smoking just nodded. “Where is she?”

“Just scrubbing down I think. I said we’d all meet outside in about half an hour to discuss our next move.” Smoking sighed deeply, his eyes closed, feeling the growing warmth on our skins. “Looks like today will be a good day. No rain, no wind, and what little sun can make it through.”

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes, trying to enjoy the weather without thinking about everything that had happened.

“Francium, why did you split up with Tungsten... back in the Stable, I mean?” Startled, my head snapped towards Smoking. “I mean, I know his side of the story but I want to know what you felt.”

“I think that’s private,” I managed to reply, still surprised that Smoking had asked the question.

“And I think that you need to talk to Tungsten about it, because he is in a right mess over you and Helix. And not for the reasons you might think.”

“What do you mean?” Ice washed through my veinsvains. “We talked about it when he found out about us, I mean not very well but…”

“You call him storming out on the both of you a ‘talk’?” Smoking replied with a raised eye.

“No but…”

“Fran. Just go talk to him.” Smokings tone caught me off guard. Was he begging? “Trust me, it’ll do you both some good.” He sighed again, staring at the muted sunrise. A few minutes of slightly awkward silence passed before he spoke up again. “How’s your new weapon?”

“Ummm.” My mind had drifted completely and it took a moment for me to corral my thoughts back into a coherent mass. “It’s a serious step up, I know that. Its got eight energy cells, five for the weapon and three for what I assume is the cooling system.” I turned around, showing Smoking the gun and all the fans. “I’d like to fit something to protect the radiators if I can. They’re very vulnerable on the side here.”

“Won’t the repulsion field from your EVA suit protect them?”

“I’m not sure I’d want to wear this and my EVA suit. It’s quite heavy, despite what he said,” I just couldn’t mention his name. “I wouldn’t be able to wear my saddle bags either.”

“I’m sure you could rig something up.” Smoking smiled. “Although have you seen what was under that tarp that we were going to blow up?”

“No.”

“Well it’s a good job we didn’t blow it to pieces.” Smoking stood. “Come on, Pass me your bags and I’ll show you.”

After crunching our way across the glassy and blacked compound’ Smoking dropped my bags from his back onto one of the few intact crates, took the tarp in his teeth and pulled. I felt my eyes widen and a massive grin spread across my face.”

“I have no idea what shape she is in.” Smoking added as he stepped back from the Vertibuck. “But I’m sure you and the ponies of Stable Twenty-Five can get her flying again.” We grinned at each other. “If she flies then she’ll make our lives a lot easier.”

“The stable inventory listed two Vertibucks.” I moved in to examine the machine. “And Swarf mentioned they had another in a different colour too. This must be a civilian machine, designed for VIP’s and dignitaries or some such. Heavily armoured with no armament but far more agile. This would be so much better than hoofing it everywhere. I bet the military one is a write off, good thing too. It’s best that nopony has that kind of firepower.”

“That it would.” Smoking’s laugh felt forced, but his smile seemed genuine enough.

“It looks like it’s in good shape.” I wandered around the exterior of the ship, taking in the unusual mix of top-of-the-line engineering and historical styling. “All the control surfaces look like they’re free of dirt and debris. I’m surprised how stumpy the wings are though.” I looked round at Smoking who was running a hoof over one of the two port thrusters. “Do you think it could be VTOL?”

“So far as I know, I don’t think we ever made a craft that wasn’t.”

“Do you know much about aircraft?”

“I used to love reading about it when I was a foal. Had all the die-cast models I could get my hooves on. But yeah, my knowledge is pretty good. If memory serves me right, each of these thrusters produces around one hundred kilonewtons of thrust. It varies slightly depending on the strength of the pegasi in control. I’m sure this thing could lose two of these engines and still stay airborne. It’d handle like a pig, but you could land safely.”

“It looks like this one’ll need some work,” I called from the other side. “The thruster on its front, starboard side, yeah, starboard. Anyways, looks like it’s taken some shots from something pretty big. Damn.” I bent down to look into the hole. “It goes all the way through… wait… There are no blades in here.”

For a second I expected Smoking to come storming round and examine the clearly broken engine, but all I got was an amused chuckle.

“Fran, these don’t use jet engines. They use storm clouds.”

‘They use what now?’

Smoking chuckled again at my stunned silence.

“Early on, most flying vehicles relied on spreading a pegasus’ natural flying magic through some kind of frame they pulled along behind them. This, however, meant that you were limited by the innate magic of a pegasi as to how much you could lift. In effect, it did little more than just make it easier to carry things rather than actually enhancing their magical ability.

“This was until some bright pony decided to use a pegasus’ ability to manipulate cloud to create the thrust for a vehicle rather than using their flying magic. By using gems to power storm clusters contained within magical field of a pegasus’ cloud manipulation magic, they found they could get ten or more times the power to weight ratio than they had before. From that point, it was just a case of refining the designs to make them more efficient so that the gems would last longer.”

All I could think to do was shrug. “And I thought my mother was joking when she said that.”

Getting back round to the cockpit again, I decided to head inside. Carefully I opened the door which swung up to leave a tight but pony sized hole. Just before I was about to leap up into the cabin, a small set of steps slid down from the sill of the craft, allowing me to easily ascend inside. ‘Neat’ my inner pony nodded.

The interior of the Vertibuck was not what I was expecting. It looked so, dated. All the lights were incandescent, not LED’s, the heavy tubed glass only surviving this long due to its over engineered thickness and massive filaments hanging low on their wires. The styling looked like the stuff that was made at the very beginning of Equestria’s technological boom, lots of style for styles sake, almost lavish. Chrome plated buttons and switches, lots of elongated rectangular profiles, symmetry and patterns even when it actually made things take an awkward layout. It also looked like the pony who had designed many of the light profiles and toggles had a fascination with rockets.Many of the fixtures looked like they might shoot off the dashboard at any moment. It was a real contrast to the outside.

“Damn…” Smoking exclaimed. “This is… extravagant.”

“Yeah…” I could only nod in agreement. “Not what I was expecting at all. The outside is so simple, even refined.”

“Private vehicle I suppose. Discrete exterior and a ‘personal’ interior,” he said it like he disapproved. “Anyway, let’s get back inside, we can check this out in more detail later. Gracious called a Stable meeting, we best be there.”

The six of us gathered around the circular table in Stable Twenty-Five. I remembered my last visit here, under very different circumstances. Helix and I sat close together, with Seafire and Foxglove to our left and Smoking and Mantis to our right. Across from us, Gracious sat with her son. I noticed that, of the ponies that made up the council, there were a few missing. Of those present, some supported bandages or small cuts. Indicia had a substantial wrapping on her lower leg, her mane singed at the ends along with many other ponies.

“I’d like to begin by thanking our new friends.” Gracious’ smile was warm and genuine, if still slightly pained. “It has been a difficult night for all. We have suffered both pain and loss…” She paused a moment, a conscious decision to reflect or an unconscious stray thought, I couldn’t tell, but, after a moment, she resumed with confidence. “But we have gained friends, freedom, and removed a menace from our new world. I can tell many of you are angry at tonight's events, wishing we had done nothing, but I genuinely we believe we did the right thing.”

“Here, here,” Indicia called, her support for Gracious raising a quiet consensus and even a few mumbled apologies.

I squirmed, the discussion around me taking a back seat in my mind, uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t put my hoof on. Perhaps because we’d had our own motivations for freeing Stable Twenty-Five. Not that our goals were complete opposites, but it wasn’t like we’d done it entirely out of the goodness of our hearts. Then again, the fact that we’d helped complete strangers was probably enough.

Thinking hurts.

Letting out a long sigh, half sad, half sleepy, I felt Helix resting a comforting hoof on my shoulder and nuzzled it affectionately. Well, it wasn’t all bad right now. I had my Helix back, my friends were all alive, and, with Storm and his slavers pretty much annihilated, we’d not only helped Stable Twenty-Five, but Viewpoint, High-Voltage and the region as a whole. Swarf and his father wouldn’t have to live in fear any more.

But…

Tungsten.

I stared at my hooves on the table, pondering the swirling enigma of my emotions. It was a mess. He was a mess. Our whole relationship seemed to exist solely to cause us pain in one way or another. I couldn’t say it was all my fault—that’d be silly—but, perhaps, if I’d considered my actions, or my choice of words, our tenuous friendship wouldn’t feel like it was held together with bandages and plasters, covering up both figurative and literal wounds.

“Fran?”

“Hmmm?”

“Francium.”

I started, quickly looking up. Everyone seemed to be expecting me to say something.

“Well?” Indicia prompted. “Will you help us fix the Vertibuck?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah, of course.” I waved my hoof casually, trying to cover my inattentiveness. “Smoking and I gave it a quick look over earlier, and it looked alright.”

My mind slipped again as the room resumed its discussion. Right now, despite our massive success, I couldn’t help but feel like we were in way over our heads. And this was just the beginning. We’d have to do this again, or come up with some other brilliant plan. We couldn’t rely on a convenient horde of ghouls to wipe out the slavers and raiders. Next time we’d be in their territory, under their noses, and under their guns. and we would be further from any kind of help than before, possibly even more outnumbered and cold and tired and sleepy and…

That’s a lot of “and”s.

When the meeting ended, it took me a moment to even realise everypony else had left. Only our little group stayed behind, probably waiting for me to move from my spot.

“Fran?” I heard my love ask cautiously. “Are you alright?”

For a moment I was tempted to say ‘yes,’ but given it would be obvious I was lying, I opted to shrug noncommittally; at least this way it wasn’t a yes or an actual answer. A slow glance up revealed that that wasn’t going to cut it. Helix was looking concerned but patient, Smoking and Mantis looked pensive, while Seafire and Foxglove looked just as exhausted. Only Xyalia seemed unphased, standing patiently by the door.

If the residents of Stable Twenty-Five were shocked by the presence of a Zebra they’d concealed it well. They hadn’t batted an eye since she entered. Either they genuinely didn’t mind her being there or they were pointedly and perfectly ignoring her; I really hoped it was the former. Come to think of it, with a Zebra now seemingly permanently in our group for reasons I had yet to find out, things could get a little trickier, or better.. or… I had no idea; I’d only known her for all of eight hours.

“Fran?”

“Huh?” I lurched in response, my tangential thought train derailed. “Yeah?”

“Are you even paying attention?” Helix asked with a tone that wouldn’t be out of place talking to a filly caught with her hoof on the cookie jar.

“I don’t know… what did you ask?”

“Are you alright?” Helix repeated soothingly.

“Hmmm, I suppose.” ‘I’m alive and relatively unscathed, but I have no home and have just been involved the mass slaughter of ponies, even if they were bad ponies… it’s a mixed bag.’

“Come on. Let’s get some rest.” Helix used her magic to heave me out of my seat, forcing me to support my own weight lest I simply crumple to the floor. “In fact, how long have you been up?”

I thought for a moment. “Ummm, I can’t remember. I was up all night, I slept really badly last night, combine that with Shade’s thing, whatever that was, and spending all day working on getting the stable ready and…”

“Too long.”

My love cut across my gabbling and began to guide me out of the room. Huh, it seemed I was so tired that I hadn’t even realised I was tired, or maybe so focused on what we’d done that I’d completely forgotten I was a living, breathing pony that needed sleep in order to function.

A glance at the bedside clock informed me that it was approaching midday, angry red numbers bright and glaring. I ignored it, spun it around as I flopped into my bed and scooched up under the familiar feeling covers, finally able to let my body relax. Helix slipped in next to me. Her hooves slid around me and pulled me close, her body heat and her slow breathing kissing the back of my neck helped me slip quickly into my deepest sleep in weeks.

I was awoken by a sound I couldn’t place. It was almost like a hiccup mixed with a groan. Perplexed, I waited a moment incase it happened again, trying to pinpoint its location without moving. There is was again. I began to turn over to see of Helix had been woken by it too, but she wasn’t there.

Sitting up, I glanced at the clock and did a double take. Four AM. I’d slept for sixteen hours. Setting that fact aside, I slipped out from under the covers, looking around.

“Helix?” I called.

There was a sudden clunk from the bathroom.

“Helix?” I repeated cautiously. “Is that you?”

“Hmmhmm.” It sounded like Helix, but she sounded… off. “I… I’m in here,” she called after a pause.

Entering the bathroom, my heart tried to take off at a gallop and stop cold all at once. Helix was leant up against the wall next to the toilet, clutching her stomach. A glance into the bowl revealed she had been sick, bile and half digested food splattered all over the bowl. Wiping the spit from her mouth with the back of her hoof, she turned her eyes to mine, her breath ragged, tears staining her muzzle, and eyes red and puffy.

But through all that, she smiled when she saw me, a genuine, loving, caring, ecstatic smile.

“Francium, I… I’m pregnant.”

My brain stopped. My heart stopped. Everything stopped.

“Pardon?” I said, more to give my brain time to think than because I didn’t hear, or maybe I did hear incorrectly. What did she say?

“I’m pregnant, Fran. I have been for some time.” My love’s voice was level and calm, if a little laboured. Her eyes stared straight into mine. “I… I know that I shouldn’t have hidden it, but when we were forced out of the Stable, part of me thought we would be dead in a week anyway… but as things rolled on and became more and more difficult and more dangerous I… I didn’t want to burden everypony, or worry them, or you… so I kept quiet. The medication your mum developed to stave off morning sickness was all that was keeping me going. But I ran out last night and now… well…”

Helix lay there, her chest rising gently, methodically, but breathing for two.

“Why…” was all I could muster.

“I don’t know why I hid it… well, I do, but I can explain why I did the stupid thing and concealed…”

I waved my hoof dismissively. “No no… I get it… I understand… sort of... I just… when did this happen?”

“You mean when did I get inseminated?”

“Ummm, I don’t know.” I stared at Helix, still trying to work out what she was trying to convey. “I suppose so.”

A few days after we began work on the new piping the gene mapper spat my name out, it took a few days to collect the sample from the father and then it happened.”

“You got pregnant?” I asked again, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing things.

Helix nodded, concern growing on her face. “Well… of course.”

I nodded slowly, my mind going a mile a minute but coming up with nothing. Eventually, I settled for, “Do you know who the father is?”

Helix slowly shook her head. “No, the mapper sent the results to Cosmos. I chose not to know.” She suddenly clutched at her tummy, looking like she was going to throw up again, I rushed to her side and pulled her close.

“I’m here. I’m here for you.” I clung to her as tightly as I could, but always conscious of avoiding her stomach. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”

“A… a glass of water would be nice.” Helix smiled. “And painkillers, if you some. Nothing too strong though.”

Reluctantly, I broke my grip to find what Helix needed. The water was easy, the painkillers a little harder. Eventually, I had to dig to the bottom of my own bags where they seemed to have fallen out of the first aid kit. As I propped the bag back up, I noticed several new holes, seemingly torn by shrapnel. I wondered how they’d been caused and just how close I’d come to having my side sliced apart by shrapnel. I was thankful Helix had not been in that battle, if something had happened I would have been… broken. And now that I knew she was pregnant, it just made me both more thankful and far more worried.

I pushed the thought aside and returned to my love. Like any informed medical professional, Helix drank the water slowly and swallowed the two ibuprofen pills with care.

“Was this morning sickness?” I asked quietly, still not quite believing what I had just heard, as if more infomation would make it more realistic.

Helix nodded. “I knew my mum was pretty bad with it and it seems I’m just like her. I ran out of anything to throw up very quickly, so I’ve been dry heaving for almost half an hour… I’m surprised you didn’t hear me.”

“I think I did, eventually,” I replied, the response being rather automatic. “Is this going to happen every day? And at this time?”

“It shouldn’t, but I’ll have no way of predicting it... so it would be safer to assume it will.”

“But it will pass right?” I asked, my voice taking on a desperate tone. “You can’t be like this all the time.”

“I won’t be, it will ease off, should be over in a few more weeks.” Helix placed a caring hoof on my cheek. “I’m alright Fran, not perfect, but alright. I promise you. So you can stop looking as bad as I do.” I looked into the mirror and laughed at the pale, worried face that I saw there. Helix was right, I looked just as bad as she did, and I didn’t have a foal inside me.

“Ok… I’ll stop worrying, for now.” I leant down and kissed her on the forehead. “But first, let me clean you up. Run a bath and I will be back in a moment to help you wash.” Helix looked like she was going to protest but shut her mouth and simply nodded, smiling gently.

In the kitchen, I set about making us both a light breakfast—there was no way I would be getting back to sleep now—taking my time and making sure everything was nicely presented and well made. Toast with some kind of jam—the jar didn’t specify what—two cups of fresh tea, and a packet of dried peaches to go on the side: it wasn’t brilliant, but it was good enough.

Helix was adding some bubble bath liquid to the gently steaming water when I returned. She seemed to not notice me right away, eyes focused on the bloom of bubbles spreading from where the falling jet hit the surface of the water. Taking a quiet moment, I watched my love more closely. I hadn’t seen her much in the past five days, what with dropping down an elevator shaft and… everything else, but, now that I was able to look at her, it was clear she wasn’t quite the Helix I was used to seeing.

Her barrel was definitely larger than normal, her coat slightly stretched, revealing the darker tone of her skin underneath, with her back curving down a fraction further from the additional weight building inside her. I was surprised how subtle it was. I wondered how I hadn’t noticed before but considering we were usually wearing our barding and saddle bags I could see why I had missed these changes. Things would have moved on in the last five days too since I last got a good look at her so, thankfully, I agreed with myself that it was fine that I hadn’t spotted it sooner.

“What are you looking at?” My eyes snapped to Helix’s, a slight twist of worry on her face. “Is something wrong?”

I sighed and smiled. “No, nothing, just admiring you.” I leaned in and gave her a gentle kiss which she returned lovingly, a murmur of happiness escaping her lips. “I brought us some breakfast. I thought I could feed it to you while you relaxed.”

Helix nodded approvingly. “Mmmm, I’d like that. I would say it’s a little early for breakfast but I can’t see either of us getting back to sleep.”

After a quick temperature test with her hoof, Helix turned off the taps and climbed slowly into the steaming, bubbly water. Once she was comfortable, she carefully rolled over to lay her back, her head and hooves poking out of the water, and her mane and tail floating gently to the surface amongst the sea of bubbles. I took a small jug in my magic, filled it with hot water from the bath and began to carefully pour it over Helix’s head, wetting her mane while making sure it didn’t run into her eyes.

“Assuming it will be a filly.” Helix breathed contently as I slowly massaged and worked the familiar smelling Stable-Tec shampoo into her mane and scalp. “What would you like to call her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really given that kind of thing any thought,” I said, enjoying the smile and gentle murmurs of pleasure I was coaxing from Helix as I worked. “I suppose it comes down to if you consider her yours or ours.”

“Of course she’s ours,” Helix answered resolutely. “You’ll be there for her just as much as I will. She may not be related to you biologically, but I saw Lillypad as my daughter until…”

‘Until she was kidnapped amongst a mass murder and carted off to be a slave.’ my inner pony filled in. Shut up, I thought back. It took Helix a moment to compose herself before she continued.

“She was still the closest thing I had, and she will be again when we get her back.”

“What did you have in mind then?” I asked, trying to move the conversation away from that hiccup. “Her race might have an influence, and you won’t know that until she is born.”

“I could find out if I was able to get under a Stable-Tec scanner, both gender and race, but that won’t be for another twelve weeks at the earliest, fourteen realistically. But I don’t really want that to influence me too much, unless it’s a real miss match.” Helix pondered for a moment as I washed the shampoo from her mane which was now knot free and as glossy as silk. “What other elements are there you could use, both you and your mother were named after alkali metals, maybe there is another in that list that could work.”

“Well, it goes Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Rubidium, Caesium, Francium. Lithium is the least reactive and Francium is the most. All react when exposed to water, anything below Rubidium reacts explosively.”

“Good job you didn’t get in the bath then isn’t it.” My love jibed, eliciting a giggle from me. “Rubidium sounds nice though. Hmm, what else could we use?”

“There are ninety-eight known elements, and a further twenty theorised, take your pick.” I laughed. “What about something biological to match her mother?”

“I have been thinking ever since Cosmos told me I was next, but I haven’t been able to come up with anything I really liked.” Helix sighed as I instructed her to turn round onto her hooves so I could wash her tail and begin to scrub her back. “The fun ones or the important ones are usually too hard to say, and I don’t want to have ponies struggle to even say my daughters name. That could be cruel.”

“What are those four things that make up DNA?” I asked, gently working out a particularly tight knot in Helix’s tail.

“You mean the nucleotides, like my mum was named after?”

“Ummmmm… no idea, well, yeah, I remember Adenine.”

Helix nodded quietly. “Well the others are Guanine, Thymine, and Cytosine, none of which are really suitable names.”

“No, they’re not. Umm, how about something more traditional? I mean, we’re no longer living in a scientific stable, perhaps it would be nice to choose something more historical?”

“You mean like Twilight or Celestia?” Helix laughed. “I think that might be a little presumptuous.”

“Well, kind of, though not that high profile.” I giggled. “Something more low key or obscure perhaps, but still important.”

I pondered for a while, enjoying the pleasurable murmurs from Helix and the tranquility that was slowly taking hold of both of us. As strange as it was, I was happy now. Yes, this threw up huge complications, but right now, I didn’t care. With only the gentle splashing of water to be heard, Helix and I both ate our toast and drank our tea before I had fun feeding Helix the dried peaches one at a time, floating them before her so she could nibble on them.

“On a more difficult note,” I grimaced slightly, “when are you going to tell the others?”

“I’ve already told Tungsten.” My love rolled gently onto her back again, her hooves just visible above the waterline. “Though I may have to tell him again. He was rather high on anti-pain medication when I told him. I suppose in a way that’s why I told him, because I wasn’t sure if he would remember, like practice.”

“And the others?”

Helix’s ears drooped. “If I tell them, they aren’t going to let me leave this stable. They might want me to return to Viewpoint, but they would never let me come with you.”

“I… think...” ‘I think I need to think things through before I say anything.’

“You think…?” Helix prompted.

“The last thing I want is you getting hurt. Ever. I would choose you over the foal any day, without hesitation. But I want to be by your side, and I don’t want you to be left behind.” I tapped my hooves together nervously.

“Those don’t all sound like mutual goals.” To my surprise Helix giggled.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, you just look cute when you worry.”

Helix squealed as I splashed water at her.

“But yeah, I know, I can’t have all of that.”

“You could stay here with me. Help fix up Stable Twenty-Five, get the barricades sorted, fix the reactor…”

“Yeah, I know, but I feel I should be out there helping get our stable back.”

“But it’s not your fault, we have been through this before.” Helix’s voice was very firm and resolute, as if daring me to object. “None of you who were out there responsible. Accidents happen.”

“I… I know…” I knew she was right but… “I just can’t get rid of that feeling like I messed up somewhere. I was the last pony to work on Pump Three. What if I made a mistake? What if I let the orchard get infected? What if…”

Helix pressed a damp hoof to my lips, silencing me. “If that’s the case then it doesn’t matter anyway. You can’t change what’s happened any more than I can go back and not get pregnant. Do. Not. Worry. About. It.” Helix held my gaze with a firm, dominant stare. “I mean it. I won’t have you worrying about what could or couldn't have happened, or how things might have panned out. It’s in the past. It can’t be changed. For me Fran, accept it and move on, Please.”

After a moment I simply nodded. “Ok… you win.”

Helix settled herself back in the bath, a slightly smug look on her face. “Yeah, I always win.” She winked.

I considered protesting, but found myself grinning reluctantly instead. “Yeah, you do.”

Helix giggled again then slipped her head under the water, emerging after a moment, her mane clinging to the contours of her shoulders and framing her face. Perching her chin on the side of the bath she stared at me. “I love you Fran.” She whispered after a moment, batting her eyelashes.

“You know what.” I leaned in, resting my nose against hers, looking deep into her beautiful eyes. “I love you too.” Getting to hooves I caressed her muzzle before turning to head out the door.

“Hey, where are you going?” Helix asked, pouting.

“I just need a minute.” I smiled back. “Nothing to worry about.”

Arriving back in the bedroom I collapsed back onto the tangled mass of sheets, gazing unseeingly up at the ceiling. I knew I had just had a very long conversation about it, talked about names, talked about what we would do next, but the reality of it all was only just beginning to dawn on me.

“Helix is pregnant.” I said to myself. “Helix… Is… Pregnant. With a foal. Here in Stable Twenty-Five. She is…” I leapt from the bed, galloped to the bathroom and slammed the door open? Helix looked at me bewildered, but I had only one thing on my mind.

“You’re pregnant!"

Footnote: Level Up!