Rescue Process (3) (Patreon)

Lincoln fell into line with the others.

Not quite everyone reported to the group of stern canines watching over the door—some lingered in their tents, moaning with the pain of injuries or illness. If Shauna’s words were true, then refusing to work would only mean giving up on food. Maybe they had friends to put aside some and nurse them back to health?

Every step she took was another battle with disbelief. She shouldn’t be here—she shouldn’t even be what she was. Life had not been so generous as to give her the time to figure out what was happening to her. She didn’t even have a few minutes with a mirror to confirm what her ears and nose and everyone around her already did.

“Here, here... there,” a gruff voice barked, and the line advanced one at a time towards the exit. At first she couldn’t see what might be happening at the end—only Thomas’s back, broad shoulders, and other things.

No one here had clothes, at least not enough to be comfortable. What better way to torment her than forcing her to stare directly at that fact with every step.

I’m not the only one. There have to be at least two dozen of us here, maybe more. All kept in slavery to these dogs.

“Here,” said the dog, waving Thomas through an open doorway to a line of carts. Each had a harness, waiting for a pony to pull it. Lincoln moved to follow, but the creature stopped her.

Not a dog as she’d ever known them—this was another like the soldier who captured them, somehow bipedal, armored and wielding a spear.

He laughed, blocking the passage with that spear before Lincoln could pass. “Too small. There.”

With the one door blocked, that left another on his other side—a brightly-lit room, echoing with the noise of breaking rock and sliding stone. “In there. Go!”

She went, with time for only one last glance in the direction Thomas had gone. She joined several others in the hall, waiting in a little group for the remaining victims to make their way in.

Near their front was Shauna, somehow looking dignified despite the soldiers and their cruel commands. “Welcome to sorting duty,” Shauna said. “Another pegasus. That’s good. Think you could hide stuff in your wings?”

The wings twitched at her thought, half opening and closing just as quickly. They were hers, and would overwhelm her if she wasn’t careful. Each one of those feathers had their own sensations, their own subtle adjustments and pressure.

I wonder if I can really fly with these. “Probably not. I’ve only had them a few minutes.”

“Right. Better to be cautious. Focus on learning instead. Keep up your strength.”

They waited a few seconds more, while another handful of ponies made their way over. Almost all other mares, except for an elderly stallion shriveled and wrinkled, and a child she guess was a young teenager.

Then the dog appeared around the corner, gesturing menacingly with the spear in their direction. “Forward, now! Lots to do.”

This dog spoke with greater dexterity than the soldier who captured her, though the words were still managed by a mouth never meant for them.

But ponies sound normal.

The ponies obeyed, slinking forward without urgency or much resistance. Yet there were subtle differences. Some groaned with exaggerated fear, trembling when the dog looked at them. Others recoiled when the dog got close.

They emerged through an open doorway into a narrow, long room. She’d seen places like this before in mail sorting facilities—though nothing quite so primitive. Instead of complex machinery, this one had places for ponies to stand and simple levers and dials for them to operate.

A large metal chute ran along the center, broken into several sections. A few separated the flow into smaller shafts, while others ended in heavy cloth sacks suspended on push carts.

“Put the new blood on the beginning,” said the dog, smacking something against her foreleg. The spear—hard enough to hurt, but not cause any serious harm. “Explain. Give her the rules. No food if she fails.”

He walked down the line, assigning other ponies to the other stations along the way.

“I’ll teach her,” said another voice. A girl, more timid than the leader. “Come with me.”

She’d seen this bat before, when they first arrived in the camp. She was smaller than Lin, with a much darker coat. She had wings too, but no feathers. Thin skin stretched over batlike wings, which folded to her back the same as Lin’s own.

Lin followed behind her, looking anywhere but at her tail. This captive hadn’t even bothered trying to wear bits of human clothing like most of them did. Her confidence and dignity had been completely shattered, it seemed.

“First station is all the way at the end,” she said. “Where the new ore comes in. First cart won’t be here for a few minutes. But we need to be ready.“

“Your wings are cooler than mine,” she said, instead of something smart or useful. There were probably dumber things to say, but not very many.

The horse looked back, and she caught a flicker of a smile. The smile of the beaten and afraid, but still a smile. “What’s your name?”

“Lin— Lin.” She choked back the rest. Have to remember that. Or I’ll have even more to be afraid of.

“Silly name. Should get a better one when we get out of here. Nopony will be able to say that. I’m Night Spiral—or Night, that’s easier.”

She stopped beside the front station. The tunnel opened into a much wider section of natural cavern, reinforced with heavy metal struts.

A track ran along the floor, enough for minecarts to rattle and roll down the middle. Not driven by any mechanical device, but with horses pulling them. Ponies—the other half of their group.

“You stand right here,” Night said, pointing with one of those wings. “See that big lever in the floor? All you have to do is listen to what the ponies tell you. Iron, copper, or gemstones. Then move the lock into place right here.”

She pushed that with her other leg, settling a heavy rod so it held up the flap.

“Make sure the shaft is locked into position on that path, or it will dump down the middle. That’s bad for you, if you like eating.”

Lincoln nodded along. “Show me the positions for each one again.”

She watched as Night twisted the dial into four distinct positions, then imitated the gesture she used to lock the bar into place.

“Feels like there’s a smarter way to do this,” she eventually said. “Why don’t we just measure the weight of the ore coming in and sort it piece by piece?”

The bat rose into a standing position, stretching far enough to look at Lincoln’s forehead. “That’s what I thought. No horn hiding in there. And good thing too.”

She lowered her voice as a dog walked past—on the other side of the line. A metal walkway let them watch from high enough to look down on the shaft and see all they were doing.

Yet almost none of them were watching on her end. Most guards gathered near the other side, except for one or two to escort the ponies with their carts from the connected chamber.

“No magic from any tribe. They let unicorns levitate, but that’s it. No flying, no weather, no dreams, no spells. If they catch you, they throw you into a cave with nothing but a trickle of water for a week. Sometimes ponies don’t come back from that.”

Night stepped aside. “Go on. I’ll be at the station past yours. Don’t think I’ll be able to catch your mistakes though—if you dump a whole load on me, you’re the pony who doesn’t eat. Listen carefully and make sure the lock is in place.”

Lincoln took her spot, testing the lever. She would have to wrap her leg around it just so, and get the exact amount of leverage to twist it. All would be infinitely easier if she could just have her hands back. And her old body.

Her male body. Why did Thomas get to keep his? She should be mindlessly pulling a cart around and just sweating all day. Manual labor wouldn’t kill her.

“Iron,” grunted a pony—one she’d seen in the little slave village, though she didn’t know the name. Nor did she have the luxury of thinking it over, because he was already moving, tilting the container forward.

She had only seconds to react, heaving the lock-bar into place.

Huge chunks of rock banged their way past her, sliding along the gentle slope of the shaft. She watched them continue, glowing along their edges as they traveled further. Bits of rock somehow shook free of the more metallic nuggets, falling through openings into a troth of flowing water underneath.

A fairly ingenious little system, rapidly sorting through ore and separating it from the dross. Along the line, ponies made adjustments, though she could only watch those closest to her.

Then the cart moved on, and the next pony approached, with a different cart. “Gemstones.”

She repeated the pattern many times over the next several hours. She turned the dial, locked the diversion, then released it again.

Moving the lever took all her strength, and soon made her leg start to ache. She could reach over with the other, but that only slowed her reaction time.

Fortunately, the flood of carts soon dried to a trickle, leaving her plenty of time between each load. Lincoln soon found the ideal position to hold the switch when not locked into one setting, so she had the shortest travel time to any given output.

And during those lulls, there was plenty of time to talk. “Why do we put up with this?” she asked, maybe a little too loudly. “There’s so many ponies here, and so few dogs. We must outnumber them five to one.”

The pony shrugged her wings. “When I went out hunting, the moths would sometimes outnumber me by the hundreds. Do you know what would’ve happened if they all turned on me at once?”

She grinned widely, exposing a pair of sharply pointed canines. Even so, they were only a little more dramatic than a human’s would’ve been. Hardly intimidating in a tiny bat-horse. “A feast. It’s the same way here.”

They fell silent as the next load passed, banging so loudly that conversation was impossible.

Then they were back to it again, almost as quickly. Despite her new arrival among the prisoners, no one paid her much attention. Lincoln could use that.

“You could fly? Do you think I could fly?” She half-opened her wings, far enough that a few loose feathers came free. They weren’t all one kind—like a bird, there were larger colorful feathers on the top layers, and downy ones closer to her back. Granted, her view of those could’ve been better...

“Obviously you could. Shauna can, and she’s from the same world as you. Might not be easy to learn, but you’d get there.” She tapped one hoof against the cavern wall. “Princess Luna knows we’re here. She watches our dreams of freedom every night. When she figures out where we are, the royal guard will batter down the doors and set us all free. Maybe I’ll even teach you how to fly, if you wanna.”

She sighed. Watching their dreams—she would have a hard time naming a rescue she could believe in less. Not even a prayer, just hope. “Flying sounds fun. But going home would be fun too. You think she could send us back to Earth?”

The bat didn’t answer at first. There were more loads to sort, each with their looming guards. She caught Thomas passing with one of them, struggling along ahead of a huge cart of ore. He barely managed a wave with one hoof before the cart was empty, and the dogs shoved him onward again.

“The princesses can do anything,” Night declared. “If that means sending you home, sure. Once they get rid of all the evil dogs, the rest is easy.”

The rest of her shift wasn’t easy. Each load might not be that hard on its own—but the strain got worse with each passing second. Her hooves ached, her body completely coated in a layer of dust and sweat.

She was on the edge of collapse before the bell finally rang. She retreated from the dial, barely keeping on her hooves. But she’d done it—her first shift.

I’m not doing that for the rest of my life. She shuffled into line with the others. All looked better off than she was—but whether they were used to it, or she was just weak, she couldn’t yet say.

There’s got to be another way out.