Orhideous: переводы

→Had a surprise inspection from the Ministry of Morale yesterday. We pretty well knew it was coming, and I’d been given instructions on what to do; but I couldn’t believe how smoothly it went! We slip them a small percentage of the special product, and they give us clean marks? Even if they were dirty, I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t bring the cage down on us and impound all of it for themselves. Seemed too good to be true. So I did a little digging, and a friend of a friend working over at Ironshod who claims to have an inside peek gave me this apple to chew on: according to him, the head mare of MoM herself actually loathes the new contraband laws. And since MoM enforces those laws, that means all sorts of tasty zebra treats are slipping into Equestria right under the Princess’s nose. I figure this means as long as she says golden delicious, we’re golden delicious. And even if the Princess suspects her (and how dense would she have to be not to?), she really is the one pony the MoM can’t bring up on sedition charges!

→The first entry was ancient; dating back several years before the apocalypse. The others were all within the last few months.

→Swiftly, I turned and locked the door. Then began to barricade it. Not too heavily, as trapping myself in here was not going to save anypony, least of all myself. But it would give me time. Time to loot and to consider my next move. A filing cabinet, the table and the metal desk should do. Bottle caps and gaming chits slid to the floor in chaos as I upended the table and place it against the door. I levitated the filing cabinet against it to hold it in place. Then the desk was wrapped with a glow identical to that of my horn as I swung it around. The desk, I noticed, had a glowing terminal. Time allowing, it might be worth it to see what it had to say.

→I spilled several bobby pins and almost fumbled the screwdriver in my haste. The lock was stubborn and tricky, and every failure was making me more jumpy. I desperately wished I had another Mint-al, preferably of the Party Time variety.

→But now, these four were working in a group, moving towards the barn while covering each other. Denying Calamity any safe vector of approach. Moving quickly, I raced down the catwalk and towards one of the old, half-collapsed wooden buildings surrounding the megabarn, combat shotgun reloaded and ready. It was locked.

→Most of the four more heavily armed slavers spotted Calamity on that last dive and began firing in his direction. But he was fast, the lighting was bad… and I had not been impressed by the aim of slavers yet tonight. I was pleased and utterly unsurprised when the hail of assault rifle ammo thrown in Calamity’s general direction missed my companion entirely.

→This threw a new wrinkle in the plan. Now, getting Velvet Remedy out of captivity was my highest priority. Not to suggest the other ponies in those cages were any less important to me. But something personal had been added to the situation. In my head, I entertained the thought of her how happy she would be to see me.

→Actually, she was even more gorgeous than the last time I saw her. I’d followed her out into this wasteland. To see her now, against this backdrop of rusted metal, old hardwood, bloodstains and liquor -- her song so clear and majestic through the din of lowlifes -- made her breathtaking in comparison.

→Velvet Remedy stared at the needler pistol as if it was diseased. “I... couldn’t.”

→Oh! “It’s easy. Float it up, pointing this end at the bad guy. To shoot, pull this little lever back; that’s the trigger.”

→She nodded. Then looked to me as if hoping I would offer another option. “I’m not a killer. I... I don’t think I can!”

→What?! How could they have gotten ahead of us?!

→The foals began to panic. I was attempting to calm (or at least corral) them when Velvet Remedy returned through the back door, looking worried. At nearly the same moment, one of the train ponies from the switch team burst in, shouting and waving his paws, a lever-action shotgun floating by his side. “Slaver ambush! Protect the children!”

→I had tried one last time, and she had finally told me flatly, “I escaped that prison, I will not wear its shackle. No matter how gilded a shackle it might be.” At that, she had left to check the ponies in the caboose.

→I had offered Velvet Remedy her PipBuck; but to my shock she had refused it. I stressed how unbelievably useful a tool it was in the Equestrian Wasteland. She said I could keep it as a gift. And as an apology for having given it to me in the first place. She didn’t blame herself for my leaving the Stable, but she regretted having played a hoof (and truthfully a whole pony) in my decision.

→I waited, time seeming to have slowed to a crawl like the train itself. She was taking her sweet time -- had she possibly gotten lost? No, that was silly; you couldn’t get lost on a train, could you? I chuckled as I realized that, if I ever got lost on the train, my PipBuck’s automap spell would guide me. Poor Velvet, however could she find her way on a train without it?

→I nodded, bidding him go. Velvet Remedy was probably on her way back from the caboose; she had been making regular checks on the adult ponies we had rescued, and I was entertaining taking a quick trot myself once she was here to watch the foals.

→I looked up from the book I was reading to pass the time. (Turns out, Equestrian Army Today was all about battle saddles.) The train was slowing to nearly a stop. The engine had already crested the peak, and the train ponies were drawing the rest of the train down over the lip and around the next bend before releasing it and jumping aboard themselves. There wasn’t going to be another chance to get some fresh air... or for Calamity to get himself a better look at our shadow.

→“Ah’m gonna talk a walk outside, maybe stretch muh wings.”

→“It is not a bird in a cage,” Velvet Remedy said, her voice pleased. “And if it is not, then I was not meant to be either. Come horror or ill, I needed to be free.”