Chapter 18: Lock and Key
Chapter 18: Lock and Key
“Please… please forgive me…”
----- ----- -----
Present Day
----- ----- -----
Teachings.
Having been born and raised in a Stable that had been stolen from its corporate owners, repurposed in order to be spared from a horrible experiment, I had been a part of a uniquely created community. That is to say, unique in the sense that it was perhaps the only Stable out of them all that had been forcefully wrenched from the grasp of Stable-Tec before the bombs. But with this same Stable being used as a means to remember, to preserve, and to teach the virtues that were embodied by the legendary Elements of Harmony, I had been shown many lessons and had been told many stories in order to do my part in the honoring of those great pre-war qualities. Both from classes and from my parents, I had come to develop a moral framework that I followed day by day, hour by hour, throughout the whole of my life under the scorched surface world. But golden rules in One Eighty-one such as honoring your past, helping others, and following your heart only scratched the surface of what the Elements of Harmony stood for. There were deeper and more personal subjects with these that were more heavily emphasized in the Stable, subjects that applied to everypony individually – understanding that trust is something that is earned, that there is great moral value to a promise, that every action has a consequence. All of these held their own place in my heart, all of these things some of the deeper lessons that I remembered and guarded with me.
But it was the latter of these that sat at the forefront of my thoughts.
Action and consequence. The principle behind this is among the simplest, but that doesn’t diminish its level of importance. No matter what you do, there is always a consequence that will surface. Each choice that is made always comes with others that one can choose, and though you can only make one out of all of them at one given moment, each carries its own array of outcomes that will leave its imprint on your future, and sometimes even on the future of others around you. And though we can never really know how far the ripples of our decision will travel, the guarantee is that each choice will be another stepping stone to a new point in your future. It’s an everyday thing, making choices, and it seems so simple that we sometimes hardly even acknowledge the deeper meaning of the concept as we go about our lives. But at the same time, it’s so substantial because it’s the choices you make – not devout faith to the Goddesses, not the material power you hold – that ultimately makes you who you are. Your actions lay out your road that you will eventually walk, and because of that connection, you are always held accountable for any and all actions you take, and you must be prepared to face and accept the outcome that forms from them.
But now, I was finding that I was questioning the very teachings I had kept close to me.
Only a short time ago, I had been shown my baby brother’s face behind a computer monitor as he sat wrapped in chains, bound by overwhelming fear. Now, because of the crushing grip of an explosive collar, his very life rested upon the edge of a knife. And it was because of this fate that had befallen him, a fate that he in no way whatsoever deserved, that I reflected upon my history, a black cloud of defeat and anxiety cloaking my thoughts in a deep shadow of doubt.
As a filly, my parents had spoken to me of actions as something that you controlled, something that you executed through your own will, something in which you always had the power of choice. But… what happened when that power of choice was stripped from you? Sure, things such as doing chores when you didn’t want to or going to bed early for school when you wanted to stay in the orchard were things that you had to comply with, something that you didn’t get to choose. But in those cases, the option always existed to disobey your parents, to sneak off or to ‘accidentally’ remain focused on a good book. No. Here, the question remained – what happens when the power of choice is stripped from you? What happens when those actions you take are not of your own desire, when they are forced upon you to reach a point that you want no part of?
As a prisoner of the Legion, locked away inside a small dimly lit room in an unknown facility, the Talon General had made my new situation very simple – I was to help the Legion, or Blake would be executed. In any other situation, if they hadn’t gotten their hooves on my little brother, I would’ve never partaken in their ‘mission’. They could’ve tortured me, shot me, beaten me to near death, and I would have only continued to resist. I was more than confident in myself to believe that I would have died before helping the enemies of the southeast, of Hopeville and Proudspire and Buckley and Challenger. But this – this was a situation in which I was utterly powerless to resist, because at the mere flick of a switch, my baby brother would die. And so, I would soon be undertaking an assignment from the Legion itself, helping them in working towards their latest goals… whatever they were. And whatever they would make me do, it was something that, I was sure, would be part of an operation toward gaining ground in the region against Challenger… a settlement that I had had dealings with before, a settlement that Hopeville depended on for its survival, a settlement that was the home of ponies I knew – Duke, General Silverlight, Bella and Shotshell and… and little Lucan…
Knowing that I would soon be forced into fighting against them served to drape a second layer of cold dread over the already festering cloak of fear that came from my worry for Blake’s life. And that was the worst part, as the whole time I had been locked up, ever since the monitor showing me Blake’s face had flicked away and I had been left alone in my cell, I knew that he was somewhere close by. Whatever this place was, wherever we were being held, he was near… and yet I couldn’t even go and see him. And Goddesses, I wanted so desperately to be with him, to hug him tight and to tell him that everything was going to be okay, to let him know that I was going to do whatever it took to make sure he was safe. Instead, he was locked up in a cell just like me, sitting there, alone and scared to death… an innocent child – the bargaining chip to an army of cold and heartless monsters…
And yet, when that thought passed by… I found myself reluctantly backtracking, returning to the lesson of action and consequence, to which my new situation had added a very important detail, a harsh reminder of things. Actions lead to consequences… that’s the key phrase, and it was something I knew already. But no matter how much you try to make yourself aware of the action you commit and the consequences that it can lead to, there is always the risk of committing an act with outcomes that you cannot foresee, especially with the turbulent occurrences that surface life can bring. In Plainwell, I searched for a missing stallion, a father that I promised to look for and, if at all possible, bring back to his wife and son. Then I found the Talons, the faction responsible for slaughtering an entire settlement, and I battled with them, hearing from a dying mare that had been one of the their victims that the missing pony I was hoping to find had been taken prisoner. I searched for him, looked to make sure that he was alive, and in the process, killed two griffin fliers, Talon sharpshooters pursuing me in the air. The first kill was a female, a clean headshot programmed from S.A.T.S., and the second kill was a male, the griffin having followed me into a trap… and it was the former that had been the wife of Blackhawk himself. I hadn’t known… I would’ve never known… but I had committed the act either way, scored the kill, taken away the loved one of a Talon officer in the heat of battle. That was the action… and now I was suffering the consequence… just as Blackhawk himself had said when we had first battled over Hopeville.
“I’m the consequence of your decision at Plainwell.”
In that moment in Plainwell, when I had taken down that griffin female in aerial combat, I hadn’t thought of what her death might bring in the future. But there was no reason to have even bothered to do so – the Talons engaged me, she engaged me, and in the ensuing battle, it was either going to be me or her, me or the Talon soldiers who aimed to take me out. On that field, they were my enemies and I was theirs… and so there was absolutely no way that I could’ve been prepared myself for what came next, no way that I could’ve seen that someone would come looking for revenge for the life I had claimed, a husband whose wife had died by my guns.
So… did all of this really make the Talons heartless monsters like I wanted to believe? Did the history that Blackhawk and I now shared really make him a cruel and cold-blooded killer that merely possessed the body of a griffin?
… Maybe… maybe not… some Talons were, that I definitely knew… but surely not all of them were…
…
But… was I responsible for what followed me from Plainwell? Was I responsible for Blackhawk’s retaliation?
…
Yes…
…
Adding to the grim emotional state I was already drowning in was the crushing weight of that guilt, the knowing that I had, ultimately, allowed all of this to come to pass – Blackhawk’s desire for justice, mine and Blake’s imprisonment… Gracie’s death…
Goddesses… Grace…
Despite the silence of my prison cell, the solitude of my confinement… for some reason, I just hadn’t been able to weep for my best friend, even as the sorrow from her passing stabbed into me like a white-hot blade. In my time alone up to this point, I had wanted to cry, to grieve for her and for how she had met an underserved end. But my body and my mind were so racked with fear for Blake that I couldn’t get the tears to come out. I had even physically tried once, shutting my eyes tight even as the occasional half-sob half-cough had escaped my throat. But even that warranted no effect, and all that had come from then on had been shaky breathing, even now as my body lightly trembled in its shackles, my thoughts always coming back to the fate of my baby brother.
The consequence.
I knew that I was responsible… responsible for everything. There were plenty of excuses I could make to defend myself, but none of them would prove the situation otherwise – I had committed the act, and Blackhawk struck back. But atop all of this was the terrible understanding of something else, yet one more wound carved into my already crippled spirit. Having come back from Buckley in one piece, gratefully returning to our own home, I had finally brought Blake back to true safety, back to his friends and back to our home territory. And after Captain Saber’s gentle nudge, getting it through my head that Blake needed to remain in Hopeville to ensure his safety, I was more than ready to make sure my baby brother stayed with his friends, to let him live as close to a normal foalhood as possible without risking himself by coming out into the wasteland with me.
And then this happened…… knowing that served to add a dose of anger to my emotional mixture, anger that was building up within me and lying in wait, subdued only by the knowing that if it came out, if it acted, then it would be my little brother’s blood on my hooves.
All I could do was dwell on the facts… that, and await the future… fear it. With everything that had come to pass, the consequences of my choices, there were moments where my thoughts churned around another area of concern, focusing in on a single ominous question – actions of your own will yield consequences that are easier to anticipate, usually desirable… but when those actions you take are not your own, how do you prepare yourself for the consequences that will follow? Could you even do that?...... If there was a way, any at all, then I couldn’t see it. Whatever the Talon General would throw my way, I just had to go with it… I had to obey his commands, because I had to keep Blake alive…
I would not let him die like this – as a hostage of the Talon Legion used to leash me to their General’s hoof.
My latest bout of thought drew a shaky sigh from me as I once again raised my head up, scanning slowly along my prison cell. Surrounding me with dimly lit grey walls, my box of a room was completely empty aside from the four plate foundations, two on the ceiling and two on the floor, holding my shackles and chains in place, leaving me standing upright and locked spread-eagled as I waited for the Talon General to summon me. The dim source of light came from directly above me, a single rod of light that shined down on me surrounded by a metal cage to protect it from thrown objects… imprisoned like I was. Already, the irons holding up my forelegs were digging into my hide, pressing in as my full body weight continued to pull down on them. And standing on my hind hooves only partially helped to remedy the problem, as no matter where or how I moved, the bonds themselves were continually applying pressure due to their tight fit. It was to the point now where the shackles were becoming a moderately painful pressure that created a consistent stinging ache in my legs; I couldn’t even find a comfortable position to grant myself some temporary relief from the burn.
Again I sighed, once more letting my eyes fall to the floor and bowing my head down, giving up the effort entirely. But it was in that moment that from just in front of me came the deep click of a heavy deadbolt, my prison cell’s door lock. My head still bowed, my eyes flicked up to where I could see past the strands of my mane as the square-shaped slab of steel detached from the floor and rose upward, sliding into its slot within the wall… revealing a single mare…
The black mane… the violet coat that was only partly concealed by a set of black uniform barding…
All belonging to a traitor…
“Hello, Nova.” Blossom said as she walked casually into my cell, stopping just in front of the doorframe.
I gave her no response… I didn’t want to… In fact, I wanted anything but this. I wanted something to happen, something to happen to her. In my mind, I could picture my cell door slipping free of its supports and crushing her, granting her a brutal, messy end. But all I could do was dream, as time ticked on in the real world, and now she only stood looking upon me with an easygoing expressing, calm and untroubled.
I wanted my mother’s pistol back so that I could blast that look off of her, paint it across the floor; at least her corpse wouldn’t clash with the drapes.
Craning her head around, Blossom’s horn briefly flickered as she pressed the button on the door’s control panel, and behind her, the cell door once again fell closed, remaining unlocked. “The General’s almost ready for you.” she continued, facing forward once more to look me in the eye, gazing upon what I sincerely hoped was my darkest and most fear-inducing glare. “He’s meeting with someone at the moment though, so I thought I’d stop by and keep you company for the next couple of minutes until it’s your turn.”
At her words, the tone of her voice, my left eye gave a single twitch, the herald of my simmering anger. Her blatant ignorance of the hatred that was spilling from me was pushing me, making my blood boil as the formerly subdued fury in me wanted to lash out and smite the bitch that stood in my cell with me… “I never would’ve taken you for a traitor…” I said lowly, continuing to hold my glare as the unicorn walked.
She stopped at that, my words bringing her to pause midstride by my right side. “Oh.” she responded, momentarily looking ahead at my cell’s back wall before turning to meet my eyes again, a tiny smirk touching her lips. “Traitor… that’s such a harsh word. And really, in this case, it’s a misused one, too.” Turning about, she reversed her course and instead moved in front of me, then turning and facing me less than a pony’s length away. “Because I never worked for you.” she said matter-of-factly. “I never worked for Hopeville or Challenger. I’m not committed to anypony in this region.”
“We saved your life!!” I shouted furiously, my chains rattling noisily as I shoved against my restraints. “You were being raped for Goddesses sake, and we took you in and cared for you!!”
“Oh I know, dear.” the unicorn remarked back, her voice touched with infuriatingly false sympathy! “I guess you should’ve just kept walking, huh?”
“Yeah. You would’ve liked that, wouldn’t you?” I spat.
“Ooh, feisty.” Blossom replied, her smirk slightly widening. “No. I’ll admit, I hadn’t been planning on running into that Black Blood patrol when I was by the old news radio building. But those raiders you saved me from that night were those that had survived that battle with the Talons by the station. I’m sure you remember it since you walked by it on your way there.” After a short pause, she added, “Anyway, it truly wasn’t part of my plan to encounter them, and it caught me completely by surprise when they ambushed us, took me as a trophy and killed off the other ponies who’d joined me. But in the end, it served to bring me all the closer to completing my mission, and that was the only thing that mattered.”
I shook my head… unable to believe what I was hearing from this mare; the way she spoke of what I had perceived as a massively traumatizing experience was rolling off her tongue like it was a simple, casual lunch chat. “How can speak like that after everything you went through??” I demanded. “You lost two friends to those raiders, and you lost Jenny to the same damned faction you’ve sided with!!”
But Blossom let out a note of laughter at my words. “Right. ‘Friends’.” she replied. “Nova, I was born in Hayward. My loyalty’s always been to the Talons, and I’ve been working as one of their scouts ever since our return to the southeast. Normally, being an advance scout means working alone, moving quickly from place to place and gathering information to give to Talon officers. But sometimes, being a scout means that you have to use your resources, think outside the box in order to acquire the things that really matter. And so that’s what I did.” Pausing, the mare turned away from me and begun to move, walking slowly towards the wall to my left. “Those two bucks with me were brothers, mercenaries making their living on escorting ponies and caravans to and from settlements. Seeing them sitting open for business in Challenger’s saloon allowed me to make myself a decent disguise, something unique that would keep me from raising unnecessary attention when exploring the smaller villages outside Challenger. I played the part of a nervous wastelander mare from Proudspire who was taking her first steps outside the village gate, looking for protection on her travels throughout the rest of the region. The two of them came right to my rescue for the right price in caps.” I followed the sinister unicorn as she walked in a slow circle, moving up beside the front wall of the cell. “Jenny stumbled on us just before we were making to leave, talked about how she wanted to get out and visit the other settlements just like me. She made the final addition to our group, and that helped to keep me from raising extra attention by traveling solo through the southeast. They did a good job helping to maintain my disguise.” she continued, passing by the cell door. “We got into Searchlight first and were welcomed openly and without questions, same with Plainwell, too… before its takeover, that is. And of course, we can’t forget about lovely Hopeville, because that’s where we saw you flying in to.” Turning, the unicorn faced me again, moving slowly towards me. “We saw the place on the western horizon about a day before you came back from… somewhere… probably Challenger, I would imagine. And of course, having found you after a few days of searching, I immediately contacted Blackhawk, my commanding officer at the time. And after that, what with what you did to him at Plainwell, he came running.”
So that was how the Talons discovered us… how they had found us the day of their first attack on Hopeville…
“Right before he moved in on Hopeville, I persuaded my group to avoid the town, and we instead started making our way back towards Challenger. After a couple more days of wandering, we found ourselves at the news radio station, and that’s when those raiders caught us before you showed up.” Now, Blossom was right in front of me again, standing close as she looked up into my eyes. “And the rest, as they say, is history.” she added, cocking her head to the side in a shrug. “But those two bucks in the station, my ‘best friend’ Jenny – all expendable assets that aided me in the completion of my mission, my mission to find you. I’d say they were anything but friends, Nova.”
Goddesses, I just wanted to break her jaw!
“I’ll admit,” she continued. “it was a shame to see Jenny go. She was a real sweetheart, always helping the rest of us out around camp, always making friendly conversation… good kisser, too. Unfortunately, Blackhawk didn’t see her the way I did, and so to that end, he used her as the means for me to win the full trust of your group, to cover up any possible point of suspicion. In the end, she died for the preservation of Hayward, and I’ve already thanked her for that.”
“Because you tricked her into it.” I shot back. “You lied to her, threw away her life and the lives of two other innocents in your Goddess-damned quest to get to me. How can you live with something like that?”
“Given the choice between Hayward or a few wastelanders from a foreign region, I think it’s very easy to live with.” Blossom answered simply. “And though you might not think so, I personally think that you or any of your friends would feel just the same way. In fact, I’m willing to bet that, given how loyal you are to your own home, you would have made the same choices that I did had you only been on the Talons’ side.”
Her confidence in those thoughts was something I could hear on every word, something that angered me even further as I denied her declaration outright. “No I wouldn’t! I-”
But my words came to an abrupt halt as Blossom suddenly barked a short laugh, startling me from my thoughts as she looked up to me with a full grin. “Oh, I think you’re mistaken.” she asserted with a sickeningly sweet tone. “Or have you already forgotten about dear little Blake?” Despite my anger, the mentioning of Blake, especially within the current subject, brought all my possible responses to a sharp halt; Blossom jumped right on that. “The poor child – he’s here in this facility with you, you know, and now he’s depending on you for his life. I know that you’re no fool, that you understand what you’ve gotten yourself into. So I guess we’ll both find out soon enough just how far you’d go to save your baby brother’s life. I’m rather curious myself.”
“Don’t talk about my little brother…” I growled warningly, wincing again at the hold of my bonds around my legs.
But once again, I was blatantly ignored. “I’m serious, Nova.” she instead spoke. “How far would you push yourself to save him?”
“I’d kill you in a heartbeat.” I answered venomously.
At that, Blossom rolled her eyes, dismissing my threat with a toss of her mane. “Of course. But what about a couple of simple wastelanders like I did? What about Archer or Gunny, hm?” That question… it made me freeze once again, only this time, it was because of a deep pit that quickly swelled in my belly, rising to a painful level at the mere thought of her words coming to fruition. “Yeah, Gunny.” she repeated with that same grin, catching how the question had hit me. “One of your best friends, the really protective one. He’s big and tough to be sure. But as I came to find, you tug hard enough at his heartstrings, and he’s putty in your hooves.”
“What… what are you talking about?” My eyes narrowed as I shifted in my restraints, the chains rattling in reply. “What the hell are you talking about??” I demanded sharply. “What did you do to him?!”
“Oh nothing, really… other than that we ended up kissing.” she replied, cocking her head to the side slyly; I only stared… I couldn’t even find any words… “Oh yes.” she continued for me. “The poor fool was feeling so guilty about Jenny that he gave me the perfect opportunity to keep him in the dark, to make sure he still believed me to be some helpless mare that wanted his protection on our trip back to Hopeville. He said he just wanted me to be safe, and that he didn’t deserve the kiss I gave him. I told him that he did… didn’t tell him why back at the radio station though. Only told him when he found us dragging you and your brother away.” An evil little giggle escaped her mouth, making my ear twitch. “Oh, he got really pissed when I told him that he deserved it because he led me right to where I needed to be to spring my trap, let me blend right into Hopeville society to coordinate your capture.” She shook her head at her recollection, smiling ever-so-proudly at herself. “The thing about your friend, Nova – there’s a beast inside that one, a killer, especially after Jenny. I’ve no doubt that he would’ve come after us if Blackhawk didn’t have his revolver against your skull.”
Red…
Red was what I was seeing now. Her revelations, her showing of her true colors to me… and how smug she was about it all… it all fueled an already raging fire, a fire that swelled into a roaring inferno that smashed against its cage again and again, pitilessly melting away the walls that had formerly subdued my anger, the anger that this internal firestorm embodied. And now, it all came out at once, seeking revenge, justice, something to blast away and send into the pits of oblivion; I welcomed it with open arms.
Futile as it was, I threw myself against my chains, reaching to get my hooves on her so I could pulverize her! “YOU CALLOUS BITCH!!” I screamed, stomping down the wave of dull pain that passed through my legs as I threw my full weight against my shackles. “HOW DARE YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIM LIKE THAT!! I’LL KILL YOU!! YOU HEAR ME?!!”
My throat was already tingling at the sheer volume of my words, but I took that as encouragement and saw with approval as Blossom’s grin promptly faded away, the mare raising a foreleg and recoiling with a start at my sudden explosive outburst. But quickly she recomposed herself, letting her hoof back down to the floor as her tiny grin reset itself onto her muzzle. “No…” she began calmly. “You obviously don’t see it, but there’s a difference between being heartless and doing what it takes to get a mission done. You see, if I was really heartless, truly heartless, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near as civil with you as I am right now. In fact, maybe I could’ve let my little session with that Black Blood patrol completely strip away my sense of reason, my sanity and my sense of purpose. Maybe I could’ve just gone ahead and shown you what I had went through that night… shown you what it was like to have your own body betray you.”
…W-what?... What??
Goddesses… nothing, not even my hatred for this mare, could have prepared me for the words that had just come from her mouth… and she had really said them, too… I wasn’t imagining things. Instantly, all of that bold angry fire that had allowed me to stand defiant before her was doused by a painful tidal wave of ice water that was her malicious claim, making my whole body begin to tremble in its restraints at the drastic turn of events. Blossom’s tiny smirk remained, now in triumph at her comeback as the purple unicorn looked me over to observe the shaking that I was absolutely powerless to hide. “You… y-you wouldn’t dare…” I responded, an attempt at a confident voice failing entirely, leaving the words to come out as a weak and pathetic whimper of an assertion.
But at that, she shook her head, mercifully backing down on her threat. “You’re right, I wouldn’t.” she replied. “But that little bluff proves my point, Nova. If I was truly heartless, then what would’ve stopped me from making your confinement here a living fucking nightmare?” Pausing, she looked upward, her eyes tracing me up to my suspended forelegs. “You want heartless, then look at those Black Blood Raiders. They do things that I would never do… they did things to me that showed me what heartless really was… and now that I know what it is, I know that I’d never do what they did to anypony. Now you can believe me, or you can choose not to, but unlike them, everything that I did had a purpose, a reason. I followed orders, lied and manipulated others to capture you and bring you into Talon custody, and I’d do it all over again if the need arose.” As she continued, her horn begun to glow. “Because you’re going to be the springboard for Hayward’s first steps in securing its new future.” Then falling silent, Blossom craned her head around to look to her right side, her telekinesis opening a pocket on the flank of her barding. And at her silence, I was left staring, my mind churning.
This mare… I just didn’t understand her. When my friends and I had found her, she had been the victim of raiders who had been using her as their trophy, the prize of their victory over the Talons out by the news radio building. She had suffered because of what they had done to her, and it was clear to us when we took her in that what had been done to her was a devastating event. She hadn’t just brushed it off like it was nothing, made no indication to us that that was the case… she just couldn’t have ignored it. Later, she had shown genuine gratefulness at our offer to search for Jenny, traveled with us in the hopes that we would come across her and find where she had hidden after escaping the radio station. And when the mare had died, Blossom had cried real tears, showed all of us a brutal level of emotional pain that told us that she had lost one of the only friends she had ever had in the southeast.
And yet, in the end, she turned out to be nothing more than a Talon spy. Her actions, everything that she had done since joining up with us, were all part of a plan that I just couldn’t fit my head around. I simply couldn’t see what kind of strength had allowed her to promptly discard what had happened to her, all the while letting her use her ordeal as a means to get close to me, to follow me back home and then strike, to kidnap me and use my baby brother as a hostage, all the while killing Gracie in the process, a mare who had taken her in and healed her, cared for her after she had been mercilessly violated. And somehow, despite all of that, something in that messed up little mind of hers told her that she was an innocent, a mare who wasn’t some cold, hard deceiver, but was only a soldier that was following orders to complete a mission.
Perhaps it really was just a matter of perspective. The Talons were my enemy, and everypony in the southeast that sought help from Challenger was theirs. In that regard, Blossom was my enemy, and I was hers, and so she saw all of us as a means towards her goals. Maybe she really was a mare out to finish her task, fighting for her own homeland in her own way as I fought for mine. But whether that was the case or not, however, was something that I didn’t care to dwell on, as those were her thoughts alone, her perspective that I didn’t share… not after what she did to me. Never in any kind of task appointed to me by Captain Saber would I build up somepony’s trust in me only to destroy it so ruthlessly. Had I been in her position, I would have abandoned my mission as soon as that Black Blood patrol had gotten their hooves on me, left the group that had saved me at the first chance I had and returned back home to recover on my own, orders be damned. Not even if Blake…… unless… he…… with his life on the line, I would’ve done anything to keep him safe. At least, that’s what I thought as the chilling reminder of my baby brother’s own imprisonment passed me by… and Blossom’s question.
Thinking about it now… I really couldn’t come up with an answer, because I feared both the only possible paths. How far could I go to save Blake? Would I be able to kill anypony the Talon General selected if it meant saving him? Would I be able to kill a friend of mine if he told me to – Gunny or Archer or Shore? If I could… then they…… and if not… then Blake…… It was such a terrifying thought, and yet it was so very close to me now, a true possibility that was impossible to ignore……
If there was ever a time for Celestia and Luna to grant me their mercy… this was it…
The hum of telekinesis drew my attention from my thoughts, and with a short, sharp gasp I snapped my eyes up to the ceiling. On either side of me, I saw two hovering keys cloaked in a dim violet glow as each was fitted into their respective keyholes on the shackles holding my forelegs. In unison, both keys turned, and with a click, the bonds snapped open and released me. In an instant my whole body was falling, and with a pained grunt I landed hard on my front hooves, my aching forelegs barely keeping me from hitting the floor. And only a second afterward, I heard two more clicks before the pressure around my hind legs released, the other two clasps opening as their designated keys turned.
Finally, I was free.
But as each of the keys drifted by me, returning to Blossom and sliding into her pocket one by one, I immediately put several steps between us, almost stumbling in my walk from the lingering irritation on my legs where the shackles had left their prints on my hide. Because as much as I wanted to shake out my legs to try and ease the sting, my eyes stayed locked to Blossom as she closed up her barding pocket, both my own thoughts on her, and her own words to me… her ‘bluff’… still fresh on my mind; I didn’t trust her.
Her eyes swung back to me, and for a moment, we looked between each other in silence, me with a reduced version of my former glare, and her with a collected stare. Then she nodded behind her, gesturing for me to follow. “Let’s go.” she said, turning about as she used her horn to open my cell door. “We’re going to stop by the clinic, and then it’ll be time for you to get your assignment.”
*** *** ***
Past a single hallway and a short flight of stairs, Blossom and an escort of two armed unicorn guards had led me into what I assumed to be the facility’s upper floor. But only seconds into the trip after my short visit to the clinic, where I had received a small meal consisting of three celery sticks with a cup of slightly irradiated water and a health potion, I was finding myself curious about the facility layout. Everything outside my prison cell had been well-lit, the plain steel walls lined with bright white lights that thoroughly illuminated the corridors and chambers we had moved through. Along the way, passing by several Talon ponies and even a couple of griffins as they went about their various tasks, we had crossed into a sort of lounge housing the facility’s main staircase at its very center. The stairs were built in a spiral, with wide rectangular steps for multiple ponies to move to the lower or even higher floors side by side. A signboard welded into the floor nearby designated the lower tier as being the home of the facility’s command room and systems chambers, while the upper floor was home to its offices, barracks, and maintenance wing. Upon reaching the upper story, I found that it held a number of similarities to the level below, both in regards to its layout and its construction.
The constant grey steel and the steady white lights were looking very familiar.
Now, after taking a final turn into the facility’s office sector, Blossom and I were coming up to the Talon General’s room. The office complex only encompassed a short hallway, from either side of which branched five rooms, all sealed by heavy steel doors. The General’s room was at the very back of the hall and, after tracing where Blossom had been looking as she walked in front of me, on the left side. But just as we passed by the fourth pair of doors, nearing the closed door of the General’s office, Blossom abruptly stopped and held a hoof up, signaling for me to do the same. “Hold up.” she said, lowering her hoof back to the metal floor. “Sounds like they aren’t quite done.” I stopped midstride at her words, almost bumping into her. But in the silence that took over my ears suddenly perked at a sound, picking up a diminished but still audible tenor voice on the other side of the wall.
“-hadn’t been for your discovery of Harbinger and finding out how to unlock Guardian, I would’ve had you disavowed from the Talons and exiled from The Halo altogether.” Despite the steel walls, I still noted clear agitation from within the room, each word smooth and connected from a serious and warning voice that I recognized from before – the Talon General. “I’ve seen your service record, Blackhawk.” he continued, the mentioned name making my eyes slightly widen. “You’re a soldier, a leader, and you have skills. Your unit served in the First Campaign and in other operations back home, and you led them through thick and thin with strength and dignity. You’ve built a reputation amongst our military, become respected because of that service to Hayward. But a week ago you heedlessly sacrificed other soldiers in pursuit of your Goddess-damned vengeance, and you’ve tarnished that record because of your actions.” There was a pause here, the General letting his words sink in, letting their meaning come out; Blackhawk made no response to him. “I commissioned you and your unit from General Winter because he assured me that you were the best, his insurance policy that this campaign would go smoothly. But what you’ve done has shown me only a reckless soldier that does not deserve the respect he’s been given, and I’m not even remotely convinced of Winter’s words at this point. You delivered false orders to that squad and led them to the Shamrock Farmstead to ambush those wastelanders, and because of you, all seven of them were killed in action.” So… Blackhawk wasn’t even under orders to move to the Shamrock Farm… he did it all by himself… became a rogue element… all because of Plainwell? Hearing it from the General himself made me frown, a familiar angry heat boiling up in me as he added, “It doesn’t matter that it ultimately helped Corporal Blossom in her own mission. You’ve stepped out of your bounds, and I can’t allow behavior like that to go unanswered.”
But this time, a second voice finally responded to the General, another that I instantly remembered. “Under General Winter, I was taught that action is the key to victory,” Blackhawk replied. “not biding time and waiting for the enemy to cripple themselves like what you’re doing with Challenger and the Black Blood, sir.”
“General Winter isn’t running this campaign, I am.” the General shot back sternly. “It doesn’t matter if you agree with my methods or not. You still follow orders. You don’t act on your own.”
“What I’ve done has paved the way for-”
“I don’t care what you’ve accomplished in the past, and I don’t care that your wife died in Plainwell.” the General interrupted, making my ears perk at the particular harshness in his words; even with them directed to an enemy, they made me wince. “You’re playing a dangerous game Sergeant Major,” the General warned, having won silence from his subordinate. “and in the southeast, with Hayward itself on the line, you play by my rules. Is that understood?”
Silence, only a moment, a long enough stretch of time to show that the General’s words had made for a wicked hit to the griffin. Then, “Yes, General.”
“As of now, I’m commandeering your Sixty-Third Striker Unit. They’ll take orders from me from here on out.” the General explained. “Tomorrow, upon the completion of your next task, I’ll be sending you to the Harbinger base to aid Colonel Silverwing in her efforts there. Pending on the results we achieve from our next stage, you might be recalled to Ashton later to rejoin the fighting there.” At the ensuing pause, my ears perked once more at the sound of a mechanical click, a door lock releasing just in front of me. “Consider yourself lucky that this is the only punishment you’re receiving for now, that Hayward needs every soldier it can spare out here in the southeast and that your actions didn’t cost us any ground. I’ll say it now, however… I suggest you serve with your former fire from here on out, Sergeant Major… because this campaign is likely to be your last.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
With a low whine, the door to the General’s office slid up and away into its slot in the wall, and Blossom took a step back as we waited. Immediately, though, I lowered my eyes, doing so just as claws clicked onto the floor close by as Blackhawk emerged from the office. In that moment, my entire body tensed up, a cold chill passing along my spine as the steps promptly slowed in their pace. I didn’t dare move my eyes from the floor beneath my hooves, but I felt a sudden weight pressing down on me… his eyes were definitely on me, and it didn’t take much to guess just how they were taking in the sight of me. Still, the griffin continued to move, and for a brief and painful moment, his steps drew up by my right side. The sound of his claws on the floor amplified itself then, and I almost turned and pounced… in fear of an attack… and because I wanted a fight… both acting in unison – the voices of my pity toward him for the loss of his wife at my hooves, and my hatred toward him for the loss of Gracie at his claws. But I stayed locked to where I was, held myself back, and he too held himself away from the urge that I felt we shared… that I was certain that we shared. I could sense that very thin wire tying us together, one that, if it were broken, would send us violently at each other’s throats. And when he was next to me, I felt that wire as it drew taut, ready to snap… and then it begun to slacken, Blackhawk’s steps dimming as he left down the hallway, fading to silence as he turned the corner and headed away deeper into the facility.
Then, finally, it was all over, and I let out a light breath as I begun to ease. “Yes, sir. She’s just outside.”
My attention came to as Blossom’s voice reached me, and I slowly looked back up to see her standing at attention before the office doorway. “Send her in.” the Talon General ordered from within the room. “And Blossom, consider yourself dismissed for the day. I want you to take some more time off.”
“Are you sure, sir?” she asked, voice betraying hesitation.
“Unless you’ve reconsidered taking that free ticket home.”
“No sir, not until this campaign is finished.” she responded immediately, shaking her head. “I’ve seen other ponies make greater sacrifices to complete a mission. I can take what happened to me out there to see this fight finished.”
“So be it, but take this day off.” the General repeated after a pause. “While I admire your commitment, I know that after what you went through, you need the extra time to recover. Consider this an order, Corporal.”
With a small, tentative nod, Blossom snapped her right foreleg up to her brow in a salute. “Yes, General.”
Suddenly came the touch of cold metal against my flank, eliciting a hushed gasp from me before I craned my head around to look over my shoulder. Silent, the unicorn stallion soldier responsible gave a nod toward the General’s door, returning his assault rifle to its hovering place before his chest. At the command, I faced front once more as Blossom took her leave, passing me by in Blackhawk’s steps as she left to her future rest. With a soft sigh I beheld the open door of the General’s office as it lay open in wait, and with a final mustering of my wits, I moved forward and entered the room.
Immediately, I felt a soft fabric underhoof, and I paused to see myself standing over a smooth carpet, one of dark red and gold that stretched along the entirety of the tidy office’s floor space. At the back of the room, parallel to the door, was a large steel desk, a basic but polished rectangular counter atop which sat two short stacks of file folders. Between the pair of organized piles of paperwork was the familiar sight of a computer terminal, the grey box projecting a monochrome green light to the bookcase (adorned with a number of what looked to be fully intact hardcover books) that sat against the far wall behind the desk. And directly in front of the terminal, facing me, was the final accessory of the desk – a black rectangular plate situated on the front edge of the table, with two abbreviations and a single name spelled out.
Maj. Gen. Vance
At each of the back corners of the room was a smaller wooden table, each one carrying a preserved ornamental vase made from shining bronze. And close by each table, one on each side of the office, was a set of filing cabinets, all perfectly intact and complete with all their compartments. The office as a whole was basic, but in stark contrast with the rest of the facility, was also illuminated more dimly, the pair of lights fixed side by side in the center of the ceiling casting white light that was laced with orange, creating a darker and hazier atmosphere. The dimmer lighting slightly concealed the Major General himself, the recognizable jade-colored unicorn stallion with the dark green mane and tail standing just to the left side of his desk, still garbed in his armored uniform shirt and black beret. He was facing away from the entrance to his office when I entered, his back to me as he looked at a reflection of himself on the bronze vase to his left. But a few more steps in, and his intense brown eyes swiveled over to me from over his shoulder, settling into a state of steely focus as his prisoner joined him. “You two wait outside. Leave the wastelander and I to our discussion.” At Vance’s order, I craned my head around to look over my shoulder in curiosity, catching sight of my Talon escorts as they both executed a snappy salute to their superior officer. And wordless, the two unicorn soldiers about-faced and trotted back out into the hall, whereupon the office door slid back down from the wall and closed, sealing the room and leaving me alone with the Talon leader.
“Are you a traveling pony, Nova?” Vance’s voice pulled my attention back to the front of the office, where the commander was now walking slowly back behind his desk, eyes still not on me as he waited for a response. But the question itself caught me off guard, the casual nature of it despite the reason he had brought me to his office, which was quickly punched aside by my focus on doing what this Talon pony wanted, resulting in a mixture that left me in silence as I merely watched the Major General’s movements. “Up there,” he spoke again, taking the uncomfortable quiet filling his room as his cue and nodding to the ceiling. “out on the surface, despite things like the sand hornets and those Black Blood ponies, despite the war that’s building up. Do you travel a lot?”
I let out a quiet breath through my nose, swallowing as I tried to keep my irritation at his blatant diversion from the objective suppressed. “I’ve… been places.”
Staring ahead at the wall to my left, he gave a single short nod. “Plainwell, Buckley… Challenger as well, I would imagine.” he replied in thought. “You have a definite advantage when it comes to that after all – those wings of yours. They’re something that sets you apart from the rest of ponykind, like how the horn sets me and other unicorns apart from the rest. They’re both unique parts of us.”
“I don’t think my wings have anything to do with the current situation.” I remarked with a scowl. “What are you getting at here?”
“You, Nova.” came Vance’s answer, the General finally turning to look me full in the eyes. “You, as a pegasus, are rare. And this is especially the case now in the times we live in, where unicorns and earth ponies make up the greater majority of the modern populace. I’m sure that you know at least the basic history of the pegasi, how they disappeared into the sky after the Last Day and created the cloud curtain you see over the surface every day? How they came to form an Enclave after the surface world was burned away underneath them? I’m willing to believe that you’ve heard the stories.”
“Some of them.” I curtly responded.
“Then seeing as how you are a surface-born pegasus yourself, you should be inclined to imagine that while the order went about for every pegasus pony to retreat to the safety of the clouds when the bombs fell, not all of them remained there, and that perhaps some didn’t even follow the order.” he explained, moving out from behind his desk. “Under normal circumstances, pegasus ponies are a curious sight to behold, and I’m sure that you’ve understood that when you’ve visited other settlements and taken in the reactions of the citizens to your presence. They act that way because you hardly ever see a pegasus in most regions, as more times than not, they only come from the skies above and down to the surface as outcasts from the society the pegasi have built up above us. Exiles such as these are rare enough as is, but it’s rarer still to see a pegasus who wasn’t born up in the clouds, but was instead born on the surface… or underground in your case, at least according to Blossom’s reports.” I took in a short, hushed breath, eyes slightly widening; I hadn’t expected him to know anything about me, let alone where I had been born… though, perhaps I should have expected it with Blossom in the equation. “But as rare as they are here and elsewhere, that’s not the case in Hayward.”
Wait… what?
My ears perked at Vance’s claim, in unison with the General as he stopped directly between me and the desk, eyes still on me. “What do you mean?” I asked, finding myself… regretfully curious.
“Let me give you a little bit of a history lesson, a history of the region where I come from, where the Talons come from.” Vance answered, now standing face to face with me. “The city of Hayward, long ago, was established within a rather curious landmark called The Halo, a place in Equestria that was regarded as one of the natural wonders of the nation. The region’s uniqueness came solely from its great circular canyon after which it was named, a single depression over a mile deep that completely encircles a great sprawl of what used to be grasslands and forests and mountains. The canyon itself is not only deep, but is also wide enough to contain its own ecosystem of rivers and forests and rocky badlands. When the bombs fell, Hayward and The Halo were not destroyed by a balefire blast like most every other Equestrian city and major location, but instead were attacked only with cruise missiles, destructive spells, and other non-megaspell weapons. This left the region free of the initial radiation levels that blanketed the rest of the nation. Over time, of course, the radiation from the balefire missiles came to affect the area, resulting in the destruction of much of the natural vegetation. But some of it survived, especially within the canyon, and though much of the valley and parts of the canyon are dead like the rest of the wasteland, there are sections that still flourish with green plant life, holding intact forests, living meadows, and pure rivers. Today, Hayward occupies the largest patch of that living landscape that remains in the valley surrounded by The Halo.”
“So what does all that have to do with pegasus ponies?” I questioned, focusing and taking in the information the General was revealing to me.
“As you may have heard in your travels, Hayward is a city in which ponies and griffins co-exist, just as they had done in the Old World.” Vance answered. “Hayward, in turn, shares The Halo with a number of tribes that have grown and developed over the years, ponies living within the canyon itself. And within those tribes are a number of pegasus ponies. Some say that they’re all refugees from the Pegasi Enclave, branded traitors or deserters from the civilization in the clouds. Others say that there’s something more complex behind their concentrated presence there, that perhaps there was a group of pegasi who were stranded within the canyon or refused to leave. And most everypony together says that the preserved plant life is what draws those pegasi in to the tribes that occupy the great majority of the canyon, keeps them away from Hayward. But no matter what the case is, it’s a common sight to see a pegasus flying out over the canyon and close to Hayward’s borders.”
“Really?” But despite Vance being a native to this place, to The Halo, this all seemed… unlikely; these tribes he mentioned living within the canyon, one or several of which holding a number of pegasus ponies, just didn’t fit with the picture of the wasteland, or at least what I had seen of it… but then again, neither did green plant life…
It raised questions, questions that I found myself quickly swatting aside as I mentally cursed myself for being led off-track. “Yes. And it’s what leads me to my main point – to you and your mission.” Vance replied to me, turning to his left and resuming his slow walk. “This region is very different from Hayward in that factor of the presence of pegasus ponies. In the time between our arrival to the southeast and now, our scouts have identified only four pegasi. One, of course, is you, and the second – your friend living in Buckley… Archer, I believe was the name that Blossom reported. The other two we’ve only ever seen from a distance, just glimpses of them in flight over the region. This low number was trivial at first, because our sights were set elsewhere. But when we began learning things about the southeast, learning what the region’s role in the Old World was, we found that we needed a pegasus pony with us, which is why you are here.”
Even though he had circled back to me, back to the matter at hoof, I picked up on the brevity of his explanation, on the lack of specifics regarding my purpose here, and on why the hell they were threatening my baby brother with death to gain my cooperation; what could possibly be so important as to go to such drastic measures to make sure than I would help them? “So what exactly do you need a pegasus pony for?” I asked, letting a trickle of my formerly suppressed annoyance decorate the question. “Why do you need me?”
Once more, Vance was behind his desk, sitting down on his haunches as my enquiry reached his ears. “You’ll know what you need to know in time.” came his response. “For now, all you’ll need is your pipbuck and the map marker programmed into it.”
“You’re holding my baby brother hostage.” I retorted lowly, unable to keep myself from glaring. “I think that’s more than enough of a reason for you to trust me with some better information, General.”
At my bolder move, at the distasteful character that adorned his title as it passed from my lips to his ears, silence reigned, and the stallion quickly locked eyes with me, settling into a hard stare that I matched as best I could; if he was trying to keep me docile with those brown eyes, silence me like I was one of his soldiers, I wasn’t having any of it. “Let’s just say that we’ve run into a very sophisticated obstacle in this region.” Vance replied, looking away to the left-side stack of file folders as his horn begun to glow with green light, enveloping a pair of dossiers within. “And we need a pegasus, you, to help us pass it.”
Wonderful…
I let out a hushed sigh of defeat, shutting my eyes while Vance was distracted with his files; for now, I guess that was all I was going to get from him in terms of my objective. “Fine. Then what do I need to do?” I instead asked, looking once again to the Major General.
“Once you leave this office, you’ll be heading back up to the surface and joining a flight of four griffins.” he answered. “Don’t worry, Blackhawk’s not among them. Though he’ll be playing a part in the same mission, I know better than to have the two of you flying or working closely together. Instead of going with him directly to this operation’s staging ground out to the east, you’ll be taking a detour with these griffins to our outpost on one of the region’s intact Old World farms to pick up some additional personnel and equipment. This will only be a temporary stop on your flight to the objective.”
“And when I get to this objective?” I questioned… more than a little hesitantly.
“Then I’ll give you the full briefing on your mission, an infiltration assignment more suitable for a nimble pegasus.” he explained; I flinched at that, feeling as a pit begun to open in my gut. “I’ve programmed a communication channel into your pipbuck along with the waypoint I’ve provided. When you arrive, contact me through your device, and don’t worry about reporting to the force’s commanding officers. You’ll receive all of your instructions from me.”
I took in a breath and exhaled slowly, letting the information sink in. “And… when I do this, then that’s it?” I asked cautiously, nervously. “That’s all I have to do, and then my brother goes free?”
“You succeed in this mission, and I’ll let him go. I’ll let the both of you go. You have my word as an officer.”
As little as the word of a Talon pony meant to me, officer or no, Blake was all I cared about. And Vance’s promise was the closest assurance I was going to get that my baby brother would be okay, that he would survive through this mess and return home to his friends… and that I would commit myself to Vance’s mission to make that happen. “Okay.” I said, finally sealing the deal.
“Good.”
Even standing there, facing the General as he sat at his desk, I was feeling that pit in my stomach, which had never fully gone away since its surfacing, as it expanded and churned even more forcefully than it had before. Now, there was no going back, and there was no hiding from what I needed to do. Whatever this place was that I was infiltrating, it was the means to ensure Blake’s survival. Therefore, it was my destination. And whoever occupied that facility, no matter their history, their virtues, or their intentions, was the opposing force to my goal, the threat that stood between me and preserving Blake’s very right to live. Therefore, they were my enemies. Whatever it was that was to transpire next, I would be fighting not for Proudspire, not for Bella and Shotshell and Lucan, nor for Buckley or Hopeville or even for my friends. No… something greater than all of that was on the line now – the one I loved more than any other in this world, the last of my blood family. No matter who or what awaited me in the hours to come, I would stand my ground, I would follow orders, and I would bleed and spill blood. Major General Vance was pointing, showing me the direction I needed to go, and with hoof and wing and bullet I would be his instrument, his solution, the means to bring him victory in this mission he sought to complete. Because if it meant saving my little brother, then the General’s mission, the Talons’ mission, was my own; and I would see that through to the end.
And all the while, it was these adamant assertions setting their roots into my mind that were making me all the more scared… and not of my new mission that I was to complete for my true enemies… or even for Blake’s life…
But scared of myself…
“Both your pipbuck and your pistol that you were wearing when you were captured will be waiting for you at the facility exit.” Vance spoke up from his seat at his desk. “You’ll find your ammo fully replenished as well as a couple of modifications that have been installed to your equipment to make them more suitable for your task.” Behind me, I heard the releasing of a door mechanism, my ears perking as the office door shifted and slid open. “For now, I have nothing else to brief you on. Follow the griffins who will be escorting you, wait at the outpost while final preparations are made, and then contact me when you join up with the rest of the platoon taking part in this mission.”
His last words were all that needed to be said, the cue for me to head out and retrieve my pipbuck and my mother’s pistol, and without a word or even a nod, I turned around and faced the open door, seeing my two unicorn escorts waiting for me outside in the hall. After a light sigh I walked, rejoining the guards who proceeded to take up positioned at my flanks as I reentered the hallway, rifles at rest before their chests. And then, with a nudge from one of the guard’s hooves, I was marched away from the General’s office and back down the corridor, retracing the route Blossom had taken leading me here until we came once again upon the facility’s central staircase. From there, however, I was diverted to a new sector of the Talon base, an open hallway within the main lobby which revealed a short path. Waiting at the end of this hall was another flight of stairs, a signboard suspended from the ceiling labeling them as leading to the facility’s entrance chamber.
“Jessup, this is Otto.”
My ears twitched when the buck by my right flank suddenly spoke up, and I craned my head to the right to see him in my peripheral vision as he levitated a portable communicator by his muzzle, from within which came a reply. “Jessup here. What’s going on?”
“Open up the gear.” Otto ordered. “The wastelander’s heading out.”
“Roger that.”
Before I could look away, Otto’s eyes flicked to me, catching me as I observed him. “Alright, wastelander.” he said, both he and his partner stopping behind me. “Head up the stairs and through the entrance. You’ll end up in an old warehouse, which is where you’ll find the griffin flight you’re meeting up with.” I swung my eyes forward again at his explanation, finding myself at the base of the short staircase, which rose up to an open doorway within which the ceiling of the entrance chamber was visible. But as I set a hoof on the first step, the same guard spoke up once more to halt me. “By the way, I suggest not flying off when you get to the surface. Just a reminder of what’s on the line for you here. It’d be a shame to see that kid go.”
Thanks, asshole.
“I might not be from Hayward,” I said back, low as I kept my eyes on the stairs. “but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” No response came from the unicorn at that. But whether he intended to reply to me or not, I forced myself to move on, ascending the stairs at a solid trot to avoid saying… or doing something I’d regret; the sooner I got this mission done, the sooner Blake would be free from that explosive collar, and I didn’t need distractions.
But just as I made it to the middle of the staircase, an alarm suddenly begun to blare up ahead, a loud buzzing siren that accompanied the appearance of a slowly flashing orange light that flared into existence. And just when I made it to the top of the stairs, I heard a hiss of air and a creak of metal from within the entrance chamber…
…before I found myself freezing in place at the sight of a mechanical hinge arm, swinging forward on four legs from the ceiling to attach itself to a massive gear-shaped door. With an ear-piercing screech of metal, the hinge-arm pulled the great door out from the wall and back along the floor, where fifteen ponies lay shredded and broken in their own blood from the twin miniguns that had torn them apart…
Gasping, I shook my head sharply, beating down the memory as my eyes fell back onto the gear-shaped door… a Stable door. Releasing it, the hinge-arm shifted back to its original position on the ceiling as the door rolled away from the entrance, the alarm going silent as it fell into place along the entrance chamber’s far wall to reveal a concrete driveway that rose in a gentle upward slant to the surface; at the end of the visible stretch of that driveway, I could see the familiar sight of dim light, of the wasteland morning as it shown faintly on the pavement.
“What are you waiting for?” To my right came the impatient voice of another stallion as I quickly brought my breathing back to regularity, and looking over I saw a rust-colored earth pony with a dark copper mane as he stood by the activation switch for the Stable door. “There’s some griffins outside said they’re expecting you. Best get moving.”
I made no effort to respond as I stared ahead at the open entrance, though his words gave me the nudge I needed to move. Still, I couldn’t help but move a little slower than normal as I took in the sight of the Stable’s entrance. Now I understood why everything down below had looked so familiar, everything from the hallways and corridors, to the clinic and the General’s office, and even my own prison cell; the lighting, the walls, the doors… it all clicked together. Whatever Stable this was, it had been a three-story facility housing at least a couple hundred, if not more. It certainly wasn’t my own, that I knew, but what was curious about it was just how intact it was, how clean and preserved the walls and floors and ceilings had been, how bright and steady the lighting had been. There was no way that the Talons could have been the original inhabitants, what with their city of origin sitting far to the north of here. But how was it that they had kept this Stable so pristine when the original inhabitants had left long ago… or whenever they left? Perhaps they possessed the technology needed to restore it to working condition back where they had come from? Or… maybe the Talons invaded this Stable like the Black Blood did mine?
As soon as that chilling thought entered my mind, there was no making it leave as I made my way to the open entrance, and it brought with it the ghost of 181, of me rushing through its entrance in the heat of battle as I walked past the door to this new Stable. And as I did, the alarm once again picked up, making me jump as I craned my head around to face the entrance. The spinning orange light, for a brief second, shined directly into my face… and at the passing of the bright beam, I found my father, the grey pegasus looking back at me with a proud smile on his face before he was shot in the left shoulder, toppling to the floor from the force of the harsh impact before the door blocked the entrance from my view as it rolled into place, preparing to close. I felt my body begin to shake as I fully faced the door, backing away slowly as my breathing quickened. And as the door settled into place, my body was wrapped in a blanket of magic, and I flailed and screamed as I tried desperately to reach my daddy, to smash and claw through the door and save him. And with a splitting screech of steel, the Stable door slid closed, locking my doomed father inside and leaving me only with the sight of the 181 done up in big yellow numbers on the center of the door.
With a short pained cry I shut my eyes tight and bowed my head, stomping the ground as I punched through the nightmare that was my memories of three weeks’ past. Once again, I found myself fighting to get my breathing under control, paired this time with my shaking legs as I reopened and guided my eyes back up to the now closed Stable door. I almost breathed a sigh of relief at seeing it, seeing the gear-shaped door but with a different number plastered to its center in yellow paint. This one was Stable 184… not 181… not mine… but even so, I forced myself to turn around and to move quickly along the concrete driveway, to keep the door at my back and prevent my memories from haunting me a third time… or fourth if my quick visit to Lucky Hallion’s weapon storage in Stable 203 all those days ago counted. Goddesses, whatever it was about the southeast’s other Stables, it was more than a little unnerving to know that stepping hoof in both of them had caused these memories to spring up so suddenly, caused me to almost literally see the events of the past play out in front of me again just as they had actually occurred on that day. That, and it was hard not to note how the surprise that the Talons had imprisoned me in a Stable that was, at the very least, an outpost, had caused these memories to return more forcefully……
I needed air…
Up ahead, I found that the light was coming from beyond open rectangular steel shutters at the end of the Stable’s entry tunnel, and following the dim rays of light upward, I saw a ceiling, or what was left of one. The mostly black roof took up the left half of my view of what lie beyond the open shutters, and was made from metal with old iron bars providing structural support. The other half of the scene beyond the shutters was that of the sky, of the grey cloud curtain of the wasteland that was pierced by jutting metal bars and slabs of the ceiling, the edge that had been torn but not completely ripped off from the old structure. But as I neared the exit to the surface, I came to not only see what lie ahead, but also hear it, and my ears swiftly picked up a number of voices, some chatting idly, others shouting back and forth to one another.
And when I stepped out from the tunnel, emerging onto the surface, I found out why.
I stepped hoof onto what had once been the smooth concrete floor of the Talons’ once-mentioned warehouse. First scanning to my left, I found that the majority of the Old World structure was still standing, stretching a fair distance with only a couple of holes in the ceiling and the far wall, thus providing adequate protection from the elements to the large number of supply crates that were stacked up and stored within; all of them were marked with a trio of slashes painted against the grey steel in white paint. But looking right, however, I found that the warehouse was indeed rather damaged. The wall ahead of me, standing its full height before, quickly dropped in stature until it reached the ground, its elevation curving down in a quick slope to show where the wall had completely fallen away. Only the floor itself gave me any indication as to how much of this warehouse was missing, and it looked to be a considerable amount, perhaps at least a third of it, if not half. But it was this great missing chunk of the building that gave me a view of the source of the voices… and of where I really was.
On the ground, I saw ponies, dozens of them, all garbed in Talon combat armor and lighter uniform shirts as they went about their various errands. Many of them moved between an expansive array of dark green tents and rusty metal shacks, carrying folders, books, weapons, and small boxes. Another group, positioned away from the camp, was undergoing physical training led by a drill instructor, the small earth pony mare garbed in an armored uniform shirt and patrol cap sharply barking orders to her subordinates as they executed pushups in perfect unison. From within the camp, a quintet of unicorn ponies were rolling along one of the Talon twenty millimeter flak guns, with three other unicorns behind them levitating strange heavy metal tubes with tripods folded up against them. Even in the sky, a pair of griffins flew by side by side over the outpost, both carrying fifty caliber sniper rifles along with them in their flight. And all of this, the Talon camp and its soldiers, was set against a backdrop made of lofty skyscrapers, crumbling Old World towers shrouded with an ashy black coating and surrounded by shorter buildings, all reaching for the gloomy clouds above as they stood over a huge sprawl of metropolitan wreckage.
“Hello Marefax…” I muttered, letting out a dismal sigh as I lowered my head… the realization of just how far away Blake and I were from Hopeville and our friends hitting me hard.
“Wastelander, over here!”
To my right, a male voice punched through the noise of the bustling Talon outpost, making me shudder at what it heralded. I didn’t look to where the words had come from – there was no need to, because only the griffins that were waiting for me would have spoken them to me. No. Instead, I closed my eyes and took in a long breath… holding it… then slowly letting it out through my nose. It was time to move now, no more talking, no more waiting… it was time to act, to serve the Talons. And as I let my breath go free, I sent out a silent prayer to the Goddesses, a prayer that they would give me strength, a prayer that they would give Blake courage, that Gunny and Shore and Raemor, wherever they were, were safe… and a prayer that I would be forgiven… forgiven for whatever action I was about to take in the name of General Vance and the Talons of Hayward.
*** *** ***
In my time on the surface, it had always been a curious and unique experience journeying into uncharted territory. Every time my friends and I, or anypony else from Hopeville, had left the harbor of home to explore, we learned more about the new world we lived in – what it was now, what it used to be – and we always brought back a treasure-trove of useful information for everypony else to use as we continued to adapt from Stable life. It was a repetitive process if you looked only at the fundamentals, but it was an unquestionably invaluable one, as it was ultimately what allowed us to get this far, what allowed Hopeville to grow into what it had become three weeks plus into our inhabiting the formerly abandoned Old World town. Yet even now, we had not seen everything within this region, places that we had only heard stories and mere mentions of, such as Challenger’s sister settlement of Ashton or the Roseluck Greenhouses and the Wheaton Armory that Lucky Hallion had once spoken of when my friends and I had traveled with him. And though perhaps some locations such as these greenhouses were unimportant in comparison with places such as Proudspire and Buckley, these names that only came to us as words showed that the southeast was large and that it had much more for us to discover.
Now, I was once again learning just how far the Equestrian southeast stretched. The only difference this time – I was an honorary member of the Talon Legion’s 63rd Striker Unit… or at least a portion of it.
The four Legion griffins I now shared the sky with were one and all members of this special unit from Hayward, at least according to one of the four fliers, a cocky and energetic young male who had (to my surprise and suspicion) heartily introduced himself to me as Helix. But after welcoming me to the unit, ‘the best in The Halo’ as he had so boldly claimed… and frustratingly reminding me of Cross all the while… his commanding officer, a larger and more burly griffin male, had harshly silenced him for his friendly greeting, skipping his own self-introduction to warn me only to keep my mouth shut, my eyes open, and my wings flapping. And after the rather awkward assimilation into the Strikers, the commanding griffin had been the one to return my equipment to me, complete with General Vance’s promised modifications.
I had been none too pleased to see that my mother’s pistol had been tampered with by Talon hooves, and upon receiving it once more, I had found that it had been outfitted with a black suppressor and placed within a new holster that accommodated the added length of the weapon. With this came additional magazines on a belt secured around my left foreleg just above the pistol holster, totaling to thirty-five rounds plus the seven in the current clip. And lastly, I had been given back my pipbuck, still fully intact and functional, but likewise modified. To the top of the frame, above the display screen and just to the right of the cuff control button, had been attached a small grey box. Slim and lightweight, the pipbuck-specific module held a total of four buttons within its control panel on the top, one to power on the device and one to activate, one to deactivate, and one to recharge the spell that the device was supposed to be able to cast; as the commanding griffin had briefly explained to me while I had been reequipping my pipbuck, the device was called a stealthbuck, and was somehow, someway, supposed to allow me to become almost completely invisible to the naked eye.
As strange a revelation this was, it immediately gave me a better albeit more unsettling understanding of General Vance’s vague explanation of what would soon be my new mission.
Upon gearing up with my modified gear, we had set out right away, the big commanding griffin taking the lead of our formation while Helix fell into position behind me, the two other griffins, two females who had spoken nothing to me whatsoever, flying in by my sides to completely encircle me. In this formation we had flown without break for roughly two hours, heading eastward across another great stretch of empty, wide-open fields of dry and dusty earth. Like much of the southeast that sat between the region’s settlements and Old World ruins, there had been no landmarks, or at least none left behind from the wartime era, to break the endless expanse of brown on the way to the Talon outpost. And like other stretches of barren wasteland between the region’s various locales, my lengthy flight with the Talon Strikers had thrown me into another bout of meditation, where I allowed myself to retreat into my deepest thoughts. But this time, there was no nostalgic thinking about how the wasteland carried another face when looked upon and studied from the clouds, and there was no deep reflection on how I’d come to handle my time on the surface. No… all there was now was the faces of my friends and the image of Hopeville… and I was terrified…
Throughout the past three weeks, I had entered many battles and fought many enemies to do my part to see to Hopeville’s survival, and certainly, each battle carried with it its own sense of urgency, urgency to kill the bad ponies to protect the good ones. But in most of those fights, I couldn’t really say that I had been truly scared… or at least nowhere near as much as I was now. Because now, a dark cloud of crippling fear was churning and rumbling within me like a rainstorm of the wasteland, something hidden from my enemies only by the curtain made by my neutral face and focused eyes as I flew amongst their ranks. And at the core of this cloud, the heart of the storm, was the three day gap in time that I had been unconscious, under the influence of whatever tranquilizer Blackhawk had used to knock me out and place me in Talon custody. Three whole days… and the last things I remembered was a vertibuck wreaking havoc on the City Hall and the town courtyard… and Gunny, the stallion remaining behind in Hopeville’s perimeter after being shot clean through the leg… and Grace… After three days in literal darkness, I could only list out the possibilities, ranging from only the hole in the City Hall to all of Hopeville burni…… no… no, Saber just wouldn’t have let Hopeville fall, not after everything we had done to build it… That I had to have faith in… I couldn’t accept otherwise, and I wouldn’t.
Nonetheless, I desperately wanted my friends back, to see their faces and hear their voices, to know that they were alive and well, and to know that Hopeville still stood strong. I wanted answers to so many questions… was Gunny okay after his injury… after discovering the truth about Blossom? What about Shore… Goddesses, poor Shore… after everything he told me about what was beginning to bloom between himself and Gracie? And what about Raemor? Where had he been during the fight? And Captain Saber? What about Ivy? Melody and the other children?
It was these answerless questions that haunted me throughout the journey eastward into unfamiliar territory, all the way until we reached the Talon outpost, our first of two destinations.
True to Vance’s word, the outpost established by the Talon Legion had been built around an almost fully intact Old World farm, the old site made of a single two-story house, three large barns complete with their own spacious penned-in yards, and a tall grain silo twice the height of the farmhouse. The Talons had built their camp within the site’s perimeter, setting up three separate blocks of tightly-packed dark green tents in each of the barns’ yards, with even more completely encircling the farmhouse in two rings. The camp was also the home of two Talon vertibucks, and even an armored cargo carrier like Buckley’s wagons had been parked on the camp’s south side. The whole setup had been occupied by around sixty soldiers, and despite its distance from the rest of the southeast, it had been heavily fortified and well-protected. The outpost was surrounded with an array of sandbag barricades that housed tripod-mounted machineguns of both the thirty and fifty calibers, and it was always under the watchful eyes of a quartet of snipers having taken positions on the grain silo balcony that completely circled around the top of the structure.
Upon landing within the camp, my pipbuck had called my attention to my larger map with its chirping voice, and it had shown me the name it had designated to the site. The White Mane Dairy Farm had been the name of the place way back when, a name that I found myself remembering from the computer records Archer and I had found in Mother Shimmer’s home. It had only been briefly mentioned as Shimmer’s father pressed his pregnant wife to allow him to choose a name for their slice of heaven that paid tribute to his two greatest treasures, to his wife and future child.
In any other situation, the nostalgia of that computer log would’ve given me a greater appreciation for how well-preserved the White Mane farm was, and my curiosity of Old World landmarks would have surfaced and come out to play. But as it was, our stay had lasted only minutes, during which I had been kept under watch while the commanding griffin of our flight headed into the farmhouse. And quickly, he had returned from within with two new griffins following after him, one of which revealed himself with a rather ominous weapon slung across his back. What appeared at first glance as some sort of missile launcher showed itself to be much more intricate than that, as despite being made of a single tube, the body of the weapon glowed a bright red-orange from what looked to be several slim ventilation holes in its exterior shell, a metal plate shield that protected some kind of magical energy core, almost like the glowing compartments of Shore’s multiplas rifle. Whatever it was, it had been the last piece of equipment that the Talons needed for their next strategic move, and with two other members of the 63rd joining us, we had left the White Mane farm behind us as quickly as we had found it, moving onward to the primary objective while the farm remained only as the second of the two new map markers on my pipbuck I had collected through the day, the first having been the Talon base of Stable 184.
And then, after another two hours or so of strong constant flight, we had reached our destination by midday.
The flat, dusty fields that had been most common in my travels through the southeast gradually morphed into more hilly terrain through the latter half of our journey, a rather clear indicator that we were approaching what had to be the farthest reaches of the southeast… or perhaps land even beyond that. And amongst those low but rolling knolls of brown dirt, we had come to find a single collection of Old World buildings, silent and lonely in the distance. From farther away, it’d almost looked to be some kind of pre-war town, with a total of only seven structures nestled together in a loose cluster, all in various states of decay. Five of them were actual buildings, one of them built in a curious ‘L’ shape, while the sixth was some kind of radio tower like the one I had seen on the Shimmermist Farmstead; the last was a larger and taller tower, with some kind of rounded metal container held atop its iron legs.
But before I had the chance to get a longer and more studious look over our target destination, the leading griffin of our formation had ordered us to quickly drop our altitude before we drew too close. We’d executed a sharp dive as a result, plummeting to the surface like rocks until we drew level just above the surface, taking the unnamed collection of buildings out of our sight as one of the area’s hills rose up between us. Then, for a short final stretch to the southeast we had stayed low over the ground, nearly skimming the dirt with our respective hooves and claws as we kept the hilly terrain between us and our target. And that was when we had finally found it – the Talon outpost that was heading the upcoming operation. It wasn’t so much a base as it was a portable, mobile camp, as it was comprised only of three box-like tents set into a loose triangle formation, around which swarmed a whole platoon of black-armored ponies numbering at least forty strong – the General’s promised task force that I was to be joining. Aside from this, there were, surprisingly, no other facilities, no other tents or metal shacks. But there was heavy equipment in the mix, totaling to a trio of twenty millimeter flak guns spaced within the camp, each gun under the supervision of their crews. But other than this, only the soldiers surrounded the tents, gathered up into a number of small groups sitting in circles or clusters, cleaning rifles, checking armor, and otherwise waiting for new orders.
A battle-group was stationed here… an assault force.
Once we’d closed the rest of the distance between us and the camp, I had been ordered to land a distance away from the site, and under escort from Helix I had been led out of the formation, which had proceeded ahead to the camp, and was guided to ground. Now, I was looking out to the north, facing the hill that rose gently upward directly ahead of me, its rounded peak well over several yards higher than the surface. Even after only a couple minutes of observation, it was easy to put some of the pieces together about what exactly the Talons were doing here… or at least to begin to hash out some of the more likely possibilities. Almost right away, I was beginning to believe that the Talons had intentionally placed their camp where they did, keeping it out of visible range of the Old World buildings to the north by using the natural terrain as a wall to conceal them. Of course, if the General was making an operation that centered around these lonesome ruins, then he and his subordinates had to have known something about them. But still, my solidifying opinion on the reasoning behind the placement of the Talon platoon ultimately raised the question of why. If they were intentionally concealing themselves from sight, making sure to use the hills to keep them hidden from a derelict Old World site… then what was the purpose? Why did they hide?
“Hey, aren’t you supposed to contact the General?” I flinched at the touch of a claw on my right foreleg as Helix spoke up, and I passed a side-long glance to the male griffin as he retracted his paw, looking fully to me with open curiosity even as I barely kept myself from striking him on instinct. “If you are, I’d say you should do it soon. Once the commander gets back he’ll be kicking this thing off.”
I looked back to the hill, easing with a light exhale and thus preventing myself from clocking the newest member of the 63rd across the beak for his gesture… and his apparent obliviousness to my situation. With a sigh, I sat myself down onto the dirt and raised my pipbuck to eye-level, looking upon the computer’s larger map; nothing had been labeled to designate the Talon camp or the assembly of buildings to the north, only Stable 184 and the White Mane Dairy Farm, the latter of which my pipbuck had designated as Talon Station Bravo, making the map’s newest markers. I then switched over to the radio screen, the communication signal strength display dormant as I looked to the upper left corner of the screen, scanning down the list of channels. In black letters, showing inactive radio frequencies, was Hopeville’s security channel with the relay tower signal from Shimmer’s farm likewise dark below it. But sure enough, as Vance had promised, there was a third item in the list whose name was glowing white, showing an open active channel – Castle CF01. The strangely-named radio frequency was the only one that was within range of my location, the only channel that was actively broadcasting, and with the push of a button my pipbuck speaker then emitted the buzzing drone of light static, soft to show that the signal was stable and projecting steadily.
And only seconds later, a voice replaced the static.
“You’ve surfaced on the airwaves.” Vance said through my pipbuck speaker. “So you must have met up with the rest of the force, yes?”
I looked away from my pipbuck and back to the camp. “Yes.”
“Then you’ve no doubt seen the objective. And so, I’ll get right to your briefing, Nova, because we have no time to waste.” he replied as I faced the hill once more. Then, “What you saw out there as a simple scattering of crumbling buildings is actually the site of a place called the Southeast National Guard Bunkers.” he explained, my ears perking at the name. “This place was once the region’s most important military installation, and it played a vital role in the southeast long ago. During the time it was in planning, during the later stages of the Great War, there had just recently come about a new and much more potent threat from Equestria’s enemies, which was the zebra nation’s acquisition of megaspell technology, technology that had, until then, only belonged to Equestria itself. When it was discovered that the zebras possessed megaspells, the war escalated to a new height. The fighting was fiercer, paranoia began to spread, and while many ponies focused their attention to the frontline fighting between the two factions, seeking to eliminate the threat wholesale, others started looking for ways to meet the threat should it become a reality, and to counter it. They looked to prepare for the worst, but also to fight back against it at the same time, and the Southeast National Guard Bunkers ultimately became the reality of this effort.”
That name…
“I’ve… heard that name before.” I spoke up in thought, glancing back down to my pipbuck screen with a frown as I soaked in the General’s new history lesson. Yes, I had definitely heard the name before… and repeating it silently to myself, letting it echo amongst my thoughts, I remembered with a start the streets of Marefax, walking amongst the ruins with Buckley’s convoy until we had come across an intact outlet store… yes, an electronics store… and inside had been a terminal with a message, a video recording. I’d heard the name from there, heard it from the lips of a pegasus stallion who had lived in the wartime era, who had ultimately obeyed an order for him to abandon the surface to its fate, to leave Marefax and retreat to the safety of the clouds. It was that pony who had mentioned it… and though I couldn’t remember exactly the context in which it was described, I most certainly knew that the name had surfaced. “I heard it once in some old video log… from a pegasus who lived on the day the bombs fell.”
“I see.” Vance replied to me. “That makes sense, especially considering that the bunkers began as a pegasus-led project. According to the records we’ve uncovered about it, those project leaders who later became the bunker commanders were all high-ranking pegasus officers of the Equestrian armed forces. And it was these officers that were largely responsible for how the facility was built, what went into the military project housed here, and for acquiring some of the most advanced military hardware and arcane spells that ponykind had developed up to that point in the war.”
Military project…… the more the General was revealing to me about these Old World bunkers, the more that pit in my stomach was beginning to churn, such as it had done in his office; I wasn’t liking where he was taking this.
“Throughout the course of the war, Equestria and its ministries each undertook their own various special projects, and though it wasn’t started by one of Equestria’s own ministries, the Southeast National Guard Bunkers contains within them one of those wartime projects. This one was one that was to serve as a shield against the greatest threat to Equestria and its citizens. And the final result of this effort was named the Guardian Project.”
Yes… that was the name I had heard from that video log, the name that came from the lips of Staff Sergeant Lightning Strike before the destruction of Marefax. “So that’s what you’re looking for…”
“Yes.” came Vance’s answer. “And it’s something that we can’t get to without you.”
I let out a light breath. “And why’s that?” I dared to ask.
“Though it may not have seemed like it on your way in, the Southeast National Guard Bunkers are heavily guarded, protected by a three-pronged defense system utilizing both military and arcane elements which has to be passed in order to get to Guardian.” the General explained. “The first of these is a network of magic-based defense turrets that covers the entire compound to protect it from any and all intruders, a system that could easily repel a reckless charge of any considerable size. The second branch is a surveillance system that will sound an alarm if it detects anyone that isn’t registered into the base’s computer systems, whereupon the base will go into a full lockdown and bar off any access to all its facilities. The third and final piece of this system is the access points to the base’s underground sectors, doors that will only open from the inside through the use of specialized cardkeys.”
Underground sectors…
“This first hurdle is something that we can get through on our own, and a plan has already been made as to just how to do so.” the General added. “But there’s a second hurdle underground, the final door that we need to pass, and it’s a door that will only open for you. Or, more specifically, a door that will only open in the presence of a pegasus pony.”
“I find that… very hard to believe.” I said, trying my best to conceal my unease as I processed this new… disconcerting information.
“When I first found out that the door sealing away the Guardian Project’s chamber would only open for a pegasus, so did I.” Vance replied. “You’ll see what I’m talking about soon enough. Right now, though, I want you to focus on getting inside and clearing out the facility to put it under my control, as the bunkers are, unfortunately… occupied.” he continued. “For this, you will be teaming up with three others, and together, you will make the advance team that will infiltrate the bunker system for the first phase of the operation. You’ll have a straight shot for the bunkers once the weapon that your escorts picked up at Station Bravo has been deployed. It’ll get you past the automated defenses and doors and allow your team to get inside before they reactivate and lock the base down.”
“And when I’m inside?” I ventured.
“When you’re in, you and your team will be working to reach the facility’s computer core where you’ll be able to permanently deactivate the base’s defense grid, allowing the rest of the platoon to move in and enter the facility.” Vance replied. “And then, all that’ll need to be done is to clear out the hostiles inside and secure the Guardian Project. After that, Nova, you and your little brother will be free to leave.”
So that was it then.
As he spoke his last word, my thoughts caught back up to the present and fell into place to imprint in me the big picture. With a team, I was to infiltrate the Southeast National Guard Bunkers, passing through its complex and lethal security measures with the aid of this special weapon, whereupon I was to shut down the base’s defenses permanently to allow the rest of the platoon to come in and secure the whole facility, thereby taking the Guardian Project. Now I knew my mission, all the way down to the finer details… even despite the wave of anxiety that came with them. Goddesses, if it had been any other circumstance, had it been Captain Saber or General Silverlight giving me the order to infiltrate a raider hideout or to secure a valuable asset, I would’ve been on the job in a heartbeat, with no fear and no hesitation.
But as it was now… I was almost shaking as the final moments before the mission begun to tick away. Even with Vance’s second assurance that my baby brother would go free once I helped the Talons complete a successful mission here, his briefing brought about the revelation of crucial details, all of them fitting together into a picture that created a threatening mural for the southeast… and for my home. This installation, the Southeast National Guard Bunkers, was not just a collection of surface structures as I had initially seen, but was, according to Vance, comprised of underground facilities as well. Knowing that now, I had no doubt that this Guardian Project was a part of that underground array, buried beneath the surface and hidden behind what had to be one of the most sophisticated arcane door locks ever made during the war.
And whatever this project was, I knew that it was something that didn’t belong in the possession of the Talon Legion… and it was something that never would have either… had I not been the very key they had needed to unlock it…
“I’ll be keeping up with the mission’s progress from here.” Vance’s voice resurfaced, breaking through my nervous thoughts. “My advice to you, Nova, is that you treat my soldiers as your comrades-in-arms for this mission. Work with them as a part of the unit, coordinate your maneuvers with them, and protect them from hostile threats just as you’d do for Hopeville… because they’ll do the same for you.” From the corner of my eye, to my right, I saw as a Talon unicorn came to stand beside Helix, leaning over to whisper into his ear. “Now go. I’ll contact you again when you’ve reached your objective.”
And without another word, the General’s end of the channel closed, soft static reaching my ears in his place.
“Time to move, wastelander.” Turning to my right, I found the unicorn stallion beside Helix as he gave a nod behind him toward the camp. “We’re ready.”
Wordless, I looked back to my pipbuck, long enough to deactivate my radio and silence the static. Then, lowering my hoof back to the dirt with a hushed sigh, I slowly rose back up to all fours and faced the two soldiers, taking my first impassive steps as they both turned to head towards the camp. Within, the formerly segregated clusters of Talon ponies begun to form up into ranks at the shouted calls of their commanding officers. In their midst, the twenty millimeters were beginning to move as well, their strictly unicorn gun crews combining their telekinetic strength to roll the guns forward towards the hill. And on the hill itself, I counted ten soldiers advancing up towards its peak, two of them griffins from the 63rd, and in tow within the pack was the missile-launcher-like weapon from the dairy farm, slung across the back of a unicorn stallion trailing at the rear of the company.
“Go ahead and head on up the hill, wastelander.” From just ahead of me came the voice of the same unicorn stallion from before. “That group up there is who you’re going to be with for this first stage.”
I heard and obeyed, slowing myself to a stop and keeping my eyes on the small group of soldiers as they made their way to the top of the hill. And without giving a response, I adjusted my course and turned for the hill. But then, “Good luck in there, Nova! Give those traitors hell!”
The wish belonged to the voice of the cocky newest member of the Strikers unit, and they brought me to a surprised halt as I looked back behind me. Helix met my eyes with a single nod, wearing a confident smirk as he raised his front right paw to his forehead in a salute before turning away and continuing on to the camp… leaving me staring after him in bewilderment. Given that he was a new recruit, I could somewhat understand his energy… perhaps there existed within him an eagerness to experience the soldier’s life, an eagerness that perhaps he thought everypony shared with him – even outsiders like me. And yet, he surely knew just who I was, especially with how the commander of our formation had called him out for speaking so freely to somepony who was an enemy. So… why the hell was he so damned friendly?? And why did I have to be reminded of Cross every time he spoke?!
As I looked away, I was left in an internal conflict… feeling… at least a little more at ease knowing that someone out here, even amidst the ranks of Hayward’s legionnaires, was speaking in a manner like somepony I knew, like somepony from Hopeville might have done if we had passed each other on the street. It was a reminder of home, a source of hope… even if just a tiny and perhaps out-of-place one… that I’d be going back there soon by General Vance’s promise. Yet, at the same time, I was left simmering inside, because… well, because of just how stupidly oblivious the young griffin seemed to be. It was either that, or he was mocking me whenever he threw me that smirk of his, aiming to remind me of everything that had led up to this point, to this forced collaboration with Hopeville’s foes; if that was the case, then my desire to crack his beak with a single well-placed buck was justified for being the ultimate prevailing emotion in a clash between several.
By now, the group that had been traversing the hill had stopped just shy of the peak, and the ten soldiers had rallied up into their own group. With no more time for me to waste with my tumultuous thoughts, I finally moved uninterrupted and made my own trek up the dusty hill at a solid trot. “… nothing to scoff at. You all know who we’re dealing with here.” Almost immediately I begun to pick up voices from farther up, or rather one, coming from an earth pony who stood further up the hill than the rest, granting him a position to overlook his fellow soldiers; the uniform shirt he wore, like those on the General and the Stable 184 drill instructor, showed to me his superior rank. “Four months ago these ponies sought to plunge Hayward into chaos, a city that’s braved the wasteland ever since the bombs fell. They wanted nothing more than to destroy everything it’s achieved, everything it’s built. And ever since those traitors that survived the Battle of the Inner Circle fled the city, the remnants of their ranks have hidden themselves in the shadows to escape justice.”
Traitors… Helix had used that word…
As I closed the remaining distance between myself and this rallied group of legionnaires, I listened in close to the officer as he continued. “But two months after their plan failed, we finally found where they’d slinked off to, where they thought they’d be safe hiding behind the doors of Old World technology. And as fate would have it, they’ve hidden themselves in the place that we now know holds the key to moving Hayward’s Second Campaign forward.” I stopped a few paces away from the assembly, catching the eyes of an ashen unicorn mare with a light blue mane and tail as she briefly glanced back to me over the three-o-eight sniper rifle slung over her back, presenting me a cautious glare before facing forward once more. “Today, with this one maneuver, we’ll not only have acquired the advantage we need in this operation, but we’ll have stamped out the final remnants of the treasonous element that still threatens the safety of our leaders and the security of our cherished Hayward. A victory here will allow us to restore the security and the peace that our city once knew, and it will give us the technological edge we need to do it.” At that, the earth pony officer gave a nod over his shoulder. “And all that stands between us and the completion of our goals are the traitors.”
I closed my eyes. This enemy, according to the earth pony officer, was a faction of rebels fighting against the Talons, who had apparently put up a strong enough fight to threaten the stability of all Hayward. And whatever had happened in the Talons’ homeland four months ago, this Battle of the Inner Circle and the events that followed over the subsequent months, had made those now residing within the Southeast National Guard Bunkers the Talons’ primary targets… made them my primary targets.
As vile as the thought felt as it emerged to life in my mind, I couldn’t deny that I was genuinely grateful for this information; at least I knew now that I wasn’t fighting Challenger’s soldiers.
“Wastelander! Get up here.”
My eyes snapped back open as I faced ahead, tracing up the hill to look upon the earth pony commander as he motioned a hoof for me to join him. And as I obeyed, others split themselves off from the cluster, coming forward to stand beside him. One of these soldiers was a stocky light brown unicorn stallion with an ashy mane and tail, fully armored and carrying over his back a heavily modified semiautomatic battle rifle, built with a suppressor and an optical scope. The second soldier was a griffin female with darker feathers who was sleek yet sturdily built, only slightly larger than the unicorn she stood beside and wearing a lighter armor rig with no rifles on her person; she had been one of my escorts from Stable 184. The third was a golden earth pony mare, mane and tail silver, who was equipped with full Talon combat armor and a pair of suppressed assault rifles hooked into a battle saddle. And the final soldier stepping up and taking a position just before the peak of the hill was another unicorn stallion, hazy blue, who was floating down by his side the glowing weapon we had acquired from the dairy farm.
“Welcome.” spoke the earth pony commander as I approached from the left side of the group, all the while ignoring the stares I received from them. “You’ll be teaming up with those three there. That’s Sergeant Trigger, Corporal Aeryn, and Corporal Quicksilver.” he explained, sweeping a foreleg adorned with a pipbuck across the battle rifle unicorn, the griffin, and the earth pony as he spoke those names; all three of them wore with their equipment their own pipbuck as well. “The four of you are the advance team, and when the M.I.C. fires, you’ll be infiltrating the bunker system while its defenses are disabled. Now, I’ll say again, don’t think that you can take on the whole facility by yourselves. This first step is all about speed and stealth, which is why each of you has been chosen for this. Once you permanently take out the defenses from inside the base, then the rest of the platoon will move in to keep attention off your team while you get the wastelander to where she needs to go.”
“Yes sir.” spoke the battle rifle unicorn, the griffin and earth pony close by nodding their own acknowledgement.
“Remember, the ponies in those bunkers are going to be well aware of your presence as soon as the M.I.C. fires a charge.” the earth pony commander added firmly. “They’ll know that we’re coming for them, and they’ll likely have prepared some defenses of their own in the months that they’ve been holed up here, so keep each other covered down there – watch each other’s backs. And wastelander,” Again, his eyes fell upon me. “you make sure to stay alive until we secure Guardian. You’re no use to us if you’re dead. Understand?”
I turned away from him at his question, letting silence answer at first as I looked away to the peak of the hill; I could just see the tip of the base’s radio tower from where I stood, just a glimpse of the facility that the Talons would soon be assaulting. “Yes.” I responded after the pause.
“Alright then. The four of you, form up and get ready to run.”
Time to go.
Facing back to the commander, I saw my three new temporary companions as they took up places side by side just below the top of the hill, still keeping themselves from forming a direct line-of-sight to the target. “We’re just under two hundred yards from the base. When I give the signal, the M.I.C. will take down the base defenses and provide an opening for the four of you to infiltrate the underground bunkers. But as the array is designed to reboot itself, you’ll only have a window of a few minutes to get to your target entrance, force the door open, and get inside before the M.I.C. screen dissipates and the base locks itself down.” As he explained to us the last crucial details, I walked around behind him to join the others, all three of which were preparing themselves to move, to sprint. “As you move, you’ll have sniper support, just in case opposition comes at you from the surface. But don’t let that make you comfy… keep your guard up, and be on the lookout for anything.” Now, I took up my own position, easing myself down into a state of focus, that familiar sensation of calm attention beginning to push its way into existence. With my peripheral vision, I saw the earth pony mare with the dual suppressed assault rifle saddle – Quicksilver – to my right as she glanced my way, making no attempt to snappily divert her eyes away when I found her looking to me; she gave me only a small nod before facing forward, digging her front hooves into the dusty earth beneath them. “Good luck. May the Goddesses smile on us all today.”
And may they keep my brother safe…
“M.I.C. is primed and ready to fire, Captain. I’ve got the target locked… waiting for your go.” came a stallion’s voice from behind me and to my right, the unicorn wielding this M.I.C.… whatever that stood for.
“My sniper teams are in position on the east and west sides, ready to set up shop at your command, Captain.” a mare spoke next. “I’ll settle down here when the M.I.C. fires.”
“Good…… ready…” came the captain’s response; I crouched myself down, planting my hooves solidly into the dirt, bracing myself for a leaping start. “All teams, mission is a go! Move now! Move!”
At once, the soldiers jumped into action even before their commanding officer finished, and as one, Trigger, Aeryn, and Quicksilver sprang forward and crested the hill. And as I leapt and planted my first steps into the soil, quickly building up to a gallop, my ears picked up a quick series of consecutive high-pitched beeping sounds. And then came a brilliant flash of light, almost blinding even as it swelled to life behind me, before a roaring ball of bright white luminescence sailed by overhead, racing out over the dusty fields and arcing through the air before curving back down, falling directly for the now fully visible surface structures of the Southeast National Guard Bunkers like a howitzer shell. And as the four of us begun to descend the hill on its northern face, the projectile erupted with a nearly soundless explosion, the sun-like ball seemingly morphing into a great disk of light that begun to expand over the buildings, painting each with a shimmering, crackling coat of gray-white like a radiant blanket.
Now we were past the hill and treading on flat ground, making a beeline for the bunkers and closing in fast. Despite how far away we had been in the air upon our initial spotting of the site, the hill that the Talons had concealed their camp behind was much closer to it, and upon establishing a line-of-sight to the base, I could make out the finer details of the place almost immediately. From the look of things, it had once been fully enclosed with stretches of simple chain-link fencing, most of which was now decayed into uselessness. What was curious about it though was that the fences spanned even farther outward to the east, sprawling far beyond the buildings to encompass a wide-open field that looked large enough to house a whole other base all on its own. But as we drew closer to the target, the aura of light from the M.I.C. blast just faintly shining down on us, I could see the structural hole that we were running for, a gap in the fencing that was directly aligned with one of the main buildings.
“Our target building is that one right in front of us!” From up ahead, the gruff voice of Trigger cut through the sound of our combined gallop, reaching me from his place at the head of our fire team as he craned his head back around to look us over. “Pick up the pace! That charge will start fading any second now!”
One hundred yards. I didn’t have the time to look to my pipbuck’s compass, but I begun to scan along the south side of the base for any of these hostiles, any signs of activity on the surface from the Talon deserters. From this distance, the base looked wholly abandoned, just another empty ruin in the wastes. But aside from the rusted husk of some old military wagon sitting by the southwest corner building, I caught sight of something else, something flickering in the strong lingering glow of the M.I.C. detonation. It was a flashing light seemingly fused into the upper left corner of the structure dead ahead, blinking spontaneously and spitting out the occasional burst of yellow sparks. It was accompanied by another that was likewise flickering, sputtering with sparks from its place on the opposite side of the first. And as we pressed forward, each of us putting in an extra boost of speed as we neared the base’s southern perimeter, I could see the outlines of something within those flickering lights. There was some kind of machine within both, the two of them comprised of a heavy iron chassis and an aligned pair of long gun barrels, making simple but rather lethal-looking gun turrets built underneath extended boxlike compartments jutting out from the rooftop.
Fifty yards. We were close now, all four of us completely coated in the light from the hovering energy disk above the base. Coming into the final stretch, my ears perked at the sound of gunshots echoing through the air, the greater majority of which sounding like the familiar report of a three-o-eight rifle, the sharp cracks of sound dimmed but still prominent. Even as we ate up the rest of the distance between us and the base, one of the two sparking turrets, the one closest to us suddenly exploded with a sharp pop, metal bits launching in all directions to bury themselves into the dirt. Quickly, the sniper shots settled into a steady rhythm, one shot every two to three seconds, every few rounds accompanied by another short, sharp detonation as another turret was removed from the base’s sabotaged defense network.
“Through here! Move it, move it!”
At Trigger’s order, both Quicksilver and Aeryn adjusted their pace long enough to draw up behind him in a loose line, leaving me at the rear of the group and galloping behind Aeryn as we approached the fence. One by one we hopped over a fallen section of the chain-link barrier, Trigger maintaining his momentum afterwards to gallop to the right towards the southeast corner of our target building. Quicksilver followed right on his tail, Aeryn using a flap of her wings to help her keep up. But just as I crossed over the fence and landed, my hooves kicking up dirt as I momentarily skidded from so quickly halting my galloping momentum, a space in what looked to be a small parking lot just in front of us opened up with the rapid turning of its gears, the concrete disappearing to be replaced with a square open chasm. And out of the sudden opening emerged a tall metal chassis unit from its underground hiding place, attached to which was a pair of connected gun barrels that snapped down and locked on to us, the turret falling into place with a threatening cocking of its firing mechanism and a flash of light from glowing ports in its frame. In quick succession the four of us ground ourselves to a halt, but just as a barrage of red energy beams lashed from the double-barreled gun, a flash of light erupted from in front of me, from Trigger’s horn. And in response, the very air before him rippled violently as the turret fired on us… or rather, fired upon a transparent golden-white wall of magical energy that rose to life between us and the hidden weapon. With Trigger’s horn flaring bright, both Quicksilver and Aeryn took action, stepping to either side of their leader and taking aim, Quicksilver with her saddle, Aeryn with a suppressed revolver magnum held in her right paw. As one, the two of them fired at the roaring autogun, their silent bullets passing through Trigger’s shield to smash into the gun’s housing. And after a shower of sparks, a component in the back of the weapon blew out with a pop, black smoke wafting upward as the energy turret fell silent.
With a grunt Trigger canceled out his magical shield, the rest of us easing from the surprise of the hidden autogun as it slid back into its underground hiding place; two spots on Trigger’s chest plate were smoking. “The M.I.C. must be starting to wear off.” the unicorn said with a frown, looking upward and squinting his eyes at the disk of light blanketing the base, a gesture I couldn’t help but copy; the light did look to be a little dimmer. “We need to get inside, and quick!”
“Come on wastelander, let’s go!” Quicksilver urged me, gesturing with an urgent wave for me to follow.
I picked up the pace once more, settling back into a solid run as I trailed after the three Talons. Together we circled around the southeast corner of the structure and emerged into the parking lot, the home to three other wrecked military cargo carriers. And from here, I could see the building’s main entrance, made from a quintet of stone steps leading up to a closed metal door surrounded by a spacious stone deck, to either side of which was another malfunctioning turret fastened to the wall, both guns sparking in their casings. Apart from these, there was no other visible threat in the immediate area, mechanical or otherwise, with only another disabled turret built into the south wall of another building farther into the base that promptly detonated in its frame by another sniper round.
“Quicksilver, Aeryn, I’ll take the door, you sweep and clear. Wastelander, you stay outside with me until they give the okay.”
Just in front of me and to the left, Trigger was already ascending the stairs to our target building’s entrance, his horn flickering back to life to float up his modified battle rifle as Quicksilver stopped behind him on the steps, biting down on her saddle’s firing bit in readiness. Wasting no time, the unicorn squad leader braced himself on the top of the stairs, and with one swift move, whirled about on his front hooves to plant a heavy buck against the door. The metal caved slightly inward with the force of the impact, and with a short screech the door broke free of the frame, swinging back to crash against the wall as its aged locking bolt clattered metallically to the floor. Then Trigger stepped aside and back against the wall as Quicksilver moved up and swiftly disappeared into the building, Aeryn following close behind her while I lingered by the bottom of the stairs; up above, the left-side turret was clicking, shifting bumpily in its place as its internal components clicked and whirred in struggle, trying to fight through the effects of the M.I.C. blast and come down to target me.
“Clear!” came Quicksilver’s voice from within.
“Alright, move wastelander.”
On the deck, Trigger nodded to the entrance before turning and stepping hoof into the building, and at his command I quickly made my way up the stairs and followed him inside. We stepped together into a chamber, one that was vast enough to likely be the only room within the entirety of the building. Spaced in rows amongst the concrete floor, immediately greeting us, were tall shelving assemblies of blue iron, making industrial storage racks within which were rows upon rows of deteriorating wooden crates, floor skids, and iron industrial-grade cargo containers. Amongst them were even more old storage crates stacked up alongside the north and south walls, hugging the shape of the building despite several of them having smashed onto the floor over time, leaving nothing but flimsy tinder and useless cargo.
“This is the base’s storehouse.” Trigger explained, his voice now hushed as the intact walls of the warehouse diminished the sounds of the cracking rifles of the Talon sniper teams outside. “If the recovered floor plan is accurate, then the bunker access point built here should be on the north side of the building.”
“Sergeant, right here.”
Aeryn’s gravellier alto tone responded to the unicorn from farther into the facility, and I turned to find her standing beside a larger rectangular steel container, in front of which was an oblong hole cut into the warehouse floor. In silence, Trigger trotted over, a silent signal for myself and Quicksilver to follow after him. “Yeah, this is definitely it.” the sergeant observed as he joined the griffin, peering down the hole and tracing it back up to its top. “Everyone keep a lookout. I’ve got to force the door open while the M.I.C. is still active.” Immediately he moved, both him and his rifle seeming to disappear down into the floor… that was, until I saw that he had actually descended a flight of intact metal stairs, leading downward to a short hallway which stopped at a small entrance lobby. Aeryn followed right behind the sergeant to the metal chamber, her claws clacking softly against the iron steps, and with a nod from Quicksilver I trailed after the griffin while the earth pony took up the rear.
At the far end of the tunnel, Trigger was standing face to face with a heavy blast door. And though it was narrow, it was comprised of untarnished steel and a complex array of thin mechanical arms and cogwheels through which it would open. As the rest of us entered the lobby, surrounding ourselves with metal walls and a similar floor and ceiling, Trigger set aside his battle rifle and focused ahead on the door, his horn coming to life once more as the larger wheel at the door’s center begun to glow. With a grunt of exertion, the light from Trigger’s horn pulsed before the wheel shifted with a light grating of metal.
“It’s working.” Quicksilver whispered in observation, words outlined with suppressed but noticeable relief. “Looks like the blast did the trick.”
“Hayward’s nerd division really outdid themselves this time.” Aeryn put in, equally low as she replaced the three empty casings in her revolver with fresh rounds, reloading the weapon full. “No more of those obnoxious little cubes.”
Under the force of Trigger’s telekinesis, the center wheel of the door turned again, the locking arms covering the center of the door moving in their places and beginning to retract. “Any of your pipbucks working?” Quicksilver ventured as she watched the sergeant’s efforts, then bowing her head to look over her own computer. “All I have is static still.”
“Same here. I’ve got nothing.” Aeryn responded, then turning my way. “Wastelander?”
Blinking, I raised my pipbuck leg to bring the computer up to eye level, tracing over the display screen. It was hazy with a curtain of static, yet even through the barrier, I could distinguish shades of green trapped within it. And I could see enough of it to spot letters materializing and fading within the disruption, showing me that my inventory screen was what my pipbuck was attempting to show me. “I see static…” I replied, shaking my head. “But I can make out parts of the actual display.”
“Anything on your E.F.S.?” Quicksilver ventured; behind her, Trigger’s telekinesis gained more headway on the door, the center wheel turning more smoothly as the locking arms shifted, activating several door bolts hidden in the walls.
Like the main display, even the slimmer screen that was my Eyes Forward Sparkle was coated with a layer of static despite its separation from the main screen. And try as I might to find a green or red marker within the display, I couldn’t see anything through the technological fog. “No, not that I can tell.” I answered the mare. “It’s still too hazy.”
From the door came another shifting of metal, and my eyes snapped back to Trigger as he took a step back from the entrance. His telekinesis had opened two flaps on the left and right edges of the door, and as they folded back, the center piece fell away and disappeared into a slot in the floor with a heavy crash. “Then let’s get inside before something does show up.” the unicorn said, pushing aside the two remaining slabs of the segmented security door into their respective ports with a final shove of his telekinesis. “Quicksilver, you’re on point. Hallway’s empty for now, but we’re stuck without stealthbucks for the moment, so stay alert.”
“Roger.” At Trigger’s command, the golden mare passed through the now open bunker entryway, mouth holding loosely onto her saddle’s firing bit as she cautiously advanced into the dimly lit hall beyond.
“Wastelander, you stay behind me.” Trigger added firmly, looking my way as Aeryn followed in after Quicksilver. “Keep close and don’t wander off. Come on.”
Wordless, I lowered my pipbuck leg back to the floor and trotted across the chamber to the door, following the sergeant into the new hallway that marked our official entrance into the Southeast National Guard Bunkers’ underground sectors. This hall, like the entrance hall at our backs, was all metal, much like a Stable’s, but with a more basic and weathered look. Ahead, the corridor branched into a T-intersection, and before it was a closed door to the right side, a lookalike to the first we had passed through. But as we moved, I was caught off-guard with just how quiet it was within the facility. Though perhaps it was just an effect of the interference from the M.I.C. detonation, like the weakened gray glow coming from what I assumed to be normally functioning ceiling lights, it raised both caution and suspicion as I followed close behind Trigger; with all their talk of traitors… I wasn’t seeing any signs of occupation.
Further on, Quicksilver came to draw up to the end of the hall, glancing left, right, and then left again before giving us a nod to move up. In response, Trigger gestured with his right foreleg, motioning for her to take a right turn at the intersection, and as she did, Aeryn faced the opposite way, keeping the path covered as Quicksilver advanced. The griffin stayed there until I passed her by, whereupon she took up the rear position in our single-file line. Now we moved through a hallway lined with four doors, two on each side parallel to one another, before the path hooked left in a smooth curve. All four doors were already opened, but as we pressed on, the hallway lighting begun to click and flicker, flashing quickly for a second before it would stop, and then go again as the facility’s systems struggled to restore themselves. But after a particularly bright flash from the recuperating lights, a stronger light source remained from further down the hallway, illuminating the whole far wall and swelling swiftly; that was definitely no ceiling light.
“Contact!” Quicksilver whispered sharply, stopping herself and targeting the end of the hall with her saddle.
“These rooms – hide!” Trigger ordered, equally low as he quickly stepped aside to disappear into the right-side chamber closest to us. And as Quicksilver scurried ahead to take shelter in the far left room, I was roughly shoved forward, ushered hurriedly into the room parallel to Trigger’s hiding spot by Aeryn. Together, the griffin and I stepped into a small square maintenance room that was the home of four tall steel-blue cabinets lining the far wall, beside which were several brown tool boxes.
“Hide in that corner.” Aeryn whispered, and as I turned about, I saw her raised claw pointing to the farther corner of the room away from the door. “And get your weapon ready, just in case.”
I nodded in silent confirmation, a gesture that she returned before she moved back to the entrance. As she did, I receded away into the corner, and as I drew Fire Rose and held it at the ready in my jaws, the griffin slowly hunkered down close to the entrance, eyes narrowing with focus as she rolled her shoulders in preparation to spring, to attack. Now I could hear the sound of hooves growing closer, stepping over the floor with only just enough volume to register to my ears. But there were multiple sets of steps that I picked up, belonging to at least two ponies as they rounded the corner, closing in to our position. I crouched myself down, my eyes darting between the griffin and the entrance she stood before as I kept quiet and still. Seconds passed where she merely stared, unmoving from her position as she lie in wait. On the floor just in front of her clawed forepaws, I saw light moving amongst the flickering of the base’s own ceiling lights, growing slowly brighter and brighter as they approached us.
Then Aeryn gave a nod out into the hallway, communicating in silence to Trigger from his place across from us before she tensed up for the pounce. Silence met us again as the ponies hooves outside were seemingly right on top of us, and with adrenaline trickling in, I kept myself as still as possible, even shortening my breathing to soft, shallow breaths through my nose. And then the griffin leapt, and in the blink of an eye she disappeared from the room, colliding with the unknown pony outside. I didn’t even budge as the struggle outside ensued, the sound of a body striking one of the walls proceeded by a weapon clattering to the floor. Then came the sound of choking and the scuffing of hoofs as they slid and kicked against the floor, and only a second later, my eyes widened at a pained and muffled grunt as the sound of a knife stabbing into flesh reached my ears. A louder grunt sounded by the entrance, and I jumped with a start as Aeryn suddenly returned, stumbling backwards into the room, but this time with a pony in tow. The pale blue earth pony stallion with a turquoise-colored mane and tail was held by the griffin in a strong headlock, and he was kicking and thrashing in his struggle to break free as Aeryn slowly choked the life out of him. Still, the suffocating stallion resisted, jamming his hooves into the griffin’s forelegs to get her to break her hold. In retaliation, Aeryn threw her full weight down on her captive, trying to bring him to the floor. But as she did, the stallion managed to keep himself upright despite the pressure against him, and craning his head back, he got hold of one of Aeryn’s talons in his jaws and clamped down hard. I nearly acted then as I kept watching, gradually and very hesitantly bringing my iron sights to line up with the struggling duo to try and line up a shot; but there were forces in my head keeping me from pulling the trigger… keeping me from shooting not only the stallion, but from shooting Aeryn herself… I wanted to fire on both of them, each for a different set of reasons… I just couldn’t choose a target. But even without my help, the griffin suppressed a cry of pain as the scuffle continued, unyielding despite the desperate stallion’s best efforts. And though her grip briefly loosened, she cocked her head back and brought it forward in a savage head-butt just as her enemy made to cry out, their skulls knocking solidly together and jarring the earth pony long enough for Aeryn to relock her forelegs around his throat and squeeze tight. Then, as the stallion tried to recover once more, the griffin shot her right paw up and clamped it over his muzzle as her left slid through his mane to the back of his head, and with a sharp twist, a sickening snap filled the room… after which the former silence of the bunkers returned.
Glaring as she caught her breath, Aeryn slowly lowered her now deceased opponent to the floor, and my ears partly pinned themselves down as the dead stallion’s head lolled to one side from his broken neck. Upon setting him down, the griffin who had emerged victorious let out a hushed sigh as she bowed her head and took in a couple of soft but deep breaths. But then her eyes came up and met my own, directing that fiery glare right to me. “You know, next time… next time I could use a little help.” she said between breaths, voice dark with annoyance at my inaction. Of any response I could’ve made, anything from an apology to a heartfelt ‘fuck off’, I made none, staying in silence because of my own conflicting thoughts. I merely looked away to holster my mother’s pistol, unsure of how to make any kind of civil reply to an enemy, much less an enemy who didn’t even care that my baby brother was on the line… and yet, as much as I hated to admit it, the fight I had beheld served as a reminder of things. Despite my having charged into this Old World base with my sights set on doing whatever it took to reunite with Blake and get him home safely, my hesitation had been undeniably noted and stored away in Aeryn’s head. I was coming to believe that the Talons generally held little to no patience with wastelanders no matter the situation, no sympathy and no mercy. It was something that I had first discovered in Plainwell, back when I had beheld the slaughter they had committed in which not even a young colt was spared from taking a bullet between the eyes. Now I knew that I had to understand that this was something that would be the case here just as much as it had been in Plainwell… and more importantly, I had to understand that my hesitation itself was yet another threat to Blake’s life.
If I kept seeing these unknown ponies for what they really were, hidden allies to the southeast for their opposition to the Talons, I would keep hesitating, and if I kept hesitating…
“You two good?”
“We’re clear here, sergeant.” Aeryn spoke up softly, turning to the entrance of our room where Trigger looked in on us; the stallion’s horn was aglow, floating a combat knife whose blade was wet and slickened with blood back into its sheath hidden in his armor. “We should keep moving.”
“Right then. Let’s go.” Trigger replied in a whisper, motioning for us to follow him back out into the hall. “According to the schematics, the entrance we passed through was the closest to the base’s computer core, one of the five primary underground bunkers in the base connected by these hallways. If we follow this one up to the first four-way intersection, we should find the lobby to-”
Suddenly, the hallway lights flickered more violently, the light returning like a muzzle flash. This time it didn’t fade again, remaining strong as the base’s lighting system finally restored itself to full working condition. The M.I.C. charge had faded completely, or at least to a point where its interference was limited, and sure enough, when I looked to check, I found that my pipbuck was now in working order, my inventory display now fully legible. But our new brightly lit hallway was the herald of an alarm that blared full force into my ears, a grating repeating buzz that echoed throughout the corridors and flowed around us.
“Facility-wide lockdown initiated. Multiple breaches detected in installation perimeter.” My ears perked at the sound of an echoing voice, masculine but rather… strange. “Defense array integrity at sixty-two percent. All Guardian personnel must report to their stations for security assignments immediately.” The voice laced with an electronic tone cut out as spinning lights came to life to accompany the steady buzzing alarm, replacing the original lighting with a shade of dark orange.
“If they didn’t know we were here before, they do now.” Quicksilver observed over the alarms.
“All the more reason to move.” Trigger replied, raising his pipbuck to eye level as his horn came to life. “Everyone activate your stealth modules. When we cloak, we won’t be able to physically see each other unless we’re close, so keep it tight and check your E.F.S. compass from time to time. I’ll get us to the base’s computer core, just don’t stray away from the group.” With a dim flicker from his horn, silver light enveloped his computer long enough for the attached stealth module to chirp. And then the unicorn vanished with a magical hum of energy; he had been standing there one moment, and then he was just… gone! “We’re bound to run across more of them on our way there.” the now invisible stallion added. “But remember to only engage if you need to, and if you do, make sure to use S.A.T.S.. That’ll guarantee the most accuracy while you’re cloaked.” Nodding her understanding, Aeryn then vanished from sight next to me, and from just in front of her, Quicksilver followed suit with a chirp from her own stealthbuck. For a moment, I was utterly alone in the hallway, a strange sensation as I sat back on my haunches and brought my stealthbuck up into view. Then, with a tap of the module’s power button with my free hoof, the device gave a healthy cheep of its own, and my whole body tingled as the device’s magical energy swiftly washed over me, blanketing every inch of me to conceal me from the eyes of the world. I couldn’t help but blink as my foreleg, and even my pipbuck itself, was replaced by the metal wall of the hallway… or at least a distorted version of it. It was almost like looking at the wall through a floating, shifting pool of water, a pool of water that was actually my foreleg. In fact, now that I looked more closely, I could just barely make out the shapes of the others as Trigger begun to move swift and silent down the hallway. The wavering, barely visible shape of Aeryn followed after him, passing by Quicksilver whose shape shifted more sharply as she gestured for me to move up; I could only just see her foreleg as it waved to me.
At the earth pony’s prompt, I moved on up and passed her by, pausing long enough to take a glimpse at my compass before moving ahead on light hooves, closing the distance on Aeryn and drawing up right behind her. Now the four of us were on the move again, following Trigger’s lead as he guided us down the hall. All around us, the orange warning lights continued to spin, the buzzing alarm, still just as harsh on the ears, maintaining its warning note as it blared to the Talons’ traitors. But now, despite the strength of the siren, I could pick up voices, at least two as they called back and forth to one another. They were close by, and as we rounded the corner of the hall, hooking left to come onto a long straightaway, I could see past Trigger and Aeryn… or rather, through them… two new contacts. One mare and one stallion, the two unicorns had come from a branching hallway that was part of another T-intersection farther down. Both were armed with basic rifles, matching lever-action repeaters that hovered in close to them as they frantically scanned left and right, and both were geared up in light leather barding. Their presence brought Trigger to a stop, the rest of us snappily following his move as the mare’s wide nervous eyes fell upon us… with no reaction following. Even looking right at us, the young pony did nothing, only scanning the walls again and again, passing over us once… twice… three times as she waited for a visible hostile to come charging through the corridor.
“They haven’t come back yet.” the buck behind her spoke up, his words just barely reaching me through the buzzing alarm. “Do you think they might’ve come in from the west?”
“I don’t know.” the mare responded, looking back over her shoulder to her companion. “If they did, then that’s where Volley and Gyro would’ve gone.”
“We should check the production bunker, maybe meet up with them there.” the male asserted, trotting around in front of the mare and moving towards us. “Keep your eyes peeled.”
Wordless the mare followed him, floating her rifle parallel to her right side, keeping it close and ready to fire. With a suddenly quickening and more prominent heartbeat, I instinctively tucked myself as tightly as I could manage against the closest wall, taking a nervous step back as they begun to quickly close the distance between our two groups. Behind me, Quicksilver’s hoof promptly pressed down on my left flank, a silent warning to keep still, one that I only barely managed to force myself to obey. But in front of me, I then saw the wavering outline of Aeryn as it slowly shifted, a foreleg rising up with her nearly invisible revolver pointing forward as the griffin took aim at the approaching duo of unsuspecting unicorns. They couldn’t have been any more than a couple yards away now, and they were pushing themselves forward at a slow but steady trot.
Oh Goddesses, they’d see us in seconds!
Pffatt. Pffatt.
At the blaring of the alarm, Aeryn’s modified magnum spit out two rounds, fully concealed thanks to the siren, and a quiet gasp escaped my lips as both unicorns dropped to the floor one after another. There was no mess, no splotches of red to paint the wall behind them, only the thuds of their bodies and the clattering of their weapons as the two guards were put down swiftly and silently with two clean headshots. We were in the clear once more, but just as I made to take a breath of relief, I froze again at the sight of yet another guard as he stepped into the hallway, coming from the same branching corridor as his two formerly living companions. This one was an earth pony stallion, bright orange with a light red mane and tail, who was armed with a rather ominous dual semiautomatic shotgun saddle and equipped with a solid suit of black combat armor. This guard, however, was moving at a quick pace, and luckily, he turned immediately into the hallway and headed away from us on his own patrol route, completely missing the sight of his now dead partners.
At seeing this, Trigger begun to move once more in larger steps, the rest of us quickly copying his example. “No time to hide the bodies. Come on. It’s not going to be long before somepony finds them, and we need to be out of this hall when they do.” Even with his warning, I was already more than eager to put distance between us and Aeryn’s latest kills, and treading lightly, I kept myself close to the griffin’s barely visible shape as Trigger led our team further into the hallway, following after the shotgun pony as he continued his own search for us. Only a few moments later, and the patrolling guard stopped as another pony, a teal earth pony mare with a maroon-colored mane, joined him from another branching hall several yards beyond the first. Despite the new arrival Trigger kept us moving, drawing up to the first T-intersection and carefully peering around the corner as the two guards spoke inaudible words. “Clear.”
At that he moved again, crossing the branching corridor with the rest of us trailing behind. As the branch came into view, I saw that it too was occupied by another pony, a bright crimson unicorn buck with his back to us, a three-o-eight sniper rifle floating beside him. Safely passing the intersection, I looked ahead again only to find that the other two guards had moved on, vacating our hallway entirely to give us a clear avenue of travel. But even from here, I found that the two enemies had formerly stood where another hallway branched off from the main line. This one hooked left, coming into view as Trigger brought us up to the intersection. “Here we are.” Trigger said, slowing to a stop as we drew up to the crossing. “The atrium should be just down this next turn… there. This way.”
Glancing back down to my E.F.S., I saw as Trigger and Aeryn’s markers begun to move to the right along the display, stepping into the formerly hidden portion of this new hallway. I followed close, rounding the bend to step hoof into another lane free of occupants, a slightly wider but much shorter passage at the end of which was the beginnings of an open room, Trigger’s target lobby. At the sight, our leader picked up his pace to a quicker walk, forcing us to match him as we zeroed in on the next target location. But as we crossed over the halfway point, passing under the only spinning light within the hall, there came the sharp echo of a new voice that instantly surrounded us. “Attention. This is Lieutenant Chet.” the voice of a stallion spoke throughout the hall. “Talon soldiers have infiltrated the base, and there have been two identified casualties. Whatever weapon they developed knocked out the base’s automated doors, disabling them long enough for a team to gain access to the facility. But the intruders have not been located, which means there’s the strong possibility that they’re using stealth technology. Everypony remain on high alert. Make sure that the defenses are in place, and that a pipbuck is patrolling near each of the main bunkers. When found, the enemy is to be engaged on sight and eliminated.”
“Guess you were right, sergeant.” Quicksilver spoke calmly from behind me. “We got to hurry.”
“We’re close to the computer core. It’s just through this room and down another hall.” Trigger responded ahead, picking up his pace to a trot with the inspiration from the new threatening message fueling him. “Quicksilver, keep an eye out behind us, make sure none of them start following us.”
“Got it.”
Swiftly traversing the rest of the passageway, Trigger slowed himself back to a cautious walk as he stepped hoof into the lobby chamber. Peering in over Aeryn’s transparent back, I found a room looking loosely familiar to that of a Stable atrium… only this one was more complex in its design. Sturdy support beams crisscrossed along the entire expanse of the room just under its metal ceiling, and the chamber was further reinforced by four steel pillars placed at even intervals in two-by-two formation, carrying the weight of the earth above them equally. And instead of a perfect boxlike shape, the edges of the ceiling and walls were rounded, a strange but unique structure. But amidst the architecture, my eyes fell upon a new guard in the far left corner of the room, the unarmored unicorn stallion positioned between the entrances of two different hallways. At hearing the message, the stallion was glued to his post, only slowly scanning right, left, and then right again like a machine as he kept not one, but two ten millimeter SMGs hovering close by, one to either side of him. This pony was not alone either, and as Trigger stopped a few paces into the room to plan out his route, I found two additional hostile markers on my compass display, both of them grouped close together between the two spires to our right.
Then Trigger and Aeryn’s friendly markers begun to stir again, crawling along the compass and to the left, and lowering my hoof ever so delicately back to the floor, I moved cautiously onward to follow. “They’ve got new tech. We should’ve seen that coming.” one of the guards by the pillars suddenly grumbled nervously, continuing his search.
“Are you kidding?” came a deeper voice from the guard in the corner. “Whatever the hell they hit this place with was something Hayward didn’t have back when we were still there. We couldn’t have prepared for them to use that kind of weapon against us.”
“Ever since the council found that Stable in The Halo, they’ve been in there day and night studying the information stored there, using it for new applications.” the first guard replied, dismal as we slunk around them and towards the closest doorway. “If only we could’ve found it first instead of hiding around…”
“Wouldn’t have made much of a difference without the numbers to operate the damn place.” the second guard replied. “Thing’s a damn fortress.”
“I’m just saying,” the first stallion continued. “Chet’s always been hiding us away instead of-”
“Hey, eyes open and mouths shut!” barked the third guard, curt and angry as he swung an assault rifle toward the door we had just come in from, scanning down that hallway as he stepped slowly to the center of the atrium.
A quick glance at my compass showed Trigger was already passing undetected through the door, his marker shifting more sharply to the left as he passed out of the lobby chamber. Behind him, Aeryn’s barely visible form hugged the corner as she eagerly followed the sergeant into the next hall, the final stretch to the bunker systems’ computer core room. And as I approached the entrance, I felt just a sliver of relief at passing unnoticed by the atrium guards… until our final corridor came into my view. Instead of armed guards, I found a hall whose floor was speckled with bronze metal disks, atop each of which was a steadily glowing red light. Each was set apart from the other at a moderate interval, large enough to leave considerable gaps, but large enough also to show the blast radius of each one.
The floor was guarded with fragmentation mines.
Even as we came to another nerve-wracking stop at the presence of the lethal traps, an earth pony guard stepped into our field of view long enough to push another mine into the center of the cross-section he patrolled, pressing the switch at the top to arm the explosive before disappearing back behind the corner from which he’d appeared. With his generous donation, there were easily over a dozen mines sprawled across the lengthy hall, sprawling to where it connected with another hall at a four-way intersection and continuing farther down to finally end where the corridor met another path perpendicular to it. But this time, Trigger wasn’t making a move, Aeryn remaining perfectly still in front of me as she waited for a direction. Goddesses, now of all times was the worst to stop, with guards behind us, at least one in front of us… perhaps more… we had to have been surrounded…
“Damn, they’re going to find us no matter what we do.” I could just barely make out Trigger’s voice over the base’s cyclically blaring intrusion siren, his whispers barely reaching me over the noise.
“Stealthbucks won’t get us over those mines undetected.” Aeryn’s closer voice replied softly. “We’ve got to disarm them… but one look into this hall and they’ll see that.” The griffin paused here, here transparent body shifting as she leaned just slightly forward as Trigger’s own form moved. Looking back over my shoulder as I waited anxiously for a new plan, I could see Quicksilver who had only just stepped into the hallway from around the corner, not even a single pony-length apart from the atrium we had just escaped. But whether or not the earth pony mare was growing as nervous as I was, I couldn’t tell; at least none of the guards from the atrium had moved from their posts.
With a small start I felt the tap of a claw on my chest, and I swung my head forward to face Aeryn where she stood. “Hey, listen up.” she warned softly. “We’re going to make a run for the computer core and take out whoever’s after us to get Trigger to the controls. After that, we’re splitting up, and Trigger’ll tell me where I need to go so that I can take you to the Guardian Project access door. So get ready to run, because we’ll be announcing ourselves in the next few seconds.”
It was right then that Trigger moved once more, and before I could even nod my understanding, my attention immediately fell to the closest frag mine. From the device came a sharp tinny beep, sounding once, twice, before the red light on the explosive went dark at the click of a switch, Trigger pressing his hoof down on the button to disarm the weapon. Without delay they were moving again, forcing me to keep up as Aeryn stuck close to our team leader. Another few steps heralded another pair of beeps, subdued by the warning siren… but still seeming oh so very loud before Trigger silenced the explosive with a simple step of his hoof, the red light now dark. One press of the button and the mine was silent, then ignored as Trigger stepped right on by, the rest of us tightening up closer to one another as we approached the third. A trio of beeps sprouted to life before the bomb was subdued by Trigger’s hoof, the sergeant moving steadily closer to our next intersection between us and which were five more mines. We were making solid progress, with no guards coming from behind us and no others emerging from what I assumed to be our target intersection or the turn at the far end of the hall. Ears perking, I heard another beep ahead of me, a single note before Trigger snappily hushed the fourth mine in our path. Now, the adrenaline moving slowly through me was coaxing me into preparing, its message finally getting through to me to take my eyes away from the deadly hallway and to get ready as Aeryn had advised. Reaching down to my pistol holster, finding the shape of Fire Rose’s firing bit through its magical cloak, I pulled my mother’s sidearm free and held it at the ready in my jaws, facing ahead just in time to see as Trigger disarmed a fifth mine. But no sooner had he done so than another pony had emerged from the very intersection we needed to get through, stepping out from behind the corner just as the sergeant passed over the dormant trap.
And checking over the mines for herself, the cyan-colored unicorn’s eyes stopped right on top of us.
“What the… what the hell??”
As one, both her horn and Trigger’s flared to life as they yanked their weapons free from their holsters, a black nine millimeter SMG whipping into view from behind the mare. But as the stockless weapon aimed down from over her back, she suddenly staggered back as her eyes went wide, and with a gruesome gurgle being all that the freely bleeding hole in her neck from Trigger’s rifle would allow her to cry, she collapsed to her knees, fighting with all her might to keep herself standing. But her weapon, still wrapped in telekinesis, suddenly discharged a violently loud stream of bullets, and all of us dropped to the ground as the reckless torrent of rounds carved up along the wall and to the ceiling, leaving a trail of indents all along the steel before the gun ran dry, its owner finally succumbing to her fatal wound and falling to her side to bleed out.
“What the hell was that?!”
“Hey!! Down there!!”
From behind us came the alerted voices of the atrium guards, and spinning about in response, I pointed Fire Rose for the hallway entrance. Only a second later, and the unicorn wielding the twin SMGs stepped into the open, both weapons snapping down to us as he took aim. But Quicksilver spoke first, and twin plumes of light haze wafted up from her transparent body as her suppressed assault rifles opened fire. Like his comrade, the guard was not prepared for the attack, and the stallion went down under the heavy barrage, crimson splattering out behind him as he crumpled to the floor unmoving.
“Go, go!”
The other two lobby guards were not making the same mistake as their fallen friend, both remaining behind cover as Quicksilver and I kept our guns on the entrance. But at Trigger’s order, both she and I begun to fall back, and I whirled back around to see the sergeant as he lifted the remaining three mines between us and the next corridor before he, with a telekinetic push, launched them to the far end of the hall where they clattered harmlessly to the floor. With the obstacle thus removed, we had a clear path to what I assumed was our last turn before our destination. One by one we slipped into the passageway, stepping over the dead cyan unicorn and into a shorter hall which ended as it hooked to the left. The whole stretch was clear of both mines and personnel, but from behind me, another buzz of sound erupted from Quicksilver’s saddle before a powerful rifle shot ripped through the corridor, a bullet sparking off the floor seemingly right next to me. I spun back around in response, jumping from the potency of the noise within the enclosed space, and found one of the guards from before, the earth pony stallion who had been dropping the mines, as he adjusted his position to train his single rifle battle saddle on us. Before he could, Quicksilver retaliated again with another burst from her own rifles, but the heavier armor the stallion wore kept the shots from making wounds, and he only stumbled as he fought to move forward and get out of the open.
“Inside, now! Come on!”
Trigger’s voice shouted out over the alarm, now meshed with the calls for reinforcements coming from nearby. Even as he spoke, a shotgun blast responded to him before both he and Aeryn retaliated with suppressed shots. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the sergeant against the wall, taking cover as Aeryn unloaded the rest of her revolver into a target within the computer control room. With her weapon spent, she hurriedly stepped back and away before Trigger took her place, firing two more shots from his floating carbine before moving into the room. Then came another rifle round from the enemy engaging Quicksilver, and I heard a startled yelp from the mare as the shot scored a hit, enough to knock the wind out of her as her armor took it full force. At that sound, I snapped forward once more to take aim at the rifle guard, Quicksilver’s sign of daze kicking me into action. Up came S.A.T.S., slowing time to a crawl just as a second guard’s head emerged from the left side of the intersection, another one of the ponies from the lobby room. But first I targeted the guard in the heaviest armor, one shot for the head before my attention shifted to the new arrival – one shot for his head too… and this time I couldn’t hold back.
In another world they would’ve been allies, but now they were coming for us… they were red.
Executing the spell, a light puff of sound emitted from my pistol’s suppressor as I took the first shot. The round scored a perfect hit on the rifle guard, whose head jerked back from the impact before he promptly slumped against the wall and to the floor. The second shot went too low, the bullet passing just under the other guard’s head and ricocheting off the floor to burrow into the wall. Time then returned to normal then, and I kept my pistol aimed ahead as Quicksilver and I begun to back up towards the others. The pony who had been spared an end at the magic of S.A.T.S. pulled himself to a frantic stop and disappeared behind the wall once more, removing himself from the open just as Quicksilver fired another barrage from her rifles that pounded the corner the enemy hid behind. Then in the corner of my eye formed the next doorway to cross, and wheeling to my right I hurried inside with Quicksilver following my example behind me.
“Talon infiltrators have been spotted near the computer core bunker!” spoke a voice through the base’s PA system, the voice of Lieutenant Chet. “All patrols report to the computer core at once! All other teams remain at your designated posts!”
Only now, we were inside the computer core.
Coming back around, checking ahead for any other guards that might’ve been coming for us, I found myself standing in a large circular chamber whose round shape was only broken by the two doorways leading into and out of the room, the second parallel to me at the far end. And hugging the two walls in between them was a massive array of bulky computer mainframes and smaller terminals connected to them. Specifically, there were three bigger terminals, one to the left and two to the right, built with massive control panels with dozens of buttons, dials, and switches. From each one of the mainframes were several cables secured to the wall to avoid tangling the cords, and each led to smaller computer, all of them the same as the very familiar family of terminals that were scattered all over the wasteland. Trigger was already making his way to the mainframe on the room’s left side, jumping over the body of a dead unicorn and his pump-action shotgun before stepping up to the terminal’s intricate control board. “Quicksilver, cover that doorway!”
“Got it!”
“Listen up everyone. I’m going to kill the defenses and then blow the mainframe to keep them from being reactivated.” Trigger added, rearing up to set his forehooves down on the console. “Aeryn, you need to get the wastelander to that door.”
“Yes sir. Just tell me where I need to go.” the griffin replied with confidence.
“Out that door on the far side, you’re going to follow that hallway to a T. It’ll turn right on its own before you come to the intersection. Hook a left when you get there, then take that all the way to another lobby.” Trigger explained. “That’ll be the access point to the Guardian chamber. Get her there, and then she can open the door. Hopefully by then the platoon will be sweeping through the bunkers, so if you meet other hostiles, just do what you have to do to hold out until backup arrives. Quicksilver and I will meet up with you as soon as we can.”
“Understood.” Aeryn replied, giving a snappy salute as the sergeant set his attention on the console. “Come on, wastelander!” But suddenly, a barrage of fire filled the computer control core with roaring sound, and on instinct I threw myself down to the floor, landing full on my belly just as a stream of assault rifle rounds sparked along the floor to my right. Quicksilver met the attack with her saddle, a short burst of rounds pounding into metal as she kept the attacker back. “Move your ass, wastelander! Move!!”
Looking up, I found as the shimmery outline of Aeryn sprang over to the other end of the control core, stopping by the exit as she checked the hallway for hostiles. Scrambling, I pulled myself up to my hooves, keeping Fire Rose locked tightly in my jaws as I hurriedly joined her. Without delay she slipped into the next hallway, moving slower as she kept her own pistol gripped in her claws, and I kept right behind her. The passage was short leading to the first turn Trigger had described, and in seconds we were rounding the corner as Quicksilver’s saddle announced itself again, keeping hostiles from coming in behind us.
But just as we emerged into the new stretch of hallway, we were met head-on by new contacts, two unicorn guards galloping right for us. Aeryn drew immediately, snapping her pistol up with surprising speed and immediately dropping the guard on the right with a headshot. The second, a mare, screamed with alarm as her companion dropped dead beside her. And then the black assault rifle floating to her right snapped up as she blindly opened fire. She swept the rifle quickly from right to left and back again, and I screamed as I felt a bullet tear clean through my upper left foreleg, another striking my pipbuck and kicking up sparks. But only a second later, and the panicked mare jolted back as another round from Aeryn’s revolver smashed into her skull, both she and her rifle falling to the floor.
“Shit! You alright, wastelander?” Staggering, I let out a pained pant in response as I raised up my wounded… and now visible… limb to check the hit, spreading myself out on my hooves to keep me upright. The bullet hole immediately greeted me, a thin trail of blood already snaking its way down my coat, over my ammo belt, and down to my pistol’s holster. “Okay. You’re okay.” the griffin said, her clear claws reaching over to gently pull my leg toward her even as I choked back a short cry. “I’ve got a healing potion in one of my pockets. Pick up your weapon and cover me while I get it for you.”
Keeping my foreleg suspended, I found my pistol and quickly scooped it back up before looking down to my pipbuck. Thankfully, the computer itself was still functioning properly, but only a shattered wreck of what once was my provided stealthbuck remained; the mare guard, in her panic, had gotten a lucky hit on the arcane device, completely destroying it. But as I checked for damage to the rest of my pipbuck, my ears perked at the return of the electronic voice on the intercom, swelling to life and echoing across the halls. “Facility defenses deactivated. Initiating repair sequence.”
“Here, take this and chug it down.” Aeryn called, lifting a small cloaked glass bottle up to my view. “It’s just a small one, but it’ll help that leg.” Grateful, I spit out my pistol and reached for the bottle, Aeryn guiding it to me so that I could take it in my teeth. Then, as I tilted my head back to drink down the potion, I flinched at the particularly loud report of another assault rifle behind us in the computer room, the softer buzz of Quicksilver’s saddle once again responding to the attack before a trio of shotgun blasts sounded one after another, accompanied with the lighter report of an SMG.
After four big swallows, the small potion bottle was drained, and with a relieved breath I threw it to the side and picked up my sidearm, already feeling the healing brew as it eased the terrible sting of my fresh wound. “Good. Now come on. The platoon should be moving in now, but we need to get away from here before we get swarmed.”
Satisfied, the griffin turned away and moved quickly, stepping over the bodies of her two latest kills as she trotted ahead. Already, even from the far end of the hall, I could see the T-intersection that we needed to find sitting only a short distance away. Despite the potion swiftly getting to work on the mend, it still hurt to move as I limped after Aeryn. I would’ve done anything for a minute just to stand and wait, to let the wound heal fully on its own without interference. But as Aeryn approached the T, checking left for any other surprises, another pony suddenly sprang from the opposite side, diving forward and plowing into the griffin in a tackle. Together they hit the wall, and Aeryn’s pistol rematerialized into sight as it clattered to the floor, both the griffin and the male earth pony attacking her letting out different cries as they connected and collapsed together onto the floor. Right away my S.A.T.S. spell slowed them to a crawl, just as the earth pony had raised a foreleg up to take a swing at the transparent griffin on her side below him, his hoof adored with some kind of steel pony shoe. Three shots for the head… dialing up the attack, I executed the spell, Fire Rose’s first shot missing, the second catching him in the lower back, and the third finally hitting home to kill the bold and stupid guard. But just as he fell, Aeryn scooped back up her momentarily visible pistol, and as it disappeared again, four more suppressed rounds fired out from the weapon down the hall before she pushed herself back away from the intersection and onto her paws; she did so just before a hail of sparks erupted from the floor from another automatic weapon.
“Two more on the right side, left is clear!” Aeryn shouted back to me, loading new rounds into her revolver as I stopped behind her, hugging the wall on my right side. “You get ready to run. I’ll cover you while you make your way to the target.” In response, a short burst of rounds clanged and bounced violently off the metal wall making our cover, and as I situated myself for a gallop, ignoring the weakened yet persistent burn in my healing leg, I gave the griffin a shove on the flank to answer her. And as the gunfire from around the corner fell silent, the griffin swung herself out into the open and fired two more rounds.
That was my cue, and with a lunge I threw myself out into the hall and ran as fast as my body would let me. Sure enough, the left side was all clear, not a single guard or trap from here all the way to the just visible chamber to which the corridor ended. It was a long stretch, and even as I put Aeryn and the guards at my back, I could hear return fire answering back at the griffin from both an assault rifle and another repeating rifle, some of which slashed right by me. Two shots streaked against the right wall as two more stray rounds punched into the floor just behind me. I ducked low and forced myself to into a furious gallop, another round sparking to my left as I pushed myself to my target location. The lobby chamber entrance approached quickly, and at just a few yards distant, I pulled myself back to slow myself to a trot, and then to a walk before coming to a halt.
Catching my breath, I looked down to raise my pipbuck, checking over the E.F.S. compass for hostile targets. Two red markers were on the display, one just to my left, the second farther down the same side of the screen, both of them moving. With a gasp through my firing bit I aimed into the lobby just as a floating bolt-action rifle emerged from within to point right at me. Planting my hooves down I threw myself against the far wall just as a single powerful round fired, setting my ears to ring as the bullet punched deep into the floor with near effortless ease. Then as the bolt pulled back to chamber another round, I sprang forward, leaping over the rest of the distance to the lobby and landing inside the room as S.A.T.S. came to life. Sure enough, as I came about to face the enemy contact, I found a light green unicorn mare as the culprit, her mouth open and eyes wide with shock at my sudden presence next to her. Behind her at the far left side of the lobby, a young red unicorn buck, looking around my age if not even a little younger, was training a lever-action shotgun on me from behind a steel security desk. With two shots remaining, I set the first against the riflepony and the second for her young comrade. At such a close range, it was impossible to miss, and the mare went down hard from a headshot; the second shot for the buck struck the desk with a sharp metal pang. But as I left S.A.T.S., my pistol going empty, the young unicorn stallion suddenly leapt out from his cover to take a shot at me… but no shot came as I hurriedly scrambled back to the safety of the corridor.
He’d had a clear chance to shoot and he missed it.
His shotgun clattered to the floor…
“NOOO!!”
…W-what??…
“MOM!! NOOO!!!”
Oh my… oh no… oh Goddesses no…
I heard the young buck as he skidded to a stop right around the corner. “MOM?! Mom… no… no, no… mom, please no…”
No… I…this just… this wasn’t happening…
But then the sobs came… shaky and agonized as the young pony broke down. And then I cringed, jerked sharply as a tortured cry suddenly ripped into me without mercy… more painful than any gunshot wound…
…what had I done?
Not even a leap away from me, the young stallion wept, making no effort whatsoever to come after me. In that moment, I could’ve finished the job, taken out this final guard so that I could secure Guardian and thus my brother’s life… and yet that was just the thing. Guards… guards were all that I had seen these ponies for once I had gotten myself focused on getting to the Guardian Project… and yet even before then, all I had seen them for was for the potential allies they would’ve been to me had I not been forced into a partnership with the Talon Legion. Never once, not now or even before my capture, had I thought of something like this… and yet it was so basic, so simple and so likely… Traitors was the Talon label… guards and allies had been my own… and yet never once had I even thought of this rebel group as having families within their ranks. I was used to fighting against raiders and soldiers… I was used to killing them to protect those I loved… and in all that time… I never believed them to even have loved ones. The raiders… they were raiders… they were murderers and rapists. And the Talons… they were just soldiers throwing themselves into battle to wipe us out. And these ponies… they were just guards… just obstacles between me and my goals… just things. That was always what I had thought… what I had always seen them as – just figures… statistics. Only a short time ago did I find out that Blackhawk had a wife, a wife that I had killed in the heat of battle. But even that was different, because he had returned the favor in killing Gracie. We were at war… we were true enemies… and I could give him little sympathy after what he had done in his lust for vengeance.
But this time… I’d killed the mother of a young stallion… I’d killed her right in front of him, fighting with the mindset that they were just two more obstacles that needed to be put down, two more obstacles between me and securing Blake’s safety.
When I’d killed Blackhawk’s wife… I hadn’t known.
But this time… I’d taken away somepony’s mother… me – a mare who had lost her mother to the gun of another, and her best friend after that… had just killed the mother of somepony else…
And he had witnessed the whole thing… watched me do it…
I couldn’t focus… couldn’t think… I couldn’t even see as tears begun to well in my eyes, blurring my vision as they were ushered on by the buck’s cries. My breathing was picking up, growing so heavy that my instrument of the execution fell to the floor with a light clatter. But as the first tear slid down my right cheek, a sob escaping my lips as I begun to shake, I heard another scream from within the lobby, not like the cry of soul-rending agony before… but that of black fiery hatred.
I snapped my eyes to the entrance with a gasp of surprise just as the red unicorn came barreling out, eyes and face burning murderous rage. I couldn’t even move as the stallion sprang, and the vengeful young buck plowed into me with the force of a shotgun shell. I was tackled to the ground, landing hard on my back as a yelp of pain escaped me. The buck was on top of me, large enough to stand fully over me, and I only got my eyes open to look up before, with a bloodthirsty bellow, his right hoof came down. My head snapped to the right, my jaw lighting on fire as he threw his first punch. The force of the impact alone rebounded me to face front again, only to have my head knocked to the side again by another vicious hit. The third came before I could get my scrambled wits back to me, and I tasted copper as the buck prepared for his fourth swing of many in his quest to stomp me into red paste. This time, I met his punch, shielding my face with a foreleg to intercept the blow. But he didn’t let up even an inch, and instead of my face or my foreleg, his merciless hoof landed elsewhere when he pulled back and swung once more, punching down straight onto my throat. Pain erupted around my neck, and I choked violently from the heavy hit. Then my head jerked to the right again, another powerful hit stinging my jaw as the taste of blood coated my tongue, simultaneous with the crimson that speckled the floor. But my body pushed through the pulsing pain in my jaw, the adrenaline giving it strength, and keeping my muzzle to the side, I once again hid behind my forelegs, just in time to catch another punch. And then I retaliated, pulling back my hind legs before bucking, planting my hooves square into the stallion’s gut hard as I could, desperate to free myself.
I won a break, the stallion uttering a sharp cry of pain as he stumbled, his raised hoof coming back down to the floor to keep himself balanced. Pulling back again, I planted another kick into the same spot, and he only barely caught himself from falling over onto his left side. Then, gathering my strength, I reached up with my left forehoof to his upper right side and shoved before he could right himself. And together we rolled, the unicorn falling over and off of me before I used the momentum to throw myself over him. Now I was on top, and just as the rampant buck’s eyes looked up to mine, I drew my right hoof back with a cry and threw my own punch. My hoof connected solidly with his jaw, knocking his head to one side as he tried to recover. Quickly I pulled my hoof back, keeping myself balanced to swing again, and again his head jerked to the side. But he immediately came back, looking me right in the eyes as I tried to situate myself for a third blow, and suddenly his head came forward, our skulls clacking sharply together in a jarring impact. For just a moment I was seeing a blur, and before I knew it I was being pushed, the stallion shoving against me with such force as to throw me against the closest wall. I only barely managed to catch myself from completely falling to the floor, using the wall to support me as I kept my hooves under me.
Even as I recuperated from the shock of the stallion’s surprise attack, he had already returned to his own hooves, turning to face me as I struggled to get back to a proper stand. But just as the rampaging unicorn crouched to lunge, he was stopped in his tracks as a bullet smashed into his upper left flank with a dull thump, eliciting a shocked cry as he staggered back and away toward the lobby. I forsook standing and let myself collapsed onto my belly at the presence of the gunfire, only catching a glimpse of the unicorn buck stumbling back to cover as two more suppressed rounds sounded off, my Talon savior driving him back as I shielded my head with my forelegs. Then came a gap of silence, brief before the sound of running hooves reached my ears from behind me, coming from within the lobby as the unicorn moved once again, and one after another, three rounds fired off in response, chasing the buck as his hoofsteps begun to dim. For just a moment, there was no other activity, no return fire as those hoofsteps faded away into nothingness, and then I felt claws on the back of my neck, giving me a firm nudge as someone tried to get my attention. “You okay, wastelander?” the rougher voice of Aeryn asked, her familiar tone bringing me to let my forelegs ease over my head. “That buck’s run off deeper into the facility, but he might try and come back for us.”
So he got away…
“On your hooves, we don’t have any time to waste.” Aeryn continued as I looked up, finding the now uncloaked body of my griffin companion standing to my right as she reloaded her revolver, looking ahead into the lobby. “The platoon’s sweeping through the bunkers now, so they’ll keep the worst of the heat off of us while we secure the Guardian Project. All that’s left now is to open the door. Come on, I’ll keep you covered.”
Letting out a breath, a pair of coughs following it in which I found myself spitting out a sticky clump of red onto the floor, I dragged my hooves under me and forced myself to a stand. And as I did, the image of the young red unicorn swelled to prominence in my thoughts, giving me the strength to overlook the pain that the unicorn’s beating had left me with… only to replace it with new tears as they tried to well back up. But I caught them quickly, forcing it all to the side to try and get some breathing room, and with only a sniff I quickly moved past Aeryn, picking up my empty pistol in my jaws and returning to the lobby… avoiding a glance at the dead mother lying just outside the open doorway.
The lobby space itself was a simple square chamber with three sets of filing cabinets lining the far left wall, sitting just behind the intact steel security desk. Across the room was the entrance to another hallway parallel to the one at my back, this one hooking to the left and serving as the unicorn stallion’s escape route. But to the right side of the atrium, a heavy blast door took up roughly half of the wall, illuminated by a glowing sapphire signboard above it within which black letters labeled the entrance – Guardian. In my peripheral vision Aeryn moved on by me on the left and approached the great door, scanning quickly over the steel slab before her eyes fell to its far left side, looking upon a single control panel built into the wall there. It was a simple yellow box, with two small light bulbs fixed into the top and a single rectangular button at the bottom; the bulb on the left was dimly glowing, a gentle red light emitting from the glass. “Yeah, this is it.” Aeryn remarked, leaving her revolver by her right claws. “E.F.S. is clean, let’s get in there.”
At her word, I holstered my own pistol, making no effort to give any kind of reply as I moved emotionlessly toward the door and joined her. From behind me, gunfire was picking up and echoing along the hallway and into the lobby, louder and more frequent from both the path I’d come in from and from the opposite corridor that the red unicorn had fled into, both signs of the Talon platoon’s entry into the bunker system. With them here, the attention of the bunkers’ inhabitants was drawn to them… to that poor buck on the run, wounded and maybe weaponless…
But I could finally get this over with…
I just wanted so terribly to leave this place… much more so now than before… I wanted out…
With a click, Aeryn’s claw pressed down on the box’s switch, and as the red light went dark, the bulb to the right lighting up green in its place, gears begun to turn within the blast door. With the grinding of metal against metal, hidden steel bars slid free from their slots before the door split vertically in half, the two panels pulling apart, folding back and compacting into three narrower plates, and then sliding away to disappear within the walls with a short hiss of air. Now, I found myself looking into a wide hall, more like another more compressed atrium chamber. The short rectangular room was entirely empty save for two double-barreled energy turrets fixed into the ceiling at each of the far corners, their internal components glowing within their armored hulls but the weapons unmoving at our presence, dormant thanks to Trigger’s efforts; the two silent guns were taking up flanking positions on either side of a new door, the same reinforced model as the first.
“This is the one.” Aeryn spoke up from behind me. “Behind this door is the chamber you need to get into to disengage the lock to Guardian. Go on. I’ll keep an eye out for trouble while your inside.”
Like the first door, a yellow electrical box sat to the far left side, the red light indicating the door’s locked position. Wordless, I made my way over to the panel, casting one last look to the final door before reaching a hoof up and tapping the button. Light swapping from red to green, metal grated against metal as the locking bars slid back and away from their places, freeing the door which split apart into two panels that folded back and slid away and into the wall. A dark nothingness was the sight that met me as the door gave way, a darkness that was hardly broken from the light within the room until a quartet of new lights flickered to life within the dark itself. With a mechanical click, they together revealed a circular chamber encompassed in a shell of smooth dark gray metal, the walls, ceiling, and floor all sharing the near-black color. At the far end of the chamber was a smaller but more complex door, complete with its own array of locking arms but also reinforced with four thick steel bars set horizontally across its face, each one encasing its own locking cog within. And on the ceiling, the only thing within the otherwise empty room, was a shiny silver hoop that hugged the edges of the ceiling’s span, hovering less than a hoof away from the walls at every angle and held to the top of the chamber with four thin legs made from equally polished metal.
Slow of step I made my way inside, tracing along the walls and up to the ceiling and back again as I looked for anything resembling any kind of panel with a button or switch or lever, something to tell me what I needed to do. But as I crossed over the entrance and into the center of the room, I jumped with a start at the sudden heavy shifting of metal, and I looked over my shoulder just as the security door’s panels slid back out from their compartments and unfolded, reconnecting before the locking bars slid back into their places and sealed the chamber, trapping me inside. And immediately afterwards, the white lights in the chamber flickered away to be replaced with that of a soft pure blue, drawing my eyes up to the ceiling; the glassy ring itself was the source of this strange new sapphire light, the normal lights having shut down entirely.
“Initiating recognition scan.” a voice suddenly spoke up, the same electronic masculine tone from before. “Please hold still.”
On cue, the blue light shimmering out from the ring begun to intensify as a hum of magic begun to swell, glowing only slightly brighter before the mechanical whirring of hidden machinery accompanied the drone of energy. Then the ring begun to move, the legs holding it to the ceiling beginning to lengthen as they lowered the ring down. It fell all the way to the floor, bathing me in its gentle light as it came to a halt, lingering around my hooves as I watched the curious machine work. Shifting again, the ring then begun to rise back up, passing over me and stopping just above my eye level. After the pause, it once more reversed course, falling back down to my hooves where it lingered a few seconds longer. And then, rising back up, it passed over me one last time before continuing upward to the ceiling, whereupon it locked back into its original position and remained there as the blue light faded away to be replaced with the room’s normal lighting. “Authorized personnel identified. Unlocking security door.” announced the voice. “Welcome back, General Firelight.”
…General Firelight?
I couldn’t keep myself from cocking an eyebrow at the name that the voice had given me as the formerly inaccessible door begun to open, the heavy bars set across it beginning to pull back and away to the left as their cogs turned. But my attention on the strange announcement was diverted as my pipbuck suddenly begun to buzz, the hiss of static picking up. Then, “You’ve made it through. Good.” As the steel bars disappeared, the mechanical arms pulling back with a metallic squeak to release the door lock, I looked down to my pipbuck and brought it up to see the display; Castle CF01, the Talon frequency, was alight to show the active signal on my computer’s radio screen. “Welcome to the Guardian Project.” Major General Vance spoke through my speaker as the door swung open, coming to a rest against the far wall.
Before me now was a new room, another smaller space lit only by one single circular light. It was enough to show me the entire area, a compact metal box of a room with a low ceiling and short walls, looking only to be able to accommodate maybe a half dozen ponies at the most. I could already see the far wall, this one not of metal like the others, but made from one great rectangular pane of glass built at an angle so that the upper half leaned outward into a great screen of blackness. And below the big window sat a single computer mainframe, a massive workstation just slightly taller than me and wide enough to nearly span from wall to wall. There was a blank monitor built atop of it, and underneath it I could see the tops of numerous keys and switches that lined across the top of the mainframe, making the computer’s control panel.
“What is…” I began raspingly, stopping to clear my throat… much to the protest of my aching neck. “What is this room?”
“Before you is the control room for the Guardian Project.” the general answered as I lowered my pipbuck leg back down, moving into this new chamber. “According to recovered schematics, the control room overlooks the chamber in which Guardian resides, and the mainframe within activates the project. Now that you’re inside, I need you to go to the console and activate the project so that my soldiers can begin preparing the project for use.”
“Someone else can’t come into the control room and do it?” I asked, pausing midstride to look back down to my pipbuck.
“The chamber you passed through only allows pegasus ponies into and out of the control room. When one door opens, the other locks to keep everyone else out.” Vance explained. “When this base was functioning during the war, it held only four senior officers, all pegasus ponies of the Equestrian high command. The first was the project’s funder and designer. There was the base commander that was selected by the project lead himself, then the appointed head of security, and finally the senior maintenance officer. The project leader gave only the other three pegasi the knowledge to operate the project and the means to access the control room – an arcane scanner that would detect the physical structure of a pony and open the door based on the very structure of that pony. According to the documentation we have on the bunkers, the majority of the personnel within the facility were actually unicorns and earth ponies, with only those four pegasi commanding it. And since these ponies were not allowed to leave the facility during their assigned time there, and the base’s defenses automatically attacked any foreign presence, this was what the facility’s builders devised as the most effective way to protect Guardian and to keep it out of zebra hooves. It’s a clever way of doing things, really.”
A scanning device that only let pegasus ponies through… that was definitely not something I had ever read about before.
“Even in the Guardian’s chamber there are doors that can open to allow maintenance crews access to the project.” the general continued. “But even those can only open from within the control room. The control room is the only place where the project can be physically activated and operated, and it can only be done by the base’s commanding officers.”
“So… I need to turn this thing on?” I asked after a soft exhale, moving forward again to approach the console.
“Yes. Are you at the terminal?”
“I am… but the computer doesn’t look to be powered on.” I answered, rearing up on my hind legs and planting my forehooves onto the mainframe to look over the control panel.
“The mainframe never shuts down, but when not in use, it places itself into standby mode.” Vance explained. “Press the green power button on the upper left corner of the control pad, and the mainframe should power up.”
Looking over at his guidance, I found the button in question, and leaning over, I pressed a hoof down on the rounded key. With a chirp, the mainframe clicked and hummed to life, the monitor immediately lighting up with a moderate blue glow, and I saw a flickering rectangular cursor blinking in the center of the screen. “Okay.”
“With the terminal on, you’ll need a passcode to unlock its primary functions, and you’ll use a number keypad near the center of the console to type it in.” Vance said. “I have the code for you here. Ready?” After a quick search, I found the keypad, made from square buttons numbered one through nine place in a three-by-three block. And giving my affirmative, the general said, “The passcode is… one, three… two, nine, eight… seven, eight, one… zero, zero, two… five, one, six… four, four, eight… zero, three, one.” One by one the numbers appeared on the monitor, lining up side by side as I typed them in at Vance’s instruction. And as the last number fell into place, the code disappeared as new text took shape in the upper left portion of the screen.
Code accepted. Guardian operator identified. Welcome brother……
Warning: Communication uplink to VHC disrupted. High Command and Eclipse Control not responding. Eclipse platform safety compromised. Level 5 emergency protocol engaged……
Guardian status: active. Array primed for assault interception. Clear to initiate defensive operations. Proceed with caution……
Initializing command options……
Underneath the new script of text, more lines begun to appear one after another, stacking up one atop the next before they begun to spread out, creating a list very similar to a pipbuck inventory display.
[] Guardian Bunker Maintenance Reports
[] Guardian Project Operational Procedures
[] Access Strategic Map Display
[] Initiate Facility Lockdown
[] Open Bunker Maintenance Doors
[] Open Bunker Blast Doors
But four more items immediately followed after the first, and as they were laid out on the opening menu, I very suddenly found myself going cold as they revealed themselves to me.
[] Guardian Project Emergency Launch Protocol
[] Access Guardian Missile Array Targeting System
[] Access Launch Keypad
[] Initiate Launch Sequence
I stared… starting to shake… the pit in my stomach returning in force… “When the command list appears, use the gray lever on the left side of the keypad to scroll along the list, and use the black button next to select two commands – to open the Guardian bunker maintenance doors and the blast doors.”
I swallowed hard as I tore my eyes away from the monitor, leaning to the side to look out into the darkness of the Guardian chamber… I couldn’t see anything inside… “W-what is this?” I questioned shakily. “This place has m-”
“Do as you’re told.” the general replied with startling ominousness.
I took in a sharp breath as a sudden jolt of anxiety struck me. “Okay!” I spoke up in quick apology. “Okay…”
No response came from the general as I turned back down to the mainframe, the threat in his tone silencing me. Beside the main console on the left was the switch, and reaching over, I placed my right hoof over the top of the small lever and pulled it back and toward me. The blinking cursor lingering over the maintenance report command moved down along the list in response, and when it stopped over the command to open the maintenance doors, I released the lever before pressing my hoof to the black button neighboring it.
Unlocking Maintenance Doors.
Without pause I moved on, placing my hoof back over the lever and pulling it back once more until it reached the next command, to open the blast doors. And with a press of the button, the computer confirmed the command.
Opening Bunker Blast Doors.
From within the darkness behind the control room window, a deep reverberating clang sounded before suddenly, orange lights flashed to life. The lights begun to spin just as a blaring siren sounded from within, and then, from above me, a long white line appeared as the darkness itself begun to split open. Slowly the line widened as the siren wailed its repeating buzzing pattern, and I recognized the gray blanket of the wasteland’s cloudy sky as the blast doors drew slowly apart. The light from outside spilled in as the two doors pulled farther and farther back, the internal components humming deeply as the great machinery executed the mainframe’s command. And when I looked back down, away from the massive doors above…
“We’ve had our eyes set on this place for a long time, ever since we discovered of its whereabouts from a secret base near Canterlot in the Equestrian heartland a few months back. We saw it only for its technological value back then, of salvaging it for its repair and water talismans, its advanced defense array, its production units and weapon schematics. But only recently did we see it as valuable on the basis of strategic value.” General Vance said. “The Guardian Project was perhaps the height of magical countermeasure technology during the war. When the zebras acquired megaspells, a group of ponies raced to create a way to intercept megaspell strikes, and after years of research, they found out how to create a spell matrix that would completely negate a megaspell, absorb it and render it harmless.”
The outside light was slowly bathing the whole chamber that had been concealed in blackness, and as it did, an array of black towers came into view.
“When they created this array of spells, the same group devised with it a delivery system, incorporating magical and computerized components to be able to detect the launch of a megaspell from the zebras, track its trajectory, and then find it and destroy it before the megaspell could activate and annihilate its intended target.”
The towers were lined in rows, first only one row visible, then three, and they continued to grow more numerous as the blast doors pulled farther apart. Then, those in the center begun to take color, white metal beginning to glint in the light of the wasteland.
“The zebras’ most common megaspell delivery system was that of missiles, to which they’d attach warheads containing the spell so that the missile would carry it to its destination. They did this for both balefire and pink cloud, and knowing this, the ponies in charge of the Guardian Project created a similar delivery system for their counterspell.”
Two more rows of the columns came to light before the huge blast doors went still, locking into place as they finished opening. And now with the light from outside illuminating the whole chamber, I could see everything in perfect clarity. Each column was completely identical. They were circular, thinner, each made from metal painted white, and each tipped with a rounded nose colored dark red. They all stood the same height, perhaps three stories tall, and each was held by a pair of claw arms clamped around their middles, the arms in turn part of a raised circular platform that completely surrounded the bottoms of each tower.
“With the right design, the ponies building Guardian created their own cruise missiles that packed enough speed to outrace zebra megaspell missiles and intercept them in flight.”
Missiles… within the massive Guardian bunker was five rows of ten cruise missiles… all perfectly undamaged and held in place in their chambers, reaching up to the open silo doors as if welcoming the light of the outside world for the first time.
“The creators of the Guardian Project intended this facility to be Equestria’s shield, with this just being the prototype of what they intended to become a network of sister facilities that would dot every corner of Equestria.” Vance continued. “This was the only facility that reached completion, and even then it didn’t fulfill its purpose… the facility’s missiles never launched the day that the bombs fell.” Here, the General let out a small sigh, not so much pleased as it was… relieved… “But now, the Talons are going to give these missiles a new purpose, put them to use as Hayward’s shield. And with the proper tools, the targeting system in the mainframe and the spell matrices in the Guardian missiles’ warheads will be altered for a new mission, for our mission in the southeast.”
Every part of me was beginning to feel heavy as the General revealed the scope of his plan, the purpose that acquiring the Guardian Project served… and I just couldn’t believe what was happening. I was trembling over the Guardian mainframe as I bowed my head over the console, closing my eyes as I realized just what they were intending to do. It was hinted at even before the Talons invaded the bunkers, back when the Talon captain had been giving his motivational speech to his troops. He’d called it a maneuver to restore the peace that Hayward once knew, and he’d called a victory here as the herald to receiving a technological edge over their enemies, over whatever group they were fighting at home… and over the southeast. Now I knew the history of the Guardian Project, knew what exactly that technological edge was… and now it was officially under Talon control. Fifty cruise missiles under their command, and they were going to be used as weapons against the very land that I called home …
And I had been the key to it all, the one who delivered Guardian into Talon hooves…
I had passed the scanner… I had activated the mainframe… I had opened the bunker…
“With the right modifications,” Vance said. “we can reshape these defensive missiles into massively aggressive ones. And with them, we’ll turn the tide of the war against Challenger and the southeast to our favor.”
My eyes shut even tighter as I felt tears begin to form up once more, and I barely choked back a sob as the General’s last words stabbed into me like so many hot blades.
The Talons were preparing a massive offensive… and I had… I had just cleared the way…
I had just brought Old World death to the southeast.
Footnote: Level Up!!
New Perk: Concentrated Fire - In combat, you don’t even let the thick of the fight shake your focus from your target. When using S.A.T.S., your chance to hit any body part increases with each subsequent hit on that target.
Stats
Page generated in 0.029 seconds
Total duration
662 users online
876,588 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I don't know what to say about this chapter.
I kinda wanna just cuss you out, but that wouldn't even make me feel any better. Anyway, looking forward to the next chapter
4249140 Oh really? Please go on.
4249781 I'm sorry if that sounded like I was actually mad at how the way the story is going or at you as a writer or anything like that; it's just that I get too emotionally attached to characters and I hate to love characters go through morally trying situations and doing terrible, even evil things a "hero" wouldn't do. I know I'm not explaining myself very well, but it's pretty much that I hate the place she has put herself in due to bad choices, and since it is kindof weird to be mad at a story, then I transfer the emotions to you, the writer, since you're the evil sadist (sarcasm) behind this.
I really like the story and everything, I just get way too emotionally attached to things. Sorry for the miscommunication and whatever miscommunication may arise from this comment.
4250446 Oh no no no I'm not mad, and I didn't think you were "mad" either.
I just wanted to hear the why of it. I was genuinely interested.
Anyway, I'm a particularly big admirer of the quote, "We don't know how far the ripples of our decisions will go." With this as a source of inspiration, what Nova was forced to do for Vance was a result of how her actions, good and righteous in that she made them to protect herself and those who survive with her, affected others (Blackhawk) with the exact opposite effect. And really, why would she think of consequence when it was her very life on the line? In that case, it was kill or die. And afterwards, her incident with the bunker guard is yet another lesson in action and consequence. But like before, it was kill or be killed, only this time with the addition of Blake's very life being put at risk. And in the end of the chapter, you ultimately see Vance as a scumbag, Blossom as a villain, and Nova as willing to go to very great lengths to keep her brother alive. Sure she didn't know what she was opening for the Talons, but even if she did, do you really think she would've let her brother just die? A single family member, or the lives of strangers and acquaintances no matter how many they number? That's a harsh decision to force onto someone, and in all honesty, that's a choice that I pray I or anyone else would never have to make.
Summary being, I just wanted to hear why you felt this way, and I'm glad the story's drawing in your interest. Hope it continues to do so.