Fallout Equestria - Stables

by Sorren

Stable 100 - Prologue

Fallout: Equestria

Stables

Stable 100

Thunder rumbled angrily from the sky, threatening the surrounding landscape with rain. Hardly any light found its way through the thick layer of clouds above, even less than normal for the barren landscape. Rolling hills of grimy dirt and boulders ran on for miles to the north, and far to the west, the remnants of a once-proud city could be seen.

Upon a nearby ridge, a single stone skittered over the edge, dropping down to land on another stone, which in turn joined the first in the tumble. In time, the two stones recruited a small fleet of pebbles, and even a small boulder, which happily bounced down the rocky incline with not a care for what lie below. The small boulder dislodged a large boulder, and from there, the large boulder freed an even larger boulder, which in turn, started a rockslide.

The rockslide itself had been achieved by a single stone, which had been started by no more than a slip of the hoof. For on top of that very ridge, a mare walked quietly, eight ponies in her wake, all of different origin and experience. The lead mare in question went by the preferred name of Slipstream; she stood average height and had a coat of dark blue and a mane of white that flowed down her neck and stopped just short of her wings. Her fashion of choice was a battle saddle, fitted with a single thirty-two carbine. More or less, the band of ponies behind her was a sort of group, which all seemed to govern themselves.

Second in line was a gray earth pony, whose short black mane always seemed to hang in front of her eyes. This mare carried no weapons, but used the knowledge and the strength of those around her instead. Litebrite was what they called her, considering it was both her cutie mark and in her personal opinion, the best foal’s toy ever thought up.

Ponies number three and four in line were nothing more than hired guns, meant to tag along for a few hoof-fulls of caps and shoot at anything that looked too scary. Number three liked to be addressed as Sulfur, the preference most likely obtained from the deep yellow of her coat and the brown of her mane. Number four, however, could be known as Coal. Named by his parents at birth for his dark, gray-black coat, he was the only of the group who still held their birth name. His mane was an unusual dark-pink; one could say it was normal pink, but stained with coal, henceforth proving the name even more fitting.

Behind the two mercs and taking the line position of five, was Dodge. He was their heavy weapons, easily identified by his bright-orange coat and short-cut blue mane and tail. When things got rough, he pulled the trigger and made shit die, as he so often put it in his own words. Loaded with a tri-barreled minigun on the left, and an automatic grenade launcher on the right, he was best equipped to make things disappear without the use of magic.

A very jumpy mare by the name of Jet stuck behind Dodge like a second tail. With her blood-red coat and her deep-purple mane, this mare used her magic to shoot anything that could be wielded with a horn. Nothing ever seemed to escape her unnatural green gaze. Her eyes had two settings, wide open and shut.

Ponies seven and eight walked side by side. The one on the left insisted he be called
Ghost. Not only did the name match his pale-white coat and gray mane, but he liked to consider himself a sort of cyber ghost. If there was a terminal, or anything with an interface really, he was the one that fixed it, or screwed it up, or hacked it. It all depended on the situation.

The yellow earth pony on the right was the one that made things go boom. Unlike Dodge, who just made things die, Shortfuse blew things up with measured precision. His name fit his occupation, and it was one he enjoyed. A little heavy on explosives, and light on temper, he tried his best to keep a happy medium by blowing things up.

And treading along quietly at the very back of the group was Mudbath; another hired gun and a pony of few words. His coat matched his name with a dark-brown color. His mane blended well with his coat, proving a lighter shade of orange.

Ahead of these nine ponies loomed a towering wall of pitted, black stone, which was exactly where pony number two was leading them. Nothing could be seen on the barren cliff face ahead, but Litebrite had a hunch.

Slipstream slowed her step to fall in stride alongside the gray mare, shooting her a tentative glance before looking back to scan the rock face for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Are you sure it’s here?” she asked.

Litebrite blinked, slightly offended by the question. “Of course it’s here,” the mare said irritably with a bit of a lisp. “Would I have called us all together if I wasn’t absolutely sure?”

“No,” Slipstream responded, thinking of the small device in her saddlebag that had flared to life the day before, relaying a coordinate set and a single number, ‘100’. “I guess I’m just a little nervous.”

Litebrite cocked her head. “What’s there to be nervous about? We’ve done three Stables already — this one’s going to be a cakewalk... At least I think.”

“I know...” She hesitated. “How did you find out the location anyways?”

The gray mare raised her head a little higher. “A trader. Apparently he found a Stable-Tec letter in some mailbox somewhere; he wouldn’t tell me where. Poor buck didn’t know what he had.” She shrugged. “I thought it was a phony at first. When I saw it was a notice of acceptance from Stable one-hundred I nearly jumped out of my hooves. You find denial letters all the time, but those don’t come with the location. You usually don’t find the approval letters at all.”

Slipstream thought for a moment. “Do we know anything about this Stable?”

Litebrite shook her head. “Not a thing. There’s probably something about it somewhere, but I can’t find a thing. You know how secretive Stable-Tec was.”

As the small cliff neared ahead, ponies number seven and eight were having their own conversation.

“Think we’ll have to blast our way in?” asked Shortfuse. “‘Cause I can do that.”

Ghost looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. “Fuse, you can’t just blast open a Stable door.”

The yellow pony gave a grudging look. “I know, but I still want to try it.”

The white unicorn just rolled his unnaturally-white eyes. “You’re never going to have to blast open a Stable door as long as I’m around.” He tapped the PipBuck on his left foreleg. “I can get into just about anything with this.”

Shortfuse looked down at the device impartially. “Big whoop. So you stole a little leg computer from the first Stable we scavenged. It's not like it gives you super powers or anything."

To Shortfuse’s confusion, Ghost chuckled. “Not quite.” He fiddled with one of the controls on the metal device. His smile faded away to be replaced by a look of concern. “Hostiles, ten o'clock!” he called suddenly.

The three hired guns immediately sprang into action, breaking from the line and taking a defensive stance.

“How many?” Sulfur whispered, looking back at Ghost, who had stopped along with the other five ponies.

He checked the PipBuck again. “Two.”

With a flick of her tail, Sulfur led the two other mercs away from the group and ordered for them to fan out with a twitch of her left ear. Beside Ghost, Shortfuse eagerly pulled out a homemade grenade.

Ghost glared and the earth pony spat the explosive back into his bag. “What?” Shortfuse asked defensively.

“Are you trying to blow us all up?” Ghost whispered back scoldingly.

Sulfur sneaked forward, keeping her belly low and firing bit at the ready. With Mudbath covering her left, and Coal the right, she braced herself against a large rock ahead of her. If what Ghost had said was true, the targets would be just on the other side.

Taking a deep breath, she pushed off with her hind legs and bolted around the side of the boulder to come face to face with two... radroaches.

“Ghost!” she growled, stomping back around the rock and heading over to the tense group of six. “Can’t that stupid leg thing of yours tell the difference between an enemy and a bug?”

Ghost placed one hoof in front of the PipBuck, shielding it from Sulfur like a mother would shield her baby. “It’s a PipBuck. And you should be thankful that I can detect enemies, even if they are false alarms.”

Slipstream waved for everypony’s attention. “Shall we continue?” she insisted, starting forward again.

Quarrels forgotten, the mercs stepped back into line and they continued on. A few minutes of random chatter later, they reached the cliff face. The nine ponies looked around skeptically, having reached their destination.

The dark-red mare by the name of Jet stepped forward, eyes darting to the left and right. “Well there’s nothing here,” she said, a little faster than most ponies would speak. “Great find, Litebrite.”

Litebrite stepped forward, undaunted by the lack of their objective. “It’s here,” she said. Her eyes shot to the right and focused on a small wooden structure. “There!” The mare scampered off to the right and the others followed close behind.

Litebrite had immediately noticed the characteristic shape of the tunnel entrance; a wooden frame and door, which then lead to a short tunnel.

“Great job!” Dodge exclaimed, praising the mare. “You found it.”

Slipstream marvelled at the ordinary-looking wooden door. “I never thought I’d get to see this one.”

“Come on,” urged Jet, striding swiftly forward and kicking open the rickety door. She pushed her way through and the others followed somewhat eagerly.

Slipstream hesitated for a moment before slinking in last. Her eyes, used to the light-dark gloom of the wastes did not adjust well to the sudden change in lighting so that all she could make out was the tail of the pony in front of her.

“It’s dark in here,” said Jet from a short distance away.”Hey Ghost, got your light?”

“Yeah,” came Ghost’s voice from a little ways ahead. There was a small click as the PipBuck on his leg hummed to life, filling the tunnel with an eerie white light.

“Oh, Celestia,” Shortfuse moaned. “The walls are orange.”

Sulfur tilted her head to one side. “It looks like the walls are... rusting?” Her eyes drifted from the walls to Ghost’s PipBuck.

The white unicorn tracked the merc’s gaze and smiled triumphantly. “Still think it’s stupid?” he asked teasingly.

Sulfur gave him a dirty smile and took a step forwards. “Watch out, twerp. I’m a lot stronger than you are.”

His smile faltered.

“Okay,” Dodge cut in, deciding to give Ghost a break. “Who’s going to lead?”

Jet bounced over and poked insistently at Ghost. “Well he’s got the light.”

Ghost nodded, glancing again at Sulfur, who still held her unnerving smile. “I’ll go first then.”

With a few muttered words, they set off, Ghost leading them down the roughly-carved tunnel.

“A thousand feet,” Litebrite whispered to herself in the darkness. “Average Stable-Tec entry tunnels to cog door span a thousand feet.” Slipstream shot her a sideways look. “We have walked four-hundred and thirty-two feet, leaving five-hundred and sixty-eight feet remaining.”

“What are you doing?” Slipstream asked.

Litebrite looked up. “S-sorry. It’s sort of a tic of mine. When I get nervous I sort of ramble.”

“Oh good.” The pegasus exhaled deeply. “I thought I was the only one who was nervous.”

Dodge slowed his pace and fell in on the other side of Litebrite. “No, I think we’re all nervous,” he said in his deep voice. “All of us but the mercs...” He looked around. “They weren’t with us on our last excursion... I don’t think they know what’s coming.”

Slipstream snorted. “I don’t know what’s coming.”

Dodge nodded. “But we’ve been in Stables before; we have an idea of what they’re like. I doubt any of these mercenaries have been anywhere near a Stable.”

“Correction,” Slipstream added. “You’ve been in one stable.”

“There’s the door,” breathed Ghost from ahead.

A series of excited whispers rippled through the group at the site of the gigantic cog.

Ahead, the rough-rock turned to concrete, where two skeletons sat, surrounded by several food cans and three empty RadAway pouches. Set in the concrete ahead was a giant cog, easily four ponies tall and wide. The normal, clean steel surface had rusted, and now shone a dirty-orange in the light of the PipBuck. Inlaid in the very center of the cog was the yellow number, 100.

“Hey look,” Jet commented idly. “This door’s sealed. Maybe there’ll be better stuff in here since this one isn’t open like twenty-one was.”

Sulfur shifted her weight irritably. “How are we supposed to get in if the door’s sealed?”

Ghost approached the control panel for the door with a grin. “Easy.” He shot Sulfur a look before gesturing towards the PipBuck. “This little beauty has the same interface as the Stable security systems. You see, Stable-Tec used their own system for everything in the Stables. With this PipBuck, I can hook up to the Stable door controls and run a manual—”

“Whatever.” Sulfur waved a hoof at him. “Just do your techie thing, dork.”

Ghost turned tail to her with a huff and began to fiddle with the control panel. “You guys are going to have to give me a minute,” he called back.

Shortfuse shuffled up behind Ghost eagerly and opened his mouth to speak.

“No,” Ghost responded, answering his unasked question. “We aren’t blowing it up.”

Slipstream sat back, taking her first rest from her hooves in hours. To the left, Jet and Litebrite had managed to get into an argument over the effects of drugs on the body. Litebrite appeared to be winning, but Jet wasn’t taking any of it.

“I tell you,” she snapped with a twitch of her right ear. “There’s nothing wrong with it. it makes you feel soooo good.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, smiling.

The mercs sat quietly in a corner, observing, watching. They had been promised twenty percent of all profit for their assistance. They were mostly needed for crossing the wastes, but having them around overall was a nice asset.

Litebrite had gone over to stand next to Ghost as he worked. The two chattered about things none of the other seven ponies could even dream of understanding.

“Hey, Slipstream,” said Dodge as he sat down beside her.

She picked up the questioning tone in his voice and consciously decided to ask. “Yeah? What is it?”

Dodge sighed. “Why do we do this? I mean... aren’t there other places to find caps?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “And I thought you were supposed to be the tough one.” A light chuckle. “Sure the caps are a huge part of it, and it’s probably all the others care about. Heck... I like the caps too, but I’m here for two reasons. One, I need money. Two, I want know what happened.”

He frowned. “Want to know what happened?”

She nodded. “Yes... You see, Ghost and I were the first to start this group. There’s something about the Stables that most ponies don’t know. Back before the megaspells rained, Stable-Tec was formed and operated by three ponies; Applebloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle. Stable-Tec’s purpose was to serve as a bastion for ponykind in the event of a megaspell fallout.”

“Well, yeah,” Dodge said.

“But not quite,” said Slipstream, continuing. “Later, it was concluded that the Stables would be used for social and psychological or scenario-based experimentation — to find out what went wrong, what led ponies down such a destructive path and how to fix it in the future, when the Stables were re-opened.”

Dodge looked sick. “Why am I only hearing this now?”

“Because you’re new here and I haven’t had time to tell you.” She waved it away. “The Stables looked good on paper of course, but ponies just don’t work well as test subjects. Some Stables were intentionally created to fail; some tried different political methods or leadership options. Most of the experiments went terribly wrong, and usually ended with everypony dead. Some Stables that were meant to serve as a control even failed.”

“So...” Dodge looked at the big one-hundred on the cog. “What was this Stable’s... experiment?”

Slipstream shook her head. “I have no clue. That’s half the reason Ghost and I were so excited when Litebrite said she’d found it; there is absolutely no information on this Stable. Trust me, Ghost looked everywhere for it. Any files Stable-Tec had on it had been corrupted.”

“So...” He gave her a long look. “So most likely, everypony in here is... dead?”

“Most likely.” She said matter-of-factly.

Dodge gulped and she glared playfully at him. “How can you act scared when you walk around with those big old guns on your back shooting things all day?”

Dodge flushed. “Living things don’t scare me, and I’m not afraid of killing things... But, dead things... things that were dead before I got to them — they scare me.”

The truth was, when Dodge was just a colt, his home had been attacked by raiders. When the first gunshots sounded from outside, his mother had shoved him into a hall closet. From his hiding place, the terrified colt listened as, one by one, his family was killed. The angry cries of his father, the pleading screams of his older brother right before they were killed. The whimpers of his mother as she was.... The raiders had discarded Dodge’s mutilated family in the very same closet in which he hid, behind a stack of old boxes.

For two days and nights he had hidden in that very closet with his own, slaughtered family while the six raiders had their way in his home.

Dodge had emerged from that closet a different colt... He had emerged the pony he was today.

Slipstream decided not to press. “Well okay. As long as you don’t chicken out on me.”

Both Dodge and the three mercs jumped as a loud hiss filled the chamber. “Yes!” shouted Ghost, unplugging the PipBuck from the control panel.

The mercenaries jumped a second time as an alarm blared to life. “Damnit,” swore Coal, glaring at Ghost. “You could have told me that was going to happen.”

However, Ghost had sat back and placed his hooves over his ears. “Cover your ears!” he called. Unfortunately, his voice was drowned by the blaring alarm.

“What!?” Coal called back, shooting a scrunched look around at all the ponies with their ears covered. He looked to Sulfur, who shrugged.

Ghost pointed frantically towards the Stable door. “I said co—” His words were blotted out as an earsplitting screech emanated from the giant cog as it slid inwards.

Instinctively, Sulfur and Coal’s hooves shot up and blocked their ears. Mudbath smiled from behind them, having already done so.

With a few more deafening noises, the door rolled off to the left, having been released from the hydraulic arm.

Tentatively, Sulfur lowered her hooves. “Is that it?”

Ghost nodded. He reached down and switched off his PipBuck light and the surroundings grew darker, but not black due to the fact that dim light poured from the hole left by the Stable door.

Litebrite nodded approvingly. “Well, it looks like the reactors are still operating.”

Ghost gave his gray mane a shake and peered into the dim light. “That’s one thing I have to give Stable-Tec credit for; they built reactors that could run forever, and if one ever did break down, you could fix it with a clipping of bailing wire and a wad of gum... or, at least I could.”

Slipstream moved up to the white unicorn and gave him a nudge. “Got anything on the E.F.S?”

Ghost checked the PipBuck. “Nothing.”

Slipstream flicked her tail and summoned the eight ponies around her. “Well, let’s see this Stable.”

Comments

[Dead_Page]

This... Looks promising. No errors of a spelling or grammatical nature either, that I noticed. Well done.

[Alamut]

I have to admit you've had me on the hook the moment I read the name "Litebrite " Nevertheless the story seems promising