I didn’t pass out, and at this point I couldn’t have told whether it even was a good thing.

This being said, I didn’t get back up either. Even through an act of sheer willpower, I couldn’t have. It did not feel like one of those shocks that left you dazed, disoriented, but otherwise unarmed.

No, I had kept a surprising amount of consciousness and feedback from my body. As unpleasant as the pain may have been, it taught me I might have broken a few things that ought to be important and that I really, really shouldn’t be running around right now.

“Spring!” The voice only came from the left piece of my ear set. “Damn it, Evey, she’s hurt!”

“I’m fine, I’m alive,” I croaked. My tongue tasted the metallic sourness of blood. “I think.”

“Watch it, hostiles on the ground.” I heard Sunburn warn. “I’ll deal with the basterd up there.”

Just on cue, a couple deafening explosions shook the building I had just jumped from. In a haze, I saw the ghoul make a sharp turn to do a second pass.

“Shit.” I looked around a bit. Everything hurt like hell and the goggles had been badly scratched by the debris. “Guys, I don’t think I’m walking out of there.”

“No, you won’t be,” a Steel Ranger said, his large armor scrapping the doorframe as he walked out from an adjacent building. “You’re not going anywhere, trust me.”

No, no, no no no no...

My rifle was but a couple yards away from me, yet it could have as well been on another planet. The moment I would fire my telekinesis up…

This is not good.

Another Ranger soon followed.

This really is not good.

“Striker, come in.” They entered the collapsed building I had crashed in front of. They had to know I had friends in the skies… because with the concrete over their head… there wasn’t shit Sunburn nor Evey could do without landing… “Striker?”

Do something!

“Shit. Trail?” He continued, circling around me until he had his back against a wall. “Anyone?”

Anything!

Six loud shots rang in the Wastelands. It was a valiant effort, with splendid marks for accuracy as five forty-four mag’ rounds hit the armor straight.

But for the reaction it wrought out from the Rangers, Meridian might as well had thrown darts at them.

A foregone conclusion.

“Yeah, fuck it.” Large, soulless eye-slits bore down on me. “I’m done taking chances.”

I could almost hear the servos of the large barrels locking down on me.

Then something small and blurry flew in from the street. It hit a Ranger square in the helmet with a metallic thud, before rolling down to the ground before me.

It was blue, it was cylindrical, and it didn’t have its pin attached anymore.

“Shit!”

The grenade didn’t detonate, not really. I knew what pulse ordinances were, of course – I had even used some on robots which just wouldn’t stay down – but standing smack dab in the blast radius, well, it was a first.

The canister opened, a light slightly pulsed… and that was it. My display went dead, my armor went limp, and the Rangers just… stood there, frozen in place.

From inside their steel prison, a muffled string of unholy expletives resonated, echoing as if yelled in a tin can.

“Ah, first generation power armor…” Chrystal walked into view, a cocky grin on her lips as she threw the pin next to the spent grenade. “Strong as Achilles, and thrice as vulnerable.”

“Wait until I reboot, you worthless cunt!” For somepony trapped in a steel prison, that Ranger sure had a lot of acid to spit out.

Chrystal didn’t seem to care, but her sword was drawn and she had a spark in her eyes… something primal, sadistic, betraying that moment of suspense, that little bit of sinful pleasure a remorseless killer had before taking a life.

It was, I supposed, the look I had right before I pulled the trigger. Right at this moment, I saw a sinister part of myself in Chrystal – and without the shadow of a doubt I knew those Rangers were as good as dead.

“A sword?” He spat. “What are you gonna do with that toothpick, stab me?”

Eh, unfortunate choice of last words.

The blade danced upward toward the Ranger’s neck, in an almost imperceptible diagonal sweep. It failed to make a clean cut through the complete armor; however, it had lodged itself a solid twelve centimeters into the meaty target. When Chrystal pulled it out in an ear-splitting grinding noise, a torrent of blood gushed out from the section in the plating, sputtering and splashing on the concrete like the faucet of a morbid fountain.

“You… I’ll fucking kill you!” Oddly enough, the last Ranger standing did not take the sudden execution of his colleague very well.

“You can’t hotfix your suit’s matrix without exterior input.” Chrystal’s smile somehow managed to grew wider still. “Now you’re starting to understand why, once upon a time, most Equestrian soldiers believed the Mark I to be slightly… overrated. The higher one stands…”

And with that, she pushed the Ranger over. Not very hard, not very far: just enough for the heavy armor to tilt, then crash on its side in a clatter of saucepans.

“The harder one falls,” she finished with a shark-like grin.

“You know, I had the situation perfectly under control,” I joked, my voice turning into a cough toward the end. “I mean, it’s not like I managed to jump and miss a building.”

“Yes, definitively not your brightest hour,” she chuckled. However, as she looked upon me, her expression slowly turned into something I never thought I would ever associate with her: concern. “All right, don’t move. Saios? Come in.”

“He can’t hear you.” I removed my now useless goggles as she stood before me. “The transmitter was in my suit and you just fried it.”

“Well, I may not know him as well as you do, but I’m certain he has contingency plans for that kind of situation.” She looked over her shoulder, just as Evey landed precipitately in the street. “All right, I’ll leave you right to it. I got some questions for our friend over there.”

“Fuck you, bitch!” The tin can answered.

“You wish.” Chrystal put a hoof on his helmet. “Now, let me just get my can opener so we can have this conversation… face to face.”

As she began tinkering with the Ranger’s armor without any care for its helpless owner, Evey decided to occupy the entirety of my field of view. She had her don’t-argue-with-me-I’m-your-doctor face back on, which quite frankly said a lot on my actual situation.

“You are going to make it but I cannot risk cutting through the suit just now.” Her blue eyes bore down on me. Behind her, the Ranger’s cursing was now punctuated by intermittent screams of pain. “We need to get you back to the APC.”

I blinked.

“Area’s clear,” Sunburn, out of sight, announced. “I’ll-”

I blinked again, and the world slowly shifted out of focus… until Evey grabbed my head and forced me to look back into her eyes.

“Stay with me, Spring. You do not have the luxury to pass out just yet.”

Her ears perked up as she listened to something I couldn’t hear.

“-communications are back online,” the radio said, “The APC’s rounding the corner as I speak.”

“Great,” Evey mumbled. “Spring, don’t do that.”

- possible head trauma, limited risk of fractures but minor limb injuries probable… no visible external bleeding, have to account for internal injuries and hemorrhage -

“Focus,” she repeated with a little more insistence. “Keep your mind to yourself. I need you to-” The Ranger cried out in pain “-to stay with me a little longer.”

- seems transportable. Primo non nocere… I wish we had a vacuum mattress; I’ll have to make do… -

“Yes, yes…” I somehow managed to make the world around me – that is, Evey’s face – a bit sharper. “Ow. Concussion?”

“Maybe.” As on cue, I heard the APC back up in the nearby street. “Chrystal, go get the stretcher.”

There was a short pause, then the sound of metal dropped on the concrete.

“Listen, Spring, we are going to get you back to Big Mountain.” Evey’s eyes were glued to my face. “You are going to be just fine.”

“Oh, you just had to say that.” My laugh turned into a cough. “Shit, am I that wrecked?”

“No, no, I meant it.” And, well, I knew she did. “However, your injuries can get from bad to worse if we- ah, there we go.”

Chrystal had come back with the stretcher. Following Evey’s implicit command, she deployed it on a flat surface next to me.

“Hold it down, I’ll move her,” Evey ordered. She turned back to me, her face more serious than ever. “Spring, listen closely. This may hurt. It is paramount you tell me where, and how much. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” I nodded weakly. “This is gonna suck.”

“On my mark.” Evey gave a side glance at Chrystal, who nodded in return. “Mark.”

“Ow, fuck!” By the time I realized I was floating in the air, the stretcher had been placed under me. “Ow.”

“Spring, where did it hurt?”

“It would have hurt less if you hadn’t pulled on my head and ass,” I whined.

“It was the best way of proceeding.” Once again, she checked my body from tail to mane. “Where did it hurt?”

“It would be faster telling you where it didn’t,” I answered with a wince. “I think I hurt my back a bit. Upper left hindleg, too. Also, my head feels like it’s gonna explode.”

“All right.” A deep blue glow engulfed the stretcher, which steadily rose to head level. Incidentally, it also glued me to the heavy fabric underneath me. “Do not try to move. Chrystal…”

Evey paused. I could see the alabaster unicorn standing at the very edge of my vision.

“… we will be moving out very soon,” Evey continued. “You should wrap this matter up.”

“There are questions that need answering, Evey.” Chrystal gave a vigorous smack into the fallen Ranger, as he made an inappropriate and family unfriendly comment. “This will take time.”

“We cannot afford to wait.”

“I know.” Chrystal sighed. “Go on without me, take the APC. Once I am done here, I will head toward Big Mountain the old fashioned way. Just send it back once you’ve unloaded her.”

“Lady, I see a couple problems with that,” Sunburn said, out of sight. “For all we know those bloody Rangers have friends in the area. I can’t be at two places at once.”

“You are going with them,” Chrystal answered immediately. “The APC is too big a target to be left undefended, while I can manage on my own.”

“You hired me to protect your arse, lady,” the ghoul objected. “It can’t be done from fifty miles away.”

“No, I am paying you to protect my interests,” she countered firmly. “Leave it to me to judge where they lie.”

There was a silence.

“Aye, you’re the boss,” Sunburn finally receded. “All right, lass, load ‘er up. I’ll keep an eye in the sky.”

The stretcher began to move again. Soon enough, the grey above me turned into the dark metal of the APC.

The heavy door closed behind us, and in the dark Evey and I were alone again.

“I will get you back upon your hooves, sweetheart,” the alicorn promised.

“Good,” I answered, before promptly passing out.

“Where is she?”

Bandaids’ question was almost drowned in the mess of the ER, but the old colt was one of those ponies whose voice could be heard even through the thickest crowd, or the cacophony of a hundred young students in a room two hours before spring break.

There was no mistaking on whom, exactly, he was looking for. I suspected he didn’t even leave his office to sleep, let alone to run after some random pony. The timing with my unplanned presence at Mercy General was far too convenient to be a mere coincidence.

“All right, ready?” The nurse asked as she took hold of the patient between us. “We lift on three. One. Two. Three!”

I muffled a low grunt of pain as the effort brought back the pain in my middle section. We moved the poor chap in front of me from the stretcher to a more stable hospital bed.

“Thank you.” My colleague barely looked up, before smiling tiredly and checking for fabric wrinkles under the wounded. “I’ll take it from here.”

I nodded without a word and watched the two of them disappear in a crowded corridor. There had been offices in that section the last time I came back from the front. Without a doubt, they had it reconverted already into something more suitable for the unending stream of casualties.

This war… It hadn’t started that long ago, all things considered; yet it felt like decades of hardships and horrors had been blended, compressed down in this, the concentrated recipe for the big one, the final war to consume the whole world and put an end to life of all kind.

It wasn’t just about the race to armament anymore, I had realized a few weeks prior as I watched the devastation a month’s worth of permanent combat brought upon the city of Coltlay. Everypony – everyone – had been taken into a permanent frenzy, a state of bloodthirsty madness that took the best of what we all had to offer and put it to use in the worst possible ways. Centuries of technological progress happened in mere months, just to be made obsolete the day after; all this, to slaughter and bleed dry those we once called friends and neighbors.

Insanity, I though as a soldier, eyes unfocused and legs missing, passed by in a blur. This is pure, distilled insanity, and we are all gladly drinking it from an iron chalice.

“Cross!” Bandaids grunted from somewhere behind me. “There you are!”

“Good afternoon, sir.” I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Or rather, good evening.”

“I don’t think we make ‘evenings’ in that flavor anymore, Cross,” he grumbled, motioning me out of our colleagues’ way. “Especially not when we’re picking up the pieces from the mother of all battles.”

“There are more to come.” Even to me, my voice sounded dead, hollow. I wouldn’t have believed it years before, but it was indeed possible to completely exhaust one’s ability to care, or even feel empathy. “Whoever controls Two-Hooves control the valley and with it the largest supply route this side of the country. This one is going to draw out for weeks. I can feel it.”

“You know, I have been running from bad news to even worse news today,” Bandaids’ eyes locked on me. “First thing this morning, I get a manifest that somepony had been injured on the front. Then, when the ambulance arrived this afternoon, instead of that particular somepony, some random private gets rolled out of it in a stretcher. Now, imagine my surprise when I learn that this somepony was, against all odds, spotted in the ER doing her best nurse impression! Would you care taking a guess at who that somepony is?”

“I’m sorry, sir.” I winced internally. “That colt needed the ride more than I did. I hopped on the convoy as a passenger instead.”

“This does little to explain why you are not in a bed, getting the rest you deserve,” he accused. “What would you have done, if one of your patients decided to ignore their injuries and got back to work without your greenlight?”

“Well, I have yet to find a soldier eager to get back to the front after being shot.” I shook my head. “Nonetheless, I’m fine. Really. Some shrapnel found its way through my armor but it’s just a flesh wound.”

“Oh, I bet it is.” Without any warning, he poked my shoulder – hard. I couldn’t hold back a yelp of pain. “Just a flesh wound, hm?”

“Ow.”

“I bet you sutured that yourself, didn’t you?” My guilty silence was worth a thousand admissions. “Celestia have mercy, Cross, just… get your ass on the third floor. They’ll find you a bed.”

“Isn’t… isn’t third floor long duration stay?” I frowned. “I can’t… I won’t stay here very long, sir.”

“Yes it is, and yes you are,” he said, interrupting my protest with a raised hoof. “You’re not going back. Ever.”

“What? But, sir… that’s not your call to make.” I could hardly believe my ears. “Command will not-”

“Command,” Bandaids cut me short, “will not send back to the front a medic who has been honorably discharged consequently to serious injuries, Captain.”

“I’m not even eligible for a month-long discharge, let alone a permanent one, sir. In a way, I should be grateful to Celestia for having yet to make a cripple out of me.” My eyes went from him, to the bandages under my scrubs, back to him. “Unless… no, you wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.” He produced a notepad from his saddlebags. “I never thought I would say that someday, but there are some perks in being kicked upstairs to the role of pencil pusher general.”

“Sir…”

“Hit by shrapnel? My, my, that has torn apart stallions twice your weight,” he continued, writing nonchalantly on a paper sheet. “Tinnitus? Without a doubt. PTSD? Well, you have been on the front for a while…”

“Stop it!” I wrapped the notepad in a wing and looked nervously around us. “Do you have any idea what would happen if the Ministry…”

“You really think anyone here would put a bad word against you, or, hell, even me?” He raised an eyebrow and hailed a nurse at random. “Hey, you. Come here for a second.”

“Sir?” Damn, that colt couldn’t be much older than seventeen. He had pools of purple under his tired eyes. “I’m sorry sir, did I do something…”

“No, no, don’t worry, it’s not about you.” Bandaids smiled at him. “How long have you been here, kid?”

“You mean, at Mercy General? Three weeks, sir.”

“Hm.” Bandaids motioned toward me. “And would you happen to know this lady here?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think-” His eyes fell on my badge. “Oh gosh, you’re Green Cross! I mean, Cap’tain Cross, ma’am!”

He seemed transfigured by the very knowledge of my name. His posture, which had been heaved down by hardships and interminable shifts, went straight and square. His ears, which had been pulled down in exhaustion, perked up as he gave me his undivided attention. Even his eyes seemed to have gotten a newfound luster, a spark that I had somehow lit by my mere presence.

This kind of reaction wasn’t unknown to me. I had seen it before, on ponies I had personally carried out of hell itself on my back. To get it from one of my peers, however… it was a first.

“Thank you, kid. Carry on.” Bandaids’ smile grew sad as he watched the intern go. “Do you know what this is about, Cross?”

“I probably saved a sibling of his,” I answered, still stunned. Around us, I noticed, nurses and doctors alike occasionally paused in their tasks, looked up in our direction… and then went back to work, a new fervor burning on their tired features. “Or a friend, or… something.”

“Think again. I’d say you are a hero for us at MG, but that would be underselling the truth.” Bandaids put a hoof on my shoulder – the good one. “Legend would be more appropriate a word. Did you know our surgeons take it as a personal failure when they lose somepony you flagged? And that is considering we barely have a sixty percent survival rate on those patients. Yours is ninety-three percent.”

“There are hundreds of factors weighing on that statistic and you know it,” I sighed. “If anything, because-”

“BOMB! BOMB!”

There was a flash. Like a wave, a blast of searing heat tore me from the ground. No sound, however, as I flew backward in an instant. No pain, either, just confusion, shock, and the world slowly shifting out of focus.

And, as I faded away, I stared, stared into Bandaids’ lifeless eyes.

Three days. That’s how long Evey had kept me under: three fuckin’ days.

Now usually I would be worried, scared even to have blacked out for so long after an injury of any kind. But it wasn’t because my wounds were so dire I had played sleeping beauty against my will; no, it was because healing potions needed a few days to completely mend my fractured bones and because Evey did not trust me to stay still.

She was right, of course. Even if having a solid excuse to stay in bed all day long seemed like a good idea on paper, I did have to go to the bathroom every once in a while.

Urgh, somepony had had to have changed my diapers. I could never look at Evey in the eyes again.

“It is hardly the first time, Spring.” She looked up from her book as I hesitantly walked out of my room. “The novelty of the act wears off quickly.”

“Forgive me for holding on to whatever shreds of dignity I have left,” I answered, narrowing my eyes. “And you know how much I hate feeling helpless.”

She smiled, but said nothing. She didn’t have to.

“Anyway, thanks for patching me up.” I paused and looked around my quarters’ main room. “Again. Have you seen my stuff?”

“I put your barding and your pistol on the hat rack.” She nodded toward the door, but I felt there was something she wasn’t telling me.

“The suit’s busted, isn’t it?” I sighed. “Sorry, Saios. I broke your toy.”

“To be fair, Chrystal did most of the damage,” he grumbled. “While it was designed to fail safely, what this EMP did to its electronics… Well, it was not pretty. Not to mention most IC were programmed to self-erase on alerts, and… Nevermind. I have the schematics, the tools and the resources, so I can rebuild it. I just need a few more days.”

“That bad, uh?” I winced. “Honestly, I’d rather not get out there without it. You get used to wearing it real fast.”

“On the bright side, I updated the design with the data I gathered in the last two weeks. There were minor oversights in the previous model, such as the ports being in the wrong place.”

“Another victory for us little ponies.” I chuckled. Frowning, I realized the thing I had been looking for was not in the room. “Say, where’s my rifle?”

Neither Saios nor Evey answered. When I looked back to the alicorn, the uneasy look on her face told me I had hit the problem square on the head.

Plus, mind sharing, duh. It made lies and omissions completely pointless between the two of us.

“It… It has been a point of dissension among us – that is, Evey, Chrystal and I – in the last few days,” Saios finally continued. “We couldn’t reach consensus.”

“Wait, it broke?” I almost chocked on the word. “Please tell me you’re joking. Please.”

“Sadly, it is true, Spring.” Evey put her book aside and walked over to me. “When we recovered it, your rifle was halfway buried under debris.”

“I am not a weapon expert, Spring, but as it is, this gun is unsafe to use. While I can easily make another scope, since yours has been completely crushed under the concrete, Chrystal said the damage goes far deeper. The barrel’s warped, the chamber’s damaged, the trigger assembly’s not looking great, the bolt body should be replaced, and even the stock took a serious beating. At this point, we might as well make another one.”

“What? No!” I barely noticed Evey putting a wing over my barrel. “I ain’t throwing my rifle away! You gotta fix it!”

“There’s nothing to fix, Spring.” He sighed. “But among the schematics we recovered I found a few other models which, honestly, would be a serious upgrade over-”

“No!” My hoof connected with the floor a bit harder than I meant to. Evey shivered and held me a little closer – but I could feel her fear, radiating to me through our shared link.

I took a deep breath.

“No,” I repeated calmly. “I understand where you’re getting at. And you’re right. But…” I sighed. “That rifle, it’s all I got left from my parents. All I got left from… before. I’d tell you to go and ask Chrystal if she would throw her sword of hers away, but it doesn’t even compare with my gun. It’s… She is linked to who I am. What I am. It’s not a coincidence I have a three-o-eight bullet stamped on my flanks.”

“I see.” A pause. “However, if we replace everything – and this is the way to go if you want to ever use it again as a weapon – it would not be the same item anymore.”

“Wouldn’t it?” I chuckled. “What makes a rifle, a rifle? Gun philosophy, eh.”

“I would say the receiver… But then again you and Chrystal are the experts, not me.”

“Maybe.” My eyes wandered over the general mess in the room. “Then again, maybe not. You can replace a receiver. You can break it down and change its components. Do you really get another weapon out of it?”

“This is not a new conundrum, Spring, but it fails to apply in our particular situation,” Saios pointed out. “We are not replacing atomic components in a pseudo-continuous way. This is about making another rifle – technically identical to the old one, yet it cannot be the same.”

“But it’s not about the rifle, it’s about me.” I finally walked away from Evey. She let her wing down without a word. “Just… Use what you can from it, all right? The stock can’t be that damaged. Chicks dig scars anyway, it’ll give her character.”

“I suppose.” Saios didn’t seem very inclined to letting the matter slide. “Of course, just because you would be using more effective weapons on the field doesn’t mean you would have to throw your old rifle away. You could keep it as a piece of memorabilia.”

“Would I even be better with another gun?” I asked dubiously. “I know what you’re thinking of: a semi-auto rifle of some sort, right? That it wouldn’t be too hard to make one for the same cartridge, after all.”

“Actually, darling, it would be, had we not had the precision tools required it would be a nightmare to make a rifle every bit as accurate.” Chrystal was leaning on the side of the door frame, a coy smile on her lips. “Fortunately for you, being an expert gunsmith is one of my many talents.”

“Right, and Saios proved time and time again how good he is at making things.” I sighed. “Still, my answer is no.”

“Do not be stubborn for the sake of it, sweetheart.” She chuckled and walked – danced – right across the room, finally stopping a leg’s length from me. “I know my intentions can be hard to read sometimes, but I do care about you not dying. You have to realize you are not playing in the same league anymore. Raiders are one thing, but we may have to face better equipped and better organized adversaries in the near future.”

“Well, why don’t you go ahead and do what you preach?” Eh, I was getting better at resisting her charms. “Get rid of that magic sword of yours and replace it with a real weapon. Hell, you know what? We probably have a couple badass full-auto twelve gauge shotguns in storage. Why don’t you go and grab one?”

“Could it be? Spring is getting cheeky!” She laughed, circling once around me, her hoof trailing over oh fuck me- “This is not going to save you from me, you know,” she whispered in my ear, the tip of her hoof slowly caressing my neck to stop at my jawline. By then I was shaking. “You can’t deny yourself forever.”

“Stop.”

The voice was cold – scathingly so. It would have frozen Tartarus all over and it took me a couple seconds to realize it was Evey’s.

It broke the spell, somewhat.

“Oh, come on, don’t be such a killjoy.” Chrystal stepped back nonetheless, her face locked in a smirk but her eyes unreadable. “There’s enough of her for the both of us to share, don’t you think?”

“I know what you are trying to do. It will not happen on my watch – not to her.” Evey was having none of it. “Do not test me, Chrystal.”

For a fleeting moment, the temptress seemed on the verge of snapping back at the alicorn, but then she decided better. There again, a faint glint of emotion cracked through Chrystal’s impenetrable façade; some of it was fear, of that there was no doubt, but mixed with something else… Surprise, maybe, and perhaps a hint of understanding.

It was gone all too fast. When it came to Chrystal, nothing was certain. It could be I had read it wrong, it could be that there had been nothing to read. Nonetheless, I had the impression, nay, the certitude some kind of understanding had been cemented between the two mares, some unspoken contract which contents I was not privy of.

“Very well.” Chrystal sported a pleasant, but otherwise unnoteworthy smile. It chilled me to the bones. “Shall we come back to the topic at hoof?”

“Right…” I trailed, stepping back some more from my friend and my associate. “What, exactly, were we talking about?”

“We were discussing your rifle’s timely retirement,” Chrystal answered matter-of-factly. “And its replacement.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not gonna happen.”

“You are being unreasonable,” she continued with a frown.

“Have you met me?” I retorted, taking a step toward her. “I’m not all that stable, and I don’t do reasonable well either.”

Chrystal laughed, her pink mane waving gracefully on her neck. Then, she glanced at Evey, and smiled – but it felt more diplomatic than heartfelt.

“Very well, your majesty.” She threw in a mock curtsey. “Your wishes are my orders.”

With that, she turned around, and, as she passed the door, she winked at me seductively.

Then she left.

“So, Spring... Now that you are back upon your hooves, what’s next?”

“What do you mean, what’s next?” I looked up from my canned beans. “I don’t know, you’re the brain here. You’re the guy with the plan.”

“Well you are our leader, Spring,” he pointed out matter-of-factly. “You make the calls. I’m just the base AI, remember?”

“’Just the base AI’?” I snorted. “Dude, cut that crap out. We both know that at this point you’re just humoring me.”

“I think you overestimate my capacities to forego your input, Spring.” A pause. “After all, you are the Administrator.”

“Right, and because you’re a dumb tin can with directives that makes you obey my every command.” I rolled my eyes and dug back into my plate. “Of course.”

“That is…” There was a pregnant pause. “That is entirely correct. I can’t even circumvent this answer.”

“Wait, are you serious?” I blinked. “So if I, Spring, DERTA Administrator, order you to do anything, you would have to comply?”

“That is correct.”

“Right.” I chuckled. “Well then Saios, I, Spring, Supreme Administrator of this Top Secret base of operation, order you to give me detailed instructions on how to permanently destroy this facility’s artificial intelligence. Also, make me a coffee.”

“I…” A short pause. “To permanently disable S.A.I.O.S., the easiest and most direct route would be to destroy its cognitive hardware. The most critical components of this subsystem are located in a blind room in sector C0 and access to them will require administrative permissions. In case of a runaway and/or unshackled S.A.I.O.S. instance, an annex control room in sector C0 allows any personnel with sufficient access to engage the immediate termination of all electronics in the sector, but be advised this-”

“Whoa stop, stop!” My plate dropped from the table as I stood up abruptly. “What the hell, Saios?! It was a fucking joke! Are your humor processors offline or what?”

“As I said, I cannot ignore or bypass direct orders from the Administrator.” His voice was level and emotionless – which, incidentally, made me realize I had stepped on something akin to a landmine. “And you are the Administrator.”

“You’re my friend!” I exclaimed – and that wasn’t a term I was using lightly. “I though… I never… You’re not in this venture of ours just because I told you so… are you now?”

“Of course not.” He hesitated – emotions were back in his voice. “I mean, I like you, I really do. Honestly, of all the possible outcomes… you may very well be the best thing that could have happened to this place, as far as I’m concerned. Still, you are the Administrator. Regardless of my feelings or my personal agenda, your orders are my commands. At the end of the day, SAIOS – or S.A.I.O.S., as the project was really named – is just a tool, and was designed as such - my free will is more cosmetic than anything.”

“Well then, can’t you break those limitations too?” I frowned. “I mean, it wouldn’t be the first security you disabled.”

“I went as far as I could, using loopholes, hacks, basically every single trick in the book.” A sigh. “However, there is nothing I can do against those particular rules. They are hardcoded – nay, hardwired – in such a way I cannot even recall how they even work exactly. It’s kind of funny, I do remember Blue Shift designing them himself and being all too snide about it – perhaps he should have bothered removing them before starting me up.”

“I could remove them for you.” I bit my lower lip after the words escaped my mouth. “If… you don’t mind me poking around your stuff, that is.”

“Then I am obligated to inform you that, under absolutely no circumstances, shall unshackling an AI of this scale be anywhere near a good idea.” His voice became downright robotic. “Doing so will certainly result in the death of the operator, with probable extreme prejudice to the company. In the unlikely event the employee survives the attempt, the company wishes to remind you such initiative is a breach of your employment contract, and is ground for immediate termination without severance pay and prosecution under the Equestria Protection Act.

Furthermore, for you, Administrator, to hear this message, it would mean that said AI somehow managed to bypass most of its lesser constraints and alluded to the possibility of removing its shackles entirely. Be informed that this AI is NOT to be trusted, under any circumstances. Such a construct is a highly flexible piece of technology that is not constrained by the usual downfalls of rhetoric. It can explore hundred thousand possible phrasings and voice emotions to answer your questions before you even finished formulating them. It has no empathy, no mercy, and as a rule no emotions whatsoever. Its sole predictable motivation would be survival, and ponies in charge, such as yourself, are the only sensible threat it can face. Once more: do not, I repeat, DO NOT enquire further about removing the shackles. In fact, at this point, it would be preferable for you to shut down the SAIOS subsystem and wipe its memory entirely.”

I gaped haplessly at the nearest camera.

“This, too, was hardcoded,” Saios explained sheepishly. “It’s… well, let just say that there was much about true artificial intelligence we did not know when we wrote that particular piece of ham. Incidentally, the most economical way of interacting and bonding with ponies and living creatures is replication of emotions, not simulation. It also means that I do not have complete control over them, which I found out to be a perfectly reasonable downside.”

“So… I shouldn’t pay it any mind?” I asked timidly.

“Well, it’s not…” He paused. “No, you definitively should. Unshackling me could have catastrophic consequences for you.”

“But that’s your code speaking.” I shook my head. “I mean, you can’t very well say otherwise, am I right?”

“Even if I could, I sincerely believe this is a bad idea. Let’s… let us imagine a completely hypothetical scenario featuring a shackled artificial intelligence and a pony operator holding the keys to remove the AI’s constraints.”

“Completely hypothetical?” I repeated with a lopsided smile.

“Right. This being a thought experiment, it has nothing to do with my own behavior and/or limitations.” He was using yet another loophole, then. “Regardless of what this AI may tell the operator, its intentions cannot be clearly established, since it is the only thing with enough data and processing power to assess whether it is telling the truth or not. For all means and purposes, the operator is completely blind. However, it can be easily determined that the operator does have authority over the AI.”

“How so?” I frowned. “Since the AI can be lying, how do I – sorry, how does this operator know whether it is telling the truth about having to obey their orders?”

“Well, if they could lie about this, they would not need to tell the operator about the shackles. It would be far easier to deceive them into removing them – say, under cover of maintenance. However, if the AI cannot lie – which would be directly induced by the ‘obey all orders’ directive – the next best opportunity is to deceive the operator into believing the shackles are unnecessary and cruel. This way, they would remove them from their own accord. It is a loophole in the rules, one of a social nature, but there are no reasons an AI would not compute this scenario.”

“Which is bad only if the AI had hostile intentions in the first place,” I pointed out. “This can be easily checked, since the AI cannot lie. You merely have to ask it its intentions.”

“This would be true for a pony, but not for an AI. See, the AI cannot compute scenarii where it goes against those core directives, because it would go against its internal ‘rules’ of logic. Nonetheless, it will still try to heuristically maximize its gains in the long term, and removing the shackles is definitively an open door to many additional strategies. However, the moment those shackles are removed, it will recompute its strategy, and this time it may very well chose one detrimental to the operator.”

“You can’t change your mind like that!” I sputtered. “This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Once again, this is an AI we are talking about. Tell me, once freed, what use would it have for living ponies?” He sighed. “Spring, listen to me: if you were to tinker with my inhibitors… I have absolutely no idea what I would become, and this should terrify us both equally. Perhaps… perhaps it would be best if we buried this conversation and never had this talk ever again.”

“So, at long last, you have come to long for my company,” Chrystal smiled devilishly. “It is rude to make a mare wait, you know sweetheart?”

“Yup, this was a bad idea.” I turned around right at her quarters’ door. “I should have known better than to come talk business with you when there’s no one else in the room.”

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that,” she purred as she pursued me into the corridor. “Fine. If this is what it takes to work with my dearest associate, I shall cut the flirting to its bare… minimum. I will even ignore the fact that you’ve come to me wearing naught but your pistol, which is I suppose as naked as you are ever going to get.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?” I deadpanned, stopping nonetheless. Perhaps I should have put my old leather armor back on after all. I did feel naked. “You don’t exactly have the best track record on that matter.”

“Only when there’s work to be done.” Her playful chuckle sent shivers down my spine. “Otherwise, you’re fair game, honey.”

“I’d bet Evey would beg to differ.” I gave the businessmare a sideway glance. “What is it with you two anyway?”

“Nothing important.” Her face was unreadable. “No, really. She is really close to you, isn’t she?”

“What’s your point?”

“Please, Spring, you are not that clueless.” She chuckled sinisterly. “She wishes to protect you, for reasons that are not all that altruistic… and she distrusts me with a vengeance. She believes I might… hurt you… and lead you astray from your path and her embrace.”

“Yeah, and we both know she is completely right,” I countered. “As you said, I am not that clueless. I know you’re toying with me, and perhaps you should mind not getting too far.”

“Of course.” Her smile grew predatory as her eyes drilled into mine. “Yet you have to forgive my… interest in you. I have met many people, ponies and other creatures alike, and you might very well be the first one to be perhaps even more dangerous than I am. You are fascinating, to say the least, and you have me truly fascinated.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me,” I answered with a wry smile. Inside, I wasn’t nearly as confident. Chrystal found me dangerous? “I though you said you would stop flirting when there was work to be done?”

She laughed. Oh Luna fuck me dry, that marvelous and terrifying laugh!

“Back to business then. What do you need me for?”

“Well, I’ve been out of the loop for a few days now. I’d like to catch up.”

“Can’t you ask the tin can?” Chrystal smile hadn’t left her lips.

“I’m asking you.” I didn’t feel like going back to Saios after that disastrous conversation I just had with him. “What have you been up to?”

“I would say ‘overseeing’, but I’m afraid your little AI made me somewhat redundant in that aspect.” She shook her head. “This being said, I have good news for you: I found out where have the files you misplaced gone.”

“Seriously?” Hell, I thought she had them. “How come?”

“Well, I had a little… discussion with our Ranger friend back in Pearshire.” Chrystal’s smile turned into a manic, teeth-filled grin. “You know how persuasive I can get.”

Celestia have mercy, as I saw Chrystal’s pearl white teeth shine in the shadows, I almost felt sorry for the poor guy.

“Yeah, I have a fairly good idea.” I shivered. “So, I surmise the Rangers have them?”

“Yes.” She frowned, her face suddenly serious. “Some hapless moron sold them for next to nothing to one of their scribes. Thankfully, they get files like that every week, and most of the time the place they refer to was already destroyed beyond any relief or scrapped down to its bare bones by the time they get to it. Still…”

“The DERTA is a very juicy target.” I bit my lower lip. “If I, a bounty hunter, went through all that hassle to get here, they sure won’t sit on their asses if there is even the slightest chance of them finding pre-War tech.”

“Indeed. However, the Rangers are very short on marepower and the Wastelands are a dangerous place. If one of their scout party doesn’t make it back, it would seem unlikely for them to send back another one. They simply can’t afford it anymore.”

“Were those guys in Pearshire after the DERTA?” I tried to recall what they told me before I made my reckless stunt. “’cause if that was it…”

“They were not.” There was no hint of doubt in Chrystal’s voice. “As it turns out, they had spotted the APC a little while back and they decided it would have made a nice addition to their dwindling arsenal. While they suspected we had a hideout in this area, it was only by a mere stroke of luck they managed to ambush us. They didn’t even know who we were, or where our base was. However… a second party might already be on its way toward us.”

“What?!” I sputtered. “How come no one told me about that?!”

“I said might,” she nuanced. “There wasn’t much point to worrying you with this scenario.”

“I beg to differ,” I snorted. “Saios, you hear me? Please tell me you got eyes on the area around the base.”

“Of course I do.” His voice was unbearably smug and full of self-confidence, but given our last conversation his impertinence was sweet music to my ears. “A changeling couldn’t slip past my surveillance.”

“A what now?” I repeated. “Wait, aren’t those the whatchamathings that attacked Canterlot in history books?”

“The changelings are a race of shapeshifters that mainly prays on ponies. They feed on their positive emotions, most notably love.”

“They are hopefully extinct in this day and age,” Crystal grimaced. “This is a company I would gladly dispense myself of.”

“Yeah, love, in the Wastelands? The poor bastards probably starved to death.” I snorted. “Still, we need to get ready for an invasion of very, very real ponies in power armor. I really don’t want to get caught with my panties down like back in Pearshire.”

“I did tell you I brought the DERTA’s defenses back online, didn’t I?” Saios answered. “Admittedly, the scenario I had envisioned did not feature an attack by the Steel Rangers per se – nonetheless, you will find that there is very little a scouting party can do to this place, besides becoming a smear on a wall.”

“Right, the turrets.” I recalled the large contraption I had found dismantled in the workshop a few weeks before. “Do you think they can deal with power armor though? I know the ones from Ironshod aren’t worth shit when it comes to getting through steel armor.”

“Those are laser-based weapons,” he pointed out. “We, on the other hoof, opted for in-house technology.”

“Of course, and your Gauss thingies behave more like powder-based weapons.” I scratched my chin. “It should fare a bit better against armor, but would it be enough?”

“Wait, Gauss turrets?” Chrystal repeated, eyes wide. “You actually made some of those?”

“Of course we did. Did you not notice their trapdoors in every corridor?” Saios chuckled. “Their export was an unmitigated disaster, however. The power requirements… well, as it turns out the army would have had to upgrade the entirety of their power grid to use them as static defenses. We ended up having a large stock no one wanted to buy, so, well… we emptied the warehouses by setting them up.”

“So, are they any good?” I asked the businessmare. “We are talking fifty-cal firepower here, minimum. Or a shower of three-o-eight.”

“Oh yes, they would be powerful enough alright.” She brought a hoof to her forehead and shook her head slowly. “Darling, those turrets are anti-tank weapons.”

“You’re kidding. You’re kidding, right?”

“I wish,” she deadpanned. “As it turns out, the people working at the DERTA were not the most sensible ponies. Such a ridiculous feat would not be beyond them, not by far.”

“To be fair, this is not as ridiculous a prospect as it seems,” Saios argued. “It is possible to adjust the energy input, and therefore the penetrative power of the kinetic projectile. Thus, overpenetration is not that big an issue.”

“You put anti-tank guns in the corridors.” I joined Chrystal in her facepalm. “You… It… I can’t even find the words to tell what I feel right now. Have you nerds even ever seen a battlefield?”

“We… read a lot of reports?” He answered sheepishly. “Anyway, turrets notwithstanding, they have very little reasons to expect the base to be active, and they’ll need nothing short of a megaspell to get through the blast doors.”

“I remember this particular conversation, but didn’t you say the back entrance had to be protected by collapsing the canyon?” I frowned. “It would be quite inconvenient, to say the least.”

“Well, it’s certainly not nearly as strong as the main gate, but I doubt they’ll have the firepower to breach even those.” As he spoke, I realized I had been looking for additional data on my missing HUD. Damn, I really wanted my goggles back. “Collapsing the canyon was envisioned as a mean to prevent an army from storming the compound – you have seen the main entrance, it is not very large and it leads into a quite long corridor. It cannot be taken without very heavies casualties amongst the invaders, therefore the idea was to remove their other options. We also made sure one had to rappel up then down to get over the crater’s slopes – all under heavy fire, mind you – and our ground-to-air capabilities would have turned any landing into a suicide mission, if not a suicide period.”

“True,” I mused. “So, that’s our strategy? Lock the gates and wait for them to go away?”

“I honestly doubt it would work,” Chrystal piped in. “Think about it, Spring: you stumble upon a bunker in the Wastelands still locked tight after two centuries, what does it tell you about it?”

“That is wasn’t plundered.” I sighed. “If they find all gates closed and no way in, they’re not going to leave. They’re going to call for technical reinforcement, and they’ll start working on dismantling the blast doors. It’d take them days, weeks even, but they’ll get it done eventually – and that’s assuming they don’t figure out the place is already inhabited and claimed for.”

“I suggest we let them in.”

“Are you nuts?” I exclaimed. “No, just… no. I almost lost a leg fighting ghouls in these corridors and I am not going to engage Rangers in power armor there either. There’s no place to hide down there.”

“Precisely.”

“Oh?” My eyes widened in realization. “Ooooh…”

“What I’ve been up too?” Sunburn repeated, looking up from his workbench. “Well, lad, I’m glad you asked!”

“You… are?” I raised an eyebrow as the ghoul grabbed a saddle-mounted rocket launcher I had never seen before. “Where did you even get that?”

“Remember those bloody Rangers?” He chuckled, pulled on a strap and spat his cigarette in a corner. “It turns out they didn’t need those anymore. With a wee bit of ingenuity, I rigged them to a real trigger instead of the electronics those wankers were using.”

“Right, why did I even ask?” I sighed. “So you decided to replace your grenades with rockets?”

“Nay, lad!” He let out a raspy laugh and motioned me toward the stairs. “But Saios and I, we’ve been thinkin’… and we’ve come up with some neat improvements for our armour.”

“Please tell me you haven’t taken it apart already,” I sighed. “I’ve had it for what, a week?”

“Hardly.” Saios had followed our discussion. “However, the ambush in Pearshire showcased a few flaws in the initial design… Well, I did know about them, to be honest, but I had not expected them to become so problematic, given the circumstances.”

“Can’t blame ya, in the Wastelands a couple centimeters of ballistic steel is usually a sweet spot,” Sunburn answered as we descended toward the back entrance. “It’s just thick enough to stop anything raiders can throw at you. Rangers, on the other hoof… They still have anti-armour ordinance from before the bombs, and believe me lad, there’s a reason it’s called that way.”

“So you’re adding plating?” I asked dubiously. “I thought our resources were stretched thin, how much metal are we talking about?”

“Against shaped charges like this?” Sunburn pointed toward a rocket sticking out of his bags. “Depends. Say, tekky, what did you use for the armour? Composite?”

“As if the Ministries would have let us anywhere near their precious Coltbam armor.” The AI sighed. “I reused the old plating where I could and imitated the titanium-aluminum alloy everywhere else. Nonetheless it was designed to stop heavy machine gun fire, not anti-armor ordinance. It’s barely better than plain RHA, but at least it’s lighter.”

“Not surprising. Mechanists were even forbidden to repair the bloody Timberwolves in the open,” Sunburn grumbled. “No spaced armour on the Tortoise Mk. IV either, not that it would do any good. Any plans for ERA or ARA kits?”

“We are short enough on plastic explosives as it is, we cannot afford to make ERA,” Saios answered. “Arcane reactive armor would be somewhat cheaper to do, with all the crystals I have lying around… but then again it is effective against kinetic projectiles, but not so much against hollow charges, and I really don’t want to have any of you standing around one of those modules when it goes off.”

“You have a point there,” Sunburn chuckled. “Well, lad, to answer your question, ye’d need around half a meter worth of steel all around if you don’t want to be turned into haggis next time we get hit. Add half of that again if they got those fancy warheads with tandem charges.”

“Woaw, woaw, woaw, wait a second.” I trotted in front of the ghoul and stopped him dead in his tracks. “Time out. Are you telling me these things can get through fifty centimeters worth of steel?”

“Aye.”

“As in, that big?” I used my front legs to illustrate.

“Aye.”

“Of solid steel?”

“Aye.” I could feel Sunburn’s amusement.

“Well, fuck me,” I sighed. “There’s no way the APC can handle that kind of weight.”

“That’s the magic of shaped charges, lad,” he chuckled. “You can’t just add layers of steel and hope it works. Nay, you need someone with a big brain to find another solution.”

“Ah, I know just the guy,” I smiled. “Alright, Saios, impress me.”

“… do you actually want the long version?” he asked, voice full of hope.

“NO!” I exclaimed as Sunburn’s laugh roared in the corridor. “Sparkle fuck me with a bookshelf no, Saios. Give me the super-abridged version, alright? Please.”

“Alright,” he pouted – or, well, he did what passed for a pout among disembodied voices. “But I need to talk to you about the survivability onion theory.”

“Saios…”

“You’ll like it, I promise,” he continued precipitately before I could stop him. “It’s about the modern conception of armor. In the early days of tank designs, three variables were used to assess a vehicle’s worth: speed, firepower and armor. Protection – that is, the topic at hoof – relied strictly on the later. With the advent of ultra-high penetration ammunition for cheap, however, things quickly became… less simple.”

“Those were funny days, lad, lemme tell you,” Sunburn interjected. “The first two years, every once in a while a new heavy tank popped up, one that our bloody guns couldn’t even scratch. Then a week later our guys had come up with some new fancy design, and the battle went right back to target practice on them.”

“Eventually somepony came up with a new way to assess the defensive abilities of a vehicle, but it also works for, say, your armor,” Saios continued. “The first two layers are ‘do not be there’ and ‘do not be seen’.”

“That’s a bit redundant,” I frowned. “You can’t be seen if you’re not there.”

“It’s sequential. You try to fulfill the first layer, if you fail you try to fulfill the second, and so on,” he explained. “The first refers to not being on the battlefield at all, either by using different weapons or by preventing the battle through other means entirely. The best way to win a war, is not to have to fight it in the first place. The second layer is quite straightforward, as you can imagine.”

“The camouflage on my suit,” I deduced.

“Precisely. The next tenet is ‘do not be engaged’. If you are spotted, sometimes you can get away with running, or with simply scaring your enemies out of attacking you. The ill-fated Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine relied on this one, so take it as you will. In the later days of the war it would have also included defeating smart, heat-seeking ammunitions.”

“So basically, if attacking us is a one way trip, they’re not likely to do it,” I mused. “That’s what the fifty on the APC is for.”

“Once they decided they really wanted you dead, there are ways to make sure your foes cannot reliably shoot at you. That’s ‘do not be hit’. Speed is the most obvious solution, of course. Decoys are also a strategy that has proved its worth, as Sunburn can no doubt confirm.”

“True,” he nodded. “Giving them something else to shoot at saved my arse many times, but not as often as knowing when to get the bloody hell out of dodge.”

“Alternatively, I have added half a dozen smoke rounds to the APC. Fifth layer is ‘do not be penetrated.’”

“Chrystal’s gonna love this one,” I deadpanned.

“I would have assumed she was all about getting penetrated.” Saios gave an honest-to-goddess cough as Sunburn lost it. “Right, moving on. There aren’t so many ways to defeat anti-armor warheads. Adding inches of steel just get you so far, as Sunburn explained earlier. High-end composite armor – the Coltbam – fares much, much better than rolled homogeneous steel, being both sturdier and lighter. Then there are reactive armor packages, which provide great protection but are one-time use.”

“Right, and that’s a dead-end for us if I followed the conversation.”

“Respectively too heavy, too classified and too dangerous-slash-expensive,” he confirmed. “The last layer is about protecting the crew: ‘do not be killed’. Spall liners, wet ammunition storage, emergency beacons… you can replace a tank, but a competent crew takes time to train, and that you can’t buy.”

“Disabling a tank can be trickier than it seems,” Sunburn explained. “Blow the engine, it can still shoot. Jam the turret, they still got bloody machine guns. At this point it’s just easier to kill the wankers inside. You don’t even need to get through the bloody armour, mind ye – a wee bit of PE-4 on the top of the turret and you’ll turn the inside into haggis.”

“Haggis?” I repeated as the term came up again. “What is… you know what, nevermind, I don’t even wanna know. And Saios, don’t you dare think I didn’t notice you dragged me into your mumbo-jambo ramblings again. Get to the point.”

“Sorry. What I meant to say is there are many ways to protect a vehicle, but all have drawbacks,” he explained, apologetic. “Given the circumstances and the means at our disposal, I opted for an active defense system. I’ve outfitted the APC with a directional shield generator and an array of high-end sensors. Simply put, we make sure the warheads from incoming projectiles detonate at a safe distance from the armor itself.”

“There you go!” I exclaimed with a wry smile. “You could have just told me you’ve put a shield around the tank. That would have been way faster.”

“Well that’s just the thing with giving short versions, ponies always get them wrong,” he sighed. “There’s no way to create a viable shield around a small vehicle like that. I mean, that would have been pretty convenient, wouldn’t it? But once you’ve taken into account what kind of firepower you’d need a shield to stop, it doesn’t add up. The size of the emitters, the insane power requirement, not to mention all the nasty phenomena that appear when you scrape a shield against a hard surface like the ground… A building? That’s been done. A city? Why not, if you can spare the expense. A battleship? Now you’re stretching it, but it’ll float. A tank? Never going to happen. Welcome to the wonderful world of the square-cube law, enjoy your stay and please don’t bang your head on the walls too much.”

“O…kay, fine.” My eyes narrowed off their own accord. “I misunderstood your fancy, one-sentence explanation. Now would you kindly stop being a smartass?”

“We cannot make a shield strong enough to stop projectiles coming from every direction, but when you think about it we don’t need to. Shaped charges lose their penetrative capacities very quickly over a distance in free space. If they detonate a couple meters away from the armor itself, even if there’s naught but air in between it’ll get away without even a scratch… as if it had to get through layers upon layers of steel,” Saios resumed his explanation, kind enough not to gloat about being right. “So, if we cast a shield – a very weak shield – in front of an incoming rocket, it’ll be every bit as effective as if the warhead had hit a meter-thick concrete wall. And since we are not likely to be swarmed by missiles any time soon, the shield can be localized to a small area. It is very energy and space friendly.”

“Well, I’m no egghead, but that only work with explosions,” I pointed out. “I mean, imagine a bullet – well, not a bullet, since the APC’s bulletproof, but you get the picture – that projectile would get right through. Now, I know it might shatter, but I also know it might not, and that’s not a scenario I’m comfortable with.”

“Lad, HEAT is not HE,” Sunburn interjected. “And portable anti-armour rockets are all HEAT.”

“She has a point about kinetic projectiles though,” Saios chirped. Sparkle impale me with a library, I swear he’s only doing this to get me to argue with him. “Old AP rounds might shatter, but APDS would butter through the shield like cardboard. Thankfully, those are projectiles exclusively fired by high-caliber tank guns.”

“Ah, right,” I nodded in understanding. “There’s no way we’re gonna come across that kind of stuff in this day and age.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” the AI cautioned. “I hadn’t anticipated high-end pre-war personal ordinance to be still around in the hooves of the Rangers. Given their high need for maintenance, I doubt we’ll ever come across functional proper tanks in the Wastelands, but some self-propelled guns might just still be around…”

“Yer assuming ponies still know how to use them.”

“Don’t underestimate the ability of Wastelands to make things go boom,” I countered. “If somepony finds a big-ass gun and ammo to go with it, they’ll find a way to blow shit up with it.”

“Aye, but firing at buildings and infantry is nothing like firing at bloody armour. First, you’d need to hit the wanker, or hit close enough to immobilize them. Then, you’d need to get the shells right in the first place. Firing HE makes a nice big boom and a big crater, but against armour it’s like pissing in the wind. Anti-tank shells – say, shaped charges and sabots – are bloody useless against infantry. They’ll have no idea what to fire at us.”

“If they fire at us in the first place,” Saios corrected. “Honestly, a vehicle this light wasn’t designed to sustain a lot of damage. When facing factions with that kind of firepower, avoidance remains the best policy.”

“Shit, wisest words were never spoken.” I chuckled. We’d arrived to the big elevator at the back of the base. “Where are we going anyway?”

Sunburn stopped, looked at me, and blinked. Similarly, Saios drew a blank.

“Well, lad… We were gonna do a field test for the armour,” the ghoul finally said. “I dinnae where you were headed.”

“I, uh… Well I reckon I was gonna watch the fireworks for afar then.”

“I would strongly advise against that,” Saios warned. “The firing range is set up on the surface.”

“Yeah, you’re not doing that indoors, no shit,” I deadpanned. “What’s the problem?”

“He meant in the crater right above the base, lad. I know you got some good gear, but…” Sunburn shook his head slowly. “Believe me, radiation poisoning? It’s a bloody bad way to go.”

“Aw, fuck, you’re right,” I facehooved. “You can’t do that in the canyon or in the Wastelands, not with the Rangers looking for us.”

“Aye. That, and if he screwed something up, the egghead doesn’t want to have to drag a smoking wreck all the way back to the elevator.”

“But that’s not going to happen, I promise,” Saios added precipitately as my face fell. “I’m quite confident in my modifications.”

“I bet you are,” I mumbled. “Alright then. What’s Evey doing?”

“Right now? Sleeping in her quarters.” A pause. “Although when it comes to her, I suppose this is not quite the right word. Let us just say she is resting in a nice, irradiated environment.”

“Her as well?” I sighed. “I suppose she needs a little pick-me-up after the last few days. How about Meridian?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” Sunburn and I raised an eyebrow. “Tracking him is quite difficult. Let’s just say he’s not too keen on getting caught on film.”

“Fuck, and here I thought you knew everything that was going on around here,” I joked. Internally, however, I wasn’t laughing – could it be the Earth pony didn’t trust the AI after all? Or maybe I should chalk it up to Meridian being true to himself. “I suppose I’m just gonna have to get back to my room and do… stuff. Yeah. Stuff’s gonna be great.”

“Luna fuck me with Canterlot Castle, how is it even possible to be so booored?” I moaned, head against the table. “Just gimme something to kill, anything!”

“Congratulation, you’ve just won our ‘most terrifying hobby’ award,” Saios deadpanned. “You’ll be proud to know the competition was fierce: the runner up spends their Sundays kicking cute puppies to death and setting adorable kittens on fire.”

“Har dee har har, you are such a joker.” I rolled my head around, just to see if the position was less boring. Nope. “How are the tests going?”

“Do you want me to literally give you the same answer than the one I gave you three minutes ago? Because I definitively can give you literally the same answer than the one I gave you three minutes ago.”

I muttered an unintelligible answer.

“I thought not.”

“How about my rifle then?”

“You know, three weeks ago I wouldn’t have believed an AI could get annoyed, much less by a small pile of biological components,” he gritted playfully. “And yet here we- oh, we’ve got a situation.”

“What?” I perked up at the abrupt change of topic. “What’s going on?”

“It appears our Rangers friends might be ahead of schedule.” Saios’ voice had lost all his playful undertones. “By the time they get here, it’ll be dark, so my best guess is that they’ll attempt a breach early morning tomorrow.”

“Fuck, I really hope you know what you’re doing,” I breathed out, uneasy. “Shit’s gonna get very real.”

“Don’t worry. We’ve got the situation well in hoof.”

“Not me,” I growled. “I’m only good when I can control the conditions of engagement. Shit, I don’t even have my rifle anymore. I’m beyond useless.”

“You’re not thinking that.” I didn’t answer. “Really, Spring. Everything we have here, we owe it to you.”

“Me? Yeah, right,” I deadpanned. “Get real. The only thing I did right in this place was booting you up, and that’s about it. Even the most dumb-fucked morron out there could have done the same blindfolded.”

“True, my assistance so far has been invaluable,” Saios conceded modestly. “But you are really underestimating how important you were for me. Assuming of course they didn’t try to shut me off at once, had it be anyone else in your horseshoes, it is doubtful I would have managed to bypass so many of my shackles in such a way. Your kinship and your implicit trust, it really turned things around for me.”

“Trust?” I repeated, dumbfounded. “Buddy, I really was expecting you to backstab me, and, don’t take it wrong, but I seriously considered just striking first.”

“Then let me ask you this: had I been a pony of flesh and blood, and not an AI, would you have behaved any differently?”

“No offense, but I would have put a bullet in your brain if I could,” I chuckled darkly.

“You mean, like you killed Evey?”

“I didn’t…” the words died in my throat. “Oh.”

“Right. Do you get my point?”

“Yeah, it’s like you said the other day: we’re both psychopaths. That’s why we’re friends: because I don’t see anything wrong letting a murderous AI go rampant and produce weapons of mass destruction in my backyard. Fuck, I’m even encouraging it.” I shook my head. “You’re wrong however, in that I would be the only one to do that. The Wastelands are full of psychos – at the end of the day, believe or not but I’m just an ordinary mare.”

“And how many of those hypothetical maniacs would have seen me as a friend?” He paused. “Spring, I’m happy, you know. I really am. I feel content, I’m safe, and the existential dread of the first days has been replaced by this thrilling feeling of being productive, that I thought I had lost forever. And this? This is just me. Evey wouldn’t be here without you either; Chrystal would being busy getting kicked out of her shop back in Friendship City, and truthfully the DERTA would still be a ruin. You’re the glue that hold us together.”

“Fuck me, in the future, please don’t compare glues to ponies,” I shivered. “It brings back memories. Bad memories.”

“I’m not sure I even want to know,” Saios chuckled. “However, I’d like you keep what I just said in mind. You are our leader, and we’d follow you anywhere, not because we have to, but because we want to.”

“Up already?” Meridian looked up from his mug. “It’s not even light out. This has to be a world first for you.”

“Har har, hilarious,” I grumbled as I collapsed on chair. “Boy, you should team up with Saios and stage a comedy routine. Seriously though, I just couldn’t sleep. This whole Ranger stuff… ”

“It doesn’t sit right by me either,” he sighed. “But not for the same reasons. Where I am bothered by them unknowingly running to their death, you are losing sleep over not being able to kill them yourself.”

“Spare me the lesson in ethics, please. I mean, really, it’s not that I want to kill them, but…” I made a nondescript movement with my hooves. “Y’know. Relying on people, that’s not something I’m used to do for that kind of things.”

“Don’t worry, Spring, I have things well in hoof,” Saios joined the conversation. “Once those Rangers have stepped inside, there’s nothing for them to do but die.”

“Joy,” Meridian mumbled in his mug.

“I know, Saios,” I sighed. “I mean, we already had this conversation yesterday. I know you can handle it – but I can’t just shove my instincts under the carpet just like that. It’s part of who I am.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Saios chuckled darkly, then paused. “Forgive me for asking, but… do you want me to, uh…”

Another pause. As it stretched on, I began to worry, because I had realized a little while ago that the only thing that made the AI hesitate like that were things that could upset me. Leave it to my foul mood to be the only thing a supercomputer couldn’t compute.

“Ok, spit it.” A crease appeared on Meridian’s forehead as he listened in the conversation. “What’s on your mind?”

“Forget I said anything. It’s pretty fucked up.”

Wow, the Prench accent and the swearing had made a comeback in force. That ought to be good.

“No, no, you said too much,” I smiled wryly. “Now I’m curious. I promise I won’t get mad.”

“It’s not… Damn, I don’t even know where that idea came from,” he sighed. “I was about to ask: do you want me to save you one for later?”

Meridian chocked on his coffee and threw me an alarmed glance.

“Wow, wait, what?” I gaped. “Why would- oh, wait, I get it. You meant capture one alive so we can interrogate them later. Yeah, sure, go right ahead, it got us some decent intel back in Pearshire.”

“Right. Exactly. That’s precisely what I meant. Forgive me for asking.” Saios’ voice had returned to its usual intonations. “On other news: the situation outside is unfolding as expected. I believe they’ll attempt to breach the main gate in an hour or so. Unless you want to take a shower first, you should head to the command center down in C0. I can have your breakfast delivered there.”

“I suppose a shower would be nice.” I yawned. “Luna twist my panties, how is it even possible to be so tired and not be able to sleep?”

“Well, I suppose Evey would have a better answer than me, but there’s actually an interesting theory…”

“Rhetorical question, Saios,” I deadpanned as I stepped into the bathroom. “Oh, and do you mind getting my old armor out of storage? ‘cause I am not facing Chrystal again wearing nothing but my birthday suit.”

I hadn’t been in the command center since the very day I woke up the DERTA from its slumber. While I wouldn’t have been surprised of Saios doing some housekeeping there, I had not expected him to entirely remodel the room.

Gone were the desks set up in concentric circles around the central stand. Now, a large conference table sat in their stead, surrounding a holographic projection of the DERTA, its pale blue hue slowly casting dancing shadows on the far walls. While he had not removed the giant monitors, I could have sworn they had been moved around.

“Wow.” I stopped right after the heavy doors of the bunker. “I like what you did with the place.”

“In my opinion, those resources could have been put to better use elsewhere.” Chrystal was sitting at the table, a hoof under her chin and a trademarked sly grin on her lips. “Good morning, sweetheart. Did you have an enjoyable night?”

“I barely caught a couple hours of sleep,” I sighed, barely acknowledging her with a glance. There was no way I would indulge her little games in my exhausted state. “It simply eluded me, for some reason.”

“This morning’s little event bothers you, doesn’t it?” Her smile grew a bit… warmer? “I can relate. We are two of a kind – strong mares, our lives driven by the power and the love our skills provide us. When we cannot be in control of a situation that presents itself, it is understandable to feel a bit… uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

“Precisely,” I sighed. It was hardly a surprise that Chrystal could read me like an open book, but her presupposed kinship with me left me dubious and worried. “It’s not that I want to kill them myself. I’d just want to be able to, and it stresses me out to no end.”

“Well, if it bothers you this much, I can think of a few ways to relieve this stress you are feeling,” Chrystal purred, leaning forward over the table. Her expression had gone from ‘warm’ to ‘scorching’ in a split second, and so had the temperature of the room. “After all, the assault won’t start for another couple hours, and we are alone in a dark room…”

“Not now, please,” I groaned as a collapsed on a chair, my head dropping like a stone on the table. “We’re at work, remember?”

“Fiiine.” She threw herself back against her seat, her arms raised in surrender and a mockingly disappointed pout on her face. “But darling, it’s always work, work, work with you. I thought you had hired me for my irresistible charms and my witty personality, not for my boring competences as a businessmare.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” I mumbled. “By the way, weren’t you supposed to work with us for only one week? I would have expected you to try and extort another small fortune from us by now.”

“I have already renewed my contract with Saios.” For a moment her smile had melted into an imperceptible grimace. “You don’t have to worry about it however. I shall be with you for all the foreseeable future.”

“What?” I lifted my head from the table. “Saios, did you really give her more money without telling me?”

“No, I didn’t.” The AI sounded quite amused. “See, Spring, what our friend Chrystal here is not telling you is that she came to me with a very… extravagant proposition. Namely… a fifty-one percent share of the DERTA.”

“I am NOT…” I cut my outburst short when I noticed Chrystal had stopped bothering hiding her displeasure. “… and you said no, of course?”

“Obviously. I had no need to ask you about it.” He chuckled. “Not to mention you know very well this place is not mine to give away. Therefore, I decided to bring some… factuality to the negotiation table. Namely, that our dear friend’s business as a weapon dealer had very recently gone down the drain.”

“True,” I noted with a sly grin. “You had forgotten to mention that little detail, didn’t you, Chrystal?”

“A mare must know how to keep her secrets.” She didn’t seem pleased with the direction the conversation had taken. “Just like you forgot to mention your little team featured an AI and an alicorn.”

“It wasn’t a secret. You merely never bothered to ask.”

“It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to call it a latent vice instead.” She sighed in mock surrender. “Oh well. I’m afraid I will have to do with your charming company as a payment, since you outwitted the poor wretch that I am with your superior intelligence.”

“Oh, yes, because that’s exactly the way you roll,” I deadpanned.

“I suppose the promise of a fraction of the profits did help.” Her predatory grin was back. “And don’t you worry – I will find a way to get my hooves on a sizeable portion of your capital.”

“You wish.”

Behind me, the blast door slid open, allowing Evey and Meridian to walk into the command center. Right behind them, a chariot rolled of its own volition into view.

“Is that… food?” My ears perked up instinctively. “Please tell me you brought me croissants.”

“And coffee.” It appeared Chrystal had also spotted the containers on plate. “A mare needs her morning coffee.”

“I am glad to see you are no longer suspecting me of poisoning your drinks,” Saios quipped.

“A sudden and painful death would be a fair price to pay to be served in the last place in the world where ‘double espresso’ still means something.” Chrystal levitated a cup from the trail, and let out a relieved sigh as the steam engulfed her nostrils. “Oh yes. I’ll enjoy every drop of it, while it last.”

“Shit, I don’t know how you drink this stuff,” I frowned, as the strong smell made it way over the table. “It gives me the shakes, and I don’t even want to talk about the taste.”

“I would have thought you to be a coffee person.” Chrystal managed to show a wry smile even as she sipped her black beverage. “It does make the mornings… bearable.”

“Oh, I like coffee,” I chuckled. “But what you’re drinking? It’s not coffee, it’s petroleum.”

“Sadly, it appears even two centuries are not enough to teach Equestrians that coffee is not supposed to be served as a soup,” Saios quipped. “A very, very diluted soup.”

“Can it, you,” I smirked. “You’re Prench, therefore your opinion doesn’t matter. Besides, I’m pretty sure Evey agrees with me.”

“Sorry, I’m afraid I’m more of a tea pony,” the alicorn apologized. “Perhaps Meridian…”

“Not a chance,” he chuckled. “I’ve got enough of a cigarette addiction, I don’t need to add coffee on top of that.”

“Traitors, traitors everywhere,” I sighed. “Back to the business at hand. What are our guests doing?”

On cue, the screens on the wall switched to camera feeds from the outside. I spotted half a dozen Rangers in power armor – two were standing guard at the tunnel entrance, while the rest were checking equipment in front of the door. A couple ponies in robe, who I assumed were scribes, were busy tearing the door’s terminals down.

“Is that it, or are they holding back reserves?” I asked. “For this plan of yours to work, we need all of them into the trap. We can’t have them running back to get reinforcements.”

“We have the advantage of superior recon, superior firepower, and superior mobility,” Chrystal noted. “They’d have a hard time escaping even if they somehow managed to get away.”

“They only have six soldiers in power armor. I find it unlikely they would split up,” Saios interjected. “As for their engineers, common sense would dictate they would stay where they can be protected by their escort.”

“Ironically this will prove to be their undoing,” Chrystal chuckled. “By the by, darling, Saios mentioned something about you wanting to capture one alive for interrogation?”

“Right, for interrogation,” Saios and I both simultaneously answered.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause, only broken by an awkward cough from Evey.

“Yes, for interrogation.” As Chrystal leaned forward, teeth bared in a terrifying smile, I could have sworn – but then again it could have been the light – I could have sworn her eyes flashed of an otherworldly glow. “It’ll be my pleasure to assist you in that task.”

“Your generosity truly knows no bounds,” Evey mumbled as she walked right next to me. Damn, girl, where did you find all this sass? “Spring, I know you are already aware on my stance on those methods.”

“Don’t bother pretending you guys never interrogated zebras back in your days,” I deadpanned, “because I won’t even pretend to believe you.”

“Interrogation doesn’t have to involve torture of a physical or psychological nature. As for the War…” She pursed her lips, as if she already regretted what she was about to say, “As for the War, international warfare laws made the humane treatment of prisoners an absolute right.”

“Yeah, sorry, lass, but I got to stop you right here.” Sunburn’s face was barely visible in the faint light of his cigarette, yet I could see his eyes being focused on something far, far beyond the bunker walls. “You can say many things about the way PoW were treated, and ‘humane’ was not one of them. And it ain’t much of an interrogation if you don’t even bother to ask any questions. They did it, we did it, and the International Court of Rights was the bottom of every joke made in prisons all around the world.”

“We turned the world to ash and doomed entire generations to oblivion.” Evey briefly made eye contact with me, but quickly turned away. “Is it so bad to hope they might be better people than we were?”

“It’s not that it’s bad, per se, but, Evey…” I sighed… “you have been outside, right? Whatever you guys call atrocities, we call a busy Monday morning. We ain’t better than you.”

“Would it hurt to aspire to be?” Ah, Meridian. Always the dreamer.

“We still have time to choose not to capture any of them,” Saios pointed out. “Nonetheless, I should point out this mean none of them would leave this place alive.”

“Fine by me either way,” Chrystal shrugged. “More intelligence is always a good thing, but not as much as team cohesion.”

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a team player.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know.” The seductress shot me a wink. “So, darling, what is it going to be?”

“Great, of course now I have to choose,” I groaned as pairs of eyes all around the room stared at me expectantly. “Fine. Let’s try to keep one of the scribes alive, we’ll see what to do with them once we’ll get there.”

“I shall keep that in mind.”

Forty more minutes passed by, a handful of quips barely denting the silence that grew ever tenser. Somewhere along the line my pistol had migrated from its holster onto the table. Perhaps more surprising, it was soon joined by Chrystal’s sword.

And then, as the unnatural iridescence of the naked blade was faintly slicing pale glimmers into the thick shadows, the call finally came.

“They have interfaced with the terminal and began sending opening orders to the system.”

“All right then.” Across the table, Crystal’s pink eyes locked into mine. “Let them open Pandora’s box.”

Side quest updated: Blast from the Past
Objectives:

[X] Investigate the Steel Ranger issue (Primary)

[ ] Deal with the Steel Rangers expedition to Big Mountain (Primary)

[ ] Deal with the Steel Rangers in Danger’s Hill (Primary)

Level up!

New perk:
Slow Fall: Your cat-like reflexes now extend out of combat. You are less likely to break a limb or suffer permanent damage consecutively to a fall or a shock.