• Published 12th Jul 2012
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Fallout Equestria - The Code of Honor - FireStorm2247



After losing her stable, a surface-born pegasus, Nova, fights alongside her fellow survivors to make a new life in the Equestrian southeast.

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Chapter 19: Virtue's Downfall (Part 1)

Author's Note:

BOOSH! After two months plus, here's part one of the next chapter for FOE: COH. With real life throwing a bunch of things at me, plus numerous distractions (video games *cough cough), writing's been going a bit slower, unfortunately. But I'm determined to get back into the swing of things whilst I continue losing weight to join up with the U.S. Army! So, as always, I hope you'll enjoy this new addition to Nova's story, and of course, constructive criticism is always welcome. Part two of this chapter is on the way, and spoilers, it's going to be a doozy. Carry on.

Chapter 19: Virtue’s Downfall

“You came… you inspired… you destroyed…”

“Did you hear the news? The boys and girls out in Harbinger found something in the sandstorms yesterday.”

Voices… voices in the dark…

“Your mission is complete, Nova.” Vance spoke as I finally let my eyes open, blinking back the tears that wanted to fall for a second time. “You’ve followed your orders, unlocked Guardian… you’ve upheld your part of the bargain. Now, as promised, your little brother will have his collar removed, and he’ll be safe when you come back.”

I’d done it…… Blake was going to be okay…

With Guardian revealed before me… with the Talons all around me, locking down the bunker, wiping it clean of the Hayward insurgents that had called it home, with other teams already entering the array chamber to gaze upon the missiles – their prize… despite it all, I found myself relaxing as I lowered myself down to all fours, a great weight lifting off of my back at the Major General’s words, to which I let out a weary but relieved sigh; it was response enough to him.

“They actually found something? What was it?”

I could just… just barely hear them…

“I was one of the first to see the new reports from that sector. The scouts detailed an Old World base past Griffin’s Bridge……”

Heavy… whatever force was trying to wake me up was pushed back down by the great weight of the dark… The voices were fading back… a thick congesting fog taking their place…

“I’ve ordered the Strikers to escort you back here. Now, if you would, please leave the control room and return to Trigger and the others.” Vance added. “I’ll be waiting at Stable One Eighty-four for your return.”

Gladly, oh so gladly, I put the Guardian mainframe and the missiles beyond the window behind me, returning to the scanner chamber with a slow, heavy stride. I was tired… so very tired… but soon I would be going home. Soon Blake would be free, soon we’d be together again, and then we’d go home together… yes… we’d go home…

Finally we’d go home…

“You’re kidding? Really? Is that why the whole Stable’s been so worked up the past twenty-four hours?” the second voice, a mare’s, asked with surprise, resurfacing through the darkness.

“Yeah. Since the brass doesn’t want to spare anypony from the Ashton brigade, half the outpost is emptying out to move into Trinity.” the first responded with energy, a stallion. “Colonel Seras says there’s something there that drove away the squads that discovered the place after contact with one of her advance scouts was lost. Some old defense system or something. That being the case, the General’s ordered a batch of reinforcements to move out in the next hour, and a new company’s coming in from Hayward to take their place. Should be here by tonight.”

The Talons…… moving?

“I hope it’s worth it – bringing more soldiers down here, I mean.” came the mare’s voice again, more somber now. “Seems like the council’s already poured a third of the city into this campaign… if not more.”

“Hey, it’s more than worth it, especially after yesterday.” the stallion replied encouragingly. “Remember Guardian? The force that took the place spent all day yesterday and all last night working on the thing. Now…”

A moment of clarity… then the weight was pushing back down on me once again, restraining me. I felt my eyelids move… just a twitch… but try as I might, I couldn’t get my eyes open.

Behind me, the door sealing the control room locked back up, only my ears paying it mind as the various locking mechanisms closed to seal away the chamber for the next pegasus to pass through. At the closing of the control room door, the scanner remained silent, the white lights staying lit. And then, I heard the gears of the next door beginning to turn, and finally looking up from the floor, I watched in thankfulness as the locking mechanisms gave way, the door splitting open and sliding away to let me go, to let me leave this place and everything that I had done here behind.

The room was empty… the hall beyond was silent, only dim voices calling back and forth as Talon soldiers finished securing the National Guard Bunkers. But suddenly something came into view, flying quickly from within the hall and sailing into the chamber. The round black container bounced off the right wall from the speed of its flight, then falling with a thud to the floor before rolling toward me.

And then the canister emitted a single beep of sound before, with a blast of sound, my vision was consumed with a blinding flash of white.

“-about her?”

The mare’s voice breached the haze subduing my senses once again… only barely…

“The prisoner?” the stallion asked. “Well, I guess the General needs her for something… probably something to do with this new allocation of personnel.”

“I feel sorry for her…” the mare replied. “If I was being held captive… or my son was being held captive… Goddesses, I wouldn’t make it… Do you think the General…”

I cried out in alarm, staggering back as my eyes stung painfully from the flash, my ears ringing with a thin grating whine that stabbed into my skull without mercy. My head was pounding… I could feel my heart beating rapidly… I could hear my breath as a muffled roar like wind against my ear…

I stumbled from the shock, barely catching myself as my front right leg abruptly gave out. With a gasp, I caught myself on my other foreleg, quickly spreading myself out to keep me balanced. But then, as I tried to push myself back up to a full stand, all of my legs begun to feel… I… oh Goddesses, I… I couldn’t feel my legs…

I couldn’t keep myself up.

With my limbs giving out I crumpled to the floor, landing hard on my right side as a heavy fatigue begun to settle, pressing down on me from all around. As my head came to rest, my eyes facing out to the hall, a pony finally emerged. Trigger… his rifle held off to the right side as he approached me. Behind him, Quicksilver emerged, following the same route as her superior as Aeryn came into view next, stepping around and lingering out in the hallway. All their eyes were on me as I lay there, head still pounding, heart rate quick… body relaxing… eyelids growing heavy…

And from behind Aeryn, another griffin emerged, meeting my eyes with a cold glare…

“going to keep her safe either way. She’s a high-value asset now, especially after Guardian and realizing that similar arcane tech might exist out there. You know what the General found out about her. That kind of a connection can’t be a coincidence…”

The weight… fading in and out… more rapidly…… a pulse…

“I know…” the mare spoke in reply. “But that poor colt is so scared right now.”

“The General’s no child killer.” the stallion assured. “They’ll both be fine so long as she…”

“She’s not going anywhere, General.” Blackhawk spoke in a stifled voice, his big clawed forepaw stepping down just inches away from my muzzle.

The General… what was he doing?? What was-

“Good. Bring her back, and we’ll put her back in her cell.” Vance replied over a radio speaker attached to his armor. “Nova. You shouldn’t pass out for another few seconds yet, so listen carefully. I want to assure you that no harm is going to come to you or your brother. Like I said before, you followed orders and you unlocked Guardian for us, so his life is no longer on the line. However, while you were in the National Guard Bunkers, I received new intel regarding updates in a different sector of the region… and we’ve found a rather shocking connection between it… and you yourself. When you wake up again, I’ll show you what I’m talking about, because I think it’s something that even you are going to want to see. But for now, I’m afraid that I cannot allow you to leave our custody.”

No… no, this wasn’t happening…

I felt Blackhawk’s claws, a single paw moving under my side as the griffin prepared to pick me up… and I could hardly move any part of me to even try and fight back, to escape despite how desperately I desired it. Only my eyelids moved now, slowly drooping down as the ringing in my ears dissolved, my heartbeat slowing as my body relaxed, the sting in my eyes lifting away to let me be.

And in the dark, Vance’s fading voice spoke again. “Because I’m going to need you now even more than I needed you for Guardian.”

Betrayed… betrayed again…

I surrendered to the effects of the crippling device, my eyes fully closing as fatigue overtook me, blanketing me in the darkness of sleep.

“What are we going to do?” the mare asked through the dark, her words only a whisper now.

“First, we need to finish packing up. We’ll leave her be for right now.” the stallion replied, his words equally concealed. “When we’re about ready to move out, then I’ll wake her up and we’ll…”

One more time the darkness pressed, a gentle ethereal hoof urging me to sleep once more as it pushed away all sound from the world.

And sleep once more I did.

*** *** ***

Touch…

A nudge on my shoulder…

“Come on, wastelander. Get up.” The familiar heaviness that had kept me sleeping was gone as I woke, allowing for the sound of a male voice to reach me clearly amidst the gentle mechanical humming of some kind of power generator. My senses were… clearer again… and at the words that reached me, my eyes fluttered open with ease. I could see even through the thin blur the legs and hooves of another pony, standing just in front of me. I was laying on my right side on a metal floor, warm until I begun to stir, slowly shifting my legs for the sake of moving them again.

“That’s it. Come on.” the stallion urged patiently. “We need to get you moving.”

The stallion stepped over to the side then, his left foreleg lifting away, and I flinched at the touch of his hoof on the back of my neck as he gave me another nudge, further pressing me to get back up to a stand. With a tired grunt I forced myself to move, pulling my right foreleg back to plant a hoof onto the floor, my left following suit. Then, with a shove, I pushed myself up to get my hind legs under me again, rising slowly.

“Good.” the stallion spoke in approval. “Whoa, careful…” As I tried to stand up full height, I stumbled from a misplacement of weight and landed full against the stallion’s side before I caught and resituated myself. “Take it slow, now. Those spark grenades pack a punch.” With his help, I stood solidly on the floor, blinking away the last of the blur from my eyes to behold the sight of a small boxlike metal room, with only the door just ahead to break the smooth surface of the far wall; it was a familiar sight… one from the recent past.

“Here. Drink some water.” Beside me came a gentle hum of magic, drawing my eyes over to see a small glass tonic as it floated over before my muzzle, filled to the top with clear clean water. Gently the stallion guided the bottle to my lips, pressing it against them, and without hesitation I took it and titled it back to drink. Though a little warm, the water soothed my dry throat immediately, all the better as the stallion let me down the bottle to the last drops. Only when I pulled my head back from the bottle did he float it back to him, and with a sigh I closed my eyes, long enough to take in another breath before opening them again. “Feel a little better now?”

My eyes flicked back up to the closed door of my plain room, and after a moment’s pause I glanced to my right to find him, seeing a beige unicorn with a steel-grey mane securing the bottle to a clip on the side of his black uniform barding. I recognized the color, saw the three ends of white on the left side of the chest piece – the ends of the trio of gashes that made a Talon mark; and that was what sparked remembering, a recognition of my surroundings… of this place.

I knew where I was now – in a cell… my cell in Stable 184.

“It’s going to be a long day today.” the unicorn added, the light of his horn fading. “I’ve been asked to take you to the General’s office when you’ve woken up. He’ll tell you why, and then he’ll let you see your little brother. I’m sure you’d like to know how he’s doing.”

Blake…

“Where… where is he?” I questioned, swallowing.

“He’s fine.” he answered easily. “He’s in his cell, same as before, except not wrapped up in chains. He doesn’t have that collar on anymore either.”

“I want to see him… please…”

But the Talon soldier shook his head. “I’ve got to take you to Vance first.” he replied. “Don’t worry, we’ve been taking care of your brother and he’s perfectly safe. You’ll see him again soon enough, but right now the General needs your help again, and he wants to talk to you about it soon as you’re awake and on your hooves.”

The General… he wanted my help again… again…… even after I had delivered what might have been the most powerful intact weapon remaining from the Old World into his hooves… and he still wanted my help…

Of course he did… it was why he had brought me back wasn’t it? It was why he had deceived me… captured me once again…

It was why I wasn’t with Blake…

“Help… help with what?” I dared to ask, turning away to look upon my cell door.

“I don’t know.” came the Talon’s response. “He didn’t go into any specifics, but he did say that the connection he found between you and our newest discovery in this region was… well, shocking. Said he thought he was hallucinating the first time he saw whatever it was he saw, but I’m sure he’s more than ready to tell you everything he knows.”

No…

No, I just… Vance had given me his word that he would let us free. Once I’d unlocked the Guardian Project, once I’d handed him the keys to that lethal Old World secret, he’d promised that Blake and I would be reunited and that we would be able to go home together.

He’d given me his word

“Why can’t I see my brother right now?” I demanded, words hushed. “I just want to see him again, to see for myself that he’s okay.”

“I’m sorry, but the General’s instructions were clear.” the stallion persisted, my eyes beginning to narrow. “What he needs you for is urgent, and he needs to talk to you now before we begin our relocation, which both you and your little brother will be participating in.”

My body was on the verge of shaking… I could feel that same cold dread that I had felt back in the bunkers as it wormed its way back to me, bearing a sinister toothy grin wrapped in a frightening twisted face……

No… no, I couldn’t go through this again… not after Guardian… I just couldn’t…

General Vance had gotten me to do his bidding in the National Guard Bunkers, gotten me to cooperate by using my baby brother’s life as leverage, using Blake as the collar that closed around my neck to make me obey, as the leash that tied me to the General’s hoof. I’d done what he’d asked me to do. I’d given him that Old World project, opened the way for him because I was the only one who could, because I was the only pegasus around for miles, the only type of pony that the strange technology guarding the project would allow to pass through the door. And now, through me, General Vance had a whole arsenal of missiles at his disposal, missiles that he was going to repurpose and then launch in a massive offensive maneuver in the Talons’ war against Challenger.

And yet, even after all that I’d given him, all that I’d betrayed the moment I passed the scan and activated Guardian… he still aimed to keep me leashed to him.

“What more could I possibly give him?” I asked lowly, bowing my head to stare at the floor. “I’ve already given him more power than he should have by unlocking Guardian… so what else could he possibly need me for now, especially after that?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” the stallion responded in thought, magic humming to life once again. “Like I said, he didn’t really detail anything to the rest of us. That’s why you need to come with me to his office – he’ll explain everything to you, and I promise, after that, you’ll see your brother again.” Immediately after, I heard a light jingling sound, the unraveling of a chain before it was pulled taught, and when I looked back up and turned, I saw a set of shackles floating toward my front legs. Wordless, the guard brought them forward, the clamps opening before he set the steel against my coat, right below my knees. For just a moment I felt the sudden swelling of an urge to pull myself away at the cold touch of the metal, to dodge the shackles and to keep myself away from this buck. The feeling emerged outwardly as only a twitch in my right foreleg… but it subsided just as fast, and I remained still as the clamps closed around me like two pipbucks. Even as he locked the bonds in place, letting the chain flop down with a jingling of the links as he released the restraints with his magic, the metal pressed all around, digging into me to serve as a reminder of my capture… of both of them…

“But if I might say…” the guard with me suddenly spoke up, another chain rattling as a second set of shackles floated out of another pocket; I looked to him. “If you were a Talon… or at least if you were allied with Hayward, the ponies back in that city would welcome you as a hero for what you did out there yesterday.”

“Well I’m not a Talon.” I snapped with hate, casting a dark glare to him; a hero… I was stopping this conversation right there. “And I had to betray everypony I care about just to give Vance his precious weapon! So don’t you dare call me a hero!”

He at least had the decency to hesitate in his next remark, flinching back just an inch from me to stare in silence “Look… all I’m saying is that whether you believe it or not, you’ve saved lives by getting Guardian open for the General, and I’m going to thank you for what you did whether you want me to or not.” he persisted after the pause. “Hayward’s facing its own dangers both on home turf and across the wasteland, and thanks to you we can finally gain the high ground against them.”

“By waging war with neutral settlements??” I angrily spat.

“By destroying the threats to Hayward’s security before they get the chance to act.” the guard corrected firmly. “Challenger and Ashton and the communities that survive off of them together makes one of the few groups in the whole wasteland that has the potential to cause Hayward serious harm. Ten years ago they beat us back, and back then, just like now, we had them outnumbered and outgunned, even with the help they got from all over the wastes. Couple that with the way they’re growing nowadays, and the Hayward Council sees it as only a matter of time before Challenger begins to expand outward beyond the southeast, thus bringing their own war to our doorstep. Whether it take months or years, we don’t know and we don’t care. We’re just making the first move before they have the chance to.”

I snorted in disbelief, turning away before I felt the touch of metal on my hind legs. “And not one of your so-called leaders ever thought of a peaceful solution?” I asked bitterly, forcing myself to ignore the second pair of shackles. “They just invited open warfare?”

“I imagine they did look for peace before all this started.” the stallion answered, the shackles lifting away as a single note of mirthless laughter escaped him. “But considering the bad history between Hayward and Challenger… well, that isn’t really an option anymore.” I could only shake my head at that, turning away from the Talon soldier with a frustrated sigh… feeling a familiar angry flame beginning to flicker within me as I scowled to the floor.

“Now, let’s get these shackles on, and then we’ll-”

A grating wail of sound suddenly pierced my ears, playing out in one continuous note before falling silent, then picking up again. And as the sound played again, a white light within my cell begun to flash in a rhythmic pulse, twice for every blaring of the sound… sound that was Stable 184’s warning alarm.

“What the hell?” the beige stallion spoke in surprise through the blaring siren, the unicorn looking toward the door of my cell as I turned to him. “Something’s up…… might be Marefax raiders.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Raiders are attacking here?”

“I don’t know. They usually stick to the ruins further west.” he answered, taking a step forward. “But something is…”

Something… or somepony… was attacking the Talons?

Goddesses…

I didn’t want to believe it… I didn’t want to assume that… but… I shivered with the thought… my fear suddenly entering brutal combat with a surprise first strike from a spark of hopeful anticipation…

Could it… could Gunny… Shore… did they come looking for me?

“You need to stay put, wastelander.” The Talon unicorn’s voice punched through my train of thought, and I looked back to him just as he begun to trot for the door. “You and your brother will be safe here on the Stable’s lower floor until whatever this is passes. I need to see what’s going on and assist.” But that spark was already swelling as he spoke, creating a volatile mixture in me that pushed me to act, pushed me to move… to attack. Even as the guard approached my cell’s door, already seeing me as nothing more than an obedient prisoner behind him, I was feeling myself beginning to tense as the spark grew stronger, raging into a more violent form that stimulated me, powered me – the thought of what this attack might be, what opportunity it could give me…

It could very well be my only chance to see Blake again… to see my friends again… at least as a free mare…

I couldn’t stand idly by this time… I couldn’t let the General use me again…

I wouldn’t let him…

And I lunged.

One moment I was still, watching the guard’s back as he reached a hoof up to my cell door’s control panel. Then, with a fierce cry, I was rushing forward, a flap of my wings combining with my springing jump to propel me swiftly to my target. And just as I did he whirled around to face me, and only his eyes had time to react, going round before we collided. The force behind my dive carried us both into the wall, and together we hit it hard, him crying in surprise in unison with my head rebounding harshly off the steel. Dazed on the floor, I fought for leverage, just as one of the guard’s forelegs wrapped around my left side and shoved. I lost my ground, tripping over myself and nearly falling over onto my side. Still I kept myself standing, even despite the shackles around my forelegs, but the guard was already scrambling back up to all fours, his horn beginning to glow brightly as he reached for a hidden weapon. I sprang again, throwing myself forward at the new threat, and with my leap I crashed into him again in a solid tackle. It was just enough to knock him off his hooves, and I carried him to the ground with me, my momentum sending me over his back before the two of us skidded along the floor to come to a halt in the corner of the room. Both of us had landed on our left side, and with us came the clattering of steel, the sound of the combat knife that fell from the guard’s telekinetic grasp. Immediately the stallion tried to clamber back up to counter, but I was faster to rise, and swiftly I threw myself back over him with another cry.

“Attention all personnel! An intruder has been identified near Castle’s northwest corner! Target was spotted coming in from the Marefax skyline, and pipbuck scans show the target is utilizing stealth technology to avoid detection! All shift one combat teams report to your assigned posts at once! All shift three personnel report to your superior officers for new orders!”

Once again, the sudden pressing of my full weight against him brought him back down to the floor. With him downed again, I brought my forelegs forward, extending them full and planting my hooves to the floor before drawing them sharply back, and with a loud rattle the chain of my shackles dragged along the metal plate before they hooked around the guard’s neck. But as I attempted to pull the chain up, the guard’s head suddenly lurched back, and with a yelp of pain I jerked away from the back of his head connecting with my muzzle. Before I knew it I was then pulled bodily forward, the guard having gotten his forehooves on the chain and then tugged. Two thick drops of red fell from my muzzle at the sudden change of direction, splashing onto the back of the unicorn’s head before I was struck with his skull again, a lighter hit, but still enough to draw more blood from my nose that speckled the coat of his neck. But just as he was about to get the chain out from under his muzzle, his horn flaring to life simultaneously to reach for his bowie knife, I turned in desperation to one more move, and leaning forward, I opened my mouth wide and chomped down hard on his right ear. That got him to scream, and I immediately felt and tasted blood on my tongue as I mercilessly drove my teeth into the sensitive organ. He released the chain, the knife dropping again with it, as he thrashed his head to the side, trying to bring himself back up to his hooves to shake me off of him. At that he released himself, my teeth grinding harshly against the stallion’s hide as he broke free, and I caught a glimpse of his now hideously mauled and bleeding ear before I focused on my shackles, now free from the stallion’s hooves. And with an enraged scream I yanked up with all my might, finally closing the chain over the guard’s neck and pulling hard.

Immediately he choked, getting to his hooves before he lunged back to throw himself against the wall. Together we hit it in his effort to shake me, but I held the chain tight, the shackles digging almost painfully into my forelegs with the effort. He staggered away from the wall then, only to turn back and slam into it again, my hold on him only strengthening as I clung to him. Once more he tried, this time putting the wall to our back before he reared up onto his hind legs. This time I hit the wall in full, both my back and my head hitting hard, and he coupled it by snapping his head back once again, crimson splattering thickly onto the beige coat of the back of his neck from my already openly bleeding muzzle. Again I cried, a shockingly potent sting ripping through my injury from the third hit, but in retaliation I threw my weight to one side, and with him only on his hind legs, the both of us toppled over onto our left sides; and still I didn’t let up.

“Attention all personnel! Shots fired near the Stable Warehouse! Target is reported to be wearing power armor and is heavily armed and dangerous. All teams – shift three and shift one – converge on Stable One Eighty-four!”

Now, I felt as the stallion’s struggles were finally becoming weaker, his thrashing more sluggish… he was beginning to fail; I had him where I wanted him.

With a sharp tug on the chain, I growled into his bleeding ear. “Spill your guts before I do!” I threatened menacingly, forcing myself to ignore the steady streamer of blood that was trailing down my lips and to my chin. “Where’s my brother’s cell?!”

I won a pained gag from the unicorn as he struggled, squirming for any way to try and free himself from me. “This floor… left out of here…” he wheezed. “Last cell on the right side… of the hall…”

“Is it locked?” I demanded, giving another hard jerk on the chain as encouragement for his cooperation. But he only grunted as his horn begun to glow with light in response; it was dimmer and flickering unevenly, but on the floor, the unicorn’s bowie knife begun to lift up. “Don’t fucking try it!” I warned darkly, pulling harder on the chain to draw out another ragged gag from the buck before the knife clattered back to where it belonged. “You tell me what I need to know, and I let you walk away from this. Got it?” I didn’t wait for his acknowledgement. “Is… his cell door… locked?” I repeated.

“Security keypad…” he managed to choke out, a short cough following his words.

“What’s the passcode?” I growled, only slightly slackening the hold of my shackles, the better to hear him speak.

“Three… eight, one… four, five…”

“Are you lying to me?” I questioned, pulling back on the chain, feeling the suffocating guard squirm against me in response.

“No… no…” he repeated; I could hear the desperation in his weakening voice… he definitely wasn’t lying to me.

No… he just wanted to breathe. He just wanted to escape… to live.

I nodded my approval. “Good.” And with a grunt I yanked hard on the chain, pulling with all my strength. The guard choked as the chain dug into him, and again he thrashed, kicking out in vain, even trying to snap his head back to hit me in the muzzle again. His horn flickered in his struggle, but not even the knife would lift more than a hoof above the floor now. For a few more seconds the guard fought me, weakened, but a moment after and his body begun to shut down, one last twitch… falling still… and finally… nothing more…

He was dead.

With a heavy sigh I released my hold on him, holding my forelegs out straight to pull the chain of my shackles from under the dead Talon’s head, and with a grunt I hoisted myself up to all fours as I fought to get my quickened breathing back to normal. Straightaway fresh blood dripped off the end of my muzzle and onto the floor, and with it came a clump of murky red that I spit out as, trying feebly to rid myself of the taste of blood.

“Explosions and heavy weapons fire reported at the Stable One Eighty-four entrance! I say again, explosions and heavy weapons fire reported at the Stable One Eighty-four entrance! All combat teams respond immediately!”

Looking up, I spotted the speaker box from which the anxious mare’s voice came from in the far right corner of my cell. Still the Stable’s alarms were blaring their dissonant warning note, the loud grating sound likely being the sole reason why other guards hadn’t come rushing into my cell. And with it, the light in my cell was still flashing without pause, maintaining its pattern… but through it all, I couldn’t hear any of this heavy weapon fire that the mare had reported…

I shook my head, bringing myself to focus.

“I’ve got to get Blake.” I spoke aloud, my breathing beginning to level out. “I’ve got to get him out of here.”

Looking down, I gave my right foreleg a brief shake, my bonds jingling in response to the quick motion. After a moment’s pause, I gazed back around over my shoulder to the dead unicorn, to his uniform barding and its array of pockets. “This chain’s going to slow me down…” I muttered, turning and making my way over to him. “He has to have a key…” Because once I got Blake, it was going to be a straight run to the surface, and I needed to be able to move unrestricted… especially to protect him.

Immediately I set my attention on the first of three pockets on the stallion’s right side, quickly patting them down one after the next. All three were flat when I pressed my hoof to them, all of them empty, and the pair of pockets on his chest were the same. With a huff I planted my forehooves on his belly, freezing with a light gasp to snap my eyes to the door… still closed…… I turned back to the dead guard, and with a hard shove, I managed to roll him onto his back, and then over onto his opposite side. There I could see the small bulge of the second pair of restraints he had intended to put on me in the center of the three pockets, and sure enough, when I patted him down, I felt something small in the rightmost pocket, something thin but solid – the key I needed.

But just as I begun to pull the guard’s body back to reach it, a deep boom suddenly echoed, dim, but still reaching my ears even through the thick Stable walls. I even felt vibrations in the floor which drew my eyes to the ceiling, as if somepony would come tearing through it to land in my cell. And just after, a second boom traversed through the Stable, an even stronger vibration coursing through the floor to reach my hooves as the sound of the detonation lingered. I took that as new incentive to move, turning back to the guard and rolling him toward me to tilt his pockets down toward the floor, and smooth and easy, a slender iron key slipped out and hit the floor with a pair of light clinks. Letting its former owner free to fall over onto his side again, I pawed the key away from the corpse before reaching down and scooping it up. And after a brief taste of the floor, I situated the key in between my front teeth before getting to work.

“Alert! Alert!” the speaker suddenly blared, the mare behind it sounding nearly panicked now. “Long-range artillery has targeted the compound! All flak gun crews report to the garage! All sharpshooter and heavy-weapon wings report to the armory!”

Artillery…

With a grunt, I sat down on my haunches and raised up my shackled forelegs, leaning forward to check over the clasps with newfound haste. Lowering my head down, I found the keyholes for both clamps built into the metal, facing in towards each other. Keeping the key flat between my teeth, I ducked in and reached out for the lock on the left clamp. It was positioned so that I couldn’t directly reach it, not until I turned my forelegs toward me. With a small twist, I cocked my head to the right as the keyhole faced me, and carefully, I leaned forward further, nearly crossing my eyes as I fought to align the key to its hole. But after two tries, the key fell right into place, and with a grateful twist to the right, the lock clicked in submission and the clamp fell away from my leg as I removed the key. With the first shackle gone, the second was much easier to reach, and like the first it fell away, the bonds clattering to the floor, chain, key and all.

A third boom rippled through the Stable with a sound like distant thunder as I returned myself to a full stand, and as a fourth followed suit, I trotted briskly to my cell door and jabbed the console beside it. At my command, the door disappeared into its slot in the wall to reveal the prison hallway, and pressing my side up against the wall, I immediately picked up voices in the air. They were coming from the right side, and as I focused my hearing, I heard nothing from the left. The cells seemed unattended because of the attack, especially now because of the sudden drastic increase in the severity of the Talons’ situation. And sure enough, when I poked my head out to look, I found the hallway to the left completely empty.

Back to the right, a single Talon soldier galloped by as he fumbled with his levitating rifle, running and loading it at the same time. But after a second of no other activity, I looked back the other way and crept out into the hallway, stepping out into the illumination of another orange warning light, flashing in time with the Stable’s siren. At first I moved slow, crouched down and looking back over my right shoulder to keep an eye on the passage. But as the alarm continued to blare, the soldiers answering their call to arms to defend their outpost, I picked up the pace to a cautious walk, then a silent trot, and then to a run, facing the hall and immediately finding my target door. Just in front of where the prison hall dead-ended, the door on the right was closed up tight, and a panel nearby it was glowing with green light like a standard terminal, sharing the same flickering light as the same single panel that accompanied the other doors in the hall.

Slowing myself to a trot as I approached, I could make out the keypad on the door control, sitting underneath the glowing glass screen. When I faced the pad, I reared up onto my hind legs and planted my forehooves on the wall to either side of it, balancing myself before reaching down and jabbing at the square keys. “Three, eight… one, four, five.” At a tap of the final key, I looked to the screen, a moment of anticipation passing by, before my ears perked at a single chirp from the console. Then, to my left, a locking bolt clicked from its place inside the wall, and with a short hiss, the door to the cell slid away into its port in the wall, opening the chamber. I lowered myself down to all fours as it opened, checking the opposite end of the hallway once more. Again it was empty, but again, another dampened boom echoed from above, from the surface, with another consecutive explosion following shortly after, both of them driving me forward.

“Alert! Enemy artillery units located to the east! All combat wings respond! Enemy power-armor unit still at large inside the Stable! All security teams continue pursuit!”

Turning to the opening, I trotted ahead to face the cell, only to find that the room inside, looking exactly like my own, was empty. The same was the case for the far corner of the chamber when it emerged from behind the doorframe, completely void of any occupants, let alone my little brother. But then, as I peered along the cell’s front wall, my eyes fell upon something… or rather somepony… the room’s single occupant.

The wave of relief was nearly staggering.

Huddled up tightly in the room’s front corner farthest from the door was a single small gray pony with a blue and white mane and tail, the colt facing away from the entrance where he lay. True to the General’s words, Blake was no longer garbed with heavy chains and shackles, and even better, he was free from the explosive collar that Vance had threatened to use on him. He lay atop a single white blanket, torn in multiple places and heavily blemished with dirt, and close by was an empty metal tray with an accompanying cup, squat and tarnished. But most important, he looked uninjured and physically healthy, and aside from a slightly more disheveled mane, he looked exactly as he had when I last saw him.

To that end, the General looked to have actually kept his word.

Just as I stepped into his cell, the colt’s ears twitched even at the lightness in my step, and his head snapped around from its resting place on the blanket for his wide eyes to look upon me. For a moment the two of us stared, and in him, I saw the terrible uncertainty that swirled within his thoughts, the hesitation towards believing just who it was that he was now seeing… the doubt that I was who I really was. But then he spoke, only a single word reaching me… my name… a question… suspicious but, more than that, so hopeful.

And my name on his lips was all it took for me to rush him.

The colt shot up to all fours just as I lunged into a gallop, and he didn’t even get to fully turn and face me before I skidded to a halt and pulled him into a crushing hug, one that he returned in full as he begun to openly weep. My baby brother held on to me for dear life, and his sobs only got me to pull him even more tightly against me, the world around us, mercifully, waiting for us in the moment of our reunion. And as he begun to audibly fight to suppress his sobs, I begun to shed my own tears, one that was immediately followed by a second, and I shut my eyes tight as the both of them trailed down my cheeks, only reaching a hoof up to stroke the back of my dear brother’s neck.

“I thought… I thought I would never see you again… Nova…” Blake spoke, his words split again and again with his crying.

I took in a breath from the pain in his voice, letting it out as I mustered my first words, the first I’d spoken to him in days. “Oh Blake… I’m here, now.” I replied, turning to nuzzle him along the side of his neck. “I’m here…”

He pulled harder around the back of my neck at my efforts to console him, refusing to ease the strength of his hold on me even a little. And in our silence, the same scared mare on the PA once again filled the Stable with her warning voice. “Contact with enemy power-armored unit reported at the Stable’s main staircase! All units inside the Stable converge on the staircase and shoot on sight!” The artillery from outside replied to her warning, two more explosions that sounded nearly in unison sending stronger vibrations through the Stable floor. And following it, I picked up a new sound from outside Blake’s cell, also dim, but something I could identify as a third explosion, one of a smaller but still potent yield.

And it sounded close.

“Blake…” Opening my eyes again, I drew a hoof back to press against Blake’s left leg, gently trying to get him to ease away from me. “Blake, look at me.”

Though hesitant, the colt complied, his forelegs sliding free from around my neck as he leaned back to look up at me with watery eyes. But before I could speak again, he suddenly leaned up toward me, studying my face as he reached a hoof up to touch my left cheek “Are you okay, Nova?” he asked with instant concern. “You’re hurt…” Yes… even now I was still bleeding… and in the moment of our reunion, I’d smeared Blake’s hair along where I’d nuzzled him with my own blood, something I instantly regretted. “What happened to you?”

But what made me wince was that question, that question of what I’d done to reach him… and I didn’t want to tell him the answer, that I’d killed a Talon guard the way I did; he didn’t need to know that…… not right now. “Don’t worry about me, Blake.” I answered firmly, locking eyes with him. “Right now, we need to get out of here.”

“What do you mean?” he questioned, lowering his hoof away from me. “Did they let us go now? Can we go home?”

I shook my head, my baby brother leaning back as his eyes slightly widened at the answer he didn’t want to receive. “No they didn’t. But we’re leaving now whether they want us to or not.”

“W-why didn’t they let us go?” he asked shakily. “You did what they wanted, right?”

“Yes I did… I did what they wanted… but they lied to us.” I explained, lowering my head down to match his eye-level. “The General wanted to keep us here for something else.”

“For what?” Blake asked anxiously. “Why?”

“I don’t know, baby brother.” I replied, shaking my head. “He didn’t tell me, but I don’t care what he wants. I’m not going to let them keep us here another day to send us to Celestia knows where. I’m going to get us back home.”

“W-what are we going to do?”

I could feel him trembling before I released him, then taking a step back and glancing back to the open door of the room – clear for now. “We’re going to escape this place. And when we get back outside again, we’re going to make a straight nonstop flight back to Hopeville.” I responded, turning back to him. “That’s why I need you to relax, okay? I need you to be calm and I need you to focus. Can you do that for me, Blake?” Though it took him a moment, Blake eventually nodded, even if the motion was a little quicker and erratic. “I know you can.” I encouraged, putting on my best comforting, albeit bloodied, smile. “Okay.” Looking back to the door, I turned to face the entrance, approaching the opening. “When we get out there, you stay close to me at all times, and you move only when I tell you to. Some of the guards are still here, and we can’t let them spot us.”

“O-okay.” he replied, stepping up beside me as I leaned up against the wall, listening for activity in the hallway. “What if they find us?”

“Then you stay behind me and let me deal with it.” I replied lowly.

A shaky sigh replied to that, drawing my eyes back to Blake where he stood. “Nova… I-I’m scared…”

“Hey.” I immediately lowered myself down to his height, the frightened colt’s eyes following me all the way. “You can do this, Blake. I’ll be right with you the whole way through, okay?” Again, hesitantly, he nodded, turning to look away as he took in a breath and let it out. “Hey…” Once more he turned to me. “I love you.” I said, smiling again for him. “We’ll make it, together.”

This time, he nodded more confidently… and bless his brave heart, he even smiled a little in return.

“Okay.” With greater sureness I looked away and back to the hallway, still empty, and cautiously I took my first steps back into the open. Thankfully, the hall in its entirety was still unattended, and the reason behind it announced itself once again, two more diminished detonations above sounding off to remind me of the battle outside. “The hallway’s safe, Blake. Come on out, and stay close to me.” I said over the Stable’s alarm, moving out into the hall.

“What were those noises?” the colt asked from just behind me as he followed.

“Artillery… I think.” I replied, keeping my eyes ahead to where the hall ended at an intersection chamber, a chamber to which the stairway leading to the second floor was attached. “I think somepony’s looking for us.”

“Really?” Blake asked hopefully. “Is Gunny and Shore and Gracie looking for us?”

I flinched, shutting my eyes a brief second before saying quickly, “Maybe. Maybe they are…” But after a moment, I added more collectedly, “I think it might be Buckley though.”

“You mean Archer?” Blake asked.

Archer…

Goddesses, he’d be a sight for sore eyes.

But just then, a new sound reached me over the Stable’s sirens, the sound of galloping hooves on the floor. To my right though was the open door to my cell… and as much as I didn’t want to… “Blake, get in that room!”

Quickly, I made my way over to the open doorway, turning to find Blake running to me before dashing by and entering my old cell. And just as I backed into the room after him, I paused as I caught sight of two black-armored unicorn stallions, both emerging into the intersection one by one from the right-side hall parallel to the stairs. “Patrol four here – we’ve searched the entire northeast quadrant of the lower level, still no signs of the intruder.” one of the bucks said as I ducked back into the room. “He must’ve hung back on the second floor and used his stealthbuck again.”

“We should get back up to the others then.” the second replied. “We can make one more lap around before we come back d-”

BLAM!!

Without warning a tremendous blast of sound assaulted my ears, an explosion that lessened into a crackling roar before fading away. Wide-eyed, I poked my head out into the hallway, looking back out into the intersection… the walls and floor of which were now heavily blackened, with absolutely no trace of the two Talon guards I’d seen just a second ago. But only a second later, and a new contact suddenly emerged from the stairway, moving on quick hooves into the intersection amidst the explosive residue that coated the floor. But though I flinched away, my gut telling me to hide before I was spotted, my eyes stayed locked to the new arrival… because the pony who had entered the corridor wasn’t garbed in another Talon uniform… but was clad in steel. In fact, the pony was all steel, a literal shell of solid gray plate covering the wearer from tail to muzzle. Built into the right side of the rig, facing me, was a weapon housing holding a compacted five-barreled minigun that was part of a heavy steel saddle welded into the armoring…

But above the weapon… plated like the rest of the pony… was a wing tucked against the pony’s side…

I couldn’t look away, even as the steel pegasus swung its head to the left to scan the hall for hostiles… and with the artillery sounding off above once more… only one thought crossed my mind, a thought I dared to speak aloud as I stepped out into the hallway, calling to the new arrival. “… Archer?” I asked, even the Stable’s alarm fading away. “Archer, is that you?” I risked a hopeful wish as the pegasus swung around to face me, a shiny black visor meeting my eyes as I stared, waiting for his voice to confirm my question. Indeed the pony was very much a pegasus, as the plated wing on the right side was accompanied by another on the left, tucked against the pegasus’ armored side just above the rig’s second weapon – a box-like assembly with four rounded ports built two-by-two, currently closed, making some kind of launcher weapon.

Then, with the pegasus’ eyes still on me from behind the helmet visor, “No… I’m sorry, but I’m not this… Archer.”

A mare…

A mare’s voice replied to me from within the helmet, the Stable siren returning in full as my hope at seeing a familiar face was dashed. Of course, I should’ve gotten the hint that it wasn’t Archer from the shape of the armor, sleeker all around to undoubtedly accompany a more feminine body… disappointing… “But I’m here to help you get out of this place.” the steel pegasus mare then spoke, trotting forward to approach as she pulled my startled attention to her. As she did, new steps sounded behind me, drawing my eyes over my shoulder to see Blake as he slowly emerged from our hiding place, only to stop dead in his tracks at the sight of the armored newcomer. “You have a child with you…” Blake immediately scampered away behind me, and I snapped my eyes back to the pegasus, instinctively taking a step back at finding that she had stopped midstride only a couple paces ahead, a foreleg poised above the floor as her visor stared back at us. “Is he your son?”

Her question was gentle, even concerned… but without my pipbuck’s E.F.S., I had no idea where this steel pony’s intentions rested, and steel or no, I was making ready to pounce. “Who are you?” I asked back in suspicion, keeping myself steady in front of Blake as he hid.

“I’m not an enemy, I promise.” she replied, looking back over her shoulder towards the intersection. “I found you when Talons brought you into the Stable last sunset, and I’m here to help you escape. But if I’m to do that, then I need the both of you to follow me now. I’m the one that’s been causing all the fuss the PA’s been screaming about, and Talon soldiers are right behind me.”

“Why do you want to help us?” I pressed. “Are you with Challenger?”

“There’s no time for more questions.” she replied sternly, looking my way as her head bowed slightly; I had no doubt she was fixing me with a glare behind her visor. “I’ll explain anything you want to know about me once we leave Marefax. But for now, if you want your child to live to see the outside again, then you need to trust me.” I exhaled at her assertion, unable to ease away my distrust. Behind me, Blake shifted, brushing against my back legs as he stepped out to look over our steel-clad endeavoring-to-be liberator. “Look, if I wanted to kill you two, don’t you think I would’ve done it by now?” she question, turning to her left to flash us her armor’s dormant minigun.

Her question didn’t win any favor from me, especially with her mention of attacking Blake… but with no Talon markings on her that I could see, and with the PA having gone off again and again about an intruder… there was truth in her words…

“Fine.” Turning about, I lowered my head down to look Blake in the eye again. “Blake, stay right behind me. This pony’s going to help us out of here, okay?”

“Are you sure?” he asked, looking away to peek over at the new pegasus.

“We don’t have much of a choice, Blake.” I answer, reaching over to nudge him on the side, urging him to move. “Come on. We need to move.”

“We can’t take these stairs.” the armored pegasus spoke up as I turned around; she was already trotting past them. “I saw the exit of another stairwell before I got to the Stable’s main staircase. This way.”

With silent compliance I picked up my pace to a trot, moving just slow enough for Blake to be able to keep up. Together we passed the intersection, and though the stairs were empty, I was hearing hoofsteps directly above me, the steps of another Talon patrol. Ahead, our new companion was already waiting at where the lengthier hallway hooked left, farther into the Stable. “Clear up here.” she said as Blake and I caught up. “Stay close to me.” When we joined her, the hall continued along in a long straightaway, this one divided at its center with three crossways leading into different sectors of the facility; my guess was that we were in some sort of maintenance area, perhaps near the Stable reactor.

“Judging by the layout of this hall, I’d say the center entrance on the left is the stairwell we’re looking for.” Our escort picked up her pace to a faster trot, guided by her own hypothesis. “Each of the others would likely lead to other rooms in this wing.”

“You might be right.” I piped up, checking over my shoulder to find Blake staying right on my tail.

“I don’t see anything on my compass.” she spoke a moment later as we drew up to the first of the three doors on the left side. “These doors should all be safe to open.”

“You have E.F.S.?”

“All power armor does.” the pegasus answered quickly, raising a hoof up to the door control pad. “Now keep an eye out while I check these entrances.”

Above, another pair of artillery shells struck the compound, the Stable floor vibrating as I turned about to trace our steps, looking for any Talons coming up behind us. The hallway was clean, and behind me, the door our companion was checking opened up. “Clear.” she said, already trotting ahead as she resealed the door. “I’ll check the next one.”

“Follow me, Blake.” I said over the note of the Stable siren, backing up and past the first door, Blake following my move and sticking close to my left side.

With the push of a button, the second door opened up behind us, this one remaining open. “Right here.” the steel pegasus said. “Let’s go.” But from the corner of the hallway suddenly emerged a pair of black assault rifles, with two unicorn stallions following suit as they swung their weapons about to face us. In that moment, the Talon soldiers had us in their sights, frozen only with the surprise of finding their target in the company of two others, two former prisoners.

“DOWN!”

Just as our pegasus companion shouted that command, I threw myself to the side, driving Blake to the floor and falling over him, using my own body to shield him. Then the bullets flew, the pair of Talons opening up together before an even stronger roar filled my ears, deafening as it traversed the hallway before exploding with a violent crack of sound. The assault rifles were silenced as the explosion rang in my ears, and before I could even look to get a sense of what had just happened, a steel foreleg hooked around my right side and pulled, a hard nudge to get me up on my hooves again. “There’s more of them just down the hall! We need to move!”

The ringing in my ears fading quickly away, I could hear the shouting as I collected my wits to push myself back up to all fours. Under me, Blake likewise forced himself up, immediately looking back the way we came as he hurriedly put me between himself and danger. But where two Talon soldiers had once stood were only two unmoving bodies, lying amidst a mess of blood and blackened residue… with three different limbs laying separate from their bodies…

“Blake, are you hurt?” I asked, tearing my eyes from the carnage to face my little brother, making sure to put myself between him and the gruesome sight.

“N-no…” came his shaky answer.

“Okay. Come on, Blake.” I urged, nudging him to turn around, facing him to where the power-armored mare was waiting by the second open door. “Come on.”

Thankfully he got moving quickly, hurrying over to the pegasus just as she wheeled to plant a solid buck into the door console, caving it into the wall with a heavy metal crunch. “Get in here!” she ordered.

Blake moved in first, clearing the entrance as I followed after him. Just as I crossed into the next hall, shouting voices reached my ears from the corner, and though I didn’t see, gunfire struck out again from both an assault rifle and some sort of shotgun. I wheeled around to find our steel comrade jerking back as bullets sparked off her armor’s chest plate and helmet, and in reply, her compact minigun whirred to life before spraying a virtual storm of bullets to return fire, speaking its hot words in a loud deep buzz of sound. Easily pushing the enemy back, she let the gun fall silent before leaping to us, crossing into the hallway before reaching up and pressing a hoof to the door control panel against the wall. With the grating of metal, the door slid back into its place and closed. “There. That should slow them-”

“All personnel! Enemy power armor unit reacquired near the reactor chamber with the prisoners from Hopeville! New incoming hostile infantry spotted engaging south and east perimeter sentries! All Stable teams move to secure prisoners! All surface ground teams move to intercept new incoming hostiles!”

The mare on the PA was clear even in this hall outside the main stretches, nothing more than a short approach that led to a set of straight stairs heading up to the next floor. “Damn… we need to keep going.” our pegasus friend spoke, moving past me to take the lead once more. “When they figure out that they can’t open this door they’re going to try and cut us off upstairs. Go.” At her word, I nudged Blake along once again, the trembling colt picking up his pace. And instead of keeping him behind me, I stayed by his side as we ascended the stairway.

At the top of the stairs was another closed door, unguarded from this side. But as we approached, the steel mare slowed her ascent, craning her head around to look back to me over her shoulder. “Whoever’s attacking this place might end up being our way out of here, so we need to hurry.” she said. “Hit the button to open the door, and I’ll cover the passage.”

With a nod I obeyed, hopping up the rest of the stairs and moving past her to reach the door. Looking back, she was already waiting for me to open the door, her two heavy weapons at the ready, and after a nod from her helmet, I reached up to the panel and hit the button. The door slid open with a gentle grating, and I quickly backed away as she rushed in, turning left to quickly scan the hall before swinging around to the right. One after another, three carbine rifle round sparked off her chest plate, only drawing a flinch from the mare before her minigun roared in response. But more rounds struck her from the front as her minigun briefly went silent, quick consecutive rounds from a pistol coupled with a steady stream of SMG fire creating a shower of sparks. Then her minigun buzzed again, a hail of bullets coupling with her second weapon as it launched another missile, the projectile screaming down the hall to connect with its intended target in a fierce blast.

“Follow me!” the pegasus called, crouching as a line of rifle fire sparked along the wall to her left. “The main staircase is just ahead!”

As her minigun spit lead again, I turned to Blake where he was hunkered down just behind me, staring fearfully toward our path. “Come on, Blake! We’re almost out of here!”

Despite his fear the colt complied, making his way up the rest of the stairs as I turned to face the perpendicular hallway. Our escort had already disappeared from sight, and when I poked my head out to see, I found the steel pony entering a familiar lounge chamber within which was the Stable’s main spiral staircase. She had carved a path to make her way there, three other ponies already laying shot full of holes at her hooves as she turned to her left, firing another minigun barrage into the hall. But as I stepped out into the open, making my way over to meet up with her, she jerked forward as more rounds struck her flank plates. And this time I heard her scream!

Lunging, the power-armored pegasus stumbled back into the hall, putting her back to us as I drew to a halt just behind her. On her armored flanks I could see the scuff marks where weaker-caliber rounds had been deflected by the steel, but mixed with them was a quartet of holes where armor-piercing rounds had punched through to score hits, blood already forming around the edges and dribbling down the metal in thin trails. “Pick up a weapon… agh!” she yelled to me, keeping her eyes ahead as she fought to remain on all fours. “I need you to cover me while I heal! Take that pistol!” Her right foreleg was raised, pointing a hoof to one of the dead Talon soldiers a pony-length away, and I immediately spotted the sidearm – a different model of a nine millimeter pistol with an extended magazine – still in its holster on the earth pony’s body.

Leaping over, I skidded to a stop by the weapon’s former owner and reached for the holster. “Down here!!” With a hard yank I ripped the weapon free as the frantic voice called to her companions, and spinning around I spotted a Talon unicorn as she brought a carbine rifle to bear. She got off one round, the shot deflecting off my companion’s armor to bury itself into the floor before I pulled hard on the firing bit. I fired round after round, the first three shots sparking off the floor right at her hooves causing her to spring back in surprise. I followed her with the fourth, the shot hitting the wall behind her, but the fifth hit home, striking her armored foreleg and staggering her before she managed to leap back to cover.

“Nova!!”

Blake’s voice called out in alarm, and my focus zeroed on him in a heartbeat. I reared up and spun around, finding Blake just as he threw himself to the floor. And as I landed I spotted the new threat he had seen, another Talon unicorn emerging from a corridor just behind us, a black assault rifle raised to fire. We shot in unison, and a trail of four more rounds sparked off of my companion’s armoring as five quick shots from me struck his chest plate one after the next. He took the hint, ducking away into the hall from which he’d come to take cover just as an explosion sounded behind me, our companion’s missile launcher firing before the projectile detonated in the lounge.

“The stairwell! Come on!”

“Alert! Additional contacts sighted in the Stable entry hall! All shift two teams move to support Stable security! Alert!”

Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the armored flier already pushing ahead again, moving a little awkwardly but still standing steadily on all fours with the holes in her armor having completely disappeared. With no time for questions and my mouth full of firing bit, I reached out and hooked a foreleg around Blake’s chest, pulling him along to get him to stay with me as I begun to follow our escort, keeping my back to hers to cover our trail as we begun to draw up to the lounge. Only a few steps in and the gunfire picked up again, the compact minigun buzzing to life again to respond to a blast from a shotgun, mixed with a short burst of lighter sub-machinegun fire, the fire from the latter sparking along the wall to my right. Then the same guard from before stepped back into the hall, swinging his assault rifle around to bring it to bear. But this time I was right on him, firing just as he lined us up in his sights, and he ducked back into cover as three more rounds from my pistol struck the wall just in front of him, nearly scoring hits. With a moment’s break presenting itself, I looked back over my shoulder to see our escape artist already pushing back into the lounge, recovering her lost ground as she put another barrage of rounds into the hallway to her left, driving back two Talons who sought to emerge from cover. She then switched directions, whirling around to face the right-side hallway before sparks erupted from her chest plate, two different weapons opening up on her. But the plate held this time, and she stood her ground under the fire as her missile launcher fired again with a blast of sound, the warhead disappearing behind the wall before its prompt detonation.

Just to my right side, metal struck metal with a sharp impact, startling my attention forward to see a new Talon with the assault rifle unicorn I’d kept at bay. Racking another shell into his weapon’s chamber, the second unicorn buck leveled the shotgun with me once again as I fired back, two rounds sparking at his hooves before the third caught him in the neck. His shotgun immediately dropped as he staggered, and his companion shoved him back into their position of cover before I targeted him once more, four rounds driving him back into hiding with his wounded squad-mate before my pistol clicked on an empty chamber. “Up the stairs, pegasus! Move!”

With a toss of my head I threw the now useless nine millimeter aside, and at our companion’s command I spun to face the stairwell. “Go Blake! Up the stairs!” But already he was turning with me, nearly slipping as he reared about in his eagerness to reach the safety of the surface, and as he got himself balanced and moving, I gave him a hard shove to get him going, keeping myself right on his tail as he made a break for the stairwell. Already the power-armored pegasus was at the base of the stairs, reared up on her back hooves as she opened fire on the top of the spiral staircase, driving back however many Talon soldiers were waiting for us on the first floor. But just beyond her, from the fourth hall leading to the lounge, four additional contacts were coming in, another fireteam galloping toward us side-by-side with assault rifle battle saddles primed. And with them, more voices were shouting from both the left and right, more soldiers already moving to box us in as Blake and I stepped up to the staircase.

“Nova! She’s here!”

“Get her up here! We need to get the hell out of this Stable!”

“Amber says they’re regaining ground at the warehouse! We need to scoot!”

With the Stable’s grating sirens continuing their unending blaring, I almost missed my name on the voice of a hidden stallion. But I heard it… oh I heard it… and though I didn’t find anypony at the top of the stairs when I looked, I swore that I recognized the voice that had spoken my name.

“Up the stairs! I’ll cover you!”

The power-armored pegasus stepped aside and toward the front hall to allow me through, minigun spinning up again before another storm of bullets hammered the team approaching from there. Shoving him forward, I forced Blake to move and ascend the staircase ahead of me, and half jumping I followed him up. The stairs coiled around twice before reaching the Stable’s top floor, and as Blake and I passed the first complete circle, hostile fire swelled to life below us, concentrating where our steel companion had just begun to move up the stairs behind us. But just as I turned back to Blake, seeing as he disappeared from the staircase into the first floor, I lost my balance on the stairs as I was suddenly thrown against the left-side railing, crying out as a sharp blast of white-hot agony ripped into my right flank.

“I got you, Nova! Come on!”

Through the shock of the sudden burn, I felt as a foreleg hooked around my own to pull sharply, and I was partly dragged up the rest of the stairs from the strength in the limb as I forced myself to move with the helping hoof. After four more steps, I stumbled onto level ground before I was released, and the sting in my flank immediately drew my attention to my new wound. A grotesquely sizeable hole had been put in me just above my cutie mark, and already it was dribbling crimson, a wound made by what had to at least be a three-o-eight round.

“Amber, this is team three! We’ve got Nova and Blake with us and we’re heading back up to the surface now!”

“I copy. We’re on our way to assist.”

Again came that voice as I forced myself to look away from my wound, facing forward as the same stallion called to me in question, “Nova, can you walk? We need to leave before we get cut off!”

And I found myself looking upon a pair of hazel eyes, eyes that belonged to a steel-blue stallion with a black mane and tail, with feathered wings… with a familiar face…

“Archer…” Goddesses… it was him… it was really him… “You came for me…”

The air force base sniper pony, fully geared with his rifle saddle, Longbow, and his light Buckley combat armor, glanced past me to my fresh wound, expression immediately wrought with concern as he made to speak again. But from behind him came a second pony that I recognized, a lime-green, white-maned unicorn mare similarly garbed in one of Buckley’s combat rigs. “Hey, we need to move!” Hope called over the combined gunfire and Stable sirens, giving Archer a solid shove. “Ricochet’s about to bring hell to this place, and that’s going to be your ticket out of here!”

“They’re right behind me!” a muffled voice warned from behind me, the sound of metal hooves on the floor drawing up beside me as my power-armored companion joined us.

“What the… who the hell’s that supposed to be??” another pony called, a gray unicorn stallion with an orange mane that I recognized as Bolt.

“Doesn’t matter!” Archer responded, stepping up beside me as he looked to the armored pegasus. “You! Help us out!”

“Go ahead! I’ll cover our exit!” the pegasus mare replied to him, all the answer he needed before he gave me a shove forward.

“Come on, Nova! Let’s get you and Blake out of here!”

Blake himself was right in front of me, trembling on his hooves as he kept close by, and as Archer moved me ahead, I did the same for him. “Stay right next to us, Blake!” I ordered to him, nudging him over to my right side to put him between myself and Archer.

A vigorous nod was all I drew from him for acknowledgement before I faced ahead and moved at a solid trot. In front of us, I found that Archer was accompanied not just by Bolt and Hope, but by an entire unit of Buckley guardsponies. Three guards each were covering both the hall to my left and my right that branched from the first floor lounge holding the spiral staircase, putting steady fire downrange to keep the Talon guards from gaining ground and taking back the area; already, both halls were marked with several fallen foes. With them, five more Buckley ponies were spaced out between us and a new staircase, one that I recognized from the first time I had left Stable 184, labeled as the facility’s entrance chamber access from the glowing signboard above the doorway; like the other halls, this one showed further evidence of the Talon casualties of the firefight.

One after another, the five advance guards entered the new hallway ahead of us, traveling single file and keeping their rifles close. Behind us, minigun fire alerted me to pursuers, and two stray shots suddenly sparked off the wall to my left, both Archer and I ducking down low as we crossed the short hall to the Stable entrance stairs. “Keep going, Nova! Once we get to the surface we’re going to fly you out of here! It’s a warzone outside, so don’t go flying off on your own!

I glanced over to the stallion as I struggled my way up the stairs, my wounded flank burning with every step. “How many ponies are here?” I questioned over the continuing fire.

“We’ve got a force of ninety here!” came his response. “Separate from us is a couple howitzer teams who’ve softened the place up for us so we don’t get overrun, but we need to get out before the Talons become too much to handle!”

Ninety??

I nearly stopped in place from Archer’s revelation. “You brought ninety ponies here?!”

“Look, it’s a long story!” Archer said back as we neared the peak of the stairway. “But your friends were the ones who galloped up to our doorstep and told us about your capture a couple days ago, and when they did Mother Shimmer immediately mounted a search! Gunny and Shore and Raemor are all mixed in with the fighting out there, along with a unicorn mare from your home – calls herself Ivy! We’re all here to get you and Blake out of this Talon station and back to Buckley where you’ll be safe! You can call it Buckley paying you back!”

Ninety…

Between knowing that Mother Shimmer had organized a party of nearly a hundred of her own ponies to come and rescue me, and hearing that my friends were a part of this effort, I was torn between a feeling of tremendous relief toward being rescued, and a sense of deep dread for just how many Buckley ponies were putting their lives on the line for Blake and I, fighting right outside against an entire outpost just to get us out. But above them both, pushing its way to prominence in my frantic train of thought, was the fear that was brought to life by Archer’s final sentence, his stating of the intent to free me from this place and bring me back to Buckley. It was a reminder, bringing me to retrace my steps back to the Southeast National Guard Bunkers and… and the Guardian Project… the cruise missiles there, and what Major General Vance had revealed to me when I’d completed his mission.

Archer, Blake, and I crossed over the last step and emerged into the familiar sight of Stable 184’s entrance chamber, the great gear-shaped door opened and the orange caution light flashing. Here, there was evidence of a much larger firefight that took the shape of well over a dozen black-armored corpses, all Talon soldiers who had been the first to engage Archer’s infiltration team. And among them, true to Archer’s word, was a group of ponies likewise garbed in the modified Stable security armor signature to Buckley. There were four of them, just a small team of two unicorn mares and two earth pony stallions, all gathered by the Stable door looking out over the concrete driveway that led to the surface.

“Hey! I need a healing potion over here!”

As one the team guarding the entryway snapped their eyes to us as we filed in, and one of the unicorn mares immediately focused on her saddlebags, setting her assault rifle aside to open up one of the packs. “Archer!” one of the earth ponies from the new team suddenly called back. “Just got a report from the captain – says his artillery crews are bugging out! He’s reported seven casualties and even more injuries, and he says they’ve got to retreat to keep it from getting worse! The wagons can only hold out so long against so many griffins!”

Casualties… oh Goddesses…

Beside me, I heard Archer swear to himself at the bad news as the three of us drew to a stop, the rest of his team trotting past us and towards the Stable door. “Alright, get ready to move! Ricochet’s coming in, so we’ll still have the cover we need to get back outside and rally up with the rest of the force!”

“Archer, here’s a potion!”

Trotting into my line of sight came the unicorn mare from before, a small healing potion floating in her telekinetic grip. “Nova needs it.” Archer explained, giving a nod to me when I looked his way. “She took a hit back in the lounge, and we need to reduce the bleeding long enough for her to get out of here and get proper medical help.” Indeed, a quick glance back around to my wound revealed that it had bled considerably while I was on the move, crimson completely coating my cutie mark and continuing down all the way to the bottom of the leg.

“Here, take it, outsider.” With a tiny pulse of light from her horn, the unicorn floated the smaller potion over to me as she opened up the bottle, and with her help I took the bottle in my mouth and tilted my head back to chug it down. To either side of me, the remainder of Archer’s team passed us by and made to join the others by the exit, and to my left, stepping up beside Blake and turning to face the way we’d come from, was our unnamed pegasus friend, her armor still scuffed and dented from the bullets that had hit but not penetrated.

By then the whole healing potion was finished and already working its magic within me, and with a toss of my head I threw the bottle away to the side. “Okay, now let-”

But as Archer made to give his next order, I quickly reached out a hoof to place it against his armored side, stopping him to get his attention. “Archer… hold up.”

“What’s the matter?” he inquired as I looked him in the eye. “Nova, we’ve got to move. Those soldiers are right behind us and-”

“Archer!” I snapped, the sharpness in my voice silencing him. “You’ve got to listen to me.” I asserted, looking back over my shoulder to the entry hall, clear for the moment. “During my time here, I… I’ve gotten to see for myself the Talon operations in the region…” I began as I turned back to him, fighting to piece my words into… more neutral and less revealing sentences. “Archer, something big is going to happen, and soon.”

“What do you mean?” Archer questioned, cocking an eyebrow. “You mean they’re making a move?”

“And I know what they’re planning to do.” I said with a quick nod; I definitely had his attention, his expression turning to one of attentive apprehension.

“Archer, we’ve got to get going!”

But the warning from one of the Buckley guards by the entrance went unnoticed as the pegasus kept his eyes on mine. “The Talon Legion is gearing up for a major offensive maneuver, and it’s not concentrated on just Ashton anymore.” I explained to him. “They’re preparing an attack that’s targeting the whole Equestrian southeast, and I think Buckley’s going to end up in their crosshairs just like Challenger and all its allied settlements.”

“They’re launching an assault on the whole region? All at once?”

Again I nodded. “Yes. And they’ve acquired a new weapon that’s going to spearhead the attack – Old World tech that they’ve secured and woken up.”

“Weapon… what kind of weapon?” Archer questioned slowly, moving a step closer… drawing a flinch from me.

“When I was here… I was part of a Talon task force that invaded and took over an old military installation.” I answered, doing all I could to keep my eyes on his as I begun revealing the history of my forced service as a legionnaire. “It was the Southeast National Guard Bunkers that they-”

“What weapon??” Archer demanded again, stepping right up to my face now as I flicked my eyes nervously away.

“The facility was a launch complex!” I replied quickly, making eye contact again. “We found a cruise missile platform in there… with fifty intact and fully functional missiles making up the array. And when we were there, the leader of the Talon forces himself told me that they were going to repurpose them to swap their defensive functions for offensive capabilities.” Now, Archer’s eyes were widening at my revelation of this new and very sinister threat … and all the while, the scar that was carved into me by the part I had played in the Talons’ acquisition of the Guardian missiles was burning. “Archer… that’s what they’re going to use. Whether in an hour or a day, they’re going to launch those missiles, and I think Buckley could be one of their targets.”

For a moment he stared back at me, and despite his more collected state, I could see the fear in his eyes… there was nothing that could hide it.

Suddenly, rifle fire erupted up behind us, and lunging I tackled a startled Blake to the side and away from the door, bowling him over behind cover as minigun fire met the attack. Quickly I pulled myself back up, my healing wound mercilessly protesting the quick movements, and I turned in time to see Archer as he reared around and brought his twin rifle saddle to bear, both rifles firing with a familiar crack of sound to add to the roar of our power-armored ally. Together the two pegasus’ weapons went silent, the armored mare keeping her heavy saddle on the passage as Archer wheeled back around, looking immediately to his team. “Everypony double time it! Move!” he ordered, pausing in his trot long enough to look back to me. “Nova, let’s go!”

Looking back to my baby brother as he pushed himself back to his hooves, I guided him towards the others as he fought to get his wits about him. “Come on, Blake! We’re almost out!”

Now the entire team was on the move, the first bunch already galloping past the Stable door. And as Blake and I drew up to a steady run, we came up quick on Archer, who was moving slow as he fumbled with the communicator on his combat rig’s chest plate. “Amber, come in! This is Archer, can you hear me?”

“I hear you, Archer.” came a mare’s voice over his radio, one I recognized immediately with the help of Archer’s hint – Amber Dawn, one of Buckley’s commanding officers, was here as well. “We’ve got the camp’s south gate in sight and we’re about to come in. Are you in the air yet?”

“Amber, you need to get on Lily’s broadcaster and tell everypony to fall back to the rally point outside the city, now!” Right overhead, three more quick shots flashed by, forcing the three of us to duck again as Archer fell in beside me. “The artillery teams are already pulling back, but the rest of the force needs to evacuate and get back to Buckley immediately! Nova reports the Talons have acquired a missile platform and are going to be launching cruise missiles at every settlement in the southeast, possibly within the hour! She thinks that Buckley could be one of their targets!”

Behind us, the power-armored mare continued to put fire into the entrance stairway as Archer, Blake, and I fell into a unified running pace, now quickly approaching the Stable’s door. “Come again, Archer? Did you say cruise missiles??”

“Affirmative! Cruise missiles!” he repeated to Dawn. “We need to get back home, warn the others and make sure we’re prepared in case the Talons launch an attack on us!”

“Merciful Celestia… Alright, I’ll give the order to retreat. But Archer, we’ve got eyes on a lot of griffins over here, all of them coming back from the east. There’s got to be over a dozen up there.” Amber warned. “I don’t think you’ll be able to outfly them all.”

Together we stepped hoof onto the Stable’s concrete driveway, the floor of the entry tunnel that connected the Stable to the surface. And up ahead was the divine sight of the surface world’s gray cloudy sky dimmed with the light of another wasteland morning, partly concealed by the jagged rooftop of the Talons’ warehouse. “Then we’ll need an escort out of here!” Archer replied to her as we made our way up the pavement. “We’re just getting out of the Stable now, and when we reach the surface, I’ll take Nova into the air and we’ll come to you! Just keep the Talons occupied, and when we come in for a landing you make sure to cover our approach! Copy?”

“I hear you.” came Dawn’s response after a moment of silence. “We’ll keep their ground forces scrambled so you can get to us. The air is up to you.”

“We picked up another pegasus down here too!” Archer said back. “She was here even before we were, trying to help Nova escape just like us! The two of us can cover Nova and get her to you, and then we’ll see you at the rally point!”

“Move your ass then, because we need to leave.”

“Roger that!”

As Amber Dawn closed their link, we ran out from the Stable’s entry tunnel and onto the aged concrete floor of the Talon warehouse. Ahead, Archer’s team was scattering to the left, disappearing amongst the storage crates held in the facility to take up defensible positions on that side. And mixed in among the outermost crates already was a whole new team of Buckley ponies, putting steady fire toward the northwest where at least a dozen Talon rifleponies were engaging from behind their black steel deployable barriers. Even as I looked, coming to a brief stop with Archer, I found reinforcements coming to the Talon line, a twenty-millimeter crew having rolled in from the camp with additional infantry support moving ahead on either side of it; and already, they were bringing their mobile gun into position, the long barrel swinging around to face us!

“Twenty millimeter t-!!” The shouted warning from one of the Buckley guards was replaced with the signature consecutive ringing cracks of gunfire of the twenty millimeter flak gun, the sound making me hunker down with a jolt as Blake yelped in fright beside me. Sparks shot out in violent bursts of light from the metal crates farthest from me as the flak gun targeted them, and as the Buckley ponies one and all retreated back to safety behind cover, the sparks begun to strafe along the crates, moving toward us!

I was pulled to my left as Archer galloped across my field of view, and ducking down I shoved Blake ahead of me just as the floor to my right exploded from the impact of the flak gun’s heavy rounds. Concrete chips pelted my side as I ran for my life, trailing right behind Archer as he bolted for a nearby crate, behind which the lime-green unicorn Hope hid as she motioned frantically for us to run. Archer dived in behind the crate first, and as the twenty millimeter’s stream of rounds clanged off the storage crates farther into the warehouse, Blake and I took cover behind the crate with them.

“You two alright?!” Archer called over the flak gun’s fire, shoving himself back to all fours to look our way.

“Blake??” When I looked, part of me already assuming a grim possibility, I found the terrified colt breathing heavily, but otherwise uninjured; still, he gave me no reply as his gaze lingered on the floor at his hooves. “We’re fine!” I answered the pegasus stallion. “Archer, what are we going to do?? That flak gun’s going to keep us from getting out of this warehouse!”

From behind me, metal abruptly ground against the stone floor, and the steel shell of the power-armored pegasus skidded to a halt in my peripheral vision just as the floor behind her erupted into a thick plume of concrete dust from the Talon flak gun. “I was worried one of their storm drums would find us…” the mare’s voice sounded concernedly through her helmet.

“Archer!” Hope shouted, suddenly stepping up close to us. “Butch is already moving up with the heavy weapon! He should be able to draw that flak gun’s attention with the thirty cal so we can get back to the others!”

“When we get an opening I’m taking Nova into the air!” Archer responded, moving in close so Hope could hear him. “Everypony else needs to retreat to the rally point!”

“Is it true what Amber said?! Please tell me it’s not true!”

“It’s true!” I answered for the green unicorn, her wide eyes turning to me at the answer she didn’t want to hear; I nearly cringed at the sheer terror in that stare.

“Just get ready to run!” Archer ordered, reaching over and turning her head back to look at him. “Join up with the others and make sure they’re ready to book it out of here!”

“Yeah…” Only slowly did she nod in confirmation. “Yeah, okay…”

Without further delay she wheeled around and promptly disappeared around the corner of the crate. “You!” Archer spoke up, looking now to our power-armored ally. “I need your wings and your firepower to help me get Nova and her brother to safety! You helped her to get out, so-”

“I came to help a fellow pegasus!” she replied, turning about to face the collapsed section of the warehouse. “And that’s what I will do!”

“Nova, get Blake and get ready to fly!” With his rapid-fire orders, I knew we were getting ready to make a break for it. Past our cover, I could still hear the twenty millimeter as it continued to suppress our position. And amidst the heavy cracks of sound was a heavier machinegun mixed in with steady rifle and carbine fire; the Buckley team was giving it their all to keep from being overwhelmed.

“Blake, we’re going to go flying in a little bit!” I called over the fight, crouching down by the frightened colt as I tried to look him in the eyes. “I need you to get on my back and then hold on tight, okay?!”

“NOVA!”

I immediately reached over and pulled him close as his terrified cry pierced my ears, clutching his head with a forehoof and forcing him to look my way. “I’m going to get you out of here, Blake! We’re almost out now! I just need you to listen to me and do as I say! I need you to do that, and then we’ll be back home again before you know it, okay?!”

“I WANT TO GO HOME!!” he wailed, reaching up to try and hug me again, to hide himself away from the raging battle.

“We will! WE… WILL!” I shouted back, once more forcing him to look me in the eye. “Blake…” But he wasn’t having any of it. Blake was in a panic now, his racing mind only telling him to get away from it all, just to get away from the Talons and get back home. And in this state, it was going to be hard to get him to listen, let alone to do much anything on his own. “Blake hold on to me!” So I took the initiative for him, and as I gave him my command, I forced my way underneath him so that he had no choice but to step over me. And after turning myself to draw parallel with him again, he was now laying over my back, forelegs right over my neck and his head right atop the back of my own. “Hold me around my neck!” Rising up to all fours, a little sharply to give him encouragement, Blake’s forelegs swiftly hooked around me, pulling tight as he buried his muzzle into my mane to hide himself; he was in a good position on my back and he had a solid and nearly constricting hold around my neck, and a quick test flap of my wings confirmed that he was ready to fly with me.

It was time to leave.

“Good job, Blake!” I called to him, looking to Archer just as he stepped back into cover from peeking out into the battlefield.

“The others are already moving, and the flak gun’s still distracted!” he called, both myself and the steel pegasus moving up to join him. “You two ready?!”

“Ready!”

Snapping his wings out wide, Archer then faced our exit. “Follow me!”

“Hold on tight, Blake!”

With a short running start, Archer was beating into the air, and side by side I ran with our wingpony to build up our momentum before we were following off after him. In just a short moment we were winging our way out of the warehouse and climbing fast. Now, with my place back high in the air, I had a full view of the south half of the Talon base; the whole station had come under siege. To the south was a whole thick line of constant muzzle flashes, the outer line of Buckley soldiers having been stopped from advancing further by determined fighting from the Talon line not even thirty yards in front of them. The east side of the base was the same, a stalemate between the two fighting factions leading only to quick potshots being taken from both sides. And all over the rest of the base were the deep round blast craters shaped from Buckley’s artillery, the howitzers having wreaked proper havoc on the Talon command post. Fires had sprung to life in multiple areas from the guns’ heavy shelling, four separate fires alone burning from the base’s array of dark green tents, two more from a pair of destroyed twenty millimeters, and another from a larger pre-war building to the west. From my place above, I could see Talon ponies scrambling to remove crates from the burning structure, one of three identical storehouses remaining there.

“Griffins coming in from the east!” Archer’s voice brought my focus back to my escape attempt, and craning my head around, feeling as Blake only squeezed tighter from his place on my back, I could see a whole flock of griffins, easily numbering over a dozen, and half of them leveling out at our altitude; they were definitely coming to take me back… “Amber’s right, we’re not going to bolt past all of them! You’ll need protection to get out of here!”

“What are we going to do?!” I shouted back, facing front again as we pushed ahead.

“Amber and Ricochet are coming in with Lily!” Archer called back from his place in the lead. “When the tank rolls in we’re going to get you and Blake inside so they can drive you out!”

Buckley brought their tank?!

“But what about you?? What about the rest of Buckley’s ponies down there??”

“We’re the ones that have guns!” Archer answered. “We’re all going to fall back to a rally point outside the city, so don’t worry about us! You just-”

PANG!

I jerked with a start to the left, Blake belting out an alarmed yelp, as a rifle round bounced harshly off our armored escort. Quickly I righted myself from the jolt, leveling out as Blake momentarily slid, shifting dangerously to one side and nearly clipping my left wing. “Hang on, Blake!!” I screamed, the colt thankfully shuffling back to his former place.

“Keep moving south, Nova!” Archer called, the armored pegasus passing by directly above me as Archer begun to arc to the left. “We’ll engage and try and keep some of these griffins off of you! When you see the tank, land right on it and get inside!”

Tucking in his wings, Archer abruptly dropped as he continued his turn, leaving me with no room to delay our plan of action. But just as he left me alone in the air, a shockingly loud blast of sound reaching me from the surface, and from the ground, a billowing plume of dust rolled into the lower right corner of my sight. My focus was drawn to the cloud as the sound of the detonation faded away, the rumbling of the blast only being replaced with a great swelling roar that reached me even from my place above. And then, the churning dust begun to swirl near the surface, and from behind a standing pre-war house emerged a hulk of dark gray steel. It’s great engine roaring its battle cry, a massive metal monster lumbered out into the open on grinding treads, its array of three cannons and two machineguns emerging from the dust first, then followed by the rest of its elongated body, with the wartime flag of the Old World Equestria coming in last waving proudly from its place at the back of Buckley’s heavy tank.

Lily had entered the field.

All at once the whole Talon line begun to pull back with all the haste they could muster, the opposing Buckley force already continuing their retreat to the east as Lily pushed straight into the base to take over the effort. With a tremendous thunderclap, the tank’s main gun fired its first round, belching white smoke before the round smashed into its target, obliterating an unfortunate twenty-millimeter crew and their flak gun. Then Lily’s minigun blazed to life, strafing the retreating Talons with a storm of lead as the main gun begun to rotate to the left. In unison, the smaller cannon in the tank’s right-side gun sponson fired, the smaller round kicking dirt and dust into the air where it struck before the main gun thundered again, the shot seeming to echo through the whole of Marefax.

Lily was moving deeper into the base as I continued south, the tank’s treads carrying her at a pony’s gallop as she rained hell onto the fleeing Talons, and quickly running through Archer’s plan once again, I could already see where I was going to land on the steel colossus; the sloped back of the vehicle covering the engine block was a flat surface, a perfect platform to set down on.

“Nova, they’re chasing us!!”

On my back, I felt as Blake nervously shifted, adjusting his hold around my neck and further tightening his grip. And just as I looked behind me to spot a trio of enemy fliers closing in on me from just above and to the left, twin muzzle flashes sprouted from the right-side griffin’s dual-carbine saddle, two rounds flashing by just to my left. With a yelp I ducked to the right as I snapped my eyes forward again, my wings nearly snapping shut from the shock of the near miss. But with a shove I got my wings pumping, scooping at the air to eat up the rest of the distance between me and the base’s southern border.

The griffin flight was right on my tail, and as I settled into a straight path, a burst of assault rifle fire, four rounds, slashed by to my left before the griffin controlling it pulled the trigger and held it. A stream of lead passed to the left before sweeping in towards me, and tucking in my wings I let myself drop through the air before fanning out my wings again and arcing sharply to the left. Atop me Blake slipped on my back from the quick maneuver, but still he managed to hold on as I tilted right and hooked again, another pair of carbine round slicing the air just under my belly. Then, from just behind me, a sudden roaring sound rushed into existence before red-orange light flared to life in my peripherals. The explosion sent a blast of hot air washing over us as I begun to bank to the west, and to my right I could see a lingering fireball as what was left of one of my pursuers tumbled out of the air, leaving multiple trails of smoke as he… and pieces of him… plummeted lifeless to the ground. Just under the lingering fire and smoke from the midair explosion, my other pursuers broke off, scrambling back just as the power-armored pegasus sped off to the west, completing her run and now taking evasive action as two griffins opened up on her with their own assault rifles.

The unnamed mare’s intervention gave me the time I needed, as below me, I was now nearly passing over the southern border of the base. “Hang on up there, Blake! I’m going to take us to the ground to land!”

“We aren’t leaving??” he demanded with shock. “Why?!”

“If we stay out in the open like this those griffins are going to keep chasing us!” I hastily explained, already beginning to dip and arc away to my right, adjusting my course to the northwest as I begun to settle into a gentle dive. “We’re going to get to Buckley’s tank, and that’ll protect us and get us out of here! Just trust me, and hold on tight!”

With Blake’s hold around my neck still strong, I took his silence as understanding, and angling down further, I began my descent in a steeper dive. On the ground, my target landing platform was still on the move, the main gun firing once again as a mechanical shriek of Lily’s treads turned her to the northeast where she continued to press further into the camp. Even as the steel beast continued to move, the tank was under heavy fire from both the front and left side. While the initial infantry force had made their retreat in the face of Buckley’s monster, heavy weapons had entered the field to take their place. There were three flak guns that I could see as I descended, all of them firing together as each was promptly surrounded with their own shimmering bubble of what had to be unicorn shield magic. One of the shields, belonging to one of the two guns attacking from the tank’s left, immediately flickered rapidly as a shell from Lily’s portside cannon punched into it. A brief struggle later, and the shield blinked away into nothingness from the force of the shell, the flak gun and its crew, though ceasing firing, still remaining intact.

The surface was no more than a few yards under me now as I begun ease up on my dive, making my final approach to Lily. The tank was lighting up with brilliant bursts of yellow sparks under the fire of the flak guns, and even as I leveled out, a missile suddenly rushed in from the left, striking the smaller cannon dead on as it turned in its housing. I couldn’t keep myself from gasping as smoke suddenly begun to drift up from the impact, the fireball from the missile dissolving away to reveal only a mangled wreck of what had once been the cannon’s short barrel and outermost hull. Lily was still fully mobile, and the missile had only disabled the gun, but if she took too many hits like that, then my escape would go down with her!

But as I focused on lining myself up for the landing, rifle fire erupted from above and to the right, and before I could even flinch, a blast of pain stabbed into my right side! I screamed, jerking sharply as my wings skipped a beat. But another voice screamed with me as I fought to stay aloft, Blake’s voice, and even through the scalding burn ripping into my side, I felt as the colt lost his place on my back! His forelegs still around my neck, Blake’s body slipped over my left side, falling onto my wing and sending us both into a reckless spiral. Together we rolled, tumbling over each other twice until my wings mercifully caught the air again, barely canceling out a third roll. But immediately I was pulled down, and right under me, Blake desperately cried for me from where he dangled from my neck as we abruptly dropped once again. Frantically I reached out for him as I tried to blink away the haze in my eyes, and I felt as my hooves landed on the colt’s sides. And clutching down and tugging, I pulled him up far enough to get my forelegs around his back, finally able to bring him against my chest in a solid bear hug; I had him!

“Ugh… just… just hold on, Blake!” I called, forcing my wings to keep working as the shock of the gunshot wound settled.

“Nova, you’re hurt!!” Blake shouted back as I finally got my eyes to face forward again.

“Just hold on!” I repeated stern as I could, wincing as a wave of deep pain rippled through the wound; the bullet had hit something important… I could tell from the sting I felt inside, cramping up… maybe the shot took a rib…

Though I didn’t see, I could hear wings above as someone, likely the griffin who had scored the hit, overtook us and arced away and to our right. Behind, another rifle fired off, another shot whizzing by just above me. But from up ahead, from Lily, the hatch on the main gun suddenly opened, the plate lifting up and away before a blue unicorn’s head poked out. A second later and the buck’s horn flared up, magic light shimmering to life around the mounted heavy machinegun at the rear of the main gun as the long-barreled weapon swiveled on its tripod, coming around… to face me?!

No… just to my right… he was covering our approach!

And with a pulse of light, the guard’s telekinesis clamped down on the trigger, the fifty caliber machinegun slinging a barrage of lead past me and into the airspace at my back. Over the heavy fire I heard a cry behind me, one of my pursuers going down immediately under the attack. A second agonized scream, and even a third, followed quickly after, and with the new breathing room I’d won, I mustered all my strength into a final drive to reach Lily, now no more than fifty yards ahead. The gunner on the mounted turret kept rounds going past me, firing in short controlled bursts towards the airspace at my back. Under him, Lily continued to put up her own fight, her primary cannon and the attached minigun firing again to punch through one of the shielded flak guns, this time taking out the gun with it; the starboard cannon was still dormant in the fight, but the damaged port gun, strangely enough, was glowing with a brilliant pink light as Lily continued to rumble onward.

A few struggling wing beats later, and Lily’s sloped back was almost right under my hooves, and as I drew up over the tank’s banner, the unicorn gunner ceased fire to give me safe passage to board, ducking back down below the hatch as a twenty-millimeter round sparked off the hull of the main gun. “Keep hold of me Blake!” I called over the roaring engine, wincing away as another missile exploded against the left-side hull near the front. “I need to roll us over!”

“What??”

I didn’t repeat myself to him. My landing pad was right under me now, and wasting no time, I threw myself into a roll before snapping my wings shut. One more drop through the air and one more startled cry from Blake, and with a painful thud, I landed hard on my back against Lily’s armoring, my baby brother in turn having my own body as a cushion to make a safe and painless landing for him. Right as we finally came to rest, Lily’s fifty caliber roared to life once more as the gunner reemerged, keeping the griffins from following me in. Hurriedly, Blake pulled himself off of me and stepped away to the side to let me up. Careful to avoid distressing my wounded side, I rolled to my left and pushed myself up to all fours, staying low to make double sure that I wasn’t in the line of fire of the fifty. And once again, my body protested my quick movements with a nasty bolt of pain, one that got me to hiss despite my efforts to resist.

“Nova??” I felt Blake as he promptly leaned up against my left foreleg, staying low and keeping close to help me stay on my hooves. “Are you okay??”

“Don’t worry about me…” I replied with a grunt, swallowing hard as I stomped the pain down. “Blake, get inside the tank! That hatch right there, go!”

“What about you??”

“I’m right behind you, now go!”

Reaching down I gave Blake a hard shove with my muzzle to get him moving, the colt stumbling under the sudden push before making a beeline for the hatch. “Come on, outsiders!” the gunner buck shouted, his turret going silent as he pulled himself out of the entrance and stepped aside, ducking down behind the main gun as another heavy twenty millimeter round sparked brightly against the tank’s armor. “Get in there so we can get the hell out of this place!”

Blake reached the main cannon just ahead of me, placing his front hooves on the top of the gun and working to pull himself up. Under us, Lily gave a lurch as her treads screeched once more, the vehicle turning in place to face the east before the great engine revved up and carried her forward again. “Come on, Blake! Get up there!” I urged the colt, stepping up behind him and giving him a leg up to help him onto the cannon. “There you go!”

Now he was up, and without looking back to check on me, he descended down the hatch with another nudge from the gunner buck. Then, placing my front hooves onto the cannon to hoist myself up to-

“LOOK OUT!!”

Before I could even process the frantic warning coming from the gunner, my wounded side exploded with molten agony as something abruptly smashed into me. I was thrown from my place by the cannon, and through my scream I could feel myself tumbling out of control, held tightly in the embrace of a surprise assailant. And before I could recover to see, I was harshly jolted again as the both of us plowed into the dirt, our momentum bouncing us once off the surface before our second impact saw us separate. I was thrown, and for a third time I hit the ground, this time unable to skip again, instead toppling head over tail once, twice, thrice before finally coming to a skidding halt on my belly.

Coughing up dust from the tumble, the adrenaline charge rushing through me got me to plant my forehooves into the dirt to push myself back up. The burning in my side was staggering, nearly making me fall again as I rose up to all fours again, and this time, I knew that something in me had broken… it definitely felt like a rib. But as I turned around to search for my attacker, even my busted side yielded enough for me to regain some focus when I found the culprit, found the ragged scar that cut across his face, saw the pearl-white revolver secured to his armored chest.

He was already standing when my eyes fell onto his glare, and only a second later, wordless, Blackhawk came charging towards me.

Tunnel vision returned to me like an old friend, Blackhawk’s mere presence instantly igniting the collective hatred that had festered in me throughout my imprisonment. As he came running, I crouched as I snapped my wings out wide, and with a single powerful beat I lifted myself up off the ground to evade his rush. But Blackhawk was right on me even then, anticipating my maneuver to get out of his path, and before I could climb, the griffin sprang from the ground on an intercept course. And once more we collided, the griffin’s brute strength easily overtaking me, and once more his momentum drove us into the dirt.

Blackhawk had put me on my back, and as I came to from the jarring impact I felt as he already shifted, rising back up to make his next move. But this time I was unfazed, and immediately I snapped my right hoof forward, connecting right with his beak in a vengeful punch. I spotted him just as he jerked to the right from the hit, and as he came back to look down on me, I snapped my hoof back in time to throw another hook. Again I connected right with his beak, and again, caught off guard, his head jerked away to the right. But his fiery glare came right back to face me, and suddenly, with an angry roar, his big right paw came down hard on my gut. I choked and buckled under the shockingly brutal punch, nearly folding around his clenched paw like paper as a deep tremor of pain ripped through my torso, and before I could even think of recovering, the same claws came down on me again and clamped around my neck.

I shot my forehooves up to his leg and shoved as a familiar pressure constricted around my throat, completely cutting off my breathing. And in that moment, panic begun to set in as the memories of that night in Hopeville came rushing back. Just like before, right after he’d killed Gracie right in front of me, Blackhawk’s limb was barely budging under my increasingly frantic effort to get myself free of his grip. And as I kicked out wildly and shoved hard as I could, the griffin closed his claws around tighter as he came to stand fully over me, glaring into my eyes just like he had on that terrible night. “You’re not going anywhere.” he growled with malice, his left paw reaching up to his chest plate, to his sidearm… no, not to his revolver…

To a black, short-barreled, break-action pistol… GODDESSES, THE TRANQUILIZER!

I went cold with dread at the sight of the terrible weapon, every fabric of my mind screaming their warning to me as I once again beheld the very tool that had been responsible for my capture and forced servitude to the Talons. And as Blackhawk yanked the tranquilizer out from its holster, I released his leg to lash out in desperation, reaching for the sinister pistol to keep it back. Though my right hoof connected with Blackhawk’s foreleg in my first swing, smacking the weapon back and away from me, it wasn’t enough to knock the tranquilizer free. And shoving my hoof aside, Blackhawk only pressed down even tighter on my throat, his full weight crushing me steadily into submission as my struggle against his brute strength was swiftly reduced only to a fight to breathe again.

“Sergeant Major!!” From above, a sudden frantic female voice punched through the blur forming up in my senses under Blackhawk’s paw. “Sergeant Major, we’ve been ordered to pull back and regroup! Their damn tank’s regenerat-”

BLAM!

From my right came the sudden report of a single rifle shot, not the ringing crack of sound that belonged to a three-o-eight… something hollow and more resonant, and the female cried out in alarm as she took a hit. Blackhawk’s grip suddenly slackened around me, and I saw as the griffin snapped his head to the south, his eyes going round just as a new male voice bellowed a ferocious war cry. Blackhawk crouched, making to dive as his claws mercifully continued to ease off my throat, but then he buckled as something came down hard on his back. The overhead smash got even him to cry out with pain, and I saw with shock the armored legs of a new pony as they ground to a halt just out of my reach. But Blackhawk turned over me in immediate retaliation, his paw finally stepping off of me before throwing a fast wicked right hook to the attacker that sent him staggering to the side, his weapon falling to the dirt as it was dropped from its telekinetic hold.

It was a fire axe…

Then came another masculine cry, a bloodthirsty and hateful roar, rushing toward me until Blackhawk was bowled off of me entirely, yet another stallion entering the fight. Thus freed I immediately fell into a coughing fit from the burning in my throat, and oh so gratefully I took in a deep greedy gulp of air as I rolled onto my left side. And just as I got onto my stomach I felt a new touch, a foreleg draping itself over my left side and hoisting me up to help me get my hooves solidly on the ground. “Come on, Nova! On your hooves!”

An aged voice… I recognized the tone, the roughness in the words, and that familiar voice matched a familiar face when I looked into the green eyes of a copper unicorn stallion, his green mane grayed with age, his body armored with polymer Equestrian Army combat armor.

“Raemor??”

One after the next, two bullets kicked up dirt just ahead of us as a third slashed by right above us, the both of us ducking as I faced front. On the ground and in the air, a griffin squad was moving in to engage, numbering eight in total. From behind me return fire swiftly responded, another rifle shot and a pair of automatic rifles lighting up the air to scramble the three griffins on hot approach from above. “Come on, Nova!” Raemor repeated, lifting his foreleg off of me only to butt his head against my shoulder, forcing me to head away from the skirmish. “Get back!”

Under his urgent shoving I was turned to the south, finding a pair of Buckley stallions just as they galloped past me to either side, opening fire with their assault rifles to keep us covered as Raemor forced me back. “Nova!” And just ahead of us, two more ponies came galloping for us, a Buckley earth pony mare running alongside a black earth pony stallion with a red and white mane, an energy rifle battle saddle strapped to his Stable 181 security armor.

“Shore!!” I cried over the fire, a nearly staggering wave of relief washing over me at the sight of my dear friend.

“Hang on, Nova!” he called, skidding to a halt in front of me as the Buckley mare continued past to lend support. “That tank is coming back! Just stay behind us!” Even as he gave me his command, Raemor was pushing me farther back, Shore stepping aside and likewise moving on to put himself between me and the fight. But as he ran to assist the others, I pivoted on my back hooves and nervously followed his path, catching sight of him again as he whipped his laser pistol sidearm from its holster and opened up, firing at one of the griffins on the ground and forcing him to dodge aside.

“Stay with me, Nova!” Raemor shouted, keeping close as he secured his axe back into its place by his grenade APW. “Don’t wander off!”

BOOM!

From the east, Lily’s primary cannon fired another thundering round, both Raemor and I shielding our faces as the ground just behind the Talon squad erupted in a violent blast, dirt kicking up high and showering friend and foe alike. The shot drew my eyes over to Buckley’s beast where she was on approach to come to our rescue. Atop the main turret, the mounted fifty caliber was firing skyward, the gunner stallion’s head poking out from the open hatch to spot his targets. In unison the starboard cannon fired, punching into the shield of a now retreating flak gun crew; the portside gun was silent… but was now fully formed, like it hadn’t even been hit at all.

Facing forward, I saw the griffin team already on the retreat, now only three of the seven of them on the ground as the rest kept fire on us from above. Two of the griffins remaining surface-bound had just pulled a struggling and resisting Blackhawk back up to a stand, all of them now stretching out their wings to retreat back into the air. And with them, I spotted the final two members of my second rescue party as they scrambled back to separate from the enemy fliers. Gunny was there, laying on his right side with both his magnum revolver and riot shotgun pointed to the air in his telekinetic grasp, firing shot after shot to drive the enemy away. And with him, standing protectively by his side, was a mare I recognized as Ivy, the steel-gray unicorn with a forest green mane, garbed in a suit of leather armor and holding a larger SMG in her telekinesis, her automatic fire along with that coming from the Buckley guards helping to keep the griffins in the air from making a pass at them; both she and Gunny had taken one wound that I could see…

But now the griffin team, having retrieved Blackhawk and pulled him out of the fight despite his resistance, was now winging back toward Stable 184, joining up with the rest of the base’s remaining defenders where they were setting up a new, albeit thinner firing line perhaps forty strong. Now, the enemy was occupied with repelling a platoon of Buckley’s guards, a group that must’ve diverted from the initial line and moved to the east edge of the camp to harass the enemy there, covering out exit. And with our own position now clear, my ears were filled with a great mechanical roaring as Lily rolled into my peripheral vision, drawing up a short distance away before her treads shrieked again, the left track snapping to a stop as the right continued to move, slowly turning the vehicle around. “Everypony move it!” one of the Buckley stallions of our team called over the tank’s thundering engine. “Get on board! We’re leaving!”

“Archer’s spotted a whole company of hostile reinforcements coming in from the southeast!” the second buck called, Raemor shoving me around and towards Lily as she came to a full stop. “He says they’re only a couple minutes out! We need to move now and tell that team to do the same or they’ll swarm us for sure!”

“Move, Nova! Move!”

But I was already ahead of Raemor on the urge, keeping pace with him as much as my wounds would allow as we made for our ticket out of Marefax. Lily’s main cannon and portside gun were turning together as we approached, drawing to a stop as they came to bear against the Talons’ new firing line. But though my ears braced for it, the guns remained silent as the two Buckley stallions leapt aboard. “Come on, outsiders! Move, move!”

The Buckley earth pony mare, stopping right by the back of the tank’s left tread, was waving us over with a foreleg. Shore, the first to approach, sprang up to Lily’s slanted back, helped the rest of the way aboard by the two stallions. Then Raemor and I were next, and as he stepped away from me to likewise jump for the platform, I snapped out my wings to fly myself up, three quick wing beats returning me to Lily’s back before I gratefully lowered myself down to land. I touched down with an unexpected roughness, my side abruptly bringing its condition to prominence while nearly sending me crumpling to the floor. But as I bent on my right legs, barely catching myself, a hoof came up to press against my right shoulder, keeping me steady. Shore met my eyes, looking concernedly to me behind his reading glasses as the two Buckley stallions helped up the last members of our party. Looking into those eyes, I wanted to just break down and cry, both in the brightest of joy… and in the darkest of pain. Joy because I was finally, finally looking into the eyes of one of my dearest friends… and yet, the pain fought its way to the top as I looked upon that familiar face, a reminder of what had happened on that terrible night of my capture, all the while seeing the repressed grief in his eyes that was only barely contained behind the heat of the fight and his own concern for me; the both of us, seeing each other for the first time in days, were reminded of that night… and who had been taken from us…

I could tell that Grace was on his mind… A pony’s eyes never lied…

“Amber, we’re all onboard and accounted for! Get us out of here!” Together we snapped out of our stare to look to the others, finding one of the Buckley stallions just as he turned my way, his companion over by the rear of the tank helping Ivy to climb aboard. “Hey! You need to get inside, Nova! You’re unarmed and you’re wounded!” he ordered. “There’s a first aid kit the tank crew keeps for emergencies, and Neera’s got enough medical training to remove a bullet and wrap up those wounds for you!”

“Well what about the rest of you?!” I demanded, Lily’s engine revving back up underneath us before the tank lurched forward, now on the move again.

“The rest of us are falling back now, and that Talon line doesn’t look like it’s in the mood to follow us!” the stallion answered me, looking back to the north side of the wrecked base. “I’d say between the artillery barrage and Lily here, they got the message to back down before they took even more losses!”

“I say we should’ve burned the whole place to the ground!” the other Buckley stallion spoke out, turning about as Ivy made her way to where Gunny stood… the big unicorn likewise staring at me. “Lily could’ve pulled it off!”

“No, not with those Talon reinforcements coming in! And especially not with how urgent Amber sounded over the coms!” the first buck replied, turning away to present me the opportunity to look upon Gunny once again. Goddesses, how I’d missed him…… but… like Shore… his eyes spoke his thoughts, his emotions, the same as Shore’s as he took in the sight of me – a free mare again. “You heard the Master Sergeant! Buckley might be facing an imminent threat, and we need to be there to repel it, not blasting apart the Marefax ruins!”

“We gave them hell enough to get our friends back!” the Buckley mare then chimed in from her place by Lily’s flagpole. “Let them hang back and lick their wounds so we can get home!” Indeed it was, when I looked back out into the camp, the Talon line was holding its position where they had regrouped from the initial attack. The muzzle flashes and gunfire echoes were far fewer now, and none were making an attempt to advance and overtake Buckley’s ponies… further evidence that Buckley’s assault had taken a heavy toll on the base.

And I would’ve smiled at the fires that continued to burn within my former prison… if only the sight of the Talons holding back from pursuit didn’t give me the terrible feeling that they were letting us walk away…