//------------------------------//
// Chapter 15: My Most Faithful Soldier 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: The Light Within 
// by FireOfTheNorth 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Fifteen: My Most Faithful Soldier


Shining Armor, the pony who’d created the simulation I was currently within, was standing before me.  There were many things I could say about the imposing stallion, but my first impression was how tired he looked.  Though the general’s uniform was as crisp and neat as it was in the photo of Resolute and Midnight Aurora’s wedding, the rest of him was less composed.  His sapphire and cerulean mane was tied messily back to keep it out of the way, his eyes appeared sunken and hollow, and it looked like he hadn’t trimmed his muzzle in quite some time.  Apparently the Flankorage campaign was taking its toll on him.

“Do I have something on my face, soldier?” he asked gruffly.

“No, sir,” I replied sheepishly as I realized how it must’ve seemed for me to be staring at him.  At this point in time, Equestria was still largely intact, and Shining Armor was not yet an historical figure from a bygone age.

“I’ve heard good things about you these past few weeks,” the general said as he stared me down, “And I understand you were involved in taking out the anti-pegasus guns at the start of the campaign?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied when I realized that his last statement had been a question.

“That was good work,” he praised, “I have another important mission for you.”

Shining Armor trotted past me and I followed, assuming his intent.  The flap behind me opened up into a large command tent; apparently, I’d been in Shining Armor’s personal field office before.  There were shelves filled with documents and datatapes here, along with several ponies sitting at desks, tapping away on terminals or speaking into the attached headsets.  Shining Armor led me to the center of the room, where a large metal table was.  His horn glowed as he cast a spell on the table’s surface, and a glowing 3D projection of the city of Flankorage and the surrounding landscape appeared.  Other than a section to the west and south, the entire map was glowing red, which I assumed represented zebra control.

“All our attempts to retake the city so far have failed.  The zebras seem to know exactly where we are, and I think I know why,” the general said, and a single skyscraper began to blink, “The Ministry of Morale, in their infinite wisdom, wired up the entire city with a surveillance system controlled from here, their hub.  The zebras hold that building currently, but if we were to take it, then we would have the upper hoof.  We’d know all their movements, instead of the other way around, and could sweep through and retake Flankorage in days.  You’re going to retake the MoM Hub.”

“Just me?” I asked, looking at how much of the distance between the Equestrian Army camp and the MoM Hub was colored red.

“No, you’ll be commanding a team,” Shining Armor said as he released the spell and the map disappeared, “It’s a difficult task, but that’s why you got it.  You’ll be traveling far behind enemy lines, so hopefully you’ll be able to handle whatever the stripes send your way and reach your objective safely.”

“We need this,” Shining Armor continued after a pause, “Flankorage has been in enemy hooves and we’ve been fighting to take it back for far too long.  We’re cold, we’re tired, and we want our thrice-accursed crystal mines back!  With the Ministry of Morale Hub back in our hooves, we’ll be that much closer to victory.  Like I said, it’s a difficult task, so use good judgement.  If we can’t hold the hub, and it looks like the zebras are about to take control back, destroy it.  Better that neither side has it than we return to where we started.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.  I figured it was probably best to keep my responses short, since I had no idea how complexly the simulation had been programmed to handle interactions with other ponies.  So far it seemed realistic, but I hadn’t pushed its limits.

“Good; see Slate to requisition your gear before leaving,” Shining Armor said, pointing toward a gray earth pony seated at a desk near the tent’s exit flap, “Your team will be waiting at the north gate.  Good luck.”

Shining Armor returned to his private section of the tent, signaling that our conversation was over.  My PipBuck’s Quest section updated itself, and I dutifully set out to fulfill the first objective: See Slate to requisition gear.  Slate didn’t have much to say to me, other than to point me to a nearby terminal and give instructions on how to plug my PipBuck into it to confirm my identity.  After that, the requisitions terminal walked me through the rest.  Appropriate attire was automatically added, and I chose a submachinegun and magical energy rifle for my weapons, along with a few metal apples.  I also requisitioned what I estimated to be enough ammunition.  There would be no ammo lying around for me to pick up or enemies to loot it from, so I had to plan ahead.  When I was done, the printer next to the terminal clattered loudly and spit out a slip of paper with my selections on it.

I exited the command tent, nearly running into an officer coming in, and headed for where the quartermaster was located according to my PipBuck’s map of the camp.  It was no less cold now than it had been on the cliffs, perhaps even colder, and I was glad for the insulated uniform I was wearing.  It wouldn’t provide much protection from zebra bullets, but that would be remedied once I reached the quartermaster’s tent.  On the way, I passed a large tent of bright yellow and pink, a color scheme I instantly recognized from searching the Wasteland for first aid boxes.  The Ministry of Peace could only be doing one thing in a warzone: treating the injured.  I considered looking in, to see just how realistic this simulation was, but thought better of it and continued on my quest.

“A magical energy rifle?” the quartermaster said with a whistle when I presented my requisition slip to him, “Boy, you must be somepony important to get one of those.”

Despite his comment, the quartermaster presented me with everything on the slip without exception.  I changed into the combat barding and arranged my saddlebags before leaving the quartermaster’s tent.  I hadn’t been in the simulation long, and yet I was already accustomed to following the instructions on my PipBuck.  It was comforting to have a sort of structure when I’d come from a world completely without it.  I wondered whether PipBucks had really been used like this during the War, or if it was just a part of the simulation.

As Shining Armor had promised, my team was waiting at the camp’s north gate.  There were four ponies in all: two mares and two stallions, two unicorns and two earth ponies, split evenly.  Some of the major ponies I met I’d expected to have completely fleshed out personalities, but I figured the majority of the soldiers would be basic simulated constructs.  Simply watching my team as I approached, I could tell that this was not the case with them.  Despite the fact that the team had been built with perfect equality of landbound equines, each member clearly had their own personality, and they interacted with each other.  I began to question how real this simulation actually was.  Were these ponies programmed to act this way, or had they been constructed from the memories of actual ponies who’d participated in the Flankorage liberation?  If so, then what was the difference between these simulations and the actual ponies?  If a simulation died, did they experience death?  Despite my PipBuck’s assurance that my intelligence was “Know-it-All” level, it made my head spin to consider how real this simulated world was.

“Ready for duty, sir!” a strawberry mare with a flamethrower battle saddle reported as I neared, and the team snapped to attention.

I couldn’t think too much about whether these ponies had once lived.  If they had, then they were long dead, and their lives here were merely digital shadows of that life.  If they died in the simulation, they would simply be created the next time it was run, whereas if I died, it would be the final end for me.  I had to get through this simulation alive so I could return to Equestria as it truly was; that was what mattered.


***


General Shining Armor’s expectations hadn’t been wrong; the zebra’s weren’t kicking up much of a fuss for just five ponies.  They weren’t ignoring us either, and they knew where we were almost constantly.  Even in the past, the Ministry of Morale was a thorn in my side.  Their suspicion that everypony was a zebra sympathizer had benefitted the zebras in the long run.  There was no hiding from the surveillance; some was obvious, like the cameras mounted to nearly every streetlamp and the hovering sprite-bots, which now blared zebra propaganda instead of the MoM’s flavor, but there was definitely hidden surveillance as well that we couldn’t avoid no matter how hard we tried.

After several run-ins with squads of zebras, and thankfully no casualties, we reached the Ministry of Morale Hub.  The Flankorage branch of Pinkie Pie’s ministry had been housed in what looked like a giant candy cane.  The exterior of each floor had been painted in alternating pink and white; the only thing that was missing was the crook at the top.  A giant billboard on the roof made it look like Pinkie Pie herself was peeking over the building.  It may have been meant to appear playful, but to me (and probably most of Flankorage’s residents) it just looked disturbing.

The zebras knew just as well as we did how important the MoM Hub was, and there was no shortage of security here.  Two rows of barricades surrounded the building’s main entrance, zebras on miniguns behind each.  Shiny spherical robots hovered among the zebras, long arms ending in instruments of war dangling from them.  A frontal assault seemed incredibly foolish, but there wasn't much else we could do.

Knowing the Ministry of Morale, though, it was likely that the front entrance was not the only way into their offices.  They would want a secret way in to avoid the street; the only trouble was finding it.  Before sending my team to their certain deaths, I ordered them to spread out and search the buildings nearby. The zebras seemed content to let us move around largely unmolested.  So far as they knew, if we wanted in, we would have to go through their defenses, which were more than adequate to handle five ponies.

A few unlucky zebras out on patrol fell to us before our team’s grenadier discovered the secret way in.  A nearby restaurant had a concealed door in its bathroom, which led to a tunnel under the street.  We traveled through darkness before reaching a heavy door with a terminal built into the wall. Nopony in the team seemed to be skilled at hacking, so I used my own skills to break in and unlock our way into the MoM Hub.

No sooner had we opened the door than we were forced to draw back.  A turret mounted on the ceiling just inside fired on our team, striking one of the members in her fetlock.  We flattened ourselves against the wall until the turret ceased firing.  I leaned forward immediately and cast TATAS before firing my magical energy rifle at the turret and frying it.

As the injured pony healed up, three of us advanced through the door into the MoM Hub’s basement.  Great concrete pillars held up the towering structure above, and every one of them had explosives attached to it.  The zebras looked like they’d already prepared to destroy the building if they knew they were going to lose it.  That could be good or bad for us.  If we took over before they could destroy the building, then we could control the explosives instead.  However, they could just as easily destroy the MoM Hub with us in it.

The zebras upstairs must’ve heard the turret firing, because three of their number clattered noisily down the stairs to investigate.  The unicorn to my right fired her assault rifle at the staircase the moment the zebras showed themselves, and the one that survived retreated.  We advanced while the zebra yelled warnings up the stairs in his foreign tongue.  I put an end to that with a burst from my SMG as we rounded the corner and headed up the stairs.

All five of us were assembled together again by the time we reached the top of the stairs and emerged into the hub’s lobby.  I threw a metal apple at the hooves of a squad approaching us, while our rifleponies sprayed into the other zebras around the lobby that were forming up.  With my magical energy rifle, I jumped in and out of TATAS, firing on the surviving scattered zebras.

The team pushed to the front door, where the zebras outside were beginning to respond to the commotion inside.  Our grenadier levitated his grenade launcher and fired out into the stunned zebras.  Their barricades were no use to them from this direction, and they were thrown into the air before they could adequately respond to our attack.  The robots hovered silently and eerily through the carnage, and I drained the cell of my magical energy rifle firing at one before it went down with a hole burned through it.  The other robots made it into the building before they fell, riddled with holes.  At least they didn’t move very fast.

Once all the zebras and their metal companions were taken care of, we split into two groups; one barricaded the door while the other inspected the destructive charges.  The likelihood that the zebras in the MoM surveillance offices were still able to contact their comrades was high, and more zebras would likely be dispatched here to deal with us.  Anything we could do to keep them from getting in the building before we had control of the surveillance center and had our own backup on the way was a worthwhile investment.  At the same time, we couldn’t let the zebras destroy the building before we took the surveillance center, so the destructive charges had to be disarmed temporarily.  The charges were all wired together, and the main cable trailed up through an elevator shaft, probably all the way to the surveillance center, so it was an easy task to cut the cable and disarm our opponents.

Reassembling into a single team, we began the climb to the surveillance center.  The elevators would’ve been much quicker, but it wasn’t worth the risk to use anything that the zebras could control.  Speed was important—the longer it took us to reach the surveillance center, the greater a chance there was that more zebras would arrive—but we were held back by more than just distrust of technology.  There was also the chance that zebras were waiting on floors between us and the surveillance center, and it wouldn’t do to reach our target only to be ambushed from behind.  Doing quick sweeps of each floor for hiding zebras became more important as we neared the top floor, and EFS registered those above us as well as any on the same level.

Without casualties, we reached the top floor, only to immediately lose one of our own.  The zebras were ready and waiting for us, and the riflepony who nudged the door to the surveillance center open was hit by automatic fire before he could get out of the way.  I threw a metal apple through the door as it swung back, and was rewarded by the disappearance of several tics on my EFS.  As more zebras rushed to confront us, I motioned the mare with the flamethrower forward, and she poured fire through the doorway.

I pulled the door open the rest of the way with my magic, and we rushed through into the surveillance center.  The team split up immediately and sought cover as the zebras in the room fired on us. There were plenty of desks we could hide behind, so that was no problem, but we were outnumbered two to one, and time was of the essence.  I heard a crash, and  out of the corner of my eye saw a zebra kicking surveillance equipment off a desk.  Were they resigned to defeat already?

Before the zebra could destroy any more equipment, I shot her with my magical energy rifle (and unfortunately fried another piece of equipment with a stray shot in the process).  I was thrown across the floor as a zebra explosive went off on the other side of the desk I was behind.  The zebras fired on me as I was exposed, and I ran for cover, firing my SMG as I went and taking down two enemies.  In my new cover, I quickly tended to the hits I’d taken in my mad dash and drank a healing potion.  For a simulation, the pain was extremely realistic.

A burst of flame consumed two zebras as the flamethrower mare cleared them out.  Thankfully she had the sense not to burn any of the surveillance equipment, through that proved dangerous.  By expanding her trail of flame, she could’ve taken out the last zebra, but instead she ducked down behind a desk to avoid destroying what we’d come here for.  This remaining zebra was taken off guard by shots from the surviving riflepony as he tried to pursue the mare with the flamethrower; just like that, the fight was over.

“Go, repair the line to the explosives,” I ordered the team’s grenadier, following up on what he’d told me earlier.

Now that we were in control, we needed the ability to destroy the building if it came to it.  The battle and the zebras’ attempts to thwart us had damaged much of the surveillance equipment, but much of it was still in working order.  I sat down at the main desk and figured out how to control surveillance from the terminal.  After a little fiddling, the screens showed the exterior of the Ministry Morale Hub.  No zebras were currently around, but that wouldn’t last forever.

“Sir, I’ve contacted Colonel Cognac,” the unicorn mare under my command reported from the nearby radio equipment.

“Colonel, we’ve taken the Ministry of Morale Hub,” I reported after taking the headset from the mare, “We currently have control of the surveillance center, but we need reinforcements soon.”

“We have a problem there,” Colonel Cognac, a pony I’d never heard of or seen before said, “The zebras have launched an assault on the camp.”  

Tapping away at the terminal before me, I brought up images of the camp and confirmed Cognac’s assertion.  The pony defenders were holding the zebras off from atop the surrounding wall, but more were arriving, exiting snakelike vehicles.  Shifting the cameras again, I observed the streets of Flankorage and spotted more of the snakelike vehicles slithering along.  These, however, were clearly headed toward the MoM Hub and not the camp.  From what I’d seen outside the Equestrian camp, there must be at least a hundred zebras headed our way.

“We cannot send reinforcements at this time,” Cognac’s voice crackled over the radio, “Can you hold out there?”

“Not long.  There are more zebras headed our way,” I replied.

“Right.  Can you destroy the surveillance equipment?”

“We can drop the whole building, but I don’t know if we can get out of here before the zebras arrive,” I said as I realized with consternation how fast the snake vehicles were approaching.

“Get to the roof,” Cognac said, “I can pull away five pegasi to pick you up.”  

“Four,” I replied, looking at where my team member had fallen, though he had long ago dissolved into code.

“Understood,” Cognac signed off.

The zebras were fast approaching, and I ordered my team to the roof.  I stayed behind, watching the screens as the snake vehicles slithered through Flankorage’s streets, brushing aside the rubble from bombardments.  I had no intention of staying behind to die, as that would accomplish absolutely nothing, but I had to stick around for a little longer at least.  Zebras began to assemble around the bottom of the building, and the snake vehicles obliterated our barricade at the entrance in an instant.  I spotted the approaching pegasi through the window as zebras poured into the lobby.

Before they could get to the cable and do to us what we’d done to them, I detonated the explosives in the basement.  The MoM Hub shook and settled violently as I ran from the surveillance center to the stair to the roof.  As the building began to tilt, I ran across the roof.  My team members were picked up by pegasi, and I waved to get the last one’s attention.  The pegasus swooped down and grabbed me around my trunk before flying away.  I looked down as the MoM Hub fell, toppling other buildings and burying zebras, and my vision faded to black.


***


I was standing in front of General Shining Armor again.  There was no indication of time passing this time, but surely there was a gap between the mission to take the MoM Hub and now.  The general looked even more tired and ragged, but the map projected on the table in front of him was much less red than before.

“I have another mission for you,” Shining Armor announced.

“I’m ready, sir” I said when I realized he was waiting for a response.

“The zebras may no longer have the advantage of observing our every move, but we’re still outmatched here thanks to their numerous Basilisk tanks,” Shining Armor explained, highlighting a spot on the map, “Their Basilisks have the same problem we do, though.  They need a tremendous amount of fuel and it all has to be shipped in.  We take out their fuel depot here, and we severely cripple their mobility and ability to fight.”

“You need me to destroy the fuel depot.”

“Just so,” Shining Armor said with a nod, “Same as the last assignment, though I can spare a larger team this time.  It’s still a covert mission, after all.  Get your gear and make sure you pick up the explosive charges from the quartermaster.”

Shining Armor turned and left, and I trotted over to the requisition terminal.  Slate was absent, but I didn’t need any help this time in picking out my equipment.  I included the same items as before, and when the slip printed out, it included the explosive charges I’d need to destroy the basilisk fuel depot.  The quartermaster didn’t question my request for a magical energy rifle this time, and also gave me the explosives without question.  He even seemed somewhat friendly, treating me like an acquaintance, and I wondered if the simulation continued to run when I wasn’t interacting with it?  That was a less disturbing notion than the thought that the body I was inhabiting had belonged to another pony during the Flankorage liberation and he had struck up a friendship with the quartermaster.

I was heading north to meet my team when the MoP tent once again caught my eye.  It wasn’t that unnatural, since it was bright yellow, but it brought back my desire to take a peek inside.  This time I gave in, and pulled aside a flap and stepped in as a nurse stepped out.  It was as I’d expected, rows of injured ponies laying on rows of beds stretching off into the distance.  Had each of these ponies really lived centuries ago?  Was each face I saw that of a pony who’d fought in this terrible war?  Many of the injured ponies were missing limbs; had they returned home and tried to build a normal life for themselves, only to have it snuffed out by the megaspells on the Last Day?

I closed the flap and left; I didn’t want to see any more.  This was not the past I was in, it was merely a very convincing simulation of it.  Of all the ponies here, only I was real, only I was really alive.  If I died, then it was the end for me, but these ponies would live on in the memory orbs and maneframes of the simulation.  Perhaps this was Shining Armor’s true monument to those who’d fought and died with him here.

However, I was getting distracted.  I heeded my PipBuck’s instructions and headed to the north gate to meet my team.  The general had provided me with nearly twice as many soldiers this time.  Of the seven ponies assembled at the gate, I recognized three of them; they’d been with me on my last mission.  I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have had eight soldiers had that stallion not died, but stopped myself before the thought went too far.  It wouldn’t do to dwell on the deaths of those under my command, not in a simulation.


***


Our journey to the Basilisk fuel depot was in many ways both easier and harder than getting to the Ministry of Morale Hub.  Friendly territory didn’t end right outside the camp anymore, and we saw several patrols and checkpoints set up by Equestrian soldiers on our way through the city.  The zebras were also unable to track our every move now that the MoM Hub had been destroyed.  The cameras and wiretaps were dead, and the Sprite-bots hovered in silence, eerily watching with no one to report too.  However, the zebras were more alert to the danger of small teams slipping through and had many more patrols out to catch us.  We were almost always outnumbered, as the zebras preferred to arrange their soldiers into squads of eleven for some reason.  Thankfully, they didn’t have EFS, and that advantage allowed us to usually spot them before they spotted us and find an advantageous position to ambush them from.

We were feeling pretty good as we neared the fuel depot without having lost anypony in the firefights, but I remembered how my team at the MoM had been fine until the very end.  From the looks on the faces of those who’d been, itt seemed that the same thought was occurring to them.  Once again, I questioned how real the simulation was.  What kind of a program could simulate a living pony with a personality, memories, emotions, and probably also thoughts, wishes, and desires?  When combined with memory orbs containing experiences that had actually happened, it seemed all the limits of computing were gone.

I was still trying to make sense of the simulation when the unexpected attack came.  The road we were following split up ahead, and at the crossroads was a building with a giant billboard shaped like a bottle of Sparkle~Cola.  The explosions were astonishingly quiet as the billboard was detached from the building and began to tip toward us.  The billboard was nearly as wide as the street, and the team frantically fled into the buildings on either side as it plummeted for us.  Everypony made it to safety before the Sparkle~Cola bottle crashed to the ground, smashing the auto-carriages parked on the curbs.

The way that the billboard had landed made it impossible to get out through the doors and windows of the first floor, so I motioned across the street for the team to move to the second floor.  They signaled back to those in a different building than me on this side, and we moved out.  Two ponies had retreated with me into an abandoned flower shop: the flamethrower mare from the previous mission, and a unicorn mare with a combat shotgun.  Cautiously, the three of us made our way up to the second floor.

We had no idea what the zebras had planned; surely it didn’t end with nearly dropping a billboard on us.  The mare with the combat shotgun spotted the mine concealed at the top of the stairs before I did.  Carefully, I disarmed it like those at Skyarch Station and tucked it in my saddlebags.  I weighed the benefits and risks of calling out a warning to the other groups, but it turned out I didn’t need to, and not for a good reason.

Next door, an explosion blew out a wall as one of the ponies stepped on the concealed mine.  Shielding myself from the flying splinters, I looked across into the adjoining building where the dead soldier’s companion was standing in shock.  Miniguns blared out from the upper floors on both sides of the street and rounds tore through our floor.

“Over here!” I yelled to the surviving pony as shots flew around her, and she jumped in a daze through the hole to join the rest of us.

Together, the four of us made our way up the stairs to the next floor, hoping the three ponies on the other side of the street were doing the same.  The zebras were no fools; realizing that we would try to reach them once we learned where they’d been hiding (above the range of our EFS), they strafed their miniguns across the buildings, gradually moving upwards.  It was a race to stay ahead of (or rather, above) them and keep to the back of the building to buy more time.  Whoever had designed these buildings had a strange notion of how to build staircases, placing them all over the place, and it was not easy to keep moving upward consistently when the location that would allow us to do so did not remain consistent.

We reached the top floor at last, and burst in.  The zebras, however, were not in the same building, but the one next to us.  Not wanting to waste any of the charges intended for the Basilisk fuel depot, I placed the mine I’d retrieved from downstairs against the wall and triggered it with my magic.  There were six zebras, three on miniguns and three prepared to hold off attacks.  They were expecting the attacks to come from the stairway they were facing, however, and were not prepared when the wall was blown out.  I fired my magical energy rifle at the farthest one, using TATAS to guide me, the mare we’d picked up below fired her assault rifle at the middle one, and the strawberry-coated flamethrower mare roasted the nearest one.

The zebras on the miniguns immediately abandoned them and prepared their battle saddles for a fight.  We retreated to cover around the hole in the wall as the zebras began to fire at us with their rifles.  I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags and tossed it in.  It went off without removing any red marks from my EFS, and the zebras threw one of their cylindrical explosives through the hole at us.  Unless we moved, we would not be fortunate enough to survive unscathed, and everypony followed my lead as I charged through the hole, spraying cover fire with my SMG.

A zebra was waiting just inside the room, and as he raised his rifle to my head, the mare with the combat shotgun blasted him in the face.  The other zebras were farther in, and the mare with the assault rifle fired on them as they sought cover, managing to hit one’s leg.  As the four of us advanced across the room, weapons ready, shots began to tear through the walls from across the street.  The zebras are firing on us?  Aren’t they afraid to hit their own?  

Apparently they weren’t, as the miniguns across the street roared and shots flew across the room.  We were forced to retreat, and headed back down to the floor below.  When the barrage ended, the zebras upstairs were dead, just as we would’ve been had we stayed.  We tentatively headed back up the stairs to confirm, and looked out though the newly enlarged windows across the street.  The other three members of the team waved at us from the upper level on the other side, and we waved back.  We had lost one member, but had survived the ambush.


***


After the journey to get here, the fuel depot was surprisingly lightly defended.  A sturdy fence had been erected around the fuel tanks, and walkways spanned the perimeter and crisscrossed the complex, but there were few zebras patrolling them.  Before we entered the complex to do our sabotage, we scouted it out to make sure there were no surprises waiting for us.  The guards, it turned out, hadn’t left, but were all congregated at a mobile office on the far side of the depot.  Somezebra important had to be there in order for them to prioritize their safety over that of the crucial fuel for their Basilisks.

Speaking of Basilisks, there were a few parked in the depot refueling.  I hadn’t known exactly what to expect (and thought it would’ve been rude to ask Shining Armor something that I was probably assumed to know), but it turned out that I’d seen Basilisks before.  They were the long snakelike vehicles the zebras had used to transport troops for their assault on the camp and the MoM Hub.  They really were like snakes, articulated along their length and covered in overlapping plates of heavy armor.  The cockpit was in the “head,” the eyes were heavy cannons, and the mouth was a boring drill.  Though I hadn’t seen it, apparently the Basilisks could tunnel underground, which was how they’d been able to get so close the camp before being seen.  I saw why it was important to limit the operation of these machines.

We hadn’t expected the zebras to be grouped up around the mobile office, but we could use it to our advantage.  With less guards patrolling the fuel depot, it was easier to sneak around and place our charges on the tanks without being seen.  It was tempting to try to go after whoever was in the mobile office, but that wasn’t our mission.  We had to take out the fuel depot, and after that, it would be safest to slip away and return to the camp without engaging.

About half the charges were placed when we were noticed at our task.  As we’d moved stealthily through the depot, we’d necessarily had to remove some of the guards so as not to become surrounded.  The one who’d spotted us, however, could not be easily shot with a silenced weapon or have her throat slit with a knife in time.  She yelled out an alarm as she ran across the walkways toward the nearby mobile office, until she was cut down by rifle fire.

There were only four fuel tanks without charges, and the team split into three pairs so one pony could place the charges while the other covered them.  I was on my own, and ran to the nearest tank, pulling my remaining charges from my saddlebags.  No sooner had I attached and armed them than bullets began flying past my head.  The zebras from the mobile office were advancing into the fuel depot, and I fired back with my magical energy rifle.

“Retreat!” I ordered as one of my own soldiers fell.

We had all the charges ready now, so all we had to do was get out of the fuel depot alive and I could trigger its destruction with my PipBuck.  We hastily pulled back, firing back at the zebras the whole time.  We needed to get out of the depot before we could destroy it, but we couldn’t let the zebras undo our work.  Another of our number fell before we were clear of the depot.

There was a bus shelter nearby, and I ducked into it for cover before accessing my PipBuck and broadcasting the signal to detonate the charges.  I couldn’t resist looking back as the explosives we placed went off and the entire fuel depot was consumed in a giant fireball.  The blast incinerated all the zebras pursuing us and spread to engulf the mobile office as well.  There was something satisfying about watching my EFS and seeing all the red dots disappear one by one.

As the fire began to disperse, I was puzzled when one hostile pip refused to vanish from my EFS.  Had somezebra managed to escape the blast on the other side?  It seemed too far for EFS to register it, but I didn’t know exactly what the range was, so it was possible.  The enemy was revealed as she strode through the flames.  The zebra had been wearing a dress or robes of some sort, but now she was covered in tattered and burned rags.  She herself looked like she had not been touched by the fire, and carried under one foreleg a book that looked similarly untouched.

Something about her—how she looked, how she walked, the fact that she was unhurt by burning fuel—made me supremely uneasy, and I raised my magical energy rifle to fire at her.  The zebra’s eyes narrowed and flashed as she stared at me, and my weapon went flying from my magical grasp.  A second later, I too went flying through the air and rolling through the dirt.  Magic?  How?

My team rushed to my aid, but the ground shook, and a Basilisk tank emerged behind the zebra sorceress.  Zebras poured out of it, and my team quickly became engaged in a firefight with the enemy soldiers.  The zebra sorceress seemed to have no interest them, and kept her eyes on me as she levitated a shard of metal from the destroyed depot and shot it toward me.  There was no opportunity to get out of its way, but I instinctively raised my foreleg to block so that at least it wouldn’t strike my neck.  The shard struck my foreleg and thrust through my PipBuck, the tip protruding from the screen a hair’s width from my face.

My PipBuck did not take well to suddenly being impaled, and ejected electricity and magic.  My muscles locked up and I fell to the ground.  My vision refused to focus, but I was still able to see the zebra sorceress board the Basilisk, somezebra in an elaborate uniform bowing to her as she entered.  The Basilisk tunneled away, taking the sorceress with it, and my heart ceased beating properly.

I couldn’t die here!  If I died here, would I immediately die back in reality, or would I experience death, exit the simulation, and experience it again?  I didn’t want to die!  I hadn’t braved the horrors of the Wasteland just to die lying prone in a pod experiencing events that had transpired centuries ago!  This couldn’t be how it ended!  The last thing I remembered before I lost consciousness was my team falling back, one of them grabbing me as they did so.

Level Up
New Perk: Quiet as a Mouse – You are nearly silent when sneaking, and there is much less chance of enemies hearing your movements.
New Quest: Winter Witchcraft – Stay alive and find out more about the zebra sorceress.
Energy Weapons +5 (39)
Explosives +2 (38)
Medicine +3 (43)
Science +2 (67)
Small Guns +5 (82)
Sneak +3 (53)