My attention snapped to Shadow, eyes wide as saucers. "What?!" I yipped out of shock reflex.
Acknowledging my reaction with a split-second glance, the captain looked between us five. "I recognize the layout of the ship from when he gave the tour and virtually every corridor there is. I know exactly where to go."
Zjitzo's brow furrowed. "How the hell do you plan on getting up there? You saw what they did to those jets for merely breaking formation. In fact, those shots should have been impossible!"
The naval captain shook his head in disagreement. "With Armet? I doubt it."
I sat there for a good long moment, thinking my options over. My gaze shifted up to the arrow-shaped object slowly climbing higher into the sky. In that instance, I had made up my mind. "I'll carry you up there, Captain."
Shadow snapped his head over, looking slightly caught off guard. "Can you fly?"
I nodded more confidently than I actually was. The more time spent pondering on it, the less self-assurance I had regarding my ability in flying to such heights, let alone with another pony to carry along. But now wasn't the time for inhibitions. "Of course I can. I'm a pegasus," I replied in sarcastic remark, except neither of them caught it.
"Are you sure you two can do it alone? That thing's going to be swarming with his ponies," queried Zjitzo in some concern. "Allow us to accompany you."
Shadow waved his hoof to the offer. "That will not be necessary. Two are far less detectable than a dozen. We'll be outnumbered, yes, which is why we ask of you to keep your confidence high."
The others nodded, then Javelin stepped toward me, digging into a pocket in his belt. "Here, you can't go without one of these," he said, producing a small earpiece.
"Where did you get this from?" I questioned, taking it gently.
"I always keep a spare on me in case something happens to mine," Javelin winked. "It is already programmed to our private comm channel, so no need to tamper with it."
I nodded my head once, lifting the little device to my ear and slipping it in comfortably. Javelin tipped his chin while Snow exchanged the flash drive to Shadow, which he safely put away into a pocket in his uniform. My attention shifted to the captain. "Are we set?"
"You sure you are up for this?" Shadow asked back, a genuine look of concern plastered on his countenance.
"Only partially," I admitted. "But hey, someone's gotta do it."
He could only nod in agreement with that, and the two of us began trotting to an open area behind Homefront to take off.
"Wait!" I heard a friendly voice call, stopping me. I turned my head, seeing Ashfall walk up. "Did I hear right, that you are going up there?"
I clenched up a little at the question. Saying no would have been a blatant lie and he knows that, but having him fret over my return also wasn't what I wanted in our present situation. "Yes." Damn it, mouth.
Ash's light red cores shot wide open, further revealing the bloody fractures in his eyeballs from discernible fatigue. "The hell you are! What are you, his chauffeur?" he threw up a hoof, gesturing to the naval captain.
"Is this any of your business, Marine?" glared Shadow, taking a step forward ahead of me to face Ash.
I shifted my attention briefly to give a soft look at the captain. "Please, sir, let me handle this."
Shadow looked at me, then back to Ash with an unwavering scowl before he backed off. When he was no longer involved and out of our conversation space, I turned back to my friend with a countenance that combined concern with determination.
"Are you really about to leave us again, Star?" he questioned lowly in a tone of disappointment, his ears drooping inside his helmet.
At first I didn't understand what he meant by 'again', until I remembered, which only slightly worsened the mutual tension. "But I came back last time, didn't I?" I remarked with a poor attempt at a reassuring smile.
"Barely, from what I heard," Ash replied, narrowing his sights only more to look me dead in the eye. "I don't want to be the one to break the news this time."
I lifted a hoof to his shoulder, patting it twice before sitting it there. "Then you can be the one to tell Anchor and Night what it was for." Instantly I regretted those words, seeing how little they contributed to his feelings in spite of the truth in them.
Realistically, neither me nor Shadow truly knew what we were getting into. The stakes were high regardless of outcome, and it ultimately boils down to it being us, or millions of lives. It was not that difficult to comprehend the importance of our decision to storm the Vengeance; that said, I understood Ash's apprehension.
"Then if you're going up there, take these. I think they might come in handy," he said, handing over a pair of what appeared to be batons of the exact design as the electrified ones back in Los Pegasus.
My eyes dashed downward, then up. I gently took them with a thanking nod, holstering them along my barrel. "Every little bit helps. Will you guys be okay down here?"
Ash simply shrugged his shoulders, then gave a strangely calm smile, followed by words that were somewhat less than reassuring. "We'll see."
"Corporal! Get your lazy ass back over here and help us!" barked Sunset Haze, prompting Ash to get back in the fight.
The moss stallion began to turn around, pausing to give one final glance and saying, "Good luck," before hurrying back to his MG.
I watched him go for a moment, anxious for his sake, for Silver's, and everypony else around me. For all I knew, this might be the last time I see them among the living. Or vice versa. That wasn't the greatest of feelings to depart with.
However, those thoughts must be pushed aside in the meantime. Tucking either baton underneath a belt on my vest and looping my SCAR's strap around the back of my neck, I glanced over to Shadow, dipping myself almost completely to the cement to allow him to climb on.
With much care so as to not hurt me in any way, the greenish-grey stallion slid onto my back comfortably, shifting about to give my wings the space needed to prevent hampering flight. He looked down at me with a mild look of concern across his mien, asking, "I have not seen you off the ground a day in my life. What changed?"
At his question, I glanced some over my shoulder, giving a little smirk. "A small spark of motivation. Hang on."
Both hooves clenched around my lower neck, not to the point of choking but without risking falling off. I dipped my body forward, my forehooves lower than my hinds, honing my sights upon the sky and Vengeance.
Barring any hesitation, I leaped upward with all strength put into my limbs to get us airborne. With the aid of my wings as I flapped them hard, I gained somewhat unstable lift that only prompted Shadow to hold on tighter while I stabilized.
Because we were only just barely climbing at a faster rate than the ship rather than it sitting in a steady hover, we were catching up, albeit slower than I wanted to. Some part of my conscience bitched and moaned over my decision, mainly due to how inexperienced I was with flying, but it was far too late to change my mind now.
"Star! Shadow! Do you read me?" yelled Javelin loudly into either of our earpieces, startling me somewhat by the set volume of the earpiece. That might become obnoxious later on.
"Loud and clear, Techie!" was my response, keeping it short so as to maintain concentration.
Each and every rapid pump of my wings strained them, primarily due to the excess weight and gravity viciously tugging down on my form, not to mention upper-level winds and wake turbulence from the Vengeance threatening to send us tumbling to earth.
The closer we came to the ship, the sheer size of it became more apparent, and the low rumbling hum of its thrusters underneath sent cold chills running up my spine.
"What's your current position?!" called Javelin over the roaring of gunfire in the background.
"About, uh... three hundred feet below the hull!" responded Shadow, having to raise his voice over the increasingly loud hum of the engines, which eventually turned into a roar that expelled heat that the both of us felt on our faces.
"Head straight up for those glass panes!" he shouted over the wind pushing back against us.
My sights honed in on the ship's port side, where an array of angled windows lined a gently-curved section along the belly. From here, without any sort of hatch nearby, that appeared to be the only way in.
"Brace yourself!" I warned, angling myself to gather adequate speed to crash through. Shadow ducked himself somewhat, maintaining his hold around my neck with one hoof while using the other to shield his eyes.
Whether or not my momentum was enough to break the glass, this would hurt; though hopefully only temporarily and not end up with me covered in half-inch thick shards from head to tail. Then again, that was preferable to subsequent death by blunt force trauma, which was the next thing to hit me just before the glass did.
With an enormous crash that rendered me stunned immediately after, the two of us broke through the pane. In the seconds following impact, I wished even more that I hadn't given up my helmet earlier when I did. On the contrary, those civilians needed the rebreather in that dust storm. Though it would have saved me a literal headache, which now spread as far down as my shoulders.
I landed flat on the floor beside the angled windows with a deep grunt as both the blow from hitting a second solid surface along with Shadow's mass momentarily pressing down as his momentum transferred into me. In spite of my dizzied state, my hooves squirmed about as I struggled some to get up, swishing around bits of shattered glass that rained on us both. Thankfully, none of it caught between a dividing lip in the floor panels and my jumpsuit sleeves, which would have resulted in perhaps an inch or two of glass stabbing like a kitchen knife through flesh.
Hopping off my back quickly, allowing me to finally support my own weight and nothing more, Shadow offered out a hoof. "You alright, Marine?"
I shook my head just to put an end to the spinning of the room, hastily taking his hoof and lifting myself onto all fours. "Remind me to grab a spare helmet next time," I replied, wiping my vest free of lingering glass pieces.
Shadow smirked a little at that, then began scanning our surroundings. "Now, where in the hell are we?" he mumbled just audibly.
I took a moment to rub my forehead, eyes shut. "Tell me we didn't land in the one place you didn't pass through?" I groaned out between heavy breaths.
"No, hold on," he insisted, subconsciously popping out the clip in his gun to check what rounds were left in it before reinserting. Checking both in front of and behind us, he muttered incoherently to himself as he worked out where we were. "All right, we should be near a main stairwell. That should lead us almost directly to the server farm."
Panting still, trying to catch my breath for even just a moment, I finally glanced up to take in the corridor we now sat in. "I don't know about you, Shadow, but this feels like some Con Mane, spy movie-meets-comic book superhero-crossover bullshit."
A small grin curled the captain's lips upward once more. "You aren't entirely wrong there," he rejoined. Facing forward, he drew his sidearm defensively. "What is your ammo looking like?"
"Three mags, that's it," I replied in a soft grunt. Without easy access to rounds, it was in my best interest to conserve as many bullets as I possibly could while up here.
"Make do with that; but most importantly, make good use of those batons. Luna knows they should come in handy one way or another," he said. "Now, on me."
Lifting the SCAR's strap over my head to hold it properly, I moved up close behind the captain as he started to move up the corridor. The first t-shaped intersection to our left was a stairwell that led to the next level only, which Shadow climbed without hesitation to his step.
This windowless passageway was particularly long and went without entrances to any compartments, if there were any on this level at all. On our right sat another stairwell, this one carrying up five more levels to the flight deck. Briefly examining the designation label along the wall, Shadow continued up to the next floor, keeping his sidearm drawn in one hoof as he did while I kept close quarters.
Upon reaching what was referred to as sublevel one, partitioning off the lower section of Vengeance from the rest of the ship, Shadow took extra caution moving into the hall just beyond the entryway, double checking to make sure nopony was traversing these same passageways before heading right toward another crossroad that was notably brighter in lighting than most of the stairwell itself.
As he pulled up to a corner of the intersection, he signaled up his hoof to halt here as he cautiously peeked one eye around, and what he saw brought a small grunt out of the captain; the hall direction we needed to take, manned by a singular, yet unarmed GenTech sentry.
The guard stood just to the side of what presumably was the passageway into the server farm, or a branching corridor that led to it. To his immediate right, a button alarm; an easy press from alerting the entire ship of our presence.
Shadow dug into one of his pockets, producing a spent bullet shell. He glanced over his shoulder, giving a silent gesture for me to pay attention to what he was about to do.
I shifted to a better position in order to observe whilst retaining secrecy from the enemy only a few feet from where we stood. Shadow took the bullet shell in his hoof and wound it back, tossing with just enough strength to let it land just past the guard's position.
Clinking along the floor as it bounced three times before rolling to a halt, the noise did its job in attracting the sentry's attention. First he snapped his head to the immediate source, followed by gentle movement to approach the shell without raising the alarm. This gave us a perfect window to slip past undetected, though Shadow had other plans in mind.
Without so much as giving a signal to move, the greenish-grey stallion advanced out into the passageway, not only catching me by surprise, but the guard as well when he clicked the hammer of his sidearm just behind his head.
"No sudden moves, no noises. Understood?" Shadow threatened quietly, garnering a slow, acknowledging nod by the frightened sentry.
Shadow waved his hoof, gesturing for me to post up beside the server farm entryway. Moving into this position blocked the alarm in case the guard attempts to toggle it suddenly.
The pistol's muzzle jabbed into the back of his head, causing him to lurch some as he was startled. "Into the corridor, slowly. Move," ordered Shadow, poking his sidearm a second time.
Very gradually and smoothly, the guard looped around Shadow's side while he and I both strictly observed. Shadow gave a third shove, prompting him to move a little bit faster. I had my SCAR drawn but kept my hoof away from the trigger in order to intimidate the sentry further as he turned into the split-off.
For a moment it was evident that he was eyeballing the alarm trigger, though he would have to go through me to reach it—assuming Shadow doesn't pop his head off like a balloon meeting a dart first.
Once in the passageway, I checked our surroundings carefully before moving in after them. Past a full bulkhead panel sat window panes stretching from the floor to the ceiling, some of which frosted to conceal the city of equal-sized server towers blinking in reds, greens, yellows, and some blues, with wiring very tidily stretching along the ceiling and into the floors without risk of tripping.
The hall itself was somewhat dimly lit, though not to the point of any obscurity. The opposite end was closed off by a locked bulkhead hatch not unlike those on the Eclipse.
"Stop," Shadow commanded to the guard, but also to me as I watched our sixes. The quaking stallion stopped dead in his tracks just short of the entrance to the server farm. After only a couple of seconds, Shadow's gun cracked into the guard's temple. He let off a pained grunt and collapsed to the floor, completely incapacitated.
The sound even startled me, and I whipped my head around to see just who made it. That's when my eyes settled upon the guard, as well as Shadow aiming his gun down toward his head in case he was faking unconsciousness. "Take his badge, it doubles as an access card. Depending on his level of security clearance, it should let us in just about anywhere."
At his order, I rushed to the sentry's side and knelt, pushing his limp form upright to nab the simple badge he wore. It read of his name, displayed a simple mugshot beside it, and included a black stripe along the back side for swiping.
The only thing standing between us and potential victory was an automatic glass pane door, and of course it was locked by only a digital keypad without a surface to scan or swipe the recovered access card. Shadow's first attempt at opening the server farm was a hard buck to the glass, which simply reverberated the impact's energy back into his body and threw him forward some.
"Damn it..." Shadow sighed in frustration, raising the pistol's barrel to the glass to shoot it out.
Just before he could pull the trigger, a deep voice startlingly spoke over a ceiling speaker. "That won't work, I'm afraid."
Both Shadow and I swiftly scrutinized our surroundings, before he noticed a rather inconspicuously-placed security camera above the server farm entrance. Now it made sense how he could see us, and he likely knew we were on board before we even landed.
"You know, you could have fooled me. I'd have believed you came all this way just to watch the fireworks. But I know that isn't the real reason you two are here with us."
My sights narrowed sharply onto the opaque semisphere that encompassed the lens as it focused on us. "Fireworks? What fireworks? What the hell are you planning?"
"Why, the rebirth of this squalor we call home, boys. The countdown has already begun. In a few short minutes, this ship will target and neutralize any and all threats to our beloved future, courtesy of our continental scanning array floating in low orbit over our very heads."
My teeth grit in a growing fury deep in my essence. "You're going to kill hundreds, maybe thousands for personal gains? You are psychotic!"
"Psychotic? Me?" Armet said, before bursting into a cackle. "I'm a little bit offended. Only a little. But, no, I am not a psycho. I am, what many bright minds would call, a pony of intellect. Besides, I wouldn't call them personal gains if everypony will benefit from it."
Shadow scoffed at his remark. "Not if the everypony you speak of is murdered in cold blood! Already you have thrown the nation's economy into a total tailspin, but yet you want more. Always more with you billionaires. What's next, world domination? Good luck with that, buddy. You've pissed off an entire nation's armed forces so far."
"You know what? I've had enough of the two of you for one lifetime. Security, deal with these stowaways at once!"
"And I have had it up to here with his tech..." Shadow grunted in further annoyance, yanking one of the batons from my utility belt and flipping the switch that generates the shocking electricity along the stick and took a prompt swing at the keypad, with me turning my head away and backstepping to protect myself from unintentional electrocution.
Upon contact, the crackling of the baton's energy expelling into the keypad quickly short circuited it and even broke the glass surface that made up the touchpad, subsequently overriding the system that maintained the door's lock, and opened it with enough clearance for him to slip inside. Shadow lifted a hoof to his headset, speaking into the little microphone sticking out from the side of his helmet. "All right, Javelin, we're in. Now what?"
Just then, my ears perked to the racket of multiple hooves galloping down the adjacent corridor. Upon peeking my head out to check, I noted four stallions in blue and grey skin-tight suits of security guards, not unlike the incapacitated one by the server farm, hurrying toward us. "We've got company, Captain," I announced to him.
"Can you hold them off while I work?" he glanced at me, returning my baton undamaged.
I nodded my head once. "I'll do what I can," before taking a defensive stance near the doorway and waiting for the sentries to enter.
"Do our country proud, Corporal," he said, reciting what I had said to him at the U.W.C. That in itself made me stop and look at him for a split second, even as he squeezed into the server farm.
Frankly, I wasn't the most confident taking on four ponies all on my lonesome. A part of me just wanted to shoot them and be done with it, though that would be a complete waste of ammunition if I am to need it later. It was the good side of my conscience that talked me out of it simply because these stallions appeared unarmed apart from stun sticks of their own.
I waited for the prime moment, and that was the second before they reached the entryway when I whipped out my other baton and activated both of their electrical fields. One swing of the baton in my left hoof collided with the throat of the first sentry, an earth pony, essentially clotheslining him as he rushed in. His head knocked back as his rear slid forward under him, landing him on his back and choking from the sudden blow.
Without a moment of hesitating did I leap out into the open passageway, catching the second pony tailing the first with the force of my chest crashing into his shoulder, shoving the pegasus sideways and into the bulkhead. My demeanor temporarily turned away while the two were downed to focus on the remaining earth pony-and-unicorn duo as they drew their respective stun batons and took swings for me.
Lurching back to dodge caused me to stomp my hinds into the first downed's chest, effectively kicking the wind out of him and lengthening his recovery time. Between assaults would I return swings, clashing batons against those of the remaining assailants that sparked and clapped bolts of electricity that only added to the adrenaline between everypony in that hallway.
It did surprise me the lack of indoctrination these sentries appear to have received, especially for their duties aboard a rather important component of Armet's plan; though my own basic close-quarters combat training can't have rivaled theirs by much, either.
The pegasus quickly pushed himself up from the bulkhead and leaped airborne, diving just narrowly above his partners' heads in the low-ceiling hall in attempt to force me to the floor. I ducked my head while simultaneously raising my hoof, catching it into the pegasus' wing, sending him into a spiral that ended with a hard crash some four feet behind me.
This gave the unicorn an advantage, taking this very brief opportunity to latch my forehoof in a lime green aura and toss me into the bulkhead with enough strength to jumble some screws up above. The impact forced one of the batons out of my hold, clattering along the floor panel beside me as I came down with a grunt, only to hop right back up with adequate reaction time to block an incoming blow from the second earth pony's free hoof.
In the chaos, the unicorn sentry made feeble attempt to snatch up the loose baton beneath me, stopped only by my hoof coming down to hold it in place. This prompted him to try and steal my SCAR off of my person, and right as he grabbed it by the stock, my hoof raised to twist and aim it before two rounds settled into the unicorn's chest in small bloody sprays from each wound that sprinkled the left bulkhead and the floor in red, followed by a pool that surrounded his dying form as he went down.
While against my interest to spend precious ammunition on these goons, it only served that sentry right to die a much more painful death for even considering trying to take my gun away. That said, with him down and the pegasus still recovering from his rough landing, it left me with the two earth ponies to deal with.
"Damn it, he's locked me out!" Javelin yelled overtop heavy gunfire in the background and minor static in our private channel, likely caused by distance interference.
"What the hell do you mean he's locked you out?!" I heard Shadow return through my earpiece, being unable to hear him from out in this passageway.
"Uhh, one second! Armet's just slightly smarter than me... slightly!" he assured. That meant I had to continue buying them time out here.
The first of the two, the one to have been clotheslined at the start, didn't bother to wield his own stun baton and instead went for cuffs to the face and elbows to strike me down. I backstepped, narrowly avoiding his hoof as it swung by, then lunged down and forward to shove the top of the electrified stick into his chest. Upon contact, he trembled and convulsed as shocks surged through his system, effectively locking him still as his nerves refused to respond. While he was in a daze, I spun a full one-eighty, delivering a hard one-leg buck to his jaw that sent him flying backwards.
Spinning back around, I brought up my left baton after snatching it up from the floor, smacking it by the flat side into the second stallion's cheek, before raising my right hoof to finally crack him in the skull with the other, throwing him face-down into the floor panel. Upon coming to rest, splayed out across the large tile, he ultimately went limp from unconsciousness.
Just as the rear of my mind started to believe the fight was over, my ear swiveled to the low groan of the pegasus propping himself up, preparing to attack one last time. Without giving him a further chance to, I rushed up to the staggering pony with my baton lowered, kicking all four hooves right out from underneath him before dealing a final, electrocuting blow to the side that sizzled and burnt away at his feathers.
At long last, and after a scuffle that seemed to last an eternity which, in all actuality likely only carried on for no more than three or four minutes, one threat was over. But it was the words that came from Javelin Charm down on the ground that raised new concern. "Fuck, damn it!"
That wasn't a good sign in the least. "What is it? What's wrong?" I replied, hastily checking the bodies in the passageway for any useful tools prior to making my way back to Shadow.
"This won't work. The servers are too far encrypted, even for me," he replied in a severely frustrated tone.
"Then what the hell do we do?! We are running out of time up here!" shouted Shadow, looking up at the doorway as I rushed back to him panting and slicked with sweat across the forehead.
A sigh came from the unicorn on the other end of our comms channel, then a brief silence that was soon broken by a revelation. "How close are you to the bridge?"
Shadow glanced up at me, blinking. "A few levels down. Why?"
"If you can plug me in to something, a-a console for example, any console, I might have a chance at breaking the firewall that way. They won't know you are headed that way because I put their camera footage on a loop."
"The bridge will be heavily defended, not to mention any more sentries that might be waiting for us elsewhere."
"It's worth a shot, Captain," I said to Shadow, adamant in my tone. We were up here already, putting our lives on the line to complete the mission. One way or another, we were going to succeed. I wasn't willing to give up now after all we have been through thus far.
He looked right back at me, stamping his hoof on the floor. "Damn it. All right, we are moving up to the bridge."
"Copy. Exercise extreme caution on your way there."
***
Marines and the few sailors present alike huddled close together to squeeze in as much firepower as possible to fend off the advancing attackers. Homefront had been abandoned ten minutes ago following the appearance of yet another two squadrons of Juggernaut drones and three extra Collectors, prompting defensive forces to fall back east to prevent mass casualty rates at such close proximity.
Without much time given to prepare, makeshift barriers consisting of rubble strewn about the streets of lower Manehattan were quickly put in place by unicorns on the ground with some aerial aid by pegasi. The avenues and boulevards nearest Batterneigh Park made for prime defending points with how much less open space there was for drones to come from different angles.
However, it still was not clear just how they could be so easily defeated collectively. Air support had been downed minutes prior, and more destructive weapons such as grenade launchers as well as missiles from destroyers and cruisers in the vicinity were inadequate to do the job efficiently. Resources were beyond stretched; and to make matters worse, those fighting on the ground now had the enormous flying warship to be concerned about.
It wasn't long before GenTech drones were once more on approach, now threatening to practically push back remaining defenses to the harbor, which would ultimately lead to a total loss of Manehattan Island. To their relief, however, the situation appeared isolated to the main city rather than spreading out across the region, allotting extra time to devise plans to temporarily disable or even wipe out masses of robots.
Any plans would have to be put on hold for the time being, as now bullets and streaks of powerful gamma tore through the smoky air once more as the second battle began. Attached to his respective unit on this particular east-west street, Ashfall, along with a tagging Silver Edge and two other Marine squadrons held their fire as demolitions went to work, wiring a rather unstable structure on the right-hoof side of the block.
With such a limited window in their favor, less than what was required to professionally lace the old twentieth-century building with explosives could be achieved, though it would have to be enough to simply pray everything goes to plan. Bringing down hundreds of tons of stone, brick, and steel would surely buy more time, if not wipe out a large swath of the charging drones.
The countdown began, giving demolitions Marines no more than a few seconds to clear the general vicinity of where debris should fall. Even from some distance from the target building, many ducked their heads further behind cover as the first charges blew.
Mere moments after detonation, the upper floors of the old law office began to cave in, kicking up a cloud of dust that shrouded the street below as gravity took hold. But not all of the explosives blew, and the collapse came to a halt, purely raining small chunks of stone and brick onto Juggernauts that harmlessly deflected off their titanium skins.
As some raised their heads to peek and even open fire after a period of waiting, a very sudden and unexpected round managed to catch Silver by the horn. It sizzled, momentarily striking him with immense heat across his forehead and catching him by total surprise that jolted him all over. Strangely though, he felt no pain as it did not impact any part of his flesh. That was, until his ears picked up on the faintest of clinks below him.
Glancing down, his magenta irides widened at the sight of the dampening ring once clamped securely around his horn, which now lay cut cleanly in half between his hooves. He realized this without a moment of hesitation that he was now fully exposed to the drones' scanners.
"M-my ring!" he cried out in shock, checking along his horn for any physical damage to it. Even the slightest of cracks could potentially put an end to his use of magic, knowing just how fragile unicorn horns were.
Taking notice of the unicorn's distress, Ashfall dipped down beneath cover to check on his friend. "You good, sailor?" he asked, planting a hoof on Silver's shoulder.
The beige stallion replied with a shaky nod, eyes still wide open in surprise at the realization of how much worse it could have been. He might have lost his horn and all of its functionality, or worse.
"Y-yeah, I'm good, man," Silver responded, proceeding to laugh it off to calm some nerves in both him and his buddy.
Without so much as hesitating, he grabbed his rifle and re-joined the fight, hoping to keep fending off an approaching Collector droid as long as he could without being immediately detected by their highly advanced aura scanners.
***
Tailing Shadow up three more flights of staircases, at last we neared the Vengeance's bridge. Situated on a much smaller level due to the ship's overall shape, it sat above multiple hangar bays and even overlooked a full-length runway with catapults not unlike those on a seafaring aircraft carrier, albeit on a much larger scale that could launch even some of the largest cargo planes known to the world.
The sole entrance point to the bridge was a multi-layer sliding door with a card scanner and touchpad on either side. In fact, it amazed me how little resistance there was leading up here. Of course, that could change the moment we slip through. Hell, the entire ship's security forces could be on the other side of that door, waiting to shoot the moment it parts open, which is why we posted up along the walls on either end for cover.
"You still have the card?" asked Shadow from the opposite corner, double-checking the ammo in his sidearm. I returned a nod, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. "Let's hope that colt received the highest clearance there is."
Only one way to find out. Taking the guard's badge from a side pouch, I raised it to the black panel to my left beside the door. It beeped once, lighting up in a bright green, a sign that we were in.
Very gradually, the doors slid open. Shadow eyeballed me in silence, and I returned a steady gaze, exhaling sharply to calm my nerves ahead of what could be a nasty altercation. He raised his hoof, signaling to stay put for just a second longer as enough room was given for a pony to move through. He waited until the doors finished opening before jumping through with his gun drawn. I followed in directly after him.
"Hooves in the air, Armet!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, voice carrying out intimidatingly across the highly tech-equipped bridge.
That's when the two of us froze. There he was, standing there at the bottom of shallow steps, in the exact middle of the circular control center, surrounded by what could have only been three or four dozen of his troops in all-black battle armor with energy rifles of their own aimed directly at us.
"Well, well, well, you made it," the maroon unicorn cooed, a smirk pursing his lips. "Congratulations, you two."
My teeth grit in pure contained anger. It took all of the discipline seared into my brain in boot camp to restrain myself, and even that couldn't stop my inner rage from slipping out. "First you have me kidnapped and try to execute me, then you shoot down the plane I am on, and now this?! You really want me dead, don't you? You're a fucking asshole!"
"I see you stole my experimental computerized eye protection," he returned in cold remark, nodding at the pair of sunglasses rested in my mane.
"Call it repurposed technology for the better, Armet," I snarled back.
Shadow flicked his eyes at me briefly, keeping his pistol drawn and aimed down at the devious unicorn while minding the staggering number of sentries surrounding him. "Don't make this harder than it has to be. I believe in redemption, Mace. That isn't to say I think you deserve it. I would rather see you behind bars than six feet under."
"Then allow me to make this simpler for you." His horn ignited in its signature hue, and what was previously numerous armed sentries ready to unload the capacity of their guns onto us instead digitally glitched and slowly vanished into thin air from the ground up, revealing each and every pony apart from him to have simply been a hologram the whole time.
Opening his eyes, Armet Mace drifted them to us with a neutral, calculating stare and spoke softly, yet with a dark timbre to it. "And here I was thinking we were acquaintances, Shadow. Friends, even. Yet here you are, stomping on my parade, ruining my vision from my university years."
"Your wish is one of suicide," Shadow retorted, starting to move slowly down toward the unicorn. "Let me promise you when I say my Navy, the Marine Corps, my friends and coworkers, we will rain fiery hell upon you and every last soul working for you."
I chimed in right after the captain as I followed him down. "And what is all of this necessary for? You've killed thousands, caused billions in destruction, and pissed off the entire country's armed forces!"
Armet smirked again at that. "Thousands mean nothing in the grand scheme, Star. But it's all to shelter millions more."
"From what? Their right of freedom?"
Almost immediately cutting me off, Armet raised his voice, booming across the eerily empty bridge. "War, disease, poverty! The three sins! I would think you'd consider the idea that it's only a matter of time before this country spills over its own walls due to overpopulation, at our rate of growth? Give it a few decades. I am trying to prevent a political and ecological disaster!"
"By causing one," I scoffed. "Gotcha."
"Besides," Armet continued, darting a glare my way. "I've proven a point yet again."
"Proven what point?" Shadow questioned, halting just short of the last step. "That you are batshit crazy and belong in an asylum?"
"How incompetent our so-called protectors are, severe oversight in our government, an absurd lack of the latest and the greatest technology to move forward with." Armet then pointed at Shadow, followed by me. "I am talking about you, and you. And Equestria's entire department of defense."
Shadow blinked, beginning to lower his gun slowly and stand up straight. "I don't follow. What the hell are you talking about?"
The captain's gesture widened Armet's smirk some more. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"I would, actually, just to confirm if you are that level of insane," groused Shadow.
Simpering at the earth stallion's retort, Armet turned around and walked forward to his command console. Shadow drew his sidearm once more as precaution, just in case the unicorn tries to pull something out from under his sleeve a third time. Instead, the two of us watched as he typed away on a holographic keyboard, which eventually led to the large screen at the far side of the bridge to display various pieces of raw footage from copious gunfights.
But these weren't any random battles, and certainly not any from the last 48 hours. No, these were something else. Seeing this trauma show up on the display before my very eyes somehow compelled me to stand down, almost to the point of dropping my SCAR to the floor.
There, on the screen, was video in full color of the fight aboard the Eclipse, on the flight deck against the Great Gryphon Constitution. In the shot, roughly ten ponies—Lunar Marines and sailors—tirelessly defended from an onslaught of boarding insurgents trying to reach the bridge. One of them, a white pegasus, dropped to the ground and bled from his shoulder, grasping it as a moss-green stallion rushed to his aid, followed by a grey pony in blacked-out gear.
I recognized those three. The first, Anchorage, as well as Ashfall and Arc Nobis. This was when the former took a round to the shoulder but powered through with somewhat above-average strength than one would expect. Why would Armet show this to us? But the better question is...
"How did you get your hooves on top-secret footage, Armet?!" Shadow barked, essentially finishing my query for me.
"Why, I am simply answering your question, old pal," Armet nickered, turning halfway to face us. "Is this not what you wanted?"
"I—" Before Shadow could continue, a new picture transitioned from the carrier feed. This time, it was a security camera overlooking a vacant city block with the silhouettes of what appeared to be a small squadron of Lunar Marines moving alongside a storefront discreetly before chaos erupts. An explosion rocked the storefront, distorting the recording and freezing the picture just past the camera refocusing onto a dismembered pony thrown ten feet into the open street by the blast.
This scenario was familiar, too, except I couldn't quite put my hoof on it as quickly as the flight deck fight. It came to me after a short while, realizing it to be the last push against the Constitution when they so foolishly invaded our shores. The explosion originated from a rocket fired by a griffon in a nearby tower, the very one I shot down moments after.
"Fast forward, seven months later, and here we are! Failing to protect your precious city and your beloved country once more! How does that make you feel, Captain?!" Armet shouted, awaiting an immediate response that never came other than a cold glare from Shadow.
His attention shifted to me not long after. "What about you, Corporal? Does it make you just... furious... to know I've beaten you twice?!"
Twice?
No... it couldn't have been. Could it?
"You... led the attacks? The Constitution?! Everything before and after, that was all you?!"
Armet blinked twice, bursting into a short cackle. "But of course! They would not have done it had I not taken care of some business beforehand, and I must say, their brave and courageous leader went to no end to defend his dignity before his followers."
Shadow narrowed his eyes further onto the psycho-unicorn. "You confronted him personally?"
Armet nodded once, widening his grin with self-pride. "I did. And after I eliminated the commander, they started taking orders from me. I offered the one thing they could not refuse; money and weaponry to combat one of the largest armies in the world."
The captain grunted lowly. "That would explain there not being any reports of activity from their channels all that time."
“Yes, heheheh. They had all that needed to take the city while your military foolishly followed a dead lead elsewhere.”
Gradually, I felt the fury in me begin to churn faster and deeper, all while a figurative knife carved a hole in my chest and stabbed at my own dwindling sanity. “Why? What on earth was your goal?!”
Armet stomped his hoof, the sound enhanced by the wide-open room. “I did it for a damn good reason! To show the world how weak and feeble our forces are! It was merely a test.”
“What test? They were absolutely no match for us, whether or not they had the upper hoof. We knew the ground they stepped on more than they did!”
“A test for the real thing, heheh," Armet smiled insanely. "You’ll catch up soon. Besides, the attacks were just merely scratching the surface of my plans!”
“And what would those plans be, hmm?" I said, shaking in my anger. "There shouldn’t be any holding back any more, since we already know you are behind this.”
"You were always the curious type, weren't you, Star?" nickered Armet, standing from his chair and strolling slowly up the steps we stood on.
“Once the dust settles, a new dawn shall arise over this once-glistening metropolis. But the age of century, even millennia-old infrastructure is long over. It is time that we all take a step… into the future, for once I am done, I shall provide a safe haven for these blinkered fools. They will have no choice to live in my Neopolis once they see how well guarded it will be in the next threat to make landfall on Equestrian soil.”
I cocked my head, raising a furious eyebrow. “Neopolis?”
Armet leaned his muzzle closer to mine with a half-lidded, conniving smile, before strolling back down toward his console. “The city of the future.”
After finishing, a light beeping of an alert rang out from a nearby computer console. The moderate tone crept a smirk back to Armet's muzzle.
"Now, I know a little pony with plenty of magic to go around. All that untapped power kept to himself with enough to go around for hundreds of others. You know exactly who I am talking about, Star."
That same second, the large display along the far wall of the bridge enhanced an eerily clear picture of a particular unicorn close to me. My breath caught and I stared, wide-eyed, as the camera focusing on him belonging to a Collector drone was merely ten feet away.
It was evident our forces were giving it their all to repel the titanium beast, but to little avail. I watched as two Marines instantly vanished into dust as they were shot by concentrated beams of gamma, and their guns simply clattering to the ground as if they hadn't belonged to somepony a moment prior.
Shadow's teeth clenched, lurching forward to shove Armet back in a somewhat protective manner. He too was beginning to grow impatient. "Absolutely none of this is necessary, Armet! Your company's contributions to the betterment of ponykind, was it all for nothing?"
"But this is necessary, Captain, and it isn't for nothing. The enemies that are ourselves; our own neighbors, backstabbers, all of them! You'll catch up one day, I trust you will, only late as usual. You should get with the times, Shadow."
Between exchanges, Javelin's yelling rang out in our earpieces. "What ever you are doing up there, if you can still hear the sound of my voice, hurry it up! We are getting overrun down here!"
It was this warning that prompted the captain to move things along quicker. "You know what, I've had it up to here. Star, restrain him," Shadow sternly ordered, glancing back to me.
Without a moment of hesitation, I sauntered toward the maroon unicorn. It was about damn time Shadow said something. This should have been over from the moment we stepped hoof on the bridge.
As predicted, Armet backstepped to continue his obnoxiously long speech. “You see, there was, and still is reason behind naming Vengeance. It is to get revenge for all of my brilliant ideas, thwarted by you lot! I shall not let you take me in just yet!”
Shadow rolled his eyes, pulling up beside me. "Well, we are here now. You won't get away this time. What are you going to do now?"
Before any answer could be given, a panel in the floor behind Armet parted in the center, making way for a rising platform that steadily lifted. On it, a sight that brought horror to both of our eyes.
With a sinister smile, Armet stepped just to the side to fully reveal what he would consider a work of art. To me and Shadow, it was anything but. "I saved the best part for you, Captain."
As Shadow's brown eyes scanned over the heavily-enhanced monstrosity that was Arc Nobis, the latter's eyes opened, glowing a horrifying purple hue that carved like lasers into our souls, sending a chill running up my own spine once again. "What did you do to my friend?!" he cried in a tone of fury I have never heard come from his mouth.
"Simple. I took him from you, and made him a thousand times better." Armet nickered smugly. "And now he will shed the blood of you and your subordinates, one by one, until no one under your command is left breathing. Nothing and nopony will stop him!"
Tears welled in Shadow's ducts. This was his best friend, turned into a weapon for evil intentions. His reaction was mixed, torn between compassion for the stallion he was close to and the rage building inside for what he was forced to become.
That's when he lowered himself into a defensive stance. "I can," he mumbled, perking my ears and garnering a scoff from the maroon unicorn.
"I don't share your confidence, Captain. But, by all means, you are welcome to tr—"
BANG.
The barrel of Shadow's sidearm smoked following a singular discharge, promptly silencing Armet with his maw still parted. The unicorn's form began to tremble. Gradually his gaze fell to his chest where the bullet sliced right through his suit vest, spilling a dark ichor that stained the white material surrounding the entry point.
In a moment's notice, the captain had speedily drawn his pistol and shot Armet before he had the chance to even notice the weapon be removed from its holster and properly defend himself. I observed with shock and awe as the wounded pony collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud of his cheek smacking the metallic paneling, rendering him unconscious and dying.
Shadow panted softly, slowly retracting his gun and firmly holstering it on his utility belt, all without so much as removing his sights from the second lieutenant. The shot set off a neural message in Arc's helmet, ordering him to attack. In response, Shadow dipped himself into a defensive stance, waiting for the first move.
He then dug into his pouch, pitching the flash drive over to me. "You get Javelin patched into the ship's mainframe while I keep Arc distracted, okay?"
Fumbling with the little device for a moment, I briefly looked down at it in my hoof, then up to the captain with notable concern across my countenance. "What about you? You can't fight him alone!"
That's when he turned over his shoulder, blinking once neutrally. "Yes I can, Star. I know his weak spots under that suit. Go!"
Without sparing a second for reluctance, I hurried up the shallow staircase to a vacant console on the left side of the center aisle, kicking the chair out of the way to make adequate standing room. That same instance, the grunts of Shadow swiveled my ear in his general direction as he began to wrestle with the corrupted stallion.
Presuming there to be as little time as possible to succeed, I chose not to watch from afar. As soon as my sights lifted when I settled into position, however, my eyes grew as wide as saucepans the moment something else absolutely terrifying enlarged on the screen in front of me.
"Holy shit, Javelin... V-Vengeance's targeting system is lighting up the entire region. It's locating hundreds by the second, and most of them are here in Manehattan!" I could barely speak, having the breath escape me when my attention was abruptly brought up to speed of GenTech's next move; mass genocide.
"Hold on... targeting for what?"
"To fire upon." I started typing away, working to pan out the map for a wider view. My heart sank at the sight as it appeared. "Oh my god. They are planning to shoot up the entire country."
"Give me some cities, ma-maybe we can spread word just in case," sputtered Javelin in effort to contain some of his panic.
Most names on the bluescale map vanished beneath the swarms of reds and yellows as they popped up and duplicated seemingly every time I were to blink, though recognizing actual locations by positioning was not difficult in the slightest. Thank goodness for those extra geography classes back in high school.
"Baltimare, Alderneigh, Canterlot, Ponyville, Mareami... you name it, it is on here. And there is a countdown, too."
"For how long?"
"About fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds."
That brought a relieved sigh out of the tech officer, much to my surprise. "All right, plenty of time, plenty of time. Okay, do you see a port?"
"A what?" I blinked.
"A port! You know, to plug the drive in?!"
"Oh! Oh!" I quickly scanned over the desktop, locating a thin rectangular box with four vacant slots to stick the flash drive into. With it in my hoof, I shoved it forward, only for it to not insert. Turning it over, I went for a second attempt, but met with similar results.
Groaning in exasperation, I twisted the drive a second time and shoved it into a different hole, where it clicked into place, and a small green light on the tip blinked. "I got it!"
"All right, perfect. Use the mousepad to scroll to the bar at the bottom of the screen and open the main menu, type 'command console' into the search bar with the keyboard, then click on the first option that shows up!"
"Right, okay!" I responded, darting around for the mouse controls. On this computer console, it consisted of a simple touchscreen surrounded by the keyboard itself. All of it was in one way or another holographic in nature, even the screen itself.
"You see it? The menu?"
With a single click, the window opened on the center of the screen. "Yes, I have it right here. You said type 'command console', right?"
"Yes, yes, that's right," he replied speedily. "Use the keyboard to type 'command console', then press the enter key."
That was moderately annoying. Without questioning his need to repeat instructions in such detail, I followed his directions down to the T. The first option in the search bar was the command console program, double-clicking to open.
Javelin, however, was behind on it only a little. "When you finish typing it in, click on the first option and it will open!"
I finally snapped. "Javelin, I know how to use a fucking computer! I'm not fucking seventy and are clueless to how technology works, okay?!"
There was a short silence before he replied. "Well, if you put it like that, fine. Sheesh."
With a second to cool myself down, I let off a sharp breath as sweat slicked my forehead, peeking just past the screen to check on Shadow and Arc, only to see the two still dueling it out at the bottom.
Shadow landed a couple of hard punches to Arc's jawline, throwing his head sideways and even causing him to stagger some. There were some signs of restraint in the second lieutenant's moves, such as when he hooked at Shadow. It seemed as though most of his hits were missing on purpose, though a couple of swings did catch into Shadow's shoulder blade and even his barrel, knocking him sideways a few feet only to leap right back up on all fours.
Not exactly the greatest distraction while I subconsciously worked, prompting me to return my attention to the screen. "All right, it's open. Now what?"
At first, all I could hear over the fighting in the room was Javelin's hooves speedily typing away at his laptop. "Aaaand... I'm in! All right, wonderful. Thank you, Star. Make sure I stay plugged in for the next few minutes while I work."
As he finished, an alert appeared in center of every screen on the bridge, raising both the ship's alarm and my own. "Might want to make that just a couple of minutes there, buddy. The system detected external intrusion and sped up the countdown!"
"Yeah, yeah, I can see that now," Javelin grunted in frustration. "I've already got two of the override keys right here in front of me, but Armet made certain to have six to initiate a cease fire protocol. It will be at least five minutes while it generates."
In an effort to calm some of our nerves just a bit, he then added, "Worst case, the countdown could simply be when the final targets are assigned this sweep."
"Don't trust it, Techie! Keep working at it!" groaned Shadow from below, presently in a back-and-forth struggle pitting his strength against the second lieutenant's, whose clearly was superior only thanks to his armor enhancements.
Very gradually, Arc Nobis began to overpower the captain and push him backwards. At any rate, this would lead to Shadow's hinds slipping and Arc having the high ground over him, allowing him the opportunity to kill him. Not willing to let this happen, however, Shadow purposefully eased off his struggle to let the second lieutenant stumble over. He slipped down underneath as Arc fell forward, only to catch his hoofing just before he could fully collapse.
Turning around to face Shadow once more, immediately the strong hook of the captain smashed into Arc's jaw, throwing his head to the side and sending him staggering back a few more steps. Without letting off the assaults, Shadow advanced further upon his friend-turned-enemy, delivering a swift jab to the chest that harmlessly deflected off the heavy plating, doing so to distract Arc briefly while he dealt a firm uppercut that knocked the grey stallion onto his back with a soft guttural utterance.
It pained my patience to just sit back and let this unfold without intervening, though it would do us no good should Javelin's hack is disrupted for any reason that should have been under my scrutiny. While it came as some relief to see that the second lieutenant's rightful conscience retained partial control over his acts, allowing Shadow reasonable leeway to hold himself back from reaching me, at any moment I expected something to give.
"Just three more... then I'll have it..." uttered Javelin, still rapidly typing away. His actions were apparent from up here, too, noting the slight screen distortion that would occasionally appear on each of the monitors on the bridge.
"Copy. Make it quick, Javelin. We're almost there," I said, narrowing my eyes on the countdown as it passed the two-minute mark into one minute and fifty-nine seconds.
"Shit, fuck!" he cursed. My blood ran cold at the words that followed. "I-I'm sorry, Star, I have to hold off. It isn't safe here anymore."
"What?" My eyes widened, blinking. "No, no, wait! We aren't done here!"
"See if you can buy me a couple minutes while I post up someplace out of harm's way." Those were the last words to come through comms channel.
"Javelin? Javelin!" I called repeatedly, garnering total silence from his end. "Fuck!" I smacked the desktop with my hoof, leaning over it contemplatively as a pounding migraine throbbed at my temples.
Looking up at the monitor slowly, it was evident that Javelin's computer was still remotely disconnected, but the consistent battering of false information producing the deactivation keys had ceased. It hit me after a couple of seconds that, with his laptop virtually in total control over this station and very well perhaps the entire ship, that it was possible for me to finish the job for him.
Frankly, I didn't know jack shit about computers apart from how to use them. All of this, all of what Javelin did for a living was miles above my pay grade. How can I be certain I won't fuck this up and kill thousands in the process?
But then again, how can I be so critical of my abilities? I learned how to fly purely out of danger-induced adrenaline. Perhaps I could use some of that good luck here.
Drawing in a deep breath to ease tension in my body, relaxing my shoulders and standing up straight before the console, I went to work. Reopening the command window, typing in a few simple words did just the trick. Doing this cracked the rather thin extra layer of firewall guarding Armet's personal station at the bottom of the room.
The higher concentration put into locating some sort of built-in fail safe finally allowed me to take part of my focus off of Arc and Shadow going at it some fifteen feet away, tuning out the crashing of Shadow being tossed straight through a glass table and destroying two computers as a result. At the same time, one part of me subconsciously monitored the countdown clock as it dipped below forty seconds remaining.
My hooves moved faster than I can recall ever doing, rapidly pressing key after key in desperation. It had to be here somewhere. I know it did. No piece of machinery as large and advanced as Vengeance would ever go without some sort of fail safe.
Down below, the cries of the captain continuously battling his closest friend broke through my concentration partially. It was now somewhat noticeable that even Shadow could not hold out for much longer, prompting me to work only faster and attempt any shortcuts along the way.
"Nngh... Nobis! I know you can hear me! I know the real you is in there somewhere!" Shadow grunted, tightly grasping the downward-pressing hoof of the second lieutenant as he strained to hold it off of his chest. Arc now had him where he wanted to, and that was beneath him.
His other free hoof came up, smacking one of Shadow's to lose its grip and quickly pinning it effortlessly under his own. With only half the strength put into defending himself, all Shadow could do was dodge his head left and right as Arc attempted to stomp down on it, each time smashing holes in the granite floor panel mere inches from Shadow's cheeks.
Sweat slicked my forehead, collecting enough to the point where droplets trickled off onto the floor without a spare moment to wipe myself down. The countdown was now at twenty-five seconds, and never has my stomach twisted into so many knots. We were a hair from victory at this point, and as much as it left an ache in my chest to neglect Shadow's present predicament, the well-beings of millions came first.
But then, after numerous attempts at searching every nook and cranny of Armet's station, I found it. At least four separate warning labels hovered around the input key which, to my relief, had typed itself in as if instructed to. For a good couple of moments, I stared in total silence as my mind came to an ultimate decision.
With one click, followed by a second for confirmation, it was done. "I... I did it!" I threw a hoof up in celebration, blinking twice as I continued to anxiously watch the countdown clock tick on. "I think? Please?!"
After five more uneasy seconds spent staring at the screen with wide, anticipating eyes, I could breathe a sigh of relief at last when the countdown halted at fifteen seconds precisely. The sudden rush of respite brushed over like the cool ocean's waves on a hot summer afternoon, quite nearly knocking me off my hooves.
Panting heavily, my forehead pressed to the glass surface just below the keyboard. For a second, only a second, my mind was clear with white noise. It might have been fatigue as consequence of constantly working myself up as the situation progressed in addition to essentially being awake for four days straight.
Quite honestly, the first thing to enter my mind was a mental comment on how refreshing a plain, hot cup of coffee sounded right about now.
"Heh... heheh... you can't kill me that easily..." came a grunted voice from the right.
Peering around the hologram screen, I noted Armet Mace gradually raising himself upright, popping the buttons to his vest to reveal a grey undershirt, stained faintly by small bloody splotches underneath. "Carbon fiber mesh no thicker than y-your average shirt, a-and it works to catch bullets! Just... have to work out the kinks to prevent damage to flesh," he groaned out.
Armet panted heavily as he shakily propped himself up, barely able to lift his rear off the floor. "Soon... the Modon bombers will take to the skies! It will be the beginning of a new age from sea to shining sea!"
Right then, an alarm rang out across the bridge. Red lights swirled along the walls, signaling danger. Across the room, on the massive digital display, an alert in a red box warned of loss of engine control, subsequently followed by an enormous jolt that threw everypony to the floor, freeing Shadow of Arc's death grip. Vengeance was beginning to fall from the sky.
Frantically looking around, Armet shouted at the top of his lungs, "What did you do?!"
"Stopping the apocalypse!" I returned, hauling myself up by the edge of the glass desk. Perhaps my response was a bit dramatic, though it felt strangely heroic to say in a real world scenario.
"You bastard! This isn't over! It's never over!" the wine-coated stallion hissed, grasping his presumably-bruised chest where Shadow's bullet caught into his ballistic undershirt and threateningly igniting his horn in a thick golden hue. Another heavy shudder of the ship prompted Armet to once more study his surroundings, realizing staying put to fight simply was not worth the trouble, and made a beeline for a one-pony elevator to his near right.
Essentially throwing myself over the tabletop into the center aisle, I engaged in chase after him, yelling, "Hey, hey!" only to be stopped by the elevator doors shutting between the two of us.
Leaping to all fours, Shadow called from the first step leading to the passageway out of the bridge as sparks flew from the ceiling, "Leave him, we need to get the hell out of here!"
***
Batterneigh Park had quickly become the last defending point from GenTech drones, and even that would soon change. Ammunition among Marines was dangerously low, but none could be conserved at that time. A mere twenty feet from the waterline, making a retreating swim had long escaped the boundaries of impossibility. Each passing second cost them more ground to stand on.
One Collector pushed forth, preparing its gamma blasters for a widespread assault against its attackers. With little cover to come by, their only options at that point were to make a final jump into the harbor, or suffer sudden death by vaporization.
Then, without warning, it powered down. Marines left and right could catch their breath once more, watching as dozens more abruptly shut down with some collapsing to the dirt with heavy thuds. Puzzled, looks were exchanged among one another.
The booming pops of distant explosions from above attracted the immediate attention of many on the ground soon after. All eyes then turned skyward as a subsequent deep humming drew nearer. It was Vengeance.
It descended rapidly through the clouds carving a massive hole in the white blanket shaped like an arrowhead with one of its main engines at the stern and a large swath of the bow emitting trails of thick smoke. Traces of vapor licked along Vengeance's lower hull as it shoved clouds out of the way, speeding down toward the city.
A shadow cast over Batterneigh when the ship crossed over land, set on a direct and rather ironic collision course with GenTech Tower. Vengeance slashed into the northeast face of the ninetieth floor, cutting through its concrete and steel frame and glass facade like a butter knife.
Moments after clearing the severely damaged skyscraper, Vengeance crossed over open river water just west of the joint base. Its remaining engines glowed brightly mere seconds before a massive blast sourcing from its hypernuclear cores ripped the craft to pieces.
The explosion in its spectacularity of mixing blues and oranges swept across the entire sky, shoving aside continents of clouds or completely dispersing them. The force of the shock sent gusts with the strength of a gale blasting down upon Manehattan, further collapsing unstable rooftops of smaller structures and creating a brief sandstorm that carried across the region for miles. Chunks of Vengeance blasted into the upper troposphere now rained down, crashing into the sides of skyscrapers or splashing down in the harbor.
Intense turbulence resulting from the ship's destruction compromised the upper floors of GenTech Tower's integrity, and the final beams holding the structure in place finally gave way. The building's roof fell sideways, crashing through the stories below and engulfing the entire frame in a thick cloud of dust that shoved downwards.
Ponies on the ground ran for their lives in all directions. The area had been predominantly clear due to earlier evacuations, although the unlucky few to have still been within a block's vicinity had much more to worry about than another collapsing building. The remains of the tower's top floors crashed down onto smaller, older structures across the street, crushing them instantly and anypony to have still been inside.
What was once the tallest skyscraper in Manehattan, and all of Equestria, now reduced itself to nothing more than a heap of twisted steel and smashed cement, taking every last piece of revolutionary technology inside with it.
***
Months, even years of planning, on top of trillions of bits devoted to research and development, all gone to waste. The maroon unicorn could only sit and watch from the safety of his personal parachute as his most prized creation, two years in the making, vanished into tremendous fireball.
Just seconds from his hooves touching the ground, Armet Mace checked his landing site for obscurities. The sight before his eyes rang the true bells of defeat in his head as an entire squadron of griffon soldiers and Lunar Marines encompassed a semicircle in front of him, each with their rifles drawn and aimed directly at him.
Now safe on the ground, Shadow hopped off my back. Both of our chests heaved as the exhaustion following nonstop adrenaline caught up to us. Despite wobbly limbs, threatening to give out at any second, somehow I retained what little strength was left in me to keep myself upright and watch this arrest take place, as overdue as it was.
"Just where do you think you were going to go next, you sneaky little weasel?" snarled Zjitzo intimidatingly, inching forward at the wine unicorn stallion, who slowly raised his hooves in surrender.
At long last, his mission was complete. Everypony's was.