//------------------------------//
// 28 - Cooking 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Operation Star Drop 
// by Meep the Changeling 
//------------------------------//

The click of our hooves echoed off the Headquarters decaying walls as we made our way down several floors to the maintenance room Vinyl had found earlier. The flecks of white dust hanging in the air were thicker down here. It made sense that more of it would settle on lower floors, but I had no idea why there might be more in the air.

“It’s not much further,” Vinyl promised as we rounded a corner and she carefully stepped over a patch of the rad-eating moss.

That moss gave me the creeps. I understood that plants adapted to survive, but if they were eating magical radiation, well, we’d all heard about magical plants such as Poison Joke… Or its post-war incarnation, Killing Joke.

“Are you sure?” I asked as I looked around worriedly.

Everything looked the same in this dismal place.

Vinyl nodded. “Yeah. It’s right there.”

I looked in the direction she pointed and smiled as I saw an open door.

“Good,” I said quietly as I quickly made my way to the open room.

I wanted this to be over with as quickly as possible.

The maintenance room was small, packed with shelves covered in expired cleaners, old tools, and several server racks, or possibly small mainframes. I honestly couldn’t tell.

Aside from that everything was the same gray-walled rotted floor mess everywhere else in here had been. A small part of me wondered if this place had even looked much better new. It couldn’t have been all that much nicer, being a secret underground complex and whatnot.

Vinyl walked inside and headed to the rear corner of the room. “Terminal’s over here,” she called.

I nodded and moved along with her. “I hope we can figure this out together… I’m not anywhere close to Gears when it comes to fixing machines.”

Vinyl sighed and flicked her tail irritably. “Yeah… I was hoping she could just ask it politely to turn on.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked at the dust-covered, moss-infested, scratched up, formerly-beige terminal mounted to the wall… and winced. “It won’t turn on?”

Vinyl shook her head and pressed the power button with her magic.

Nothing happened.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, crap… Okay, I assume you tried to see if it was plugged into the base’s power conduites, right?”

“Yep, It’s plugged in,” Vinyl said as she gripped the terminal's case with her magic and carefully pulled it off… revealing the interior of the machine to be full of moss. “I think this is the problem.”

I took a deep breath and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, probably… I’m guessing you can’t pull it out with your telekinesis?”

Vinyl closed her eyes and shook her head. “No… I tried, it eats the magic like it eats radiation.”

“Which is why the terminal can’t turn on. The moss is eating all its power before it can do anything. Great,” I groaned.

Vinyl nodded and picked up a long thin screwdriver from a shelf behind me and started to carefully scrape away at the densely packed moss.

“Let’s get cleaning.” I said as I gently scraped some of the violently cyan moss out form between two crystal chips with the point of my hoof.

It was nearly the same color as the motherboard, come to think of it… This was going to suck.


☢★★◯★★☢


It took us nearly half an hour to clean all of the moss out of the densely packed mess of crystals, wires, and etched circuit boards. The pile of moss on the floor looked bigger than the terminal itself. It might have been. The stuff had filled up the terminal like mortar.

Fortunately, this was a maintenance room, and there had been plenty of long-thin-pointy tools to carefully pry the moss out of all the nooks and crannies with. Even better, a few of the cleaners were not expired and, according to their labels, were safe to use on spell-matrix systems.

I mean, I hoped they were. They all said they were for cleaning arcane systems. Of course that doesn't mean much when one of the bottles was produced by a company I was pretty sure was a subsidiary of Flim-Flam Co.

“Alright,” I said as I put down the mystery tool I had been using to poke the last of the moss out from under a daughter-board mount. “I think we should try turning it on now.”

Vinyl reached out and pressed the terminal’s power button without a word.

The ancient screen flashed. Cooling fans hummed. Something clacky clicked. Tiny ribbons of magic flashed within the crystals—

KA-THUNK!

The whole system died, and the booming sound of its failure echoed through the empty halls.

I took a deep breath, held it for a few moments then released it. “Okay… So, it still doesn't work.”

Vinyl giggled. “No, it works. We just tripped a breaker.”

I blinked and turned to look at her. “No way that was a breaker!”

That sounded like someone dropped a vending machine down several stories onto an anvil! Breakers are just not that loud!

“It was. Ever hear an industrial breaker switch off?” VInyl asked.

I paused for a moment, searched my memory, tried and failed to search Gears’, then shook my head. “No, I guess not.”

“They’re really big, so they’re really loud… I think I know where the breaker box is. Stay here while I reset it and, uh… unplug or turn off anything that doesn't look important?” Vinyl ask-ordered uncertainly.

“Will do,” I promised and turned towards some of the large racks of magical equipment.

I flicked my tail worriedly as I listened to Vinyl’s departing hoofsteps. All signs pointed to this place being free of any, well, monsters... but this was exactly the kind of place every foal pictures monsters would live.

I spent the next few minutes trying to figure out which pieces of equipment in the racks were for what. Some had labels, most didn’t. Anything that didn’t seem like a central system or in any way air related, I turned off. Hopefully that would be enough.

Unplugging them was basically impossible. The racks were mounted against the wall and the main conduits ran right into them. I couldn’t unplug them anymore than a pre-war pony could unplug a ceiling lamp in their home.

Hoofsteps made my ears twitch. I winced and instinctivly powered up my LAER, even though using it again without upkeep was probably suicide. I remembered Gears watching soldiers use them back home with jealousy. More specifically, I remembered how without regular cleaning they didn’t send lightning through the barrel and to your target, they sent lightning through your side into your heart.

We hadn’t cleaned this thing since we started our journey weeks ago… But in these tight quarters, using Feature would be guarenteed suicide.

It’s just Vinyl coming back… It’s just Vinyl coming back… I thought to myself worriedly as I stared at the door.

Mister Lift didn’t reply. I’d been hoping he was online with me at the moment. He must be with mom right now.

A pale, yellowish-green light fell across the doorway. I took a deep breath and got ready to fire… Then I remembered that Vinyl was now her own flashlight, just in time for her to trot back into the room. 

“Okay!” She said with a smile. “Breaker reset. Let’s try this again.”

I let out a sigh of relief and nodded to hide the nervous gleam in my eyes. “S— Sure,” I said as I quickly trotted over to the terminal and pressed the power button once more.

The terminal sparked, sputtered, and groaned. I took a step back, worried it might explode like a bridge console, but then the screen flicked on, displayed a little turquoise graphic of the MoA emblem while a progress bar filled up, and then finally reached a menu.

Vinyl sighed in relief. “Okay, That was close… and this probably won't stay on long. Uh… So, where would the air-circulation controls be?”

I glanced at the screen and hummed. “Probably under “Environmental Systems”.” I said with a smirk.

Vinyl blinked, squinted at the screen, then groaned. Her booted hoof clinked against her visor as the facehooved. “How did I miss that?”

“It is in a tiny font,” I said as I scrolled to the menu options and hit enter.

Finding the air circulation from there control was cake. The only question was if it would work.

I turned to Vinyl and nodded to her. “It’s your plan, want to do the honors?”

Vinyl snorted and nodded. “Sure,” She said as she used her magic to hit enter.

The key clicked. Ancient fans kicked on with an ear-twitching groan and the creak of aged metal. Air began to flow through the centuries old ducts for the first time in living memory… and turned the air into a radioactive dust-blizzard as the dust which had presumably clogged the fans and made them stop circulating air in the first place was blown out into the hallways like one of those auto-wagon pranks where you put foal powder in the air vents...

I wiped the layer of dust off Vinyl’s faceplate with my hoof so I could glare at her.

“How was I supposed to know everything was full of dust?!” Vinyl snapped as I glared at her.

“You should have checked!” I shouted back. “You said you had a plan! I thought that meant you checked the ducts and everything was clear! How the buck are we supposed to get Speed through here now?”

Vinyl took a deep breath which made the vox in her new suit click.

Just like the show! Eeeeeee!

No! Don’t squee, you’re mad at her!

“... Mares,” Mister Lift sighed.

Oh, so now you’re here!

“Well, we can still look for a hazmat suit,” Vinyl said as she closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry… You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. In my defense, I’m definitely hyperactive right now.”

I nodded, “Yeah, that’s true.”

I bit my lip for a moment, trying to concentrate on the last hour. We hadn’t found any hazmat suits in the mission ready room. There might be some in the reactor room, but that was not a place we could go in again…

“Did you check every lab for suits earlier?” I asked with a hopeful smile.

Vinyl nodded. My chest fell.

“Crap,” I grumbled under my breath.

Vinyl gasped, her ears perked up as an idea twinkled in her eyes. “We’re being idiots!”

“Yes,” I agreed with a nod.

Vinyl rolled her eyes, then smirked. “No, really, we are. We’re wandering around blind when you have a hotline to the mare who ran this place! We can call Rainbow, and ask her where the suits would be.”

I groaned and pressed my face into my left hoof. “Vi…”

“What?” she said with a defensive flick of her tail. “It’s a solid plan!”

“Yes, but Gears tried to call Homage earlier. Our radio won’t make it through the mountain. What makes you think a transceiver a tenth of its size will?” I asked with my best deadpan stare.

“Because we’re in the middle of an MoA base, it’s Rainbow’s pin, and there’s definitely a communications relay in this base that her pin would be authorized to use,” Vinyl said flatly. 

I pursed my lips for a moment, took my hoof off my face, and then smashed it firmly back against my forehead. “Fates damn me…”

“See? I told you we’re being dumb.” Vinyl laughed. “Call her!”

“Yep,” I said as I tapped the pin on my collar.

I took a quick breath to clear my mind and then spoke towards the pin. “Rainbow? Are you there?”

A few moments passed. For a moment I thought Vinyl was wrong about there being a relay or other communications hub in this mountain, but then—

“I was sleeping. What’s up?” A very groggy Rainbow asked.

“Vinyl, Speed, and I are trapped inside the MoA Extra-Territorial Operations Headquarters—”

Rainbow sputtered and I heard the sound of terrified wing flaps crackle through the pin’s tiny speaker.

“WHAT?!” Rainbow yelped with way too much terror in her voice. “How the buck did you get to Whinnieapolis?! How did you get in?! I can’t even get inside!”

“Uh, headquarters number two,” I said with a confused little giggle.

“Oh! Okay. That’s different, also way less bad,” Rainbow sighed. “Okay! How are you trapped? I’m guessing you’re stuck in a safe-ish pocket with high rads everywhere?”

“Something like that,” I said while trying to figure out what in the world could make the other MoA HQ worse than this place. “The entrance tunnel collapsed behind us. Vinyl found a way through, Gears is offline—”

“Uh… no you’re not?” Rainbow said slowly.

“We’re a gestalt consciousness. Gears is the machine spirit, I’m the mare whose skin was used to make her. It’s a necromancy thing. My name’s Jasmine,” I explained with an exasperated huff. “Under ideal circumstances, we wouldn't be talking… I don’t like being the active one.”

“Huh…” Rainbow said with a thoughtful twinge. “Never thought I’d get to have a conversation with a friendly warlock. Good to know you’re more than just a powerful spirit. I might need some help in a few days or so.”

I filed that away for future questioning. We had more immediate problems to solve.

“We’re not quite a warlock. The blend isn’t perfectly seamless… even though I’d like it to be,” I said quickly. “Rainbow, please focus. We need to know where the base’s hazmat suits are stored so we can get Speed through the base safely. She’s been exposed for about six and a half hours now. Maybe more.”

“So the tunnel is too unstable to blast through the rubble? Figures.” Rainbow groaned. “Most of the places we would have stored them will have been welded shut. Your best bet is the emergency store room on the fifth floor. It’s the third door on the right from the main elevator. If there isn’t one there, my pin will let you into the mission ready room. It’s on the third floor and is—”

“Marked as an R&D lab. Yeah, we were in there,” I said with a nod. “What in there could help? We looked it over pretty thoroughly. Even found an RMSE space suit!”

I paused for a moment as a pertinent question demanded I ask it, even though I should really let Rainbow finish her thought…

Buck it, I had to.

“So… Why did you guys make a working bit of cosplay?” I asked with a curious smile.

“Huh? Oh, right… I could have sworn I moved that prototype to my house,” Rainbow muttered almost too quietly for me to hear.

Almost, but not quite.

Must. Find. House. Full. Of. Cool. Things!

“You guys are welcome to it,” Rainbow said more audibly. “It will definitely keep Speed safe from those radiation level— Wait, she’s a thestral. Buck! That’s a unicorn’s suit. No way her wings will fit in there.”

“Yeah, we thought of that,” I said with a quick sigh. “But seriously, why is it a screen accurate RMSE Extra Vehicular Operations suit?”

Rainbow coughed. “Uh, let’s just say that one of the best ways to crowd source designs for a classified project it to make ponies, and more importantly zebras, think it’s just science fiction.”

“What do you mean?” I said with a small frown.

“I mean that the entire RMSE franchise was my idea. It was a MoA operation. Cover for our R&D,” Rainbow said too casually for her to be making it up.

The knowledge that my favorite TV show had been a government conspiracy of some kind hit me in the childhood like a hoof to the teats. 

My jaw dropped for a moment. “W— What?”

“I made up the whole show. Originally it was going to be Daring Do, but in space, with lasers,” Rainbow said with a little yawn. “Seriously, how did ponies not get that Azure Spectrum was my quill name?”

“But— Why?” I asked, wishing Rainbow was in shoulder shaking distance.

“Well, for starters, the MoA burned through more bits than any other three ministries combined,” Rainbow grumbled. “I— I had a lot to get done. We needed lots of sources of revenue. I knew that we could use government privileges to clandestinely create a hit show. So I came up with some basic ideas for a sci-fi. The sales from consumers buying costumes alone paid for the construction of three SPP towers.”

I blinked, “Wait, I thought you said it was research and development?”

“It was, primarily. But it also was a big money maker once it got going. We did lots of things to get money. Galaxy Quest wasn’t the only franchise we made. But it was what did the most for us. See, first we would introduce yet-to-be-invented gadgets we wanted our spies to have in the show. Then every nerdy pony on the Term-Link theorized how they might work. A lot of them were scientists and mages who either wouldn’t have willingly helped us, or were too young to be recruited. Next, dozens of amateur prop-makers would turn out several different versions of the gadget, and some of them would make sure that those prop versions could be made functional, based on the theoretical ideas. Finally, our agents in the forums who would pick out the more plasuable ideas, and then we would try them out. We saved billions of bits on payroll that way.”

I blinked several times. “Wait. Wait! One minute… If that’s true, then…” I blushed a bright pink. “Are there Caster Guns in this base?!”

“No, but there are some real ones floating around out there,” Rainbow said quietly. “Prototypes. They work... okay.”

“Quad-Function Recorders?”

“We didn’t have to make those, Stable-Tec came out with the Pipbuck based on that idea,” Rainbow sickered. “Uh… I did make a Pipbuck with a custom case to look like a Quadcorder though. I may or may not be using it… Sush.”

I nodded slowly and resumed rattling off my list. “Communicator pi— Oh my gosh! I’m using one of those right now!”

“Yep!” Rainbow laughed.

“Digital Conveyor?” I asked hopefully.

“Yuh-huh!”

My tail swished eagerly behind me. “Could you beam us out of here?”

Please be able to! Please be able to! Please be able to!

“I totally could!” Rainbow said raising my hopes.

“YES!” I squeed.

“If I was about three thousand kilometers north,” Rainbow deadpanned. “In the Rainbow Relay. That’s what it is. Long range teleporter, mass targeting capabilities. It can move up to a cubic kilometer of stuff anywhere on this hemisphere, or a quarter cubic kilometer of stuff on the other side of the planet. I’m really proud of that one. It would have made troop movement cake. It sure helped out with construction!”

Awesome! “Sooo, you can like, fly up there and teleport us, right? You’re awesome! It would just take like, half an hour, right?”

“Nope. Sorry…” Rainbow sighed. “I still can’t navigate up there, all those rad blizzards… Other ghouls might get to glow, I go insane. I come back, because regen, but… Those blizzards don’t stop. If I get caught in one, I go feral, and stay that way until I eventually wander out of the snow.”

I winced. It sounded like she had some experience with that…

“Oh… I uh, I know some safe routes, but I’d need to show them to you. Also, I think we let some people move into the relay...”

For the life of me, I couldn't remember who… Agh! Every fiber of my being told me it was really important to tell Rainbow who, but I couldn’t remember!

Gah! That had to be from the stress of being in charge. I need to go back to subconscious, STAT!

“Yeah, so, no teleporting for you,” Rainbow said flatly.

My ears perked as another thing which would be awesome to have came to me. “OH! What about a universal translator?”

“Uh, well, kinda? It can translate everything into really broken Equish,” Rainbow said sheepishly. “For example it will always translate Twilight’s name to “Purple Smart” which, well, it’s not wrong, but it’s wrong. You know?”

Wait. Wait. They had space suits. They had the MEWs that could work in space. They had the scanners, and the communicators…

I took a deep breath to hold in my inner fanfilly. “I— Is there an actual RMSE Protector?!”

“No,” Rainbow said with a snort. “An actual starship was a bit too expensive, even compared to season eight’s budget.”

“You mean you tried to make one?” I asked with a hopeful smile.

“Duh!” Rainbow practically shouted. “The easiest way to win the war would have been bombarding the Imperial City to dust from orbit and then demanding surrender from whoever was left. The Imperials were terrified of the stars, you know. If we could have reenacted the destruction of their first civilization, then turn around and prove we were responsible, it would have just obliterated their morale. The war would have been over then and there. Then, after the war, I would have had the most awesome house ever, because who the buck could actually make me give up a starship? I’d be in space! Not even the Princesses could fly that high.”

I flinched and sat down.

I had very, very few memories of Zebrica. I’d been so little when my step-dad had my mom and I smuggled out of the country. I remembered how much zebras who practiced the old ways were hated. I remember mom explaining to me that Those Who Fear The Stars had rigged the last election so one of their own would win.

I remembered preachers on the streets, screaming about the Star’s influence over Princess Luna, though I couldn’t remember exactly what they had to say.

I did remember they said she would bring down the very stars from the heavens to kill us all.

“Y— Yeah… that would have done it.” I said quietly.

“Shit,” Rainbow murmured. “Sounds like I triggered some memories there… Sorry. Anyways, if you can’t find a hazmat suit, you can try getting Speed out in a set of power armor. They aren't as rad-resistant, but it should buy her enough time if she’s quick. My pin will act as an authorization code for any frame you find in there.”

“Thanks, Rainbow,” I said with a smile.

“Hey, before you go,” Rainbow asked heastently. “You’ve been in the ready room… Did you go into the room behind it?”

“No,” I replied honestly.

“Good. Don’t. I sealed that up personally. There was a cloudship in there, a stealth troop carrier. Unfortunately, the tanks holding the spare fuel burst over time and the whole room is flooded with some pretty nasty stuff. It doesn’t seem to have any effect on stone, but it dissolved my leg in just a few seconds and ate the whole ship stored in there, so it would probably kill you, Miss Robot Zombie.”

I snorted, then giggled at her nickname for me. It was pretty accurate to say the least. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“One last thing,” Rainbow said quietly.

“What?” I asked with a frown.

Something about the way Rainbow had said that made the fur on the back of my neck stand up.

“You’re… You’re an imperial Zebra. Right? I think I remember you, Jasmine. Your mother married one of my top agents, right?” She asked.

I nodded, remembered she couldn't see me over the pin, and said “Yes… Are you aware of how I died?”

“Yeah, I am,” Rainbow said quietly. “I— I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ever recruited your uncle. But, that's not what I was— Are you a shaman?”

“Yes.”

“Fully trained?”

“More trained than most, as I also studied pony magic and pony alchemy,” I replied with a sigh. “Why?”

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. “As shaman, what did you think of the door to the ready room?”

Oh. That.

What did I think about it?

“It’s lonely,” I replied after a moment’s thought. “The… spiritual energy in it. It doesn't feel like it belongs here. It’s not cursed, there’s no hostile magic, or even organized magic in it, not that I noticed. But… It doesn't belong here. I don’t want to say it’s unnatural, because I don't think it is. It just feels like it’s from a strange and far off land with earth that I am not familiar with in the slightest. Why do you ask? Other zebras thought it was cursed way back when?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow replied sadly. “The door’s made from the same metal as the Star Blasters you may have heard about. I— I’ve wondered sometimes if the zebras were right, if it is an evil metal from the stars.”

Just before Rainbow answered, it hit me. Pip’s story. Star Metal.

A literal name. The material came from the havens, brought to us by meteorites. The mad doctor who had been working for Red Eye theorized Nightmare Moon may have simply been the result of an alien virus which had survived on the meteor somehow, and then infected Luna when she made armor from the meteor she had found.

I found that notion absurd. Nothing organic would survive the temperatures needed to smelt ore into metal, or even those needed to forge metal.

Of course, if Luna had handled the raw meteorite… Nah! That hypothesis depended on there being life out there. Pure fantasy, sadly.

Unless the MoA had also used magic to make mutants that would look like the aliens from the show and then— Oh, right, they didn’t have ships, so they couldn’t have gone out and populated the right planets. Also unless the slingshot around the sun thing really did make time travel possible the timeline just didn’t add up for it.

Darn!

Wait, Rainbow had asked me something. Aaaaaa! What was it? Oh, right!

“I don’t think it’s evil,” I said before clearing my throat to push the awkward away. “I’ve seen plenty of cursed things, and the door doesn't have that kind of aura to it. Where did you get the metal from?”

“We got it from Whinnieapolis. There’s a… large amount of it there. A... Uh… I’m not sure exactly what it’s called. An old meteor strike? Um, anyways, we had a huge deposit of the stuff land there a few decades before the war. Before the city really existed, actually. It was hard to get supplies and ponies out there to work on it, so Celestia had the city built nearby. I— I didn’t start the research on it. This was pre-ministries. Buck, that was pre-Elements! Still, when the war happened, the project was already classified so I took command of it along with basically everything else in the clandestine closet.”

My ears twitched as a thought occurred to me. “May I ask a quick question?”

“Sure. What?”

“Why did Luna make you her spymaster?”

Rainbow quietly let out a slow, bitter, tired sigh. “It had to be either me or Pinkie. Personally, I think Luna’s decision was a mistake. Making the Ministries in the first place, I mean. Splitting the Tiara’s power like that… I think that’s part of why the war lasted for decades. We were… erratic. Conflicted. Disorganized. Every decision was debated, every action questioned. Every Ministry Mare, prominent noble, and CEO entitled to their own small opinion on every last decision! The Ministries dissolved Equestria’s harmony… Disrupted our cohesion… Stole our greatness.”

“Yeah…” I said softly, not wanting to upset her more than thinking back on her life must already have. “But my question was, why you?”

“Well, it had to be either me, or Pinkie. Nopony else had the temperament for it. Pinkie was just too… kind.”

I tilted my head curiously. “Too kind?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said quietly. “Pinkie lived to make ponies smile. She didn’t have the stomach to hurt ponies in the ways I had to. Sure, she could dispatch police and soldiers to take care of enemy agents committing terrorist acts, she could be a hero… But she couldn’t be a spymaster. She couldn’t handle orchestrating terrorist activity of her own. The MoA had to assassinate political leaders, black bag enemy scientists, neutralize enemy spies after interrogating them… Pinkie couldn't do that. It would have destroyed her faster than the drugs did. I... could. I did it well. Loyalty can fall a bit too easily into the “I did my Duty for Princess and Country” mentality... I also had the skills needed to prank Pinkie. That may not sound like much, but even without party time mentats, she was damn near clairvoyant. Anypony who could pull a prank on her undetected had to have the equivalent of a decade of espionage training.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay. Makes sense… Anyways, the door? You made it from star metal found in Whinnieapolis. Why?”

“Because it’s cool,” Rainbow replied a little too honestly.

“What?”

“Look, star metal is some of the toughest stuff I’ve ever seen. We were close to learning how to make more of it. Which would have been great, because it made the best security doors! They could stand up to direct hits from plasma cannons. Like, a tank’s plasma cannon!”

I triple blinked. “Woah! That’s awesome… and makes my grenade launcher feel… inadequate.”

Maybe Gears was on to something with loving big guns…

“You’re welcome to any weapons you find in there,” Rainbow commented. “Arm up. You probably won't get a better chance for it… Look, I’d be happy to tell you more about the MoA, but you’re bathing in rads and probably some of that spirit-draining goop we were using as fuel for the magic-anti-magic reactor. Get to safety. We’ll talk later. Rainbow, out.”

The pin clicked to signify the conversation was over.

I turned to look at Vinyl so she’d realise the privacy spell was no longer running. “Okay. We have two options. Rainbow told me where the suits should be, and if there aren't any, her pin can activate the power armor in the ready room. We can get Speed out in one of those.”

Vinyl grinned. “Or, we could abandon the idea of a hazmat suit entirely and get our little death machine some power armor!”

I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it quickly. The Tainted, or perhaps their Enclave masters, kept sicking their power armored monster after us. It would be very nice if we could sick our own power armored monster after them.

I smiled. “Good idea! Let's go back to the ready room.”


☢★★◯★★☢


Amusingly enough, when we returned to the ready room, the music was still looping. Presumably it was programmed to keep looping until somepony geared up and headed out. I hoped us taking a suit of power armor would count, for the sake of the poor souls who died on this spot.

After all, if I were a ghost doomed to haunt these decaying halls, the last thing I would want is to have to hear a single song looping for centuries.

Of course, we had more pressing matters to attend too than stopping some music. Chief amongst which was finding a suit of armor that would fit Speed.

The main problem was her size. Speed was a smallish mare. Not undersized by any means, but shorter than a stallion. Power armor had to be sized for its user within about two centimetres tolerance, and since most soldiers had been stallions, almost every suit of power armor would be useless to Speed. The fact she needed a suit with wing-friendly internals or wing-plating made it about ten times more rare.

If we had been in a typical military base, we would have found something pretty quickly. Sure, every wing-friendly power armor suit had been used by the Enclave, but the Enclave had just been a branch of the Equestrian military. Their armor was serviced at every base in Equestria, just like Steel Ranger pattern armor.

Unfortunately, this was not an EUP or Guard base. This was an MoA headquarters. Each suit of armor here was completely customized.

It made sense. Each of the power armor service stations in the ready room was made specifically for a particular agent, who would have a particular role and particular needs. Each was an Enclave or Ranger pattern suit at the core, just with extra features attached and some cosmetic tweaks. Even though I lacked the technical knowledge Gears had, I could tell each suit wasn’t really all that heavily modified.

Unfortunately, the customization meant none of the suits were standard sized, or standard function. I’d always wondered why each set of Steel Ranger armor looked exactly the same. It seemed like it would be so easy to make variants, or even just paint them different colors so you’d know who was who. Now I understand why they didn’t do that. Each of these suits could fit only a very specific size of pony, and had been made with an individual's talents in mind.

Excellent for small gorilla squads where each member had defined rolls to play. Terrible for equipping an army. Especially when someone had probably died in the armor you were issued. The Ministry of Wartime Technology definitely had to repair and refurbish most suits of armor several times. They cost a hundred times more than the soldiers who wore them.

These ones cost even more than that, which was still probably less than the ponies who had worn them. Special Forces cost a lot to train, to say the least.

Each of the suits in the armory had built in weapons, not all of them were Battlesaddle operated either. Some had fixed weapons which would require the pony to move their entire body to aim but would definitely put the hurt on enemy formations and buildings, some had small turret blisters, one was even more cloudship than armor and featured a pair of air-to-water torpedos.

The strange thing about the dive-bomber suit was it was set up for a unicorn, with a horn sheath on the helmet made from a metal translucent to mana, to permit casting while inside the armor.

How did it fly? Meh, whatever.

Out of the fifteen sets of armor, only three had wing support. Of those three, one was half-disassembled and had a note from a technician stuck to the helmet requesting the operator explain exactly how they managed to get the waste reclamation pouch to back up into the hydraulic manifold (EEEEEEW!), one was for a rather tall stallion, and the third… Well, the third one was just… weird.

It was about Speed’s size. She’d fit into it it no problem, as far as I could tell. It was just… Well, the suit was clearly originally an Enclave pattern suit. It had wing plating, the slim insectoid look, albeit with the plating given a more hard angular shape in places, but, well…

Instead of the glossy black I remembered form propaganda posters, this set was mostly olive green and tan, like it was intended to be camouflage pattern, except then there were some orange highlights here and there which would make any camouflage effect the armor had pointless.

The helmet had been entirely redesigned too. Instead of the bug eyed goggle-helmet which left the pony’s mouth exposed, this helmet was fully enclosed, with a single gold-tinted reflective visor and a small metal sun-shade that jutted out just above the visor by a centimeter or so.

Those changes I could understand. Everypony’s gear here had a unique paint job, and if I was flying up high I would want an oxygen mask too. What I didn’t get was why the tail-blade attachment had been removed. Why the armor featured no weapons whatsoever, not even battle saddle mounts. In fact, it seemed to lack an integral saddle entirely.

It also was covered in what I believed to be Minotaur runes. The kind their rune priests used to carve into armor and weapons to imbue them with arcane power. Except unlike those runes there wasn’t any crystal set into these carvings. Just a black obsidian-like material which wasn’t quite stone and certainly wasn’t a kind of gem. At least, not any I knew of. Which, given the spirits’ love of gemstone offerings, should theoretically be every type of gemstone known to pony and zebra kind.

The runes held power. I could sense that much. What I can't figure out is what the various spirits bound to those runes did. Or if they were even capable of doing things at all, bound like that.

I shook my head and stood back up form peering at the runes set into the barrel plate. “Well… I’m at a total loss.”

Vinyl sighed and set down a manual she found in the armor’s stand. “Nothing here explains what those are for either. But I did find out what this suit is supposed to be.”

“Oh?” I said, my ears perking up.

Vinyl nodded towards the suit, still hanging from its stand by several power cables. “Z-01 Lacedaemonia, a power armor pattern produced in Minos and based on the Enclave pattern. Looks like we shared power armor technology with them as part of the alliance.”

I frowned as I tried to recall any alliances from the Great War. As if sensing my distress Vinyl offered me an apologetic smile. “It wasn’t common knowledge. We were allied with them for the last five years of the war. They provided us with coal, we helped defend them against the Zebras who wanted their coal so we couldn’t have it. I guess they sent us a few soldiers… Or maybe the MoA recruited some of their soldiers.”

“Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Minos the minotaur’s homeland?” I asked as my frown steepened.

Vinyl nodded. “Mhm, sure was. Doesn't mean some ponies didn’t live there. Some minotaurs lived here. People get around.”

“I guess that’s fair,” I said as I took one last look at the armor’s name plate.

No rank. No division. Just a single name. Νέμεσις Ἀδρήστεια.

I had no idea how you pronounced that. It would probably help if I read Mino… I looked up at Vinyl and nodded sheepishly to the name plate. “Any chance you read Minos, or the pilot’s name is written down in the manual in Equish?”

“Uh…” Vinyl flipped through the manual then nodded. “Yeah! There’s a note here: “By order of Miss Dash, if the Z-01 requires repair nopony is to attempt to repair damaged runes other than Master Chief Petty Officer Nemesis the Inescapable. This is for your safety.” Huh… Well, that does sound like a Minosian name. I knew a minotaur who lived in Equestria, he had a pony name. No reason a pony born in Minos wouldn’t have a Minotaur’s name.”

I hummed and shrugged. “Well, the runes don’t seem to do anything. At least, not anymore. The helmet is sealed too. That will give Speed the best chance. I say we take it down stairs.”

Vinyl gave me a skeptical look before glancing back at the armor. “I think we should power it up first. See if those runes come to life when we switch the armor on.”

I facehooved and groaned. “Oh… Right. That would be the smart thing to do. Okay, so… You read the manual. How do we do that?”

Vinyl trotted over to a small terminal on the armor’s rack and tapped it with one hoof. “Tap Rainbow’s pin against this and we should just need to push the button.”

“Alright,” I said as I trotted over and wedged my collar up against the terminal. “Uh, I guess I should keep an eye on the terminal? Just in case there’s an error message.”

Vinyl’s ears perked under her helmet. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

A moment passed, then the terminal chirped as its screen flicked to life, bathing Vinyl and I in a white glow as a dozen commands flew across the screen.



Special Envoy Engineering Corps Advanced Prototype Z-01 Lacedaemonia now activating.
Z-01 Lacedaemonia standing by for deployment authorization codes…
Deployment authorization code <PublicKey:Blue-Fast-8-4-1-Alpha-6-5> accepted.
ERROR! Onboard systems firmware corrupted.
Reformatting system memory… Success

Requesting firmware from local dock… Success
Loading firmware 0.1a-5d… Success
System ready.
Resuming activation sequence.
Initializing onboard systems…
Enabling life support… SysOK
Life support enabled.
Enabling sensor systems… SysOK
Enabling Navigation systems… SysOK
Searching for Navigation Data Networks... <Network:SPP> found.
Navigation enabled on <Network:SPP>
Initializing in terrestrial mode.
Enabling brainwave interface… SysOK



The terminal’s output froze for a moment, then just as I thought the entire thing had locked up, a message flashed up onto the screen in a dark red.



ERROR! Pilot missing. Continue boot sequence Y/N?



I didn’t have to be Gears to know what to do here. I reached over and tapped the Y key.



Resuming activation in Field Equippable mode…
Flight system check initiated.



The armor clicked and jerked slightly as dozens of small panels opened up, then closed almost immediately. It looked like the armor was performing some kind of systems test… and also showing us that it was far more complicated than it first seemed.



Flight systems online.
Subsystems online.
Z-01 Lacedaemonia now releasing Runic safety interlocks...



I jumped back as every single rune on the armor began to glow a hellish red!

“Woah!” Vinyl yelped, recoling slightly from the armor.

I could feel the spirits bound to each rune awaken. None of them were person-level, but each of them was a machine spirit. The runes each allowed part of the armor to function. The armor enhanced the wearer. Strength, speed, even agility.

All armor did that sort of thing. Perhaps not agility, but… The primary enchantment on this armor. It seemed to… Ensure the suit and its pilot were… Affected by the normal laws of physics regardless of what happened to the suit?

What? WHY?! That’s so… pointless? Unless... maybe it’s meant to diffuse g-forces? It is aerial armor.



Runes active.
Checking power crystal status… SysOK
Status: Charge state low
Charging power crystals… ETA 30 seconds.



Over the terminal’s speakers, a tune I vaguely recognized from an old game show played.



Power Crystals charged.
Load-testing internal power systems… Success.
Switching to internal power… Success
Disabling external power feed… Success



The cables holding the armor up lowered it to the ground, then disconnected with a loud hiss of air. I couldn't help but notice that none of the cables actually plugged into the armor. They had just sort of stuck to the outside, held there by some arcane force, and presumably transmitted everything through the armor itself. Cool!

A single thick cable connecting to the back of the helmet was all that remained attached to the armor as the screen continued to list off more commands.



Enabling deflector systems…
Deflectors enabled and primed.
Aerial mode primed.
EFS primed.
Psychokinetic dampeners primed.
Z-01 Lacedaemonia Online.
Activating Field Equippable mode...



The cable connecting to the helmet hissed and popped free form the armor’s surface.

Vinyl cleared her throat and took a step towards the armor. “Okay, I guess we’ll just carry it down to Sp—”

The armor turned looking towards her as if there were a pony inside the suit. The two of us screamed and dove for cover. I dropped, rolling underneath a mechanic’s tool cart.

A highly robotic yet feminine voice spoke. “Unit lacks operator. Please identify operator.”

I yelped and jumped backwards, falling plot over snoot...

“Oh yeah…” Vinyl said with an awkward laugh. “Uh, so, the manual mentioned this thing has limited autonomous capabilities. Like, you can make it park itself and stuff.”

“Um, why?”

Vinyl picked up the manual with her magic, turned a few pages then said. “So if the pilot is injured the suit can take them back to friendly lines safely.”

“Oh. That makes sense!” I said with a satisfied smile. “Okay then… Um, Z-01, follow me. Your operator is outside.”

“Orders received. Complying.” The suit took several steps towards me, stopping about two ponylengths away, where it stood silently.

Ah, Equestrian robotics. So amazing, yet so rock stupid. Anypony with this pin could have come in here and had the suit just trot right on out with them. All because ponies hadn’t quite yet figured out how to let a computer think instead of calculate. At least, without that computer being the size of a small building.

“Wait,” Vinyl said with a worried frown. “Uh, don’t we need like, an under suit? I’m pretty sure that the Steel Rangers wear an undersuit that hooks into the armor.”

“Interface suit not required,” The Z-01 reported.

I raised an eyebrow and looked at the suit critically. “Did the manual say how smart the thing was?”

“Yeah. On par with a Miss Handy,” Vinyl commented. “Sorry I forgot to mention that. I was really focused on what those runes do.”

“I think they are meant to protect the pilot from extreme g-forces,” I said with a shrug. “I can sense them now that they are active.”

“Ah, well, that would make sense. I saw some turbo-jets under that thing’s plating when it did its systems checks.”

I nodded. “Okay. Z-01, does your operator require anything to use you properly?”

“The will to destroy Equestria’s enemies in the name of the Princess,” the suit said with as much pride as a simple robot could manage.

I couldn’t help but giggle. “Okay, yeah, I don’t care who this thing was made for, it was really made for Speed.”

“Sure was!” Vinyl agreed as she turned to leave the ready room. “Let’s go… I’d say we should look for weapons, but we can do that after Speed’s not cooking.”

I turned and followed her with a quick nod. The Z-01 moved along behind me. I couldn’t help but be a little scared by just how quietly it moved…


☢★★◯★★☢


The first thing I noticed as we exited the crumbling headquarters was just how vibrant and alive the world was. The spirit draining goop and radiation eating moss made for such an alien feeling metaphysical space that returning to a place which was simply irradiated was like passing through a curtain into an air conditioned space on a sweltering day.

I stopped for a moment to take a breath of relatively fresh air, even though this body couldn’t truly appreciate such a gesture. It just felt like the right thing to do.

It could smell though, and that was the second thing I noticed. The distinct smell of burning flesh!

My tail stood up in alarm, and I almost called out a warning, until I realized it wasn’t burning flesh, it was cooking flesh. Somepony was cooking meat of some kind.

Why?

And who?

Speed, presumably. But she couldn’t eat solid things. Gears had asked. She’d vomit them up almost instantly. So why would she be cooking?

“Sompony must have dug through the rubble,” I said quietly.

“Because of the frying beef?” Vinyl asked quietly. “I smell it too.”

“Take point. If I shoot, I’ll probably kill us all,” I whispered.

Vinyl frowned and pointed to the LAER on my battle saddle. “Use that instead of the grenades?”

“I’d rather not,” I said with a little wince. “Gears was worried it would need cleaning soon or it might explode. I know that happens with the pony-portable LAERs. With how much dirt and grime got in it during the bombardment… I’m counting it as disabled.”

“What about your pistol?” Vinyl remarked.

I blinked, turned, and drew the old recharger pistol, then nodded my thanks. Gears might have been able to talk around a gun’s mouth-grip, but I sure as heck didn’t know how to do that and remain comprehensible.

Vinyl drew her own pistol and trotted out in front. I crept along behind her, doing my best to keep my hoof falls from landing too heavily. The damp cave floor was slicker than most things I’d ever trotted across before. One misplaced step and I’d fall flat on my face… The echoes from that would alert whoever was at the other end of the tunnel to my presence in a heartbeat.

We moved through the darkness, following the cave wall closely. The smell of cooking grew stronger and stronger as we progressed. Within a few minutes the crackle of flames and the smell of burning chemicals joined the scent of cooking beef.

Just as I swore I could smell actual olive oil, Vinyl stopped moving, making me nearly run into her plot gun-barrel-first. I froze as best I could, if I’d bumped into her, I probably would have bit down and put an energy bolt right into her tail-hole! I knew Vi was a kinky mare, but she probably wouldn't have liked that very much…

I turned my head to look around Vinyl, and froze in surprise.

There wasn’t anypony there aside from Speed. The batpony had produced a small frying pan, along with a mess kit’s bowl, most of an onion, some water, assorted herbs and spices, and flour, along with a package of dehydrated beef. All so she could make some dough-pocket-things, fill them with meat, and fry them in her pan full of oil using a tiny piece of what I hoped wasn’t plastic explosive as campfire fuel.

But… but you don’t eat… solid… why?!

“Speed, why are you cooking?” Vinyl said for both of us.

Speed yelped, her ears swiveled to face us before the rest of her head. When she turned I could see her face was pale and her eyes held the kind of terror you would only find in a very young foal during their first thunderstorm.

“I’m-sorry-it-was-too-quiet-I-was-scared!” Speed yelped as she bolted over to Vinyl and hugged her tightly.

“You… Were scared because it was quie—” I started before stopping dead in my tracks as I remembered Gears learning Speed was scared of silence because sight wasn’t her primary sense. “Oh! Oh buck, I’m sorry we left you alone, Speed.”

Speed looked over to me, and frowned. “Who are you?”

I blinked, surprised she could tell Gears wasn’t in charge. “I’m Jasmine. I’m the soul bound to Gear’s body. She’s unconscious right now. It’s okay. I’m sure she’ll wake back up soon. How did you know?”

“You sound different, walk different, stand different,” Speed murmured before nodding slowly. “Who’s in the armor?”

“No one,” Vinyl answered. “It’s semi-autonomous. We couldn’t find a radiation suit so we thought some power armor might work. Also, you’d have power armor!”

Speed nodded slowly. “Yeah… That might help.” Her wings fluttered nervously as she looked down the tunnel towards the old headquarters.

Vinyl gave her a tight hug then let go and smiled at Speed through her helmet. “Sorry, but we didn’t think you’d fit in this because of your wings.”

Speed nodded twice. “Y— Yeah. I can't fly, but, um, I really don’t like my wings being bound up. I’d have refused.”

“Is this pony this unit’s operator?” Z-01 asked calmly.

“Yes,” I answered. “Will she fit in you?”

“Confirmed,” the suit reported before suddenly splitting open down the barrel and legs.

Various hatches slid or hinged open, providing a space for a pony to back into the armor via sort of stooping under it while walking backwards. Awkward, but better than having a squire tend to you for half an hour to get into the damn thing.

“Ready for operator. Standing by…” the suit reported.

Speed’s fear drained from her almost immediately. “You found me a robot-armor murder-friend!” she whispered to herself before taking a few quick steps towards the armor. “Oooo, based on the E-03 series! Definitely a prototype though, probably minotaur in design… My people come from Minos too, do you have batwings or bird wings Miss Armor?”

“This unit was designed for a thestral operator, but can accommodate pegasi,” the suit reported.

Speed squeed a little. I smiled shakily. I never even thought about the difference in wing type! That could have gone very poorly.

“So, you think you can use it?” Vinyl asked hopefully, her tail flicking back and forth nervously.

“Mhm!” Speed chimed happily as she stepped up to the armor and began to inspect it form the outside. “No integrated weapons. Good. I hate battle saddles. They put your balance way off center.”

“Incorrect, operator. This suit is entirely composed of integrated weaponry,” the suit reported.

“Explain,” Speed ordered.

“This unit is a killing machine capable of bludgeoning most organic and inorganic targets to death, for the Princess!” the suit reported.

Speed’s muzzle spread as she grinned and hugged the suit. “I love you!”

I cleared my throat. “So um, can you tell me why you were cooking?”

Speed gave me a blank look then shrugged. “Sure… but only because you’re in my friend’s body,” she said in an odd tone that made the fur on the back of my neck stand up.

Speed turned and pointed to the campfire. “There’s an old legend… The Equestrian infantry relied on the Talon mercenaries a lot. But in the field, it was hard to contact them. Radios could fail, messengers might not work, and smoke signals can be seen by everyone. So, some soldiers developed a ritual to attract them. You make a batch of these little pastries, and griffons will be right there to help… and also eat. It worked every time I tried it in the pod.”

“Oh, okay.” I said with a nod, my curiosity satis—

“Wait, what?” Vinyl and I asked together.

“You make these little pastries filled with minced meat, onions, green onion, and spices,” Speed said with a little twitch of her wings. “Smells horrible to me, but if you cook it griffons always show up.”

Vinyl slowly turned to me, her lips puckered with perplexion. “Uh… Jaz? Is there some kind of shamnaistic magic going on there or—”

I shook my head firmly. “Nope. That’s just cooking. No magic.”

“Yeah I’m not picking up anything either,” Vinyl agreed.

Speed huffed irritably and unstrapped her saddlebags to get into her new armor. “I’m telling you, if you cook it, they will come!”

I rolled my eyes. Pony superstitions could be so hilariously weird.

“We want to check out the armory once you’re safe from the radiation,” I commented.

Speed scooted back into the armor with a happily little whinny. She squirmed a little as her plot slipped into place within the armor, and given these suits apparently had waste processing, I didn’t want to know why.

The suit closed around Speed with a hiss, and made a few announcements while it did some last minute configurations. “Adapting mare-machine interface for new operator… Adaptation complete. No changes required. Assistant systems matched to operator.”

I flinched half expecting Speed to yelp in pain as the suit finished closing up. Instead, Speed squeed again. “Awwww! She’s got a little vector-chibi minotaur mare on the hud… Oooo! She’s animated! What are you for? … Really? Neat! That’s a cool way to display data to somepony. Okay, let’s try moving.”

Speed extended her left foreleg then laughed. “WOOO! This is better than wearing nothing! … Oh! You were designed for that. Good, that’s how I like to fight,” Speed commented as she simply reached down and strapped on her gear as if she were unencumbered. “Come on, let’s check out that armory! … Huh? No! Of course we’ll still punch bad guys to death. That’s fun! It’s just that guns are fun too … Awww, I love you too!”

I shivered a little then leaned over to Vinyl and whispered into her ear. “Is it creepy how we can’t hear half that conversation?”

“Yeah, very…” Vinyl whispered back before clearing her throat. “Come on Speed, I’ll lead the way.”

“Okay!” Speed said happily, falling into line behind Vinyl as she trotted back up the tunnel.

I shivered and brought up the rear. The thought of going back in there was more than unpleasant. It felt beyond wrong. I knew that as long as we avoided the reactor room, Gears should be fine, but—

Wait a minute…

“Uh, Speed?” I said carefully. “Shouldn’t you pack up your mess kit? We won't be coming back this way.”

Speed shook her head. “No. I have two. Two more I mean. That’s for the Talon. I don’t need one now but they’ll still come and they’ll be hungry and I don’t want to make a flying sniper angry at me.”

“Okay,” I said rolling my eyes at her silly superstition again.

It would be one thing if there had been some kind of arcane or spiritual energy generated by preparing that meal. Ritual magic certainly came in stranger forms, and two thirds of alchemy was just cooking. But there had been nothing. Not even a little spark of nature magic, and you could get nature magic by banging two rocks together!

The three of us walked back through the cave. I could feel the air and stone getting warmer and warmer with each step. I gulped and lashed my tail nervously. I didn’t like how I could feel the temperature rise with the radiation levels. Why didn’t mom build us with a geiger counter?

We reached the door in just a few minutes. The cave really just felt longer than it actually was, I guess. Foreboding atmospheres and—

I ran face first into Speed’s armored flank as she stopped dead in her tracks. “OW!”

“I can't go further,” Speed said, completely ignoring the fact that I’d very clearly been hurt.

So... This was what it was like to not be her friend… Gears, please wake up before I upset her somehow.

Vinyl turned around. “Why not? Is the suit’s shielding not good enough?”

“Yeah… Zoi looks worried and is holding up a sign saying that this suit can’t handle more radiation than this,” Speed remarked casually.

Okay, that’s an adorable status alert system and I want it instead of fake biofeedback.

Also, motherbucking daughter of a timberwolf! What in Tartarus do we do now?!

Wait, idea!

“You were fine back at the entrance, right?” I asked hopefully.

Speed nodded curtly. “Yes. I think it can handle the levels there okay.”

“Then you can wait at the entrance while we find something to safely cut, blast, or dig through the rubble with,” I proposed with a sympathetic look.

Vinyl sighed. “Yeah… That’s what we’re going to have to do.”

Speed inhaled sharply and quivered, making her armor creak. “U— Um… C— Could we just… all stay around the fire I lit for a while first?”

Vinyl and I nodded together. “Sure,” she said, turning to give Speed an understanding hug. “I understand, and it’s okay.”

“Thanks,” Speed whispered quietly. “I— I hate bad things you can’t punch…”

Poor thing… I wanted to hug her, but I wasn’t sure just how much leeway being ‘not-Gears’ would buy me.

We turned back around and made our way back down the tunnel yet again, this time with me at the front. As we walked, I debated offering to go search the armory myself so that Speed could stay with Vinyl and have company. I knew it was dangerous for me in there, but with Speed not being friends with me but rather just Gears, it was dangerous for me out here, too.

Especially because Speed believed in such superstitious nonsense as griffin summoning!

I would definitely make a snide remark about that at some point. I couldn’t help it. I was so used to signing things and people not knowing what I said and how that let me mock the dumb things they did… Not that I did it too often, but it’s nice to get to rant and rave at someone consequence free when they park their wagon in the handicap spot you need.

Or insist the world is flat. Even though we can prove it’s round with simple math… Or just by standing on a tall thing and just LOOKING AT THE BUCKING HORIZON!

Or even worse, those total idiots who insist that we orbit the sun instead of the sun orbiting us. I was pretty sure if Gears ever learned some ponies believed that she’d have a total systems crash trying to figure out—

I rounded the corner into moonlight that steamed through a small hole in the rubble pile. It was just big enough for a pony to squeeze through if they tried.

The hole had clearly been made by the hunched over winged figure in a weathered maroon tracksuit with several thin white stripes running down the legs, squatting next to the fire and poking at Speed’s cooking with a metallic talon.

“HOW IN THE FLYING BUCK?!” I shouted incredulously.

Vinyl stepped to the side to get a line of sight and drew Bad Trip, only for her to start laughing hysterically.

The griffon turned to look at us, its face concealed by a gasmask, sunglasses, and the shadows cast by the fire. “Zdarova, putniki! Leaving chebureki in the pan while you explore irradiated hell holes… That’s a good way to burn dinner. Very clever. Not sure why you want a burnt dinner, but, eh, to each their own!”

I blinked. That was the thickest Griffonese accent I’d ever heard before in my life! Or since my death! And he sounded adorable! Like a kitten playing in a tube sock! Only somehow still stallion-ish.

I frowned as that realization hit me. Stallion-ish. He sounded stallion-ish. I peered into the shadows around his face… He wasn’t a griffon! His eyes were in the wrong places, a fact his sunglasses were clearly meant to hide. His gasmask had a pointed shape to it, like a beak, but sat a bit too low. Furthermore I could pick out a strand of mane just over the top corner of his sunglasses.

This was a pegasus with cybernetic talons, not a griffon. A sort of pseudo-cyber-hippogriff.

“He’s a pegasus!” I proclaimed, pointing towards his face. “It didn’t summon a griffon! It’s pure coincidence!”

The not-griffon inclined his head slightly. “No? I finished digging through the cave in because I smelled your cooking.”

Vinyl cleared her throat. “Our armored friend here believed she could summon help from Talons by cooking… whatever you called those. It’s a little funny to see it kind of work, that’s all.”

The pegasus laughed quietly and looked towards Vinyl. “Oh, I’m not a Talon. We griffons can smell good food being cooked from ten kilometers away on a good day.”

“But, you’re not a griffon,” Speed pointed out.

“Ah, physically no, but I promise you that is quite irrelevant,” the pegasus said as he clicked his metal talons together. “If a griffon says you are a Silverhawk, you are a Silverhawk. Family chooses you, you see? My family chose me, and so, I am a griffon.”

Griffons take adoption that seriously? Interesting.

“Soo… Why did you dig your way in here?” I asked curiously. “And who are you?”

“I could ask you the same question, podruga,” He said with a rustle of his wings. “I could, but I won’t. Call me Nika, everygriff does. Until a few hours ago, I was working for Applejack’s Rangers at the outpost. During the attack I was busy wondering how blyat the NCR got a gunship working, when I noticed it wasn’t a gunship, it was a set of unique power armor, much like the unique sets Paladin Creek found in these caves before dying horribly from radiation poisoning and a dash of cholera. Sad day. Good wake though. They had smoked cheese plates.”

He leaned forward slightly and picked up one of the pastries, slipped his mask down with his free talon and started to eat. “So, I went to get a bead on the cave. Make sure nopony else made it out to join in the attack. What do I see? I see the Machine and some friends running for their lives into the local all you can eat ghoul buffet. I also see how much the raiders want her dead, which gets me thinking this isn’t the NCR, this is the Tainted’s hoofwork.

“Now, the Tainted’s armored cavalry huj— Eh, bucked off, and I figure, “Nika, some ponies who might be able to help you figure out whose head to put bullets into for blowing up our friends and home are going to die of radiation poisoning, and you, you’re a doctor. You’d better dig them out so you can ask who the dead ponies are.” So I started moving rocks. I almost gave up after a few hours, but then I smelled your friend’s cooking, and so, here I am!”

A doctor?! My jaw dropped slightly. Of all the possible encounters we could have had, how did we get the most useful one?

Thank you, spirits. Whichever of you guided him here, thank you.

I nodded as quickly as I could. “Yes! Good! Speed could use help. She’s the only one here whose affected by radiation.”

Nika nodded slightly. “I can see your friend is a very happy ghoul, but if you think you’re fine because you took a few RadSafes and slugged back a bottle of RadAway like a gopnik on payday, you’re not. Not at these levels. Do you know how many Rangers died trying to get anything out of these caves? All of the ones who tried… and most of the ones who retrieved the bodies too. So like eight to ten.”

“Is that why they had an outpost here?” Vinyl asked curiously. “To clear out this old MoA headquarters?”

Nika’s ears perked enough to push up his hood. “Is that what’s in here? Da! That’s why. I didn’t know much. I just fixed the poor idiots who tried to go inside…” He turned to look into my eyes, then Speed’s before reaching back to open a saddlebag on his left side which his wing had hidden from view. “Okay, you two ladies should sit down, drink any beer you might have, and take some Griffin Blue tabs. I’ve got plenty in my bags.”

“She’s an equoid. She’s fine,” Speed grunted coldly.

Nika paused. “Chivo?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m an advanced cybernetic system. Only my skin is organic.”

Nika reached to open his other saddlebag. “Ah. Then you should open up your access port and let me run some diagnostics. Half the suits that come out of there come out with data corruption up the uretre.”

“Uh, up the what?” I asked with a wince.

“Eh… Piss-hole, I think? Not sure how to translate that one,” Nika remarked as he removed a small talon-held computer from his other bag. “I am also a cyber-surgeon. I do my own work. Do not worry you’re in good talons!”

Vinyl tilted her head slightly and gave Nika a critical look. “You don’t seem surprised by the Machine being an actual machine.”

“Why would I be?” he asked curiously. “The stories say she’s a cyborg. True, they don't say how much, but, well…”

I coughed into my left hoof. “I uh… I don’t have access ports you can reach without cutting me, or uh… Going through a, um, particular bodily orifice. Also, I’m fine. I can fix myself with shamanism. Just make sure Speed’s okay.”

Nika shuddered as I said “orifice”. “Ew… Who designed that?”

“My mom,” I answered truthfully.

NIka’s mouth seemed to invert for a moment, his wings flared in the characteristic frightened Griffon fashion. “EW!”

I glared at him. “It’s not like that! I’m an infiltration unit. There’s not many other places to hide a two centimeter thick data jack on—”

“Nyet!” Nika yelped. “I know! It’s still gross.”

He shuddered for a moment then looked over at me with a little wince. “Y— You can treat yourself?”

I nodded. “Yes. As soon as I’m not in an irradiated area.”

“Good.” Nika cleared his throat and held out a small blue pill to Speed. “Take off your helmet and swallow this.”

“No,” Speed said firmly as she sat down and crossed her hooves.

Nika’s lips puckered. “But… Why not?”

“I love my armor. She stays on,” she humphed.

Vinyl trotted over to her side and gently set a hoof on her shoulder. “Speed, he’s a doctor… I know he may not feel like a friend to you but—”

Speed turned to look at her. “No, he does. I did a ritual to summon a friend and he showed up so he’s a friend.”

Vinyl blinked. “Uh, I thought you couldn’t say no to a friend.”

“I can’t, and I promised her I wouldn’t take her off,” Speed said with a little wing flick. “First come first ser— Oh. As long as a part is equipped it’s fine? … I don't understand… Oh yeah, eating. I have to do that… Uh, that too, yeah. ... So it’s fine to take parts off sometimes? ... Okay!”

Nika frowned and looked over towards Vinyl. “What’s her condition?”

“Cinnamon’s Syndrome,” she replied.

“Ah… I see,” Nika said as Speed removed her helmet.

Speed took the pill from Nika’s still outstretched talon, took a swig from her canteen, and swallowed it the pill. She made a face and shivered. “Ew! It tastes like B-...”

“You know of it?” Vinyl asked curiously. “That’s impressive. It wasn’t well known before the war.”

“There’s a working medical school in Mosscrow. I graduated,” Nika remarked as he put his diagnostic computer back into his bag. “Besides, my father was a cyber-surgeon, and so was his father, and his father, and his father, and his father was a normal doctor, because cybernetics hadn’t been invented yet. Silverhawks are doctors. We’ve always been. Even back when doctoring meant sticking a leech on somegriff and hitting them with a stick to adjust their humors.”

“Really?” I asked.

He nodded. “Da. I know I must seem a little, well, convenient from your side… But, well, I am mostly here because some ponies decided they wanted me to kill them and you three know who they are. True, I was about to move to Twin Oaks to fish a fresh river, but this was still my home, and they were still my friends.”

Nika leaned forwards and ripped his sunglasses down to look me in the eye. “So… That fight with Bullets Stallion was very personal. Who is the big, flying, dead-pony, and do you know where to find him?”

I shivered slightly. Nika had gone from friendly to serious faster than I’d ever seen a pony shift moods. The truly scary part is that unlike Gears, I wasn’t socially oblivious. Nika hadn’t been faking either emotion.

“That would be my uncle Gale Force,” I answered honestly. “He killed me once before. If you can kill him, you’ll be doing the world a favor. He’s a monster.”

Nika blinked, and his head moved just enough for me to see his fur was a very creamy white, and his mane was a nice pink with a pale blue streak running through it which matches his eyes. “Gale Force? As in, the equestrian military's poster-colt? Named for him, no doubt.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s the actual guy. He was on ice somewhere for the last two hundred years and the Enclave thawed him out. I think he’s leading the Tainted right now, or working for whichever Enclave officer is in charge of the Tainted.”

Nika held up one of his talons. “Enclave?”

I nodded. “Yeah. They are behind this. My country is at war with them right now.”

Nika clenched his talon into a fist and grit his teeth painfully hard. “I knew they would be back! You can’t just smash someone’s home, take their weapons, livelihoods, and loved ones, and expect them not to regroup to kill you. We should have executed any pegasus who believed in their fascist ideals!”

I sputtered slightly.

Speed nodded. “Yeah, that would have been the smart thing.”

Vinyl’s eyes shot open wide. “Woah! You’d think a doctor would be against genocide!”

Nika shook his head and held up a talon. “Nyet! Genocide is “Eliminating an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group.” Killing all of the members of an ideological organization, is uh… Politicide. Or, well, close enough to it. Whatever you call it, destroying an ideological group which is not only completely fine with committing geonicide, but has done so on many occasions, is morally sound. Furthermore, as a doctor, I routinely commit genocide for the greater good.”

I blinked twice. “What?” I took a step back and gave my battle saddle a quick prod with my link module. Just in case.

Nika sat up straight and sighed. “That needs some explanation. Sorry. Pony doctors and griffon doctors work under very different rules. To me, the Hippocratic Oath is philosophically flawed. It’s ignoring the simple realities of life.”

“How do you mean?” I asked with a suspicious tilt of my head.

Nika smiled thinly. “Eh, well, if a doctor is to do no harm, then he cannot treat his patients. An open wound is a habitat for bacteria. An infection is a colony of living beings. In order to keep animals healthy, I, as a doctor, must kill billions of living organisms, and deprive many more of natural habitats.”

Vinyl snickered and shook her head for a moment then looked back at the not-griffon. “What? You count bacteria as being alive?”

Nika gave her a cold deadpan stare. “Yes. Because I am a scientist, and I know what life is. Anything that that preserves, furthers or reinforces its existence in the given environment is alive. That is the best definition science has to offer because of just how diverse life is. Who am I to say that Chroococcidiopsis isn't alive when it grows, eats, reproduces, forms colonies, and produces the vast majority of all the air we have ever breathed?”

“Uh,” Vinyl and I said together as we shared an uncertain look.

Nika scoffed, took a bite of his meal, then continued. “Sure, that sounds odd to you because you can’t see them without precision lenses, or maybe because they don’t have a face, or maybe you think only animal species are ‘life’ because they have emotions. Da, by the typical pony view, the Machine herself isn’t alive because not all of her is animal parts. Yet here you are, ensuring you continue to exist!”

Okay, now, that was a good point… I was definitely alive. Gears was definitely alive too. Whatever definition of life I used really should include things like spirits and probably extremely sophisticated robotic systems…

“Um, good point,” I said, pursing my lips.

Nika quickly finished his meal, cleared his throat, wiped some crumbs off his chin, then replaced his gas mask over his muzzle. “Now, how does being a doctor factor in? Even if I were not a doctor, all organisms kill to survive. Even if you choose to eat only plants, those plants are living organisms, and you killed them to sustain your own life. Which is fine. “Do no harm” is a foolish and short sighted ideology. Harm is necessary for life to exist. I, like every griffon doctor, have vowed to do all necessary harm to keep those we love alive, to keep civilization running, and ensure a prosperous future. So yes, I would have killed every last Enclave pegasus who was loyal to their regime. They are a known hostile and millitant faction who was more than happy to justify genocide to further their own goals, and killing them all would have prevented every single death and all harm directly and indirectly caused by the Tainted in the last fourteen years. Even if they didn’t create the Tainted, their group would have regrouped, and struck somewhere, sometime. This was inevitable!”

I squirmed in place, not really sure what to think. I couldn’t really argue with that. I didn’t agree with the philosophy, but the logic was solid. That didn’t mean I had to change my mind. Plenty of things can be logically sound at the same time. It all depends on each side’s starting points, data, and evaluation of the data.

I cleared my throat, wondering if maybe a little more information might help. “I take it that griffons place much more importance on the needs of society over that of individuals?”

NIka shook his head. “You have it backwards. If society isn’t strong and stable, then individuals struggle more. Personal freedom is important, the best way to ensure everyone has the most freedom…” he rolled a talon to prompt me to finish the thought.

“Is to ensure there’s as little problems facing society as a whole in general?” I asked with a  frown.

“Exactly,” Nika said with a short nod. “Don’t get me wrong. I do not advocate for the destruction of entire ideologies as a general practice. We are talking about the Enclave, a group who thought nothing of slaughtering entire cities simply for not bowing to them… Who fought a war against my people before they fought yours.”

Nika looked down at the empty frying pan for a quiet moment. He didn’t have to say anything. We all knew what must have happened to his first home… to his family.

Vinyl’s eyes softened. She took a step forward and extended one leg to offer a hug. “This suit is keeping the radiation in… Need a hug?”

He shook his head calmly. “Nyet. Whoever said time heals all wounds was a fool. It has been decades, but I still hurt, and I always will. That is the way it should be. I would be a monster if their loss didn’t hurt, da?”

I nodded a little. “Yeah… I guess…”

“The Enclave destroyed your home three times,” Speed said with an odd twinge in her voice.

Nika nodded once. “Da.”

“There’s the griffons who raised you, and now Pinto Creek, what’s the third?” I asked curiously.

Nika grinned at me. “It’s not obvious? I am thirty two, and while my heart is griffon, my body is Pegasus. Where did the wasteland’s pegasi come from, Machina?”

Suddenly it clicked. Dashites. Almost every pegasus in the wasteland was a Dashite. In order for Nika to act exactly like a griffon, and from what I could tell he did, he would have had to have been raised by them since before he would have formed any permanent memories. His parents, or at least, his mother, had or have been banished from the Enclave’s cloud cities and given birth to him on the surface before they died, or been banished along with their very very young foal and then died.

The wasteland is a deadly place. Before Pip, it had been infinitely worse. Enclave Pegasi lived in a spartan, but safe and functioning society. It was a miracle any Dashite survived after being banished. Most of them would have had no knowledge of how to survive the wastes.

No matter what had happened when Nika was a colt, the Enclave had killed his biological parents. Then, in the Enclave-Griffon War, they’d killed the Silverhawk family. Now, they’d destroyed the place he’d come to call home in recent times.

I wasn’t a very vengeful pony, but I understood the simple fact that there was only so much a pony could take before they broke. Nopony, not even Celestia herself, could possibly lose three homes to the same people and not hate them enough to want them all dead.

I looked Vinyl in her eyes. “He’s a doctor, his enemies are our enemies, I think he should come with us.”

Vinyl nodded. “Agreed. I don’t need a doctor, but Speed does. More importantly, he can fix you if you’re damaged. At least, there’s a chance he can.”

Nika tipped his head back and laughed. “HA! I can fix anything that bleeds or sparks!” He looked between the three of us, still smiling. “So, I take it you don’t know where our mutual enemy is? Too bad… But, it sounds like you think they’ll come after you at some point. Right?”

I sighed and looked out of the cave through the small hole Nika had made to get in. “Yeah… Gale is pretty focused on killing me, again I guess, and the radios I have been delivering have really messed with the Enclave’s plans. Whatever those are.”

“It’s got to be a way to come back into power,” Nika said grimly. “The Tainted have been raiding supply caravans for years. There are rumours of ponies who recruited raider gangs into the Tainted’s ranks. I always felt the raiders’ disappearance wasn’t all due to the Herd and NCR’s soldiers. We know the Enclave are behind them, and we also know they have made it very hard for either nation to, well, grow. Develop. Supply their frontier settlements.”

Speed suddenly hopped up onto all fours, an excited grin parting her lips. “OH! I know what they are doing! It’s obvious they are drawing attention and supplies away from fringe areas to make them vulnerable. What’s not as obvious is if they do that over a long period of time, the opponents will see things as the status quo and be comfortable with moving troops from core regions to the frontier to protect it more, believing the threat is only out there. Thus making a tactical strike to destroy the NCR or Herd’s capitals, or other critical locations more taticaly viable. Destroying Pinto Creek will force the Herd to send troops here to investigate and shore up a region that was just attacked by what they will see as a major force. Even if they don’t blame the NCR for it and go to war, they will think the Tainted have grown more bold and try to fortify other settlements in their territory that have been raided before. It’s win-win. The minute more troops of the Herd’s troops are in the border regions rather than the core, the Enclave will strike and cripple the nation. If the Herd does declare war on the NCR, the Enclave will be able to pick their preferred target and eliminate them the minute both sides are at war, but no matter what, the Herd is under threat of surprise attack. It’s brilliant!”

Everypony was quiet for several moments after Speed’s little bombshell. What the buck kind of tactical genius was in charge of the Enclave right now?! That plan… They had the patience to wait fourteen years to execute a genius plan to remove their enemy’s defences.

Speed frowned, her ears slowly falling as she looked at the three of us. “D— Did I do something wrong?”

I shook the shock from my face as quickly as I could. “No! No you did good. We need to warn the Herd not to send too many troops out!”

“Yeah, but you can only call your Queen, Homage, or Prince Silverlight,” Vinyl commented as she paced along the edge of the camp. “Silverlight said he didn't have radio contact with the Herd, your Queen doesn't either, and the Herd sees Homage’s show as NCR propaganda and won’t listen. We have to get to them on hoof.”

“That’s fine, we were already heading there,” I reminded as I stood up and moved towards the hole. “Nopony else we know of has figured this out. As far as we know, we’re the only ponies who know about this plan. It’s pretty clear that we need to warn them.”

Vinyl and Nika nodded. Speed hummed for a moment. “We may not arrive in time. But even if we are late, we need to get the book mister Prince asked for. He said it was very important, and he wants to talk to Celestia about something, and has plans to rebuild Equestria. He also mentioned ponies have attacked the couriers who tried to bring it back before. If the Tainted are the ones doing most of the raiding, it’s very likely the Enclave doesn't want the Prince getting that book. This makes him getting that book is vital to the war effort.”

“Meaning we may have to fight through Enclave forces to get it if they attack before we arrive,” I said aloud as I realized the full implications of Speed’s plans.

And also just how good a tactician a lifetime of training could make a pony. I wouldn't have realized that the book was so important, but Speed was right. It had to be. For some reason… It had to be a spellbook. An extremely powerful one. Most likely something of such power and complexity only Celestia could help you learn to use it properly… But what?

Wait, no, those are questions for later. For now...

“Nika, do you have a weapon?” I said to the not-griffon. “We shouldn’t waste time, but we all need to be armed. Vinyl could go back in and get you a gun.”

Nika snorted. “You know, the Rangers never thought to ask a ghoul to go in and get what they wanted from here? And da, I have a weapon. I couldn’t fit through the hole with it, it’s outside with my other weapons.”

Speed narrowed her eyes. “Never leave your weapons unattended! First rule of warfare!”

“I didn’t,” Nika said with a thin smile. “My sprite is watching my gear for me.”

“Um,” Vinyl said quietly. “Sprite bots can’t really do much… Are you counting in it beeping loudly if someone approaches your bags?”

“Nyet. I gave him a MEW array. I’m counting on him putting four energy bolts into their cranium, three into their ribcage, and one into their genitalia,” Nika replied calmly. “Besides, even if one of you ponies got hold of my guns, only a unicorn could fire them.”

The not-griffon raised both his forelimbs and mimed holding something while twitching his cybernetic talons.

I felt a little dumb for forgetting that not every species fired their guns with their mouth.

I took a deep breath. Hopefully, Gears would remember everything that happened while I was in charge. Also hopefully, my hastily improvised plan to revive her would work. We didn’t have time for me to find a spiritually active place and meditate to channel power into her. Not with an entire nation about to be destroyed.

I trotted over to Vinyl and gave her a quick hug. “Hon, can you take off your helmet? I need to borrow your necklace for a moment. It may be the only way to wake up Gears.”

NIka tilted his head. “Gears?”

“Long story,” I said as Vinyl reached up and removed her helmet, prompting a hiss of air.

“Short version, she’s a zebra-style warlock. But not fused right,” Vinyl said as she fished Discord’s fang out from her suit and levitated it over to me.

Nika’s eyes twinkled. “Vau! Now that is interesting!”

I leaned in and gave Vinyl a loving kiss. She blushed and wiggled her rump happily even as her eyes fluttered in surprise.

I smiled at her and did my best to look into her eyes lovingly. Hopefully, I wouldn’t get another chance to let her know we both loved her. It would sound bad if I said that to her… but I think she’d understand.

“Yeah… Normally, I’m our subconscious. The radiation knocked Gears out,” I said as I took the necklace by the string with one hoof.

I shivered as I felt the power sparking within the stone fang tied to the thin string. Even if I didn’t know what was in there, I would still feel nothing but terror holding something so powerful, and so ancient… No, not ancient, primeval.

“With luck… The spirit in this won’t mind giving The Machine a jump start. If Gears doesn't know everything that happened when I was in charge, fill her in. It’s more important we have a heavy gunner than a Shaman since we’re going to be sprinting into a potential war-zone,” I finished as I sat down.

Okay, Jasmine… Let’s meditate. Focus on the fragment of a Chaos God in your hoof…

Kind of hard to focus on anything else, to be honest.

What to say? How to say it?

Ah, yes. That would do.

Excuse me, Mister Discord? I know you like chaos, and my friends and I would like to throw a wrench into some well laid very long term plans, but I’m the wrong mare for the job. We need Gears back. Could you wake her up and put her back in charge of our body, please?


☢★★◯★★☢


“M͞iss ҉Ge͟a̢r̡s,҉ ̸y͟ou'rè need̕e͠d.”

What?

I was suddenly sitting by a small burning lump of C4 which was being used to heat some frying oil at the mouth of the cave.

But I was just—

A whole torrent of memories slammed into my mind like a basket of falling rocks. Jasmine had taken over our body. Wander got a sexy space suit that needed to be cuddled with her in it. Rainbow had apparently been responsible for most of pop culture. Cute-healy-flap-flap had a major revenge bone to pick with the Enclave and also a neat computer thingie I wanted to look at.

And the Herd was almost certainly going to be attacked soon.

Unacceptable!

I had a package to pick up form there.

I stood up and blinked twice as the moonlight managed to shine through the hole in the rubble.

Vinyl looked over to me with concern. “Gears? Are you—”

Speed zipped over to me and hugged my barrel. Her new armor gave her more than enough strength to make it hurt a little. “YAY! You’re back!”

I nodded and squirmed out of her grip. “Yes. Please be careful with your hugs while in your suit. That almost compressed my chassis.”

Speed blushed lightly and scuffed the ground with her left hoof. “Sorry… Still getting used to the strength of ten minotaurs thing…”

I handed Wand— Vinyl her necklace back. “Here’s your Elder Thing, dear.”

Vinyl took it with her magic and slipped it back around her neck.

“Are we good now?” Nika asked hopefully.

I nodded. “Yes. Let's go deliver a warning, and pick up the outbound mail.”

Yay for aligned delivery/pickup schedules!