//------------------------------// // Chapter I: The Beginning (rewritten) // Story: Fallout Equestria: Fallen Angels // by Tetragrammaton //------------------------------// The electronic beeping of the alarm clock ended my restful sleeping too early, as it did every morning. I hated this thing. Military training doesn't run away form you, did it? It rather runs into your dorm, pulls away your blanket and makes you leave the soft bed by shouting at you, just to get you into another tough day of boring training. I curled up under my blanket, opened my sleepy eyes and took a look at the room, this cruel, cold and not bed-like environment. The dorm of the Lunar Rock Military Academy look like it always did. Four beds, one at each of the four sides of the room, a desk next to each bed and a dresser on the other side. What was missing were the three other pegasi who should still be sleeping in the beds. The Lunar Rock Military Academy was currently inhabited by five dozen pegasi soldiers, sixty young pegasi bucks and mares like me, and half a dozen trainers. Being a soldier was what life in the Enclave was about, at least here in Lunar Rock, I didn't know how things were handled in other cities. Maybe it was because we were that close to the borders of the Griffin Kingdom, we always had to be vigilant to counter griffin attacks, even if nothing mentionable had happened since I was born. But we had to be vigilant, that was what the government said. Be vigilant and ready to fight back. I sighed. Why weren't there other pegasi who could fight those hypothetical griffin aggressors? My eyes wandered to look at the alarm clock again. Fifteen minutes left. Why were there just fifteen minutes, I always set the alarm that it would wake me an hour before I actually had to get up. It was usually me who would be awake and ready to go by the time the others just started to wake, it was me who always was on time. But not this morning apparently. But it wasn't too late, until then I still had ten minutes left. First of all: Stocktaking. Two eyes? There. Four legs? Reporting for duty, begrundgingly. Two Wings? One...where's wing two?! Ah, there it is. Eyeing my alarm clock I put on my cloths and wandered into the bathroom. A look into the mirror showed me my usual morning appearance: a white coat with an also white feather on my flank, blue eyes and a messy blond mane, which looked quite good in combination with my coat and the black uniform I was wearing. I filled the sink in front of me with water and plunged my head into the cold fluid, dispelling any thoughts and urges of starting to sleep again. Now wide-awake I took a look at my wings. Preening wasn't really necessary right now, a few feathers were disarranged, nothing that would prevent my from flying at maximum speed, but sill... well groomed feathers are essential for a spruce appearance. Whoever built this place all those years ago, I thanked him or her for installing a real clock right above the sinks, otherwise I might have forgotten that I was expected to be on the academy's central yard in about five minutes. Well then, Feather, it is time to go out to where our trainer, Wind Claw, should already be waiting for us. Another beautiful day at the Lunar Rock Military Academy, the last outpost of the Grand Pegasus Enclave before the evil griffin country. And one of the Enclave's biggest armories, at least if you take the ratio of guns to pegasi being able to wield them. Yes, we were just that small. One of the smallest enclave settlements that still counted as a city, with our own government, aircraft, supply of ammunition and so on. Walking through the corridors and down the big stairs of the central hall, I thought about the coming day: a big military maneuver should take place in the afternoon and the unit I was in, and only that one, would perform. Of course I had to oversleep – almost oversleep – because the goddesses just didn't like me. Well, they usually did, since I managed to get through every kind of test the academy had been throwing at me for the last six years, but this morning they obviously hated me. A pair of orange coated pegasi flew down to the main entrance at the other side of the hoofrail to my right. At least I wasn't the only pony who was late. I could count myself lucky that my unit, Delta-4, was housed on the first floor of the five story building that was the academy. I always had the shortest way down, no need to hurry. Of course I imagined it to be quite thrilling to throw yourself into the empty space of the big staircase because you had just one minute left and bolting down five floors in less than ten seconds. But I never did that. It was prohibited, I didn't know why, but I had no problem with following that rule. As I stepped out of the entrance I saw the crowd that was the other eleven pegasi of my unit. Wind Claw obviously hadn't arrived yet. And he was never late. That meant I wasn't late too. I could make out an orange mare with a mane as blond as my own in the crowd, Sunshine, so I flapped my wings, took off and moved towards my friends as silently as possible. Sunshine was the First Lieutenant of our unit, I was the Second, and together we were responsible for the other ten pegasi. Since we were all nearly the same in age and origin, coming from high ranked military families – but who above the clouds didn't come from an military family? – keeping the peace wasn't too difficult. Almost there... Sunshine was quite an impulsive mare with a strong love for practical jokes. Unfortunately I was her room mate and that meant that I and two bucks, Sky Striker and Hurricane by name, had to bear the brunt of her activities. But even then it was mostly I. And it usually involved my wings or, to be more precisely, my feathers. She simply loved pulling them out. Some goddesses-damned medical pony had once delivered a lecture about pegasus wings and that involved informing us that a pegasus was still able to fly with two-thirds of its feathers. And since then she was eager to test this statement. Typical best friend stuff. Being plucked didn't hurt at all, it was just... a surprise every time it happened. I was hovering about two meters away from her, ready for the lunge as I heard a loud throat-clearing straight ahead of me, on the other side of the cluster of pegasi in front of me. I knew only on pegasus who could make noises like this and this was our trainer. We formed a line immediately, Sunshine and I were standing at the right end. She gave me a friendly nod and I returned it. Well, there would be another time and then revenge would be mine! "Good morning, recruits!" The stallion in front of us shouted the greeting he used since the first day. Everypony was a recruit to him until he or she had fought in some war. Wind Claw was a stallion who had left his best times behind long ago, which one could see for he was wearing an eyepatch, something he had obtained in the Griffin Wars, where he left his eye and almost a wing too, by his own words. He was stern but fair, a shining example for a peagsus and we respected him for that. "Good morning, Sir!" we shouted in return and stomped our right forelegs on the ground in unison. He liked discipline like this and when he was in a good mood, that meant less warm-up exercises for us. Wind Claw was known for his excessive use of warm-up exercises, but there was a positive aspect too: after that, we were warmed up and able to concentrate on other things. "Perfect conditions for the training flight today." He walk along the line of pegasi. "Weather Control gave us some extra clouds to make the maneuver more realistic." He stopped, turned around and his eyes started wandering from one face to another. "Today, we take things seriously: no training barding, you all will use your power armor, except for Sunshine and Whirling Feather, who will wear their officers uniforms. You will use real ammunition and your performance will be assessed by an committee of the High Council. Everything ist authentic except for your targets. They are drones, remotely controlled by some other recruits, but nonetheless weaponized with EMP- and Stunguns, so don't get hit. I don't want to report that somepony has fallen through the clouds and has been torn to pieces at the surface by some abomination. Expensive equipment would be lost. The maneuver will start this afternoon, fifteen hundred hours in the academy's hangar." He turned his back to us and looked to the distant training area. "But before you all do anything else, you will fly around the academy. Twenty five times." Wind Claw and his infamous warm-up rounds... """)_x_(""" As always a training of agility followed the initial flying and after that we went to the shooting range, where everypony would be trained to use "his" or "her" weapon. Different from other enclave cities, soldiers of Lunar Rock were also trained to use projectile weapons, since we were supplied by the Lunar Rock Bunkers, which hold a high amount of such weapons and fitting ammunition. As an officer, I was armed with a single sidearm, Wing Beat by name, a hoofmounted 12,7mm sniperpistol with laser sights and a special trigger, adjusted to fire whenever I would bow my ankle. It was a gift from father to congratulate me for joining the academy. In any normal case this would have been forbidden, but nopony prohibited Storm Feather, hero of the Griffin Wars and High General of the Enclave, an act like this. They said, during the war, he had fought off a whole squadron of griffins attacking a medical transport without the transporter itself taking any damage. The counterpart of the gun he used to defeat the griffins and that should belong to my mother, another officer who was killed by the enemy in another surprise attack when I was only a few months old, was now mounted on my right foreleg, adapted to my hooves of course, and I used it quite well. For it being an expensive, custom-made weapon this was to expected. The others were armed with several different weapons, varying between light machine guns, beam rifles, plasma weapons and sniper rifles, which were fired by using fully automated battle saddle. Barding which, once it was activated, imitated any movement of the pony's head and could fire the installed weapons due to a bit on the tongue trigger. We all were capable marksponies, but one couldn't expect high accuracy from machine gunners, could you? And after the training at the shooting range and another flight exercise to improve our endurance we finally went for lunch. The dining room was really large, half the size of our central yard, and it could easily hold more then twice the amount of pegasi in training. Why it was so large was beyond me, but the most common answer to anything in Lunar Rock and the Enclave in general was: it's attributable to military efficiency. Maybe it had been a storeroom once. But it was not until I seated myself next to Sunshine, Hurricane, Sky Striker and his sister Cloud Striker, that I realized that there was something odd. “Am I the only one who tastes that?” I asked the ponies around me. All their eyes were focused on the plates in front of them, I could see how they all carefully chewed the food. “I think we are going to die this afternoon.” Hurricane replied and broke the awkward silence. “That tastes as if it is some kind of last meal to fulfill a dying pony's dying wish, not like the slop they usually feed to us in here. We are so dead.” “Well, the other food isn't really that bad,” I answered, looking back over my shoulder to make sure the cook wasn't in hearing distance, “but I have to admit, this is outright delicious. Definitely better than the usual daisy sandwiches. But I'm not sure if they gave us those as a last meal or simply to impress the councilponies. They do have to eat something too, don't they? And I doubt they would be satisfied by Cream Puff's daisy-sans.” “I hate those sandwiches.” Sunshine mumbled over a mouth full of whatever the stuff we were eating right now was called. It somehow look like a daisy sandwich or a hay burger, but the taste was entirely different. “Seriously, it's always daisy sandwiches. Except for Friday, when there's this creepy white soup that tastes like nothing. I bet they're boiling down clouds to make that.” “Sounds plausible.” the Striker twins nodded in unison. Usually they weren't like that. They did everything to avoid the genesis of another psycho pair of twins. As they had been taken to the academy they had even requested separate rooms. “Let's toast on our untimely deaths.” The ponies around me exalted their tumblers and clinked them in complete silence.. “Okay, all jesting aside,” Sky Striker continued, drowning his chuckling. “Did the two of you finished our plan? The one you said you would elaborate with Wind Claw?” Yeah, our plan. Of course we weren't thrown entirely unprepared into the most combat-like situation we would ever endure in our lives, our grumpy trainer had played a bit of information about the maneuver into our hooves a week ago and since then all twelve pegasi of our unit had tried to make a real plan out of this mess. Our group had grown smaller and smaller until there were only my room mates and me left, and even then the two bucks didn't really do anything. It essentially were Sunshine and myself who had tried to figure something out for the last two days. And mostly nights. “As if I hadn't anything better to do...” Sunshine grumbled in a low voice and the indigo buck's eyes widened in horror. “Of course we finished it, as good as possible at least. You know Feather, she might have not the biggest brains, but her voice sure can be annoying enough to force you to do your work, just to make her shut up. And other than us, she never seems to grow tired. You're going to regret keeping me awake all this time, you know that.” She added with a smirk and looked over to me. “Is there something I can do and won't “regret” it?” I asked. The answer was obvious... “Not if it takes place in the middle of the night!” “It was barely past midnight. And it only took us so long, because you wanted to go to the gym first. I'm not even sure why you always go...” “Shut up, that's why.” the orange mare concluded. That's how our arguments – If you could call those talks arguments – always ended. "Anyways, here's the plan...” Her wing rifled through the pockets on her uniform. “Somewhere in here...” Next pocket, no plan. The pocket after that, no plan and the next... “Feather, did I gave the draft to you?” “Yes. Yes you did.” I said, drawing a piece of paper out of one of my chest pockets. “But I insisted that you would keep a copy too. You really need to become a bit more organized.” “Shut up!” Spreading out the relatively large piece of paper on our table we started to go through our plannings. First in our own small group, later with our whole squad. We would be dropped by an unarmed vertibuck, a small transport-aircraft powered by storm clouds, and would have to scout and take over an “enemy” base, guarded by the remotely controlled drones Wind Claw had mentioned before, optimally without triggering any kind of alarm. If everything would be going according to plan, Sunshine would take the major part of our group and would lead them to a frontal attack on the base, while two other soldiers would follow me to infiltrate the base from the opposite side. While the others would launch their feint against the fortress, we should be able to disabled the base's security systems and after that we would attack the base together and defeat the remaining enemies. The plan may have had some week spots, but it was the best Sunshine and I had been able to think of. After all, this whole maneuver wast just about pure efficiency, but about cutting a good figure to impress the other cities' councilponies. That was one of the other universal explanations for doing anything in the Enclave: if it wasn't to fend off some griffin aggressors or a military thing in general, it was to overawe the other cities. By the time we had finally finished briefing all the others, the time to start the combat maneuver had already come. """)_x_(""" The vertibuck waited of us in the academy's hanger, the two storm clouds at the end of its wings, which were attached to the aircraft's upper end, were already roaring. A single pegasus stallion stood there, waiting for us, apparently he was the pilot of the vehicle as I deducted from the complicated looking helmet that lay next to him. He didn't say a word as we arrived, he just nodded at the vertibuck's tail and we entered. The interior of the vertibuck was the exact opposite of the dining hall. At least in the cockpit, where Sunshine and I had taken our places. The cargo area behind us could hold maybe a dozen pegasi plus their power armor, exactly the right size for us. The pilot's seated himself on one of the two seats at the nose of the vehicle and with another crack of the thunder clouds, we started moving. While we were flying most of the ponies behind started to chat. Two of the snipers talked about relationships outside the academy, just stallions being stallions. I was glad I had not to worry about stuff like this, because for stuff like this I knew the pegasi around me too well. Buh... thinking about topics like this made my head spin. I preferred thinking about our mission. And clouds. Especially clouds .It was a good way to keep my head clean. The pilot, still completely silent, pressed a few buttons on the console in front of him and with a low *click* two red-light numbers appeared on a screen above his seat, visible for the ponies in the cargo area. A countdown. And it was counting down, because that was its nature. Either this vehicle would destroy itself in... about two minutes or it was... “Listen up, fillies.” The pilot's magnified voice sounded through the entire vertibuck, silencing the chatter. It wasn't really necessary, but it is said there are ponies who like the sound of their own voices. “We are going to land in about sixty seconds. Once the tailgate is opened, you have exactly fifteen seconds to leave the bird and then your mission will begin immediately. Understood?” He couldn't see it, but everypony was nodding. Checking their gear and ammunition one last time, my power armored squad mates lined up in two rows in front of the gate at the rear end of the vertibuck. The countdown, which was also visible above the tailgate, showed that there were thirty-eight seconds left. Thirty-eight seconds that felt like eternity. It felt as if we were marching into our doom, like when I had done something wrong as a filly and had to “report” to my father to get my monthly dose of getting eyed disappointedly. By the golden necklaces of Celestia, I was nervous. And looking at the faces of my companions, they weren't doing much better. I could see how Cloud Striker struggled not to chew on her battle saddle's mouth trigger. I was glad she didn't, because that would bad for obvious reasons. But Sunshine and Hurricane just smiled. They never ever looked nervous. With a soft hiss, the tailgate opened and the two rows of pegasi in front of me exited the hovering vertibuck in pairs, jumping out its rear end and landing on the cloud ground maybe ten meters below. “Just try not to act too incompetently in front of the High Council. You and your team are representing Lunar Rock for the next few hours.” The stallion behind my said into my direction the moment before I jumped. “And one last word from Wind Claw and I quote: You won't screw this up. Understood?” Well, the local clouds were quite boring. I think that's all the description needed and possible to make. Cloud fields were always boring when compared to the forests of Equestria which I had red about in some Old World books. One couldn't hide well up here, but in return it was easier to understand the information our EFS, the Eyes Forward Sparkle, some kind of magical radar system, that showed enemies as red dots on our visors, even if we couldn't actually see them, gave us. Pre-war unicorn magic or something like that. Still, pretty handy . There was no need for any kind of speech like the old movie heroes always did before a huge battle. This was neither a huge one, nor a battle at all. It was just a test. Well, that didn't make it better for all our tension, but... Screw the speech, this is a just drill. Just do as it is planned, then everything will turn out alright. Just stick to the plan. I nodded towards Hurricane and Cloud Striker, signalizing them to follow me. Hurricane might not have been the most stealthy stallion of them all, but he was our expert in close-quarter combat, and that would count once we would be inside the base. And Cloud Striker... well, she was the exact opposite of the blue stallion. Her specialisation were long range sniping and – even more important – computer terminals. We had gotten wind of the “secret” terminal inside the base's security center, which should be able to disable at least the turrets. That was the whole reason our small stealth team even existed. And I? I was there to keep those things in balance and inform Sunshine about our eventual success. Just me being the First Lieutenant's deputy. “Let's go.” I said to the two pegasi who stood by my side and pointed my hoof to my right, away from where Sunshine was leading the rest of our squad. “It's a big cloud field, we should get this over with as soon as possible. Just remember, cut a fine figure. Really important ponies are watching us. Somehow.” """)_x_(""" There were only four of the “guards” patrolling alongside our sneak path. Four quickly eliminated guards I might add, Wing Beat's armor-piercing rounds and the shots from Cloud Striker's sniper rifle lay waste to the drones pretty quickly, ripping their mechanical bodies apart as if they were made of toy blocks. That was some expensive gear we were destroying right now, but... we were told to do so, so it was okay. Either the pony-shaped combat devices weren't equipped with some kind of audio recording thing or our silencers – another advantage of projectile weapons – did a pretty good job to hide our position by not needlessly drawing anypony's attention from the ponies who were currently fighting at the other side of the base. Only once we – or better, Hurricane – might have accidentally revealed our stealthy approach as he tried to take out one of the drones by hoof. Maybe there was something like an off-switch on their backs or something, but what mattered was that Hurricane didn't manage to deactivate his enemy before it could recognize him. The only thing preventing this mistake form being fatal was Cloud Striker's quick shot in the two ponies direction, decapitating the not-pony guard, sending the pieces of his head flying into all cardinal directions. It didn't take us long to reach the base after this “controlled escalation” as Hurricane called it after I had to nag at his – I quote myself – stupid, unnecessary, stupid, reckless and stupid displaying of skill. Seriously, what pony would endanger the whole mission just because this on take-down maneuver was preying on his mind for a few days now? Hurricane, that's who. The base – if you could call a pile of ten stacked disposable bunkers a base – was less impressive than we had though. Over the radio I had heard muttering of disappointment a few minutes ago, obviously I wasn't the only pony who had imagined it to be... more. But since we weren't pay for grumbling – actually we weren't pay at all – we could go on with the mission just as well. It made little difference. "Why do they even use terminals like this?” Hurricane commented four guards later, as we finally stood in front of our target, the terminal which could switch off the turrets and unlock all the base's doors. “It doesn't make sense to have a terminal with all this functions, located in a room which is literally next to the hind door, which wasn't even locked by the way." “Well, I'm sure it makes sense.” I answered as Could Striker used her wingtips to press a few keys on the cloud-based terminal. “Somehow at least. I mean, it would make less sense to let us go against an impossible-to-take base with nothing to do except for standing there and shooting. I'm sure the High Council wants to see a bit more plot instead of just action. And in case you haven't notice, the door was locked. The next patrol just unlocked it at the right moment for you to charge in. Again. I guess we're lucky that those patrols consist of one pony each or we might be in serious trouble right now.” “Yes, I know, it's just that...” “You can complain about it later.” Cloud Striker said, stifling the blue buck. “Maybe you should say Wind Claw that you didn't like it. That you felt they demanded to little from you. You know, there's this awesome new dress I saw a few days back and your funeral would be the perfect occasion to wear it out for the first time. By the way, Feather,” she turned her head to me. “I'm now read to deactivate virtually everything, so if you want to call Sunny, this might be the perfect moment.” “Straight away, just one question:” I said, fiddling about my communication device. “Do you mean that black one mareswareshop Ammunition and Apparel featured last week.” “Yes, so?” “That's mine” “Well, how about you wear it at your own funeral? I think I can arrange that.” she hissed. This mare was quite touchy when it came to any kind of wearing matching clothes with somepony else. Another way of her trying to get rid of any “strange twins” impressions. Anypony had a topic like that, an emotional or physical weak spot. Hers was the twin thing, mine were my wings and feathers, everypony had one. Except for Sunshine. Apparently. “Girls, the call.” Hurricane intervened by stepping between us, shaking his head I frustration. “Of course.” I said, smiling at the mare behind his back, who was smiling back. Of course all of this had just been fun. I activated my communicator and began to speak: “Feint team, feint team, please come in.” I heard gunshots and whatever word could be used to describe the sound of discharging plasma weapons on the other end of the line and a mare gasping, most likely Sunshine. If nothing else that meant she was still alive and that was good, even if it was pretty hard to get injured in this maneuver. “Feint team, Lieutenant Sunshine, are you still there?” I asked, pressing the micro closer to my mouth. “How's your status?” “No need for talk like this, Feather, nopony's listening.” the heavily breathing mare answered in a sore tone. I wasn't that sure about the last part. “We're alright. Lightning was hit, but we recovered him. And how are you doing? Did you lock yourselves out of the base and need me to open it for you from the inside or did you actually managed to do something? ” “That's why I'm calling ma'am,” I said in an military ductus, making the orange mare at the other end huff. She had never liked all the rules in the academy and being treated as a superior was just as unpleasant to her than to me. “We successfully infiltrated the base and are now ready to turn its defenses off. We're waiting for your signal.” “What signal?! Just turn the damn thing off, featherbrain!” She shouted so loud my ear pluck almost jumped out off said orifice and with a soft *click*, our conversation ended. “Did you get that?” I asked the mare standing next to the security terminal. She nodded and with a grin of anticipation Hurricane let the gemstones of his multi-plas rifle crackle. He was looking forward to what came next. Scrapping even more drones, but this time, he would handle things his way. Cloud Striker press a single key on the cloud terminal's keyboard. The soft hiss that should accompany the opening of the door was drowned by the shrilling alarm that went of at the same moment. As I turned my back on the mare again and looked towards the now opened gate, I froze. I found myself face to mechanic face equivalent with one of the mechanical enemies we had tried to avoid for the last half-hour. The pony behind it seemed to be just as surprised as me, because it took it a little while to ready its stungun. “Celestia, no!” I shrieked, flapping my wings and ascending into the air. “Oh hell, no!” Cloud Striker concurred, trying to take aim with her sniper rifle. “Oh fuck, yes.” the blue buck behind me on the ground said with a pleased voice as his three barreled plasma weapon turned our mechanical enemy into a pile of green glowing goo. “I've been waiting to do this since the mission started. Stay back, ladies. If you don't mind, I'll do things my way from now on.” That was so hurricanish. Well, sunshinish too, but she was at the other side of the base and not the blue buck in front of me. So I stick with hurricanish. “If I would say I mind, would that stop you?” I asked in a faux-serious manner and he shook his head. Of course not. “In that case, I order you to do things your way. ” I said with a smile and added whisperingly: “Stick to the chain of command, at least for the appearances' sake. You know, we're watched.“ Presumably. Letting Hurricane precede, we made our way towards the shooting noises originating from the other half of the base. Everything had gone according to plan thus far. Excellent. It liked it when things were going according to the plan. """)_x_(""" "This was probably the last one." Sunshine said as the last drone went down, sparkling and smoking from the shot of her semi-automated pistol. And with the drone, the last red dot on my EFS vanished. Taking the rest of the base had proofed to be less difficult than I had feared. Apparently, being attacked from the one side by ponies with an unhealthy amount of ill will and firepower equivalent to a vertibuck, while almost a dozen other ponies pressed from the other side, overtaxed the coordination of the recruits behind the drones. And since only two of us were hit by the EMP blasts, one of them during the feint and another one while he and the rest of Sunshine's team rushed through the complex, I counted this as a success. Seventeen percent casualty rate seemed... okay for a frontal assault. The two bucks were right now laying in there dead power armors, waiting for one of our more technically skilled ponies to “resurrect” them. However this committee of the High Council may had watched us, there was nothing they could complain about. Sunshine seemed happy too. Apparently, destroying some pretty expensive military hardware and thereby defeating the drones' pilots had raised a flush of victory. She was the most combative mare in our squad, with Hurricane as her male counterpart. If I hadn't known her test results were always a little bit better than mine, I would have questioned her qualification to lead our unit, but apparently she could do both. Planning and leading our squad's movement and actions while shooting at our enemies. Lucky her... I was only capable of the first thing. “To all enclave soldiers of unit Delta-4: we're done here.” the orange mare next to me announced over the radio. “We're leaving this place. Rally at the main entrance, departure in a minute, let's get the heck out of here. Oh, and if one of our technicians feels the urge to do something productive, Lightning at the front gate is still in desperate need of a spell-matrix reboot. Otherwise he will be carried by the last two ponies who arrive at the rendezvous point.” The sound of flapping wings suffused the room and it seemed as if the room had emptied the second Sunshine had finished her last sentence. I could see a few feathers slowly floating down to the ground. Sunshine and I took our sweet time to reach the exit. As she told me, she did that to show off her officer rang to our subordinates. I knew she was lying. She just wanted to see other ponies run. She didn't care for rules or ranks. Least of all her own. Arriving at the central gate, I could see a crowd of ten ponies waiting for us. Apparently, one of our techno-ponies had taken Sunshine's threat seriously and had administered to Lightning's needs. After enumerating to make sure we hadn't forgotten somepony, we spread our wings and returned to the drop point, where we were told our vertibuck should be waiting for us. And indeed it did, well, not waiting, but by the time we arrived at the landing field we could already hear its thunder cloud engines and see it drew closer at the horizon, next to the silhouette of Lunar Rock in the distance. But the moment it landed I felt my feathers ruffling. Something was strange, not right. Not right as in tumbling into the bathroom at the morning and find slight traces of toothpaste on your toothbrush. Nothing world-shaking, but irritating. And it was exactly the same with this vertibuck. It looked like the one that has dropped us before, heck! all the vertibucks looked the same. Maybe because it was flying with its tailgate turned towards us? But it would make sense to do that, the pilot wouldn't have to turn around to fly back home. But what kind of pony could pilot a vertibuck that precise with his or her head turned away from us? Vertibucks weren't equipped with rear-view mirrors and... why was this one equipped with missle pods? “Sunshine!” I called after the orange mare who I was leading our company with and who was currently dashing towards the aircraft. She as our highest ranked officer had to be the one completing the mission by reporting to the pilot. “Sunshine, there's something fishy about this one! You should... Just fly away! This isn't...” The cracking opening of this vertibird's tailgate interrupted me and all of the sudden, Sunshine found herself face to faces with seven enclave soldiers in black power armor. Seven heavily armed enclave soldiers in black power armor. For a brief moment everypony was paralyzed. More soldiers? That wasn't how we were told it would be. Wind Claw had told us that we would return to our vertibuck, would fly back to the academy's hangar and get our debriefing there. He had said nothing about ponies taking us there and he usually didn't hold anything back. This was fishy. But maybe they had been send by the High Council or Wind Claw himself to... tell us we screwed up maybe? Suddenly my heart dived. Please don't tell us we screwed up! Then the power armored ponies started to “talk”. The central gunner, the one in front of Sunshine, was carrying a battle saddle with two miniguns attached to its sides. A really unusual weapon due to its high wastage of ammunition. For Sunshine's sake, the minigun took a few moments to get moving before firing and that gave her time to take off. For a brief moment I assumed that everything would turn out alright, but the my heart skipped a beat as the flying mare was struck by struck by a fusillade of five bullets in midair and went down on the clouds above, a few feed away from me. She lay there, motionless, while everypony ran or flew for cover. Those were enclave soldiers! And they were shooting at us! "Lieutenant Whirling Feather to Enclave High Command! Lieutenant Feather to Enclave High Command – please come in! Something is... we are attacked!" I shouted into my microphone, holding it close to my mouth. We needed instructions. Who were those ponies? “I repeat: we are under attack. Can...can you hear me! Can anypony hear me? ” Silence. Had our communicators been disabled somehow? I had heard about a thing like this, but never actually suffered from it. The gunfire around me drowned every shout, but I was able to hear my fellow soldiers screaming over the radio. They still worked. So why weren't our superiors answering? "Who are they?" "What do they want?" I could hear my team mates shouting in desperation and fear. We weren't informed... we weren't ready for a battle like this. Whoever this was, they had taken out our leader right at the start and left us stumbling around like a chicken with its head cut off. "Should we fight back?" "Who's in command now?" But... as long as there were pegasi left, there was always somepony in charge. Wind Claw, no! my father had said this to me one time. It had been long ago. Years even. And this somepony would be me then. I was the Second Lieutenant of this squad and as such I had to do what Sunshine couldn't do anymore: figure something out. First thing on every pegasus anti-griffin battle plan: Evacuate innocent bystanders and bring allied forces out of the line of fire. And this allied force would be Sunshine. Before I could do anything I would have to retrieve the orange mare or her corpse... no! I would retrieve her! And then I could make a plan to fight back. Or maybe negotiate? They were enclave after all. Nope, that one bullet almost punched another hole in my head. No negotiation then... Come on, Feather, think of something! “To all enclave soldiers of Delta-4! This is Lieut... this is Whirling Feather. I'm... I'm in command now!” I yelled into my communicator and to my relief I heard shouts of approval in return. Well then, time for my orders... Killing the attackers was no option. I slapped myself for even thinking about ordering my friends to shoot at other pegasi. What was essential right now was to get Sunshine to safety, if... to get her to safety. And that would require our attackers to hold their fire for a while. And soldiers usually did that when they were shot at themselves. “Return fire!” I ordered and before anypony could start to comment or utter their doubts, I added: “Return fire, but don't aim for the heads of other vital organs. Immobilize them if possible, drive them into cover, but whatever you do, don't kill them. I don't want anypony to shoot another enclave soldier. Drive them into cover, I'm going to get Sunshine.” My orders were carried out, not without hesitation of course. I myself wouldn't feel comfortable to shoot a fellow enclave soldier or anypony at all. But we had to keep them occupied in order to retrieve Sunshine. And while the attackers slowly retreated to the vertibuck, were some of them had erected some kind of deployable cover I dashed towards the fallen mare. Gunshots rang through the air and I could almost feel the bullets zipping through the air I didn't know how far away. But they were definitely too close for my liking. Grabbing the mare's forelegs I flapped my wings to move her towards the bunch of clouds I had taken cover behind. A pretty stupid idea, but it seemed to work. The intensity of the defensive fire ebbed away after the two of us were “save” again and only now I dared to look at her. What I saw left me both shocked and relieved: She looked bad. And she was bleeding. Her right wing had been hit by at least two bullets, penetrating shots, and I could see another wound at her belly. But at least her chest was moving up and down. Goddesses be praised, she was still breathing, alive. “I need a medic over here!” I shouted into my radio once again. Even if Sunshine was still alive, I couldn't guarantee that if I would just let her bleed out next to me. And I still needed to think of a plan to... overcome the power armored pegasi who were shooting at us right now. Taking a brief glimpse out of cover I found time to look at the attackers. This time they didn't shoot back, they were too busy being shot at themselves. All of them were armed with machine guns or rapid-fire weapons of some kind, no pistols or long range weapons. Strange. Usually the commanding officer of a pegasus unit was armed with a easily accessible pistol. For deserters... Even stranger – and this time it was in our favor – was that we had somehow managed to surround them on three side, their own vertibuck cutting off an easy escape route. The Cloud Striker and Hurricane along with three other ponies were shooting at them from the right, Sky Strikerand his group hold the line at the center and the unconscious Sunshine and me were – scratch that – would be able to attack them from the left. But the cover they had was pretty good and they were in a defense formation, I hadn't heard of a confirmed hit yet. And with the curtain fire they threw at us, it was impossible to get close enough for their cover not to matter. But if one would come from... “I'm still in need of a medic or at least somepony who's carrying bandages around, Sunshine is wounded but alive. And I also need a pony from each front at my position, everypony else: keep firing, cover them. Execution, now!” The gunfire increased again for a about twenty seconds and after that, Sky and Cloud Striker were cowering next to me, the former reloading his two machine guns while the latter held a small yellow and butterfly-ornate medical box in her muzzle. While Cloud Striker dashed towards the unconscious Sunshine and began wrapping her wing and body in bandages, her brother seemed much less active. “We are the reinforcement.” he said, then turned around and fired a few shots at our opponents. “Whatever you've planned, Feather, I hope it works out fast. We'll run out of ammo really soon if we keep shooting like this. They on the other hoof...” he nodded towards the enemy... the other soldiers. “...don't seem have this problem. Not yet. Come on, spill it out. What's your plan, Feather?” “Sky, that's: Lieutenant Feather or ma'am, she's our commanding officer now.” his sister snapped at him. “Screw the ranks, we have bigger problems!” “But you have to...” “It's not important how he calls me right now. We don't have time of arguments.” I interrupted her with my tension clearly audible. If Sky Striker was right and we ran out of ammunition now, my plan wouldn't only fail, it would backfire. Badly. “How much ammunition is left?” “Apart from my current magazine? I've got two more, the others may have a third one, I'm not sure. But it's not enough to sustain our fire for more than a few minutes. Is it enough for you?” “It has to be.” I said hesitantly. It really had to be. “If everything works out, we won't need a few minutes. Listen up now, there won't be a another chance...” """)_x_(""" The attackers had fallen back to their defense position entirely by now, only now and then they peeked out of cover to fire a few shots at the equally entrenched pegasi, who had pinned them down with a massive attack, with almost mechanical accuracy. There had been reports about hits, but nothing that had wounded the pony inside the power armor. Nonpony noticed the red dot that was twitching across the chest of the minigun wielder, nopony but me. Of course I did, the dot was caused by Wing Beat's laser sight. Okay, Feather, take a deep breath. This won't kill him. Just... just hurt him, very badly, so he won't be able to shoot back at you. “Are you ready?” I heard Cloud Striker whispering. I should be the one asking this, I was the leader. Don't be a pussy pony, Feather, you won't kill him. They told you that at anatomy class. I moved my hoof joint and the soldier's chest erupted in a cloud of smoke and stuff I couldn't make out and didn't want to. As he went down, his fellow ponies hold their fire for a moment, scanning the area for the origin of the attack. Me. And I was much closer than they thought. “Now, drop them!” I called out to the two pegasi who were lying next to me on the cloud and together we plunged down at the power armored soldiers below. Sky Striker managed to hit two of them with spurts of his automated weapons, but then the moment of surprise was gone, they grouped and shot back at us. After taking down another one with a well aimed head shot, Cloud Striker's wing was hit and I saw how she lost control over her flight, trailed off to the left and went down a few meters away from the defense position and the vertibuck. Sky Striker as our own heavy gunner drew the majority of their fire as he flew away from the crowd and towards his fallen sister and I, who somehow nopony seemed to notice, managed to land right in the middle of the three remaining ponies. Almost instantly, two of them turned towards me and fired. Luckily, due to the momentum of my impact, I was still crouched as the two unloaded their guns into my direction. Unfortunately for them, they were standing exactly in the line of fire of each other. That was lucky indeed. “Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you!” I yelled as loud and intimidating as possible at the last attacker, pointing Wing Beat at his only centimeters away from him. “Drop it now and you won't be...” He didn't even hesitate before he took aim himself instead of deactivating his battle saddle. Surprised as I was, I would have been annihilated by my opponent this very moment, if he hadn't transformed into a heap of green goo right in front of my eyes. My eyes widened in surprise, I turned my head and my gaze fell on Sky Striker, who was kneeling next to his fallen sister, her own secondary weapon, a plasma pistol, aimed at me. Or rather at the spot where the last enemy's head had been moments ago. For a brief moment, we were surrounded by nothing but silence. But then I heard shouts of joy and relief. In fact they were so loud that I had to take out the ear piece of my communicator not to go deaf. While Sky Striker got rid of his battle saddle and talked insistently to his fading sister, I dashed back to Sunshine, dragging the orange mare on my back and as I returned, everypony with a first-aid kit was eager to help either the unconscious mare on my back or the wounded one on the cloud ground. Cloud Striker's medical treatment had been provisory, the ongoing battle had kept her form paying the attention her wounds needed. Leaving our more skilled ponies alone with the wounded, I trotted over to a small group of ponies who were examining our fallen enemies. It was a shame it had to end this way. I had tried to negotiate, but... they simply didn't want. “Feather!” I heard Hurricane call out to me. The group around him diffused and I could see him standing over on of the corpses. "I think you should take a look at this one." """)_x_(""" "Robots!" I called out loud after I had investigated the "corpse". "Were that...drones too? Like the ones in the base?" "You're asking the wrong pony, Feather. I'm no technician.” Hurricane answered, shaking his head. “They're definitely robots, but they're way to agile to be remotely controlled by the same ponies who were driving the drones. Those are military-mechs, like the ones used in the Great War. Killer robots." "But why are they wearing enclave armor? And why were they attacking us?" This was confusing and somehow disgusting. “I've never heard ” "I'm still no technician, but I don't think it was a malfunction. I doubt Lunar Rock is secretely controlled by an AI which decided to get rid of all feathered meat bags above the cloud right now, so I think they were programmed to attack us by somepony." “Why should “somepony” do that?” I asked. Was "somepony" playing games with us? Nopony would use miltary-mechs with lethal weaponry and combat programming at a maneuver of cadets of our ranking. "I think you should ask whoever is coming to us in this other vertibuck." the blue buck said and as I turned my head I could see two other vertibucks approaching, one of them was heavily armed and armored, the other one was the vehicle we had arrived in. As they landed, everypony was taking aim at the tailgate of the vehicle, preparing ourselves for another attack. But the ponys we saw now were't dressed like the robots we hat fought, this ones were wearing some kind of golden power armor, and first of all: they weren't shooting at us. They formed an alley and then some other pegasi, wearing blue, grey, red and golden robes which I had seen before, even if it only had been in pictures, left the aircraft: Members of the High Council of the Grand Pegasus Enclave, several pegasi and, to my amazement, two unicorns as well. "Congratulations." one pegasus stallion, who was apparently acting as the spokespony for the others, said with a patronizingly sounding voice. "You made it." """)_x_(""" Level up: Level 2 Skill(s): Firearms 25 New Perk added: Charge! (I) "This was close." Standing on a higher ground you get the opportunity to charge at an enemy on lower ground.After dealing an medium amount of damage, your next attack will deal 20% bonus damage, but you also will find yourself at melee range.