Gauge said nothing as he returned to Pegasus and linked the Optical Memory chip to the monitor. No amount of disgust was going to make him turn away from what he was going to watch and listen to. Just as before, Time Turner's face finally appeared after some static and began to speak to his robot.
"Mercury," Time Turner began, a tone of calm composure as he spoke. "I'm sending you to eliminate my... adversary; Doctor Castiwho. Thinking he was doing Equestria a favor convincing them that I was insane to fear alien contact."
"Which he was," Eris noted, holding a gun in her arms. Gauge paused the video feed and tried to find the right words to ask why Eris had a gun... and how. Eris gave a glance at Gauge before slowly lowering the gun out of her frame. "I didn't purposely take that gun the robot left behind."
Gauge's voice cracked from the volume he screamed, "LIAR!"
Eris cringed and then sighed, "Alright, fine. I did take the weapon; but its not able to shoot any deadly lasers out of it anymore. I'll stash this into your inventory."
Gauge felt the added weight as the gun as he now peeked at it. "You can't have brought over a deadly weapon, its against-"
"Protocol. I know, its against protocol," Eris said as her eyes rolled. "BUT! This isn't a deadly weapon, its a stunning weapon. You can taze a bro and no rules have to be bent or broken for it to be done."
Gauge gave a look to Eris before shutting his inventory again and restarting the video feed.
"I'M NOT THE ONE WHO'S INVITING DEATH INTO MY HOME!" Time Turner screamed, a look of panic crossing his face. "The only place I can be sure of finding him is on stage at the alien contact rally; eight years ago. I am sending you to the World Science Center in the year 2310. He paced himself away from the robot before nodding his head. Try... to make his death look accidental. Whether or not you succeed at that... Do everything you have to; to ensure his demise."
"Last stop," Eris called out, stopping the video feed of Time Turner. "Bottom of the ocean! Start the countdown!"
Gauge activated the Pegasus and attempted to keep his eyes open during the travel, only succeeding at making himself woozy. Finding his hooves on steel, Gauge began to breathe, but felt something was wrong with the air.
Having transported in what could only be described as a storage closet, Gauge went for the door, only to see it slide open. Another bipedal robot, similar to Ares, looked down at him. "You are no match for me, pony," It cockily mentioned. "But, I love a challenge."
The door slid shut and Gauge noticed a large black container to his right. Stopping himself, Gauge removed the container from the 'Gas Intake & Dispensing Station'. A look to the container confirmed some suspicions about the air quality. The entirety of the container was filled with a sleeping gas and it had filled the entire base.
"Gauge," Eris whispered, "Do you still have that oxygen mask from the moon on you?"
Gauge peered into his inventory and noticed that the mask was still with him, apparently not lost to the time stream as he went back and forth. "Why'd you ask?"
Eris flatly responded, "Put the sleeping gas back in."
"What? Why?" Gauge immediately questioned.
"You've got a mask that can filter gases in your hoof, genius," Eris said with annoyance. "Besides, if anyone wakes up while we're poking around in here, then we can forget about being secretive."
Gauge nodded, the plan seemed sound enough, but as an added caution, he made a request of the machine to fill his mask with oxygen. With caution, he reattached the container of sleeping gas and slipped his oxygen mask on. Stepping out, Gauge noticed a soldier slumped on the floor, affected by the gas as he remained unmoving. Cautiously moving around the body, Gauge took a look around, noting one door had a suspicious plasma blast having shot through the retinal scanner. Taking a peek through the hole, he noted that another pony was slumped over the controls.
"He's readying a nuke," Gauge grunted, pushing away from the door. "I need to find a way into that room and take over my own console. Hopefully I can stop this before its too late."
Gauge brought up his Mapping biochip and had it begin a run on the underground base. It's initial scan gave Gauge an idea on where he would need to go and took a left from the blasted door. Going past a latched door, Gauge found himself looking at another door with a glowing panel at its front.
"Unequal pressure between this chamber and submarine dock," the panel spoke out. "Equalize pressure before entering."
Gauge looked to his left and saw a meter going from green to red, signifying the pressure between the two rooms and gave a nod. Giving some taps the the panel, Gauge heard the chamber creak and hiss before settling into quiet. Another look at the meter let Gauge know he should be fine with entering the dock.
Coming inside the room, Gauge looked down from the top of the stairs he had stepped on and observed the single-pony submarine that remained hovered over the water via a magnetized crane. Across the dock was a sectioned off portion that would be looked over by the crane operator, if one were awake at its post.
"I see what you're doing," Eris crooned. "The map finished being built and you're hoping to get to the other side of that computer room."
Gauge stepped through the crane room's door and hung a left. His snout bashed into steel as an alarming squeal came on.
"Defense Command Post on security alert, access denied." The door resolutely sounded.
Gauge grabbed at his snout with his hooves and gave a sound of pain in response. "Eris!"
Eris scanned her eyes for a moment before giving a sideways look of frustration. "Sorry, Gauge. No amount of chaos is going to force a pre-programmed door to ignore its rules." She gave a heavy sigh of anger. "Stupid computers."
Gauge tried to think of another way in when a notice came up on his Mapping biochip. "Wait a minute, here..."
Gauge watched as the map expanded further, showing more buildings that were around them. "Alpha... Beta... Gamma... Delta. So if we're in Alpha, then these other bases should be accessible via-"
Gauge stopped and gave a look to the submarine outside of the station he stood in. "Don't tell me that-"
"Bingo-Bango!" Eris spoke up with a clap. "Delta has another room just like the one."
"This is not going to be smooth at all," Gauge grunted. Seating himself at the crane's controls, Gauge carefully moved it over the water and set down the submarine. "With those other bases, I wouldn't doubt that there may be some underwater company that will be swimming around out there."
Eris put a lion's claw over her ear, "You're right about that. We've already got some patrolling subs en route to our position."
Gauge stiffened for a short moment before rushing out of the control room. "Controlling a submarine isn't going to be easy. Eris, I really need your help with this."
"How exactly?" Eris questioned before her expression turned to excitement. "Wait! I work the pedals and you steer! The best option to any control over a vehicle!"
Gauge was about to criticize her choice before a smile of his own crept up. "That's not a bad option."
Eris' expression turned to shock as Gauge worked himself into the submarine. "Y- You're agreeing with me? Has the underwater pressure gone to your head allowing any idea to sound reasonable?"
Gauge began flipping switches and activating lights as he sealed the door above him. "Just keep this thing moving and I'll get us to Delta." Wrapping his hooves around the wheel, Gauge attempted to psych himself up before pressing the launch button.
"There's been an unauthorized launch from sub bay Alpha," a voice came on, alerting Gauge to his worsening predicament. "Intercept the bogey, immediately! You are authorized to use lethal force."
Gauge gulped as Eris tried to warm up the engine. "C'mon, get this thing going."
"We're activating the defense systems in Beta and Gamma. We won't be able to reach you for backup directly, we're 20 clicks away from your position." The male voice was cut off by the sound of the engine turning on and the submarine shot forward.
Both Gauge and Eris screamed out their respective reactions of immediate shock and cheerful whooping. Gauge careened away from a rock wall just enough to not scrape against it. "ERIS! SLOW DOWN!"
"Target spotted, opening fire."
Warning lights went off as a torpedo sped towards them from behind.
"Nevermind!" Gauge yelled, pulling a turn on a rock face to lose the torpedo. "Go as fast as possible!"
Gauge kept his eye on the mapping biochip and focused on the pipeline that connected each base. "I swear to Celestia, if this is the first and last mission I have in the TSA, I'll die a happy pony!"
Another set of alarms went off as a whale passed by the submarine, making Gauge momentarily feel wonder before a torpedo alert came on again. Ducking the torpedo, it hit a rock wall nearby, but the explosion managed to rock the sub.
"Attention operator," a different male voice came on, making Gauge groan. "You are ordered to stop your vessel and turn off your engines."
Eris revved the engine in disgust, forcing Gauge to take a turn harder that usual. "That guard will not take this ship down!"
"No response, proceeding with elimination of bogey," the voice continued. Another torpedo warning prompted Gauge to squeeze between two rock walls and hoped there would be no scratches after escaping the tight spot.
"Is that a pirate ship?" Gauge asked, passing by a wooden frame. "If I wasn't being chased after and being shot at with torpedoes, I might have actually enjoyed this."
A sudden explosion underneath him made Gauge uneasy as he soon found himself in an underwater minefield. "C'mon!" Gauge shouted.
"Bogey has entered the minefield, will attempt to intercept via another route," the male voice went on as Gauge tried his best to time his swerves against the mines.
"Look at it this way, Gauge," Eris said, a hint of thoughtfulness in her voice. "We've lost the guard and we're not too far away from Delta."
Another explosion nearby the sub rocked Gauge as he saw the lights of Delta ahead. "Nearly there," Gauge gulped as his eyes looked down at a red panel saying that a hull breach was imminent. "Please keep together." Gauge got closer and closer to the docking station when he felt his wheel lose control. His hooves shot up to his face to protect himself in some way from the sudden pressure that he felt was coming.
"Auto Docking sequence initiated," the sub's console sounded out.
Gauge pulled his eyes open to see himself raised up from the water and into Delta's dock. As the raising stopped, Gauge pulled up from his seat and towards the submarine's hatch. Stretching his legs as he came out, Gauge looked around the dark dock. A rotating red light kept showing Gauge various tanks and lockers before the sound of humming came on. Lights slowly turned on and showed that the dock looked the same as Alpha's dock.
"If the dock is as uniform as Alpha's, then the rest of the building should be the same," Gauge pondered.
Taking the stairs up, Gauge passed through the pressurized door and into the outside hallway. Looking to the right and peering into the open glass, Gauge saw the same console room that was in Alpha, however what else was inside was the robot that was planning to set off a nuke.
"Same theory as before," Gauge grunted. "If this bot is taking this side, I'll take the other."
Rushing back into the docks and past the crane room, Gauge passed into a new hallway leading to another door to the console room. Activating the Retinal biochip Gauge gave a tap at its door and watched as the scanner folded open and moved to his eye. Before the scan went off, the retinal biochip activated and went through a library of registered eyes that was stored in the scanner before settling on one.
With the scan completed the door opened, showing Gauge the full console room. The spherical room held many screens on its walls with a globe at its center, making Gauge assume that full fledged military meetings were also held in this same room.
Taking a seat in the station opposite the robot, Gauge tried to activate an emergancy override but was too late to stop the launch code from being sent.
"I just wrote the launch code, pony," the smug robot belted from across the room. "You'll never stop me!"
"I don't care what you say," Gauge shouted back, "I have a mission and a duty to stop this change in the timeline, and no hunk of metal and wire is going to deter me from it!"
Gauge set out to override every nuclear silo that the robot was selecting with every stop he gave.
"You cannot possibly win," the robot grumbled, selecting a new launch site.
"Do you think this is a game to win?" Gauge angrily shouted, trying to find the site on the globe to deactivate it.
The tense battle of wit continued as the timer for each launch became shorter and shorter.
"Heh, you will fail." The robot continued, trying to irritate Gauge further.
Gauge deactivated another silo, "You only have so many chances, bot!"
Clear frustrations began to come across the robot as Gauge kept his cool to the now 40 second timer. "Give up, pony, or I will be forced to eliminate you."
Gauge remained quiet as the last silos were slowly coming offline.
"You are running out of time," the robot mocked, now setting his timers down to 10 seconds.
Gauge kept scrapping by with little more than a couple of seconds before all of the silos were offline. "YES!" Gauge cheered as the monitor confirmed his success; "Maximum Deactivation Allotment Exceeded. Global Launch Override Engaged."
"I did it! I knew taking classes in geography would pay off in the long run!" Gauge excitedly yelled. "WOO! WOO! Suck on it, metal mouth!"
"The only good pony," the robot began before going into a darker tone, "Is a dead pony."
Gauge froze as he heard the whirs and clank of the bot walking off, no doubt coming to his position.
"Gauge? Bit of running right now wouldn't be a bad idea," Eris commented.
Gauge shot up from his chair and sprinted from the console room, if he could lose the robot in the water, then perhaps the robot would be forced to self-destruct as their would be nothing else in its mission parameters that could be accomplished.
Entering into the crane control room before the docks, Gauge noticed the robot already entering the dock. "Oh, crap."
Gauge thought of his options quickly before remembering the crane's magnetism. Getting into a seat, Gauge activated the controls as the robot came to his window and started attempting to break through. Activating the magnet, the robot was snapped to it, unable to move further. Leaving the magnet on, Gauge stepped out of the control room and into the dock at the now paralyzed robot in front of him.
"Open wide," Gauge said before tapping on the robot's head and grabbing it's Optical Memory biochip and shutting the panel, activating its self-destruction mechanism.
"The last bot, the last biochip," Eris waxed, "We've done it. We saved time. Well, you saved time, but I helped a lot."
Gauge shook his head, "This isn't over yet, Eris," Gauge activated his Pegasus recall function and steeled himself. "There's one more problem that needs to be resolved."