Palomino Flats, east of Appleloosa
Enclave Research and Supply Station #3 "Halberd Base"
General Sharp Winter never actually attained the rank of general. Technically, he was the Enclave's general manager- he just dropped the 'manager' part of his title. But to the pegasi in the Enclave, that made him the leader and he carried himself as such. General Winter was an average-sized stallion but the dark green boots he wore made him look taller. His coat was dark blue and he had a white spiked mane and tail with a green Enclave officer's uniform and black aviators from when he used to cosplay. What was most distinctive and striking about him was his beard which extended down from his chin like a triangle, making his face look like an axe. He was sharp in more ways than one.
Enclave Leader
General Sharp Winter
Corruptor of Legacies
Walking down the narrow halls of Halberd Base, Enclave soldiers saluted the General as he passed. The Enclave base had been built for pegasi military; vertical space and access to the sky was at every opportunity. The corridors were so narrow they were only wide enough for one pony, similar to the way Raven Rock had been designed in Fallout 3. This design was supposed to allow for Enclave units to deploy easily to any part of the base but more often than not, they usually just wound up getting stuck in the hallways faster.
He flew up a flight of stairs rather than walk on it and arrived at the highest-most part of the base, the operations center. The Ops Center was a bunker-like room built on top of the base that served as a hardened flight control tower and command post. It was raised out of the center of the base itself to give it an impressive view of the surrounding area. The compound was shaped like a heptagon, similar to Blueblood's building but laid flat on the ground and only one story high. Surrounding the base was the standard barbed wire fence, small road for vehicles and in the back facing a mesa behind the base was a helipad for the Enclave's iconic and questionably-predatory Flutterbird aircraft.
"General?" the comms officer, Private Pierce, looked back from his station, "Call for you coming in. It's urgent."
Sharp didn't even look at the subordinate, instead crossing the ops center to the black refrigerator next to the radio.
"Sir?"
"Coffee first, private," General Winter said. "Coffee first." Whoever was contacting him, urgent or not, it could wait.
"Um... aye, sir."
The general fixed his coffee from the Mr. Coffee machine, mysteriously identical to the one Dan had in his own command center. Winter then added ice and half-and-half to it, a standard ritual. After a good few minutes making his coffee, he then activated the holographic interface in the center of the center to interface with whoever was calling. The shimmering blue figure of a bipedal scientist-stallion he knew all to well materialized before him. And he didn't look happy.
General Winter's eyes bulged and he spewed coffee through Vice's hologram, the spray distorting his face only briefly. "Ch-chancellor! Wha-what an unexpected pleasure!"
Vice smirked, making Winter involuntarily swallow. It was always worse when he smirked. "Clearly unexpected."
"Um... heh, uh, what can we do for you this morning?"
"You can start by updating me on the project."
"Um, uh," the general rubbed his neck, looking away.
The holographic Vice rapped his fingers on his forelegs, mechanical gauntlets folded. The Enclave was not originally a military organization; even though it had military tendencies, armament and discipline, those things were the result of Cloudsdale's flight training and just the pegasi themselves. They acted like soldiers, they dressed like soldiers, they were equipped, trained and drilled like soldiers, marched and flew in formation like soldiers, issued, obeyed and carried out orders like soldiers, ate, slept and lived every moment of their lives like soldiers. But they were not soldiers.
"Well?"
"Well, uh, we have made progress. With the project, as instructed."
"And?"
"We've almost finished the casing. It should be ready to launch soon," Winter explained hastily.
Vice's scowl turned to pleasant surprise. "Oh, excellent. That's good news indeed, General Winter; we can start planning phase-three then. Once the signal interceptor is online, we can technoport it straight to Earth. You're actually ahead of schedule!"
"Well..." General Winter looked down. "Not exactly, sir."
Vice's expression then turned to one of unpleasant surprise. "Wut."
"There's uh, there's been some setbacks, lord Chancellor. The signal interceptor is... missing."
There was a pause like they had connection loss. But Sharp knew that wasn't true. Vice had paused to process the information, to let awkward silence fill the air and suffocate the General with the sheer weight of his own failure. And every bit of it was what Sharp had earned, not that he would take responsibility for any of it.
Soldiers fight for those they protect, for the things they hold dear. Every soldier fights for someone in ways and in places and with, against and through things that others cannot. They're not always patriots, they don't always fight for what is right, they don't always make the right decisions and they're not always good people or even halfway decent people. But they choose to give up peace so that someone else may have it. It requires an amount of sacrifice to make that choice, an amount of honor to see it through and deserves an amount of respect. How much depends on the individual.
General Sharp Winter, Captain Springer and all the other Enclave ponies fought for themselves- they made no sacrifice, had no honor and deserved absolutely no respect. And it showed as the general sniveled in front of Vice like yet another in a long line of jackbooted servants. The Enclave originally was an acronym long since forgotten: the Emergency National Continuity of Law Administration and Value Enforcement. It was originally designed and implemented by Commander Hurricane herself after the Grand Pegasus Army disbanded in order to maintain discipline and vigilance among the pegasi in the event Equestria needed an army again.
And then the popular story Fallout: Equestria was published. After that, more culture from Earth started popping up: the Fallout video games, comics and even a tabletop RPG. Suddenly, an organization that never saw much use became a fan club. Some ponies like Captain Springer, who always wanted what they did to mean something, started seeing ways it might. That was when the Director came in.
"MISSING?!" Vice's voice broadcast through the loudspeakers in the base. "MISSING?! How can you toolboxes be so incompetent at your jobs?! The signal interceptor was from Fallout 4 for squee's sake! That's recent crap! AND YOU MORONS CAN'T HOLD ONTO IT? WHY DO YOU SUCK AT BEING A NERD?!"
Sharp winced, the feedback pulse making his ears ring. "We're still looking into it but we believe at this point that... Colonel Bandwidth may have taken it. We think he may have taken it apart and loaded it onto a Flutterbird."
Enclave Communications and Signal Expert
Colonel Bandwidth?
The Defective Defector(New ally?)
Vice stopped, seemed to consider the option at least before his next outburst. "Bandwidth? I don't even know who that is. I thought your name scheme had to do with the seasons."
Winter nodded. "It does. But we kept Autumn out of it in honor of Colonel Augustus Autumn from the third game."
"Hmm," Vice scratched his chin. "Appropriate."
"Yeah. We promoted Bandwidth to fill the gap in the chain. And because we needed a fourth and he's the only one really experienced with LARPing and has walkie talkies for when we-"
"I didn't ask what you did with him after school, dumbass," Vice cut him off. "If he's stolen a Flutterbird, use whatever means at your disposal to find him. Get him and the device back before he gets it to Dan and the rest of those ingrates."
"Yes sir, of course, sir," Sharp quickly said.
Vice settled, looked back at something Sharp couldn't see. "This wasn't just a courtesy call to see where you were with Cogsdale. I'm also informing you that an attack on your base is imminent."
"A-attack?"
"Correct. Seems Dan has set his sights on you for his first target, not that we didn't see that coming. But, now that I know where you're at with the project, I know you'll know what to do next."
"Of-of course, sir," the General said. "And uh, what is it that I know?"
Vice sighed heavily. "You'll launch the base. Even without the interceptor, its weapons systems should be fine, correct?"
Sharp scratched his neck again and nodded. "Oh, yeah. Right."
The scientist pinched his forehead. "Right. I suppose it would be good to recall our field agents, then? Maybe they could give you some help?"
"Yeah, that could help us out, sir, you're absolutely right."
"Of course I am."
"And we could use the rest of Raptor Wing, too," the general requested.
"Uh huh," Vice turned off the holographic projector and his image faded.
Around General Sharp Winter, the other Enclave ponies all had their eyes on him. "Well? Get back to work!" he barked at all of them. He then walked over and got another cup of coffee, sat down and pretended to search for the missing Flutterbird on the radar. None of them realized that Bandwidth had in fact been gone for over a month now and he hadn't so much as stolen the signal interceptor as much as he was just necessary to use it.
Bandwidth was a very paranoid paratrooper pegasus and had joined the Enclave originally because he thought Princess Celestia and Luna were responsible for some huge conspiracy. However, when the Enclave openly attacked and destroyed Cloudsdale, he began to have second thoughts about his decision. The colonel was an expert at sending and decoding transmissions and signals. Like the others in the Enclave, he was a pegasus, gray stallion with a green mane but he never wore any armor. No, Bandwidth refused to wear anything except for a distinctive aluminum foil hat that apparently had other functions than just being an odd fashion statement. And it had something to do with Dan's ion cannon.