Chapter 26: Eagles Rising
Chapter 26: Eagles Rising
“Celestia sent us two angels, and at least one had her a three-o-eight caliber flaming sword of justice with a telescopic sight.”
Challenger.
That sprawling city, with walls high and strong… that jewel of iron and wood and earth… forged from the ruin of the Old World, surviving from the unity of the new one. The culmination of years of construction, of scavenging, of traveling and of battling… and of the dream to make something better than the struggle that was all that existed out here in the wasteland. These were just some of the things that gave rise to this beacon on a barren field, this symbol of life returning to an almost wholly lifeless land… this bastion of good in a world plagued by the evil that came from the fight for survival, the one fight that could never truly end.
That city was approaching fast as Sierra and I winged our way toward it, closing up the last mile between us with all the speed we could muster so as to deliver our very urgent report to our waiting commander.
Even before we passed into Challenger’s airspace, I could hear clearly a constant roar coming from beyond the northeast corner of the city wall, one that grew steadily louder as we crossed over it and into the presidential district. From our height, among the first things I recognized was the Presidential Palace, and our camp out in the palace courtyard. Most of our survivors were still there from what I could tell… and for a moment, I thought I saw my little brother amidst the crowd as we flew on by overhead. But we passed the camp quickly, forcing me to look away despite my wish to land and see Blake again. That in turn brought my ears back to my original focus. From here, as we flew over the southeast corner of the warehouse district, I could distinguish that sound as the muddled collection of dozens, maybe even hundreds, of different voices. Sure enough, upon looking down, I found a whole column of Challenger soldiers marching down the road, making their way deeper into the warehouse sector and toward that sound that was sourced close to the main gate. As a whole, the assembling force covered the greater majority of the street. The rest was occupied by civilians… no doubt following their loved ones out to where they were being summoned to, so as to say their goodbyes and to wish them all the luck that they could.
Thankfully, I had very little time to let myself be dragged down by what depressing thoughts and reflections were sure to follow; it was perhaps, I thought to myself, a perk of being a soldier.
Sierra and I were now over the military district. And already, my power-armored friend was beginning to drop her altitude and descend toward the now much emptier camp at a slight and comfortable angle. I followed her in, falling in line behind her and copying her vector of approach. In so doing, I found our destination where it sat amidst one of many clusters of tents and shacks, all following the curves of a nearly vacant network of walkways and dirt lanes. The command tent sat closed and undisturbed, with the one nearby flak gun crew and a half-dozen scattered ponies on the closest road to our right making the only other presence out here. It was so… strange… that I had to hum to myself, a little worried as we slowed to work ourselves into a hover. “Do you think he’s even here?” I ventured.
“If not, then we will need to fly to the main gate where the soldiers are assembling.” Sierra answered me, settling into a hover. “The Lieutenant Colonel is definitely preparing to begin a much larger mission.”
As I fell in beside her, the two of us exchanged glances. “Do you think it’s for the armory?”
Cocking her head to the side in a shrug, Sierra replied, “That may very well be the case. Let’s head into the tent and see.”
At her cue, we both hovered down the rest of the short distance to the surface, and touched down onto solid ground just outside the tent’s entrance. And as soon as I landed, my ears perked with alarm as they were greeted by something rather unexpected, something within the tent. Music... playing bright, clear, carried on the smooth tones of what I recognized as a trumpet. And at the passing of seven tones, a second brass horn joined the first, overlapping its melody with one that rhythmically copied its predecessor. A brief moment in the spotlight for the both of them, and then a third horn came in with the same material in a different key. But that was all I had time to study the very stately, almost royal-like song with my usual focused interest. Sierra was pulling back the tent flap, looking my way and nodding for me to enter first. “Come on, Nova.”
Very business-like, very focused… definitely a couple of things I needed to follow a little better… or at least when compared to Sierra.
Forcing myself forward, I trotted the rest of the way up and entered the command tent. Unlike this morning, the tent was now almost completely empty. All the radio equipment and the terminals with them remained in their places, same with the lanterns, now extinguished, and the central table with the large regional map. But the radio operators who’d been crowded in, and the officer’s we’d met at our first debriefing – they’d all vacated. Only one pony remained inside the tent now, and he was staring at the radio that was sitting at the table’s far end from his place off toward the back right corner of the tent.
“Lieutenant Colonel.” Coming up beside me, Sierra stood herself up tall at attention, a move that I quickly copied as we waited for his response to her greeting.
But… after a few seconds went by without a word, in which only the grand choir of brass kept us company… I began to get the impression that Ajax had been just as absorbed into this music as I had been. It was something I couldn’t help but crack a small smile at as I waited for any form of reply. That finally came when he looked up, past the radio… but not to us. “Have either of you listened to this station yet?” came his question. “That DJ they have on there – DJ Flynt… he’s got quite a lot of energy, a good spirit. He’s always calling the songs he plays gifts, gifts of peace and hope. And I’ve got to say, I actually agree.” Neither of us interrupted him, not even when he paused long enough to finally look us in the eyes. He didn’t say anything about us, about our mission, our waiting report. He only continued on his path, saying, “I’ve already gotten a few dozen remarks about how the music is lifting up the soldiers’ spirits. They’re telling me that it’s comforting them, easing them into things, or at least taking their minds off them for a precious few moments.” He uttered a little chuckle after, one that served to just slightly broaden my smile. “Way I understand it… last night, every single working radio in Challenger just came to life all at once. They all just picked up the frequency and started playing it, caused more than a few ponies in the city to wake up scratching their heads and rubbing their eyes. Then I guess the first song they played just put most of them back to sleep. That’s really quite something.”
“Buckley plays some beautiful music, don’t they, sir?” I asked, a little timidly as I shared my deeper sentiments on this blessing brought to us.
It was nice when Ajax nodded his agreement. “They most certainly do. Never thought something like that would’ve come from a bunch of reclusive artillery-slingers. But I guess even they can have their surprises every once in a while.” Then, he approached the table and stopped before the radio, reaching a hoof up to the top and pressing and holding down a button. The music begun to fade, growing quieter and quieter until he released the button; he still let it play, just loud enough for all of us to hear. “Now, I believe you two have some information for me, and I’d like to hear it.”
“Yes, sir.” I responded, both Sierra and I nodding.
“Just don’t get too distracted by the music while you deliver your report.” came his sudden warning, a light jolt from me fading into a touch of red across my cheeks at his little jab. “I very much enjoy it, and would rather not have to turn it off.” Thankfully, it was Sierra that delivered the report we’d made from our patrol, detailed but to the point. She began by explaining the defenses we’d encountered at the enemy post, plenty of soldiers setting up a good solid perimeter, and the sniper towers, as well as the possibility of turret defenses added to the top of the list thanks to the heavy presence of their mobile gun platforms. Once on the subject of the raiders’ heavy weaponry, Sierra recounted the various vehicles we saw. The wagon train, the mobile guns – the wagon-mounted balefire egg launcher we found drew Ajax’s attention the quickest of the threats we named, maybe second only to the mentioning of the vertibuck that I’d spotted hiding behind the farm’s warehouses. All of that gear mixed in with a garrison that was at least one hundred strong, probably more. And I remembered seeing the enemy soldiers through my rifle scope, their armor thick, their weapons ratty but still dangerous. It was a prime example of just how well-equipped these raiders were, how organized, coordinated, and prepared they were becoming. If there were other raider clans out there beyond the southeast, my guess was that this one put most of them to shame. And in the end, Sierra and I concluded our report with the same thoughts we’d been pondering on our way back to base. The Black Blood was gearing up for a push into Challenger’s turf, one that the city absolutely could not afford to let succeed. The S.E.R.A.F. had a mountain of problems to face already, and the loss of more territory would only dump salt on the wound; it didn’t take a genius to figure that out.
“While you were gone I looked over the old records that I made after the last report came to me on the enemy presence there.” Ajax explained upon taking in our findings. “There’s definitely way more military assets in that old farm now than there was before.” As Sierra and I nodded, he added then, “I won’t sugarcoat it – we’re on thin ice trying to keep the enemy out of our backyard. And make no mistake… one more hard push, one more loss on our part… and we might never link back up to Ashton again. This we cannot allow.”
“Yes, sir.” Sierra and I spoke together.
“You two came back just in time.” the Lieutenant Colonel explained. “The task force I’ve been assembling throughout the morning is ready to take the fight to those raiders. I’ve got two different units that I’m putting into play at once. The first is a platoon-sized force made of civilian volunteers in Challenger and a squad from Proudspire that I’m sending against another occupied farm to the north of the Base Post. It’s a more lightly defended outpost for the raiders, a place they’re using to organize ambushes against Legion scouts and our own runners. The second is my battalion’s first company, the unit you’re both a part of, and they’re heading for the Wheaton Armory.” At our silence, he approached his map and reared up to set his forehooves onto the table’s edge. “By targeting two objectives at once, it’s my goal to create the springboard I need to execute a pincer move against the Base Post and the enemy garrison.” he explained, running a hoof over the map as he laid out the next phases of his operations. “In the best case scenario, Wheaton and the Maple Farmstead will be cleared. After that, while First Company secures Wheaton, a new company from the battalion will approach the Base Post from the west while the team I’m sending after the farm now will come at them from the north. We’ll overrun that post, just like what we’ll do with Wheaton.” Then he looked back to us directly. “Fourth Battalion’s First Company has approximately two hundred and ten soldiers, including the two of you. Now that I have your report, I want you two to head back out there and link up with your unit so you can help in the assault against the armory.” As he gave his new order, he turned to Sierra. “The air support you’ll be able to give will be vital to this mission.” Then he turned to me. “And whether you take to the air or take a long-range approach with that rifle of yours, you’ll both be a tremendous asset, because you’ll be operating close to the mobile gun crews I’ve assigned to the force.”
“How so, sir?” Sierra ventured.
“Those guns are going to make the front line once we engage the armory.” Ajax answered. “I’m going to want you both to give them all the support you can in whatever way you see fit. Keep them from getting overwhelmed, because they’re the one shot we’ve got at keeping casualties to a minimum out there.” Once we nodded our understanding, he stepped back down from the table and backed away. “So, you’re standing orders are as follows – you’re heading to the Wheaton Armory. Report to Captain Royce, and he’ll tell you where he needs you. Then, whether the mission is a success or a failure, you’ll both be heading out to the Moonstone Peak Outpost as quick as you can, which Royce can mark on your maps for you. Since I’m keeping the battalion’s second and third companies in the city for the sake of fortifying the home front while these next operations are underway, you’ll be heading there to provide a little extra pony-power in the event of an attack on the peaks while I trickle in what reinforcements I can throughout the night. Then, so long as everything goes smoothly up to that point, you’ll eventually be taking part in the main objective to wipe out that raider post with either the second or third company so we can clear a path back to Ashton and send the Fourth Battalion into the city to reinforce the main army there.”
And that… that was quite the checklist, definitely the biggest, most intensive, and most important I’d ever been given in my time. There was a lot riding on these operations, and there was even more that went into making sure they were met with success. I knew already, just from hearing out Ajax, that this was going to keep me out in the field for a long time… and consequently keep me from returning here, back to our survivors… and most important – Blake and Shore. I’d kept hope up that I’d be able to see them again today, even if just long enough to let them know that I was doing just fine out there. But more than that, I’d also entertained the thought of showing Blake the medallion I’d found out in that ruined wagon train. With that strange but beautiful artifact in my possession, I’d begun to ponder using it to explain what I’d started thinking about in regards to the symbol we shared. With him having the same cutie mark as me, I felt he deserved to at least hear my reflections on the matter, which might then bring him to raise questions and propose theories of his own. This was something that we shared… and thus, it was something that involved the both of us.
But as it was now… time was not on our side.
“Any questions before you two head out?”
When Ajax spoke back up, my attention snapped quickly to where it was supposed to be, just in time for me to hear as Sierra in turn asked, “What kind of opposition can we expect?”
“I’ve got no doubt that the original force that took the armory is still there.” Ajax answered without a pause. “Couple that with any reinforcements that they might’ve smuggled in, and we’re looking at around one hundred fifty or more. It’s not going to be a short fight, and they’re going to be dug in good.”
I couldn’t keep a small sigh from escaping me. Thankfully, the Lieutenant Colonel let me be, instead listening to Sierra who asked, “And what about the layout of the armory itself?”
“There are five buildings.” came his explanation. “On the north side, there’s the wagon garage and office complex, and the primary warehouse is just beyond those. Then at the south end, there’s the base’s command center, and finally the vault holding the actual armory. Five buildings, lots of open ground between them, and the old road you’ll be taking to get there cuts the base right in half.”
“Then the fight on the outside is going to be the worst part of it all.” I chimed in.
“Yes it will.” Ajax replied to my comment. “With so many soldiers on both sides, it’ll be hectic. But this is what we’ve been preparing for, what we’ve trained ourselves to deal with, and I have every faith that we’ve all instilled in ourselves the skills we need to win this fight and take back what we lost.” And looking between us one more time, “You two are going to see a bit of what Challenger is really capable of in this operation and the ones to follow to Ashton. And I think you’ll find your new brothers and sisters in arms to be of a superior quality. Any other questions before you leave?” He gave us a moment, but in the end, neither of us raised another question. And so, he gave us a nod before gesturing a hoof out to the tent flap behind us. “The First Company should be exiting the city as we speak. Head back out there, find them, and fall in with their march, but make sure to stop by the main gate first and stock up on potions and whatever ammo you might need. Once you link up with Royce and the company, then you’ll play your part in showing our enemies what we do when they provoke us.”
Together, Sierra and I confirmed our new objective with a solid voice. “Yes, sir.”
“Outstanding. Dismissed.”
*** *** ***
*chirp
A light beep drew me to a stop, long enough for me to bring my pipbuck up to eye level. The regional map was displayed for the second time in the course of about a half hour, the collection of various icons showing me the full scope of my travels once more… quite a lot of ground that I’d covered over the past month. From the Southeast Regional Power Plant to the far west and Hopeville to the northwest of that, all the way out to Marefax in the northernmost border of the region. There was the Nation Guard Bunkers due northeast, way up there on the display, and the Black Blood’s Base Post as the farthest eastern landmark. And of course, Stable 181, that gear-shaped icon all by its lonesome way down in the bottom left corner of my screen. The first time my computer spoke, Challenger’s Fourth Battalion, First Company, had passed through an allied outpost made from the ruins of what I discovered to be the Roseluck Greenhouses. It was a small ruin, still mostly preserved after the many years. One larger office complex and a parking lot was accompanied by three dozen long, squat, rounded metal huts with shattered glass windows and roofs, once the home to a wide variety of vegetable plants and exotic flowers; only a few of those greenhouses had collapsed. There had even been a billboard outside advertising something that had brought about a brief trip down memory lane, both for me and for Raemor. Marefax – the Garden City. Knowing about that old city and the unique attraction that gave it its name back in the day – the Garden Ring, the river of flowers that surrounded the downtown sector – that billboard showed us all that the greenhouses either supplied some of those flowers to the city, played a role in providing food to the city or the whole of the region, or at the very least, was a part of a larger network of planting and growing hubs that worked hoof-in-hoof with the local farms. Whatever its Old World purpose, the platoon of Challenger soldiers that occupied the ruin had more than effectively given it a new and more relevant use. Thanks to the combined firepower of four twenty millimeter flak guns and two other custom-made mobile weapon platforms, coupled with a day’s labor of welding work, forming plate barricades and even guard towers, the greenhouse office building was a proper fortress.
Truly, quite amazing what only thirty ponies could do when the situation was dire.
The greenhouses had been quiet when we’d shown up. However, we were greeted quickly by a couple of soldiers on perimeter patrol, who bore to Captain Royce an urgent message. Searchlight, visible from the outpost on the far horizon, had been home to new activity from the enemy. According to the outpost’s commanding lieutenant, Black Blood patrols had been seen in the settlement, picking through the abandoned shacks. And lately, they’d been making themselves comfortable, patrolling the edge of town, keeping an eye on the greenhouses from there… just as Challenger was doing to them. During the short pause in our march toward the Wheaton Armory, I’d been able to overhear the captain’s meet with a collection of squad leaders on site, in which I heard the prominent worry that came with this latest bout of enemy activity. Both the greenhouse commander and Royce came to the conclusion that the Black Blood Raiders were fortifying their position at the Wheaton Armory by making an attempt to secure Searchlight for their own use. If they were left unchecked for too long, then Searchlight itself would become a shield for the armory, and a very potentially dangerous threat. And it would, without a doubt, keep us from making our move on Wheaton itself.
As such, we now had ourselves a new objective to meet before we could proceed with the primary mission. And as we were about to begin, I thanked my lucky stars for the resupply I’d gotten in Challenger, yielding fresh reloads for all my weapons and plenty of extra ammo for future use; Challenger definitely took care of its soldiers.
My pipbuck brought my attention back to the regional map this time to show me that we were now entering Searchlight itself. Thanks to some idle conversation I’d been able to start on our way here, I’d learned that Searchlight itself had risen up from one of the southeastern farms. Following the same example as Challenger itself, shipments of wood and steel and other raw building materials had been sent to the farm once every seven to ten days. And little by little, shack by shack, the settlement was growing. As it was now, it was definitely sizeable enough, not the size of Hopeville, but close. A collection of both large and small shacks were arranged in a pair of literal squares, perhaps a dozen or so a piece, forming blocks around wide open courtyards. And in front of that, closest to us, were the beginnings of two more such blocks formed of partially completed shacks. And finally, farthest away at the back of the settlement, was the actual farm itself that the settlement had been founded on. A massive barn stood over the settlement… which was unfortunately the one piece of the original property that remained standing. A farmhouse, along with a smaller barn, a wagon shack, and a pair of grain silos had also been here before. A strike from one of the Guardian missiles had annihilated the whole thing, wiping out those structures and collapsing the roof and part of one wall of the barn, this according to one of the soldiers in our unit… an eye-witness to the attack. The second and final missile that had struck the settlement had hit the corner of the left-side block, flattening three shacks and collapsing two others by the sheer force of the blast. While the settlement itself looked mostly livable regardless, even a strike like that was more than enough to send the settlers here running for Challenger.
It was a terrible shame… but one that I couldn’t concern myself with now. But what was concerning… and not just to me, but to everypony in the unit… was the lack of sound here in Searchlight.
The company was dividing into multiple teams to approach the abandoned settlement. Simultaneously, a pair of firing lines was being set up around it, covering the east and west sides, which would provide long-range fire support to the two main teams that were advancing into the town; they would close in on the settlement after the initial attack. The team leading the charge was comprised of the mobile gun units that the company had been given for the mission, put together with plenty of infantry support. We’d been given five guns for the mission, three of them being twenty millimeter flak guns, and the other two being all-purpose missile turrets, capable of defending us from both ground and aerial threats.
And finally, there was the team that Sierra and I had been ushered into, following right on the heels of the first as a second wave that would get up close and personal for the sake of protecting our gun crews.
With a sizeable chunk of the company hanging back to provide long-range support, there were around half of us that were moving into the town itself, maybe a hundred or so – fifty to a team. Gunny, Raemor, and Ivy were all ahead of me in the lead team, while Sierra and I were ordered to keep our distance and remain on the ground… only until we found the enemy. Here, Captain Royce wanted to use my wings instead of my eyes, but was careful to keep me close until he decided he needed me. As such, had me on standby for the first sign of an enemy presence, at which point I’d take to the air and dive right into the thick of the fighting.
As it was now, however, nothing emerged from Searchlight’s shacks.
Thankfully, caution was a shared sentiment among the whole company. Up ahead, I could pick up the order given by Captain Royce himself to hold, to stop moving up and to wait, to observe. The lead team, guns and all, stopped just behind the first line of completed shacks, thus causing our own team to come to a halt at the order of a sergeant leading the way for us. “I don’t like this…” The comment came from a Challenger soldier next to me, a large unicorn stallion that was pale green in color with an ashy blue mane and tail – the very same stallion that had helped me fight my way into Challenger just a couple days ago. “They’ve got to have something waiting for us in there.”
“I think you’re right, Micah.” I remarked in a hushed voice, keeping my focus on the leading team, and more specifically where my three friends were in the midst of Challenger’s soldiers. “This is too easy.”
After a couple quick shouted orders, the lead team begun to disperse. Quickly, quietly, and in an organized fashion, troops begun to fan out and advance around the settlement, left and right to follow the line of shacks. And a moment later, the order for our team to move reached us from our sergeant. In tandem we all begun to make our way up, moving at a steady trot to rejoin the stationary mobile guns and keep them sheltered. In the scramble, I was able to spot where Gunny, Ivy, and Raemor stuck together, advancing as their own unit amidst the other soldiers. As we moved up, I was able to piece together the plan that Royce had implemented here – he was keeping the troops out of the heart of Searchlight, or at least long enough for them to take up positions along the walls of the intact shacks. And sure enough, as my team begun to form up around and behind the line of mobile guns, squads were lining up near the closest shacks, waiting for a signal to move into the settlement, to clear up the place one building at a time.
But right then, as Captain Royce gave the order in the form of a waved hoof, a signal that made its way from squad to squad, the barn at the far end of the settlement exploded in a tremendous detonation, one that shook the very ground, and immediately set my ears to ringing as boards and fragments of metal went shooting into the sky like meteors. Everypony in my whole team jerked back, alarmed shouts going up in the wake of the detonation as, in place of the old structure, a bright green fireball mushroomed up into the air, streaked with black smoke yet blazing bright. We all knew what that green fire was, but nopony could react to it before, immediately after, another explosion caused the whole settlement to tremble. The shack closest to where the barn once stood lit up with green light before exploding outward, showering the courtyard with debris as another green mushroom cloud loomed up over the settlement. I was only able to recover enough to look back to the two balefire clouds before I recoiled again, a third explosion completely obliterating a second shack. Ponies were trying to talk to one another through it all, trying to maintain some kind of order. But a fourth detonation ripped through the settlement with a fifth coming in right behind it. And then there was another, and another, and another, until the whole world was just one constant deafening roar for seconds on end, accompanied through and through by one solid shade of bright green behind my closed eyes.
Then… just as quickly as it had begun…
I had ended up on my stomach… some desperate attempt to shield myself from the rapid string of blasts. There had been a gap in my awareness from the sheer power of those explosions, and now it was only slowly returning. For a good few seconds, a few dizzying seconds as my head throbbed painfully, my ears ringing loudly, I stayed laying there where I’d fallen, coughing twice as I breathed in a thick cloud of dust. That brought my head up, my eyes forward… and when I opened them…
Shrouded in a heavy churning cloud, tinted green from the balefire that burned in several large patches on the ground, Searchlight… it was almost completely destroyed. Through the haze… the once wholesome shacks I’d seen were either wholly leveled, or were now nothing more than a few boards and beams that remained standing. Out of over two dozen completed shacks, I could only count seven that were still standing. And of those caught in the blasts, twelve had been completely annihilated, while the rest had collapsed because of the concussive force of the balefire detonations.
“Hey! Get up! Come on, get up!”
Miraculously, my hearing was coming back, and had recovered enough for me to hear Micah before he gave me a shove with a hoof. All around, the soldiers of our group were struggling back up to their hooves. Just a few paces ahead, the gun crews were returning to their guns and assuming their positions, rolling their units into the destroyed settlement as quick as they could. And as the company scrambled to get organized, voices were shouting orders back and forth, calling for medical aid, demanding a casualty and injury report, trying to rally everypony back together. “A-are we under attack?”
As I pushed myself back up, rising unsteadily onto all fours, Micah moved into my field of view to answer, speaking up to reach me through my weakened ears. “No, but we need to help the wounded! There were a lot of soldiers near those shacks!”
My eyes snapped to the right, out toward the blasted northwest corner of Searchlight; my friends had been right there when it happened!
Micah was already galloping into the town, disappearing into the dust to assist in the rescue efforts that were already underway. I followed his example right after he vanished, focusing on where I last saw my friends and moving quick as I could to find them. As I made my way through, weaving my way between the other soldiers as they got their bearings and begun to assist on their own, I heard as my pipbuck spoke up through the crowd, talking via the built-in geiger counter. It was clicking slowly but steadily to warn me of the presence of radiation left behind from the balefire. That clicking intensified as I drew closer to one of the fires that ate its way through the remains of one of the ruined shacks near the corner of the settlement. This shack had been one of those holding an explosive within it, and nearby it were five soldiers working together to help three others that had been crippled by the blast. It was hard to see their injuries through the grey haze, but they were still alive, being hoisted onto the backs of waiting soldiers to take them out of the radiation.
“GUNNY!!” I shouted out toward those green flames, my eyes darting from figure to figure that galloped through the dust, or pulled another body from the ruins. “IVY!!” I couldn’t distinguish them from any of the others, and I didn’t see anypony turn their attention to me as I called my friends’ names. “RAEMOR!!” I moved on to the far corner of the settlement, where the shack here had collapsed, falling down on its east wall that had caved from the explosion next-door. There was a larger concentration of soldiers here, as the firing line that had been set up to the west of the settlement came rushing back to help. As such, it was even harder for me to try and make shape of anypony in particular. And upon calling out their names again, I still received no response from any of them.
But that’s when I heard my name, carried on a muffled voice. And spinning around, I found Sierra as she galloped over to join me, skidding to a halt beside me. “Are you okay, Nova?”
“I’m fine.” I quickly assured, briefly looking over her armor for any wounds. “What about you, are you alright?
“Just fine.” she answered me, equally brief; the same worries were on her mind too, it seemed. “Where are the others?”
“I thought they were right around this corner of the settlement.” I looked back and forth, scanning quickly over Searchlights wreckage to try and find one of those familiar faces. “I don’t know where they ended up, I can’t find them…”
“Come on, let’s keep looking.” Without another word Sierra trotted on past me, moving further up all the way to the tip of the corner I’d been looking through. And as I hurried around to follow after her, she took up the call herself to try and find them, shouting out each of their names to try and separate them from the crowd.
“I don’t see them…”
As I joined her at her side, Sierra tried one more time to find them by calling their names. But this time, as I glanced back to her, I saw her flinch with a start, whereupon she snapped a hoof up to point ahead of her. “There! I think that’s Gunny!”
My eyes darted to where Sierra was gesturing to, tracing more carefully over the cluster of soldiers working to get the rest of the injured out of the epicenter. “Where?” But only a moment after, and I finally found something that gave me an answer. Despite the dust, a dull shade of blue managed to punch through the smoke and dust, the shade of blue that was paired with the yellow paint of a Stable-Tec security armor rig. Gunny was there, standing at the opposite side of the collapsed shack closest to me, looking deeper into the Searchlight ruins. There from out of the dust, another pony rendezvoused with him, looking unsteady but mostly unharmed, and together they begun to trot toward the direction Sierra and I had come from, the both of them looking left and right for another member of their party.
“Gunny!!” I moved at a gallop around the ruined shack, cutting the southwest corner of the foundation with a little hop and then rushing the rest of the way over. And when I was close enough to see the brick red coat and ash-grey mane, I called out for him one more time. And finally, my friend looked over his shoulder to find me, uttering an inaudible sigh as I closed up the distance between us. “Gunny, are you okay??”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” he assured quickly, turning about to face me as I ground to a halt before him. “What about you? Are you hurt?”
I shook my head as I took in a breath. “No, no I’m okay. But you, you and the others were in the settlement when those eggs went off.” A quick glance to the right, and I saw where the pony with Gunny was moving west, approaching another stallion as he stumbled into view. “Ivy! Raemor!”
“You alright, Sierra?”
“Yes. I was not as close to the blast as you were.”
As Sierra and Gunny caught up, the three of us made our way over to the others. Sure enough, we found as Ivy looked over a dazed Raemor to check him for injuries. Even with little effort, I could see where the old unicorn had removed a chunk of shrapnel from his upper left leg, a streamer of blood left behind to show where he’d been hit. But other than that, he looked okay. Still, both to him and Ivy, I couldn’t help but venture the question. “I think we’re all okay.” Ivy answered me when I asked, both she and Raemor joining us as we made a circle. “Gunny had to take a piece of shrapnel out of his shoulder, and Raemor took shrapnel to his leg. But so far as I know, that’s it.”
“How’s the geiger counter, Nova?”
“Still ticking…” At Gunny’s question I gave the device a quick onceover – I could see that my radiation level was still relatively minor at this point, and the ticking emitting from the device was growing sparser with each passing second. “But it’s dying down quick. Radiation should disappear soon.”
Afterwards, I caught Gunny in the corner of my eye as he stomped a hoof onto the dirt, kicking up a puff of dust. “Luna damn it… those fuckers are tricky.”
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had to go against the Black Blood.” I said back, the both of us meeting eye to eye. “I guess even they can change their tactics.”
“They may be dumb and reckless most of the time,” Ivy chimed in. “but I’ve seen them resort to some downright fiendish tricks to get ahead in a fight.”
“They had this very same trap pulled on them in Hopeville.” my friend responded to her and I both, a sharpness in his tone brought about by his simmering anger; the reminder sent a jolt of realization through my head as I recalled the raiders’ invasion of the town all those days ago. “They just stole a page out of our book… After finding Searchlight empty, we should’ve seen it coming.”
I couldn’t help but sag slightly under the reminder. “I guess you’re right…”
“Hey, some of the commanders are gathering up back by the guns.” Raemor unified our focus onto him as he raised a hoof to point out past the ruin. With the dust beginning to settle, I could see where troops were mobilizing around the mobile gun crews. The majority of the company was gathering up in other groups, focused on tending to whatever wounded emerged from the aftermath of the blasts. But in the group Raemor pointed out, I could see Captain Royce in the center of a smaller cluster, where the majority of the dialogue I heard was taking place.
As our own group, we headed their way. En route, I stayed close to Raemor as he limped along. He took his wound better than I would’ve expected, a testament to just how seasoned he was for somepony his age. Still, before we got too far, I’d made sure he chugged down a portion of one of his healing potions to sew the puncture shut. As it was now, we five joined the circle just as one of our sergeants spoke up to the captain directly. “Those weren’t our eggs, were they? Please tell me those weren’t ours!”
The sergeant’s question, wrought with well-deserved anxiety, swiftly prompted some of the soldiers in the gathering to fire off their own questions. And there was a more-than-justifiable reason, too. What if those eggs really were a part of the supposed stockpile at the Wheaton Armory? What if the site had already been compromised? What if we were already too late? And most important – what if we were walking into a much bigger and much deadlier trap than the one sprung here in Searchlight?
Those questions very quickly brought me up to the same level of concern as the soldiers around me, and I found myself sharing nervous looks with Ivy and Raemor as they were spoken one after the next. But Royce – he himself didn’t look nearly as troubled as the others, and proceeded to raise a hoof to quell his subordinates. “Take my word for it – those scumbags did not get their hooves on the stockpile.”
“Besides,” another soldier spoke up; a quick look, and I saw Micah as the culprit. “those raiders have used balefire weapons against us before. The only difference here is in how many eggs they decided to throw at us this time.”
“But still, how can we be sure?” another soldier shakily asked. “I’ve never seen them put so many balefire eggs in one place before.”
“This was just them trying to scare us away, and luckily we didn’t just go barging into Searchlight. But the point is – you all know Wheaton’s layout.” he answered. “That place was built with a secure vault in its underground level. And with it being old military, that vault was protected by security measures that only Challenger has knowledge of.” At that point, Royce raised up an armored foreleg, then reaching down and biting onto something close to one of his pockets that I couldn’t make out. But I figured it out soon enough when he tugged, pulling on a string tied to which was a single object. Colored bright blue, it was a long, circular piece of shiny steel, with several notches carved into a pattern of vertical and horizontal lines along the slender body. He held it there for a few seconds, letting us all get a glimpse of the item he’d kept safe on his person. And upon sliding it back into the pocket on his foreleg, he finally spoke again, saying, “That is a security key, one of two that were built to unlock the vault door and access the stockpile. Only Challenger’s officers were let in on how that vault worked. To keep from compromising the stockpile, not even other soldiers were allowed to have that information. But all this time, we had both keys in our possession, always keeping one at the armory, and the other in Challenger itself to protect the balefire eggs the city had scavenged or purchased over the past ten years since the last conflict. Now, the enemy has one of those keys. But…… without this one, they cannot touch that stockpile.”
Thank Celestia… and Luna…
Hearing that – the failsafe the city had implemented in guarding its invaluable cache – it was a real assurance, one that put many more than just myself at greater ease. However, with that benefit came a price, a threat that, while not as physically dangerous as what we’d all been initially thinking, still put a shadow over Challenger. And Royce – he put that threat into words as he addressed all those that surrounded him. “The fine details of our mission – we are to get this key to the armory, kill every single scumbag bearing the Black Blood’s colors, find the second key, and open that vault. But now that everypony here knows the technology surrounding the armory, you now know what could happen if we fail. For the first time in ten years, this key has left Challenger, and both keys will be at the Wheaton Armory together. If the enemy overruns us and scatters us… then we are in danger of them acquiring the second key and opening the vault.”
For a good long moment, there was silence. My friends and I – we weren’t Challenger soldiers, not to begin with. Because of that, this revelation was, to us, just an extremely important piece of information to take great heed to. And we all did, I knew that for a fact. But for these soldiers… they had just had revealed to them a secret that had been in place for ten years… maybe even more. And that secret added a whole new layer of urgency to the mission they’d been tasked with. “In any other circumstance, the key I have would have stayed in Challenger.” Royce added in a finalizing tone. “But with the situation being what it is, we have no time whatsoever to waste in playing by the book. The sequence of objectives that General Silverlight and Lieutenant Colonel Ajax have laid out before us have to happen one right after the next, with no gaps in between. Otherwise, the enemy will find and exploit the window of opportunity that we give them. I know you all understand already… but I feel I have to say it one more time – it’s all or nothing now.”
“Captain!”
To my right, a soldier called out for our commander’s attention, and the white earth pony looked to see a unicorn stallion trot out through the lingering dust to stand at the back of our gathering. “What’s the situation, soldier?” Royce asked him.
“A lot of injuries… eight deaths, sir…”
“I’ve got casualties here too, sir…” Then, a second soldier called out by my left, an earth mare with a twin rifle saddle and an equally somber voice. “Eleven dead, and there’s six over here that won’t be able to do much more than watch at this point.”
In the aftermath of the report, a wave of mumbling passed through the assembled soldiers, making a mix of heartbreak, of worry… and more than both of those… anger.
“What do we do, Captain?” one soldier spoke out amidst the crowd.
But at the report he’d been given, Royce set himself into a glare of determination, just the right mix of focus and anger. “We move on.” he said, addressing everypony. “Leave the dead, pack up the wounded, regroup with your teams and fall back in!” And thankfully, nopony spoke up in protest, only beginning to scatter and reform their ranks. “These assholes though they’d scare us away with this… but the way I see it, all they’ve succeeded in doing is making us all the more pissed off!” And as shouts of agreement suddenly begun to rise up from the crowd, determination taking wing quickly in the wake of this disaster, Royce said, “We’re not going to back down in the face of this attack! We’re marching on that armory, and the enemy’s going to have hell to pay for this! Pick yourselves up, and move out!”
*** *** ***
“Third floor of the parking garage, left side!”
“Got ‘em! Firing!”
With a violent roar, a missile from one of the nearby mobile guns raced out toward its target, flying quickly into the Torch’s scope as it made its way toward the four-story stone structure at the north face of our target site. I followed that missile all the way to its impact, a direct hit on the target specified by the spotter. As soon as it hit, two other raiders emerged as they were blown out of hiding, forced to scramble away. That’s when I took my own shot, lining up my crosshairs quick as I could, and biting down on the firing bit. I scored a clean headshot on one of them before the second managed to duck back down behind the concrete. But only a second later, and green light swelled within the structure, and a deep boom echoed softly from within, an old wagon’s spark battery detonating right after the missile that had trigger it.
I was a part of a pair of lines comprised of all our company’s designated sharpshooters. Everypony that had packed up or had been issued a rifle with a long scope, numbering thirty-one approximately, had been ordered to the back of the company on our final approach to our destination. And then, when the charge had begun, we fanned out quick and orderly, and set up a long line of firing positions to reach out and hit the enemy before they could hit us. That plan was well in motion now, as our double-line formation of snipers was putting nonstop pressure on the enemy, keeping their attention on protecting their own miserable hides and off the advancing main force. I was in the back line, just a few yards away from one of the two mobile missile launchers in our company that had now been retrofitted into field artillery units. The unicorn crews that manned those guns were working double-quick to keep the missiles flying, and so far were maintaining a steady rhythm in the fire they put downrange. But it was because of those guns that we had a very limited window of opportunity to get into the Armory grounds; once those turrets ran out of ammo, we’d lose a big chunk of our firepower, and our ability to protect the rest of the unit.
As it was now, the main force of the company was charging in, moving in no organized formation, and the frontrunners were only two hundred yards away from the chain-link fence that made the north perimeter of the Wheaton Armory. It was a mad dash to their destination, the only way we could approach the enemy in the open fields that surrounded the site. Every soldier not a part of our improvised sniper platoon was galloping full speed straight into the teeth of the enemy guns. And already, we’d lost ponies. I couldn’t count how many, and worse, I couldn’t know who. All I could do was keep finding and eliminating targets.
I was keeping my focus on the parking garage, scanning as quickly and accurately as I could along the balconies to try and find the enemy before they popped out from cover to take shots at our advancing soldiers. As I moved my crosshairs from the third floor up to the fourth, another missile flying free from the nearby launcher, I found several available targets. The first raider I landed on was a unicorn wielding a simple assault rifle. Even as he came under fire from the main force, he held the trigger of his weapon until I put a round right between his eyes, a pink mist shot. Right next to him, another stallion was firing a compact SMG, having just emptied a clip and returning to cover before I could center my aim on him. But a mare next to him was open, using a scoped precision carbine, too focused on aiming to be aware. After two seconds to adjust, I pulled the trigger and caught her square in the chest, the armor-piercing round punching through her leather rig to send her down in a spray of crimson.
It was then that I was jerked away from my crosshairs as metal struck sharply against metal, a sniper round glancing off the armored hull of the mobile missile launcher as a second struck the ground just inches away from the first impact. The crew of four recovered quickly and returned to their positions, one of them calling quick that he’d seen a possible attacker on the second floor of the garage through his binoculars. I hurried back to looking through the Torch’s scope, zeroing back in on that area. A whole new cluster of raiders had set up shop, at least a dozen, all lining up along the balcony there with weapons ranging from long rifles to full auto. But worse, I found a bipod-mounted heavy machinegun in the mix, already opening up with rapid cracks of sound that rang louder than much of the battle around it. Even as I put my crosshairs on the gunner, five other raiders of the line had gone down thanks to other snipers in our group. And when I took my shot, the round hit the armor plate of his shoulder and sent him down, his weapon tumbling back with him.
After putting him down, I shifted my place and brought Blue Fire’s Torch around to face the structure across the way from the garage – the armory warehouse. This building, while tall and overall rather massive, only had one balcony in the form of a catwalk that wrapped around all four sides of the structure. While sections of it had fallen away with age, many of the support beams holding the walkway in its place still remained fastened into the walls, and what parts had collapsed were replaced with thick wooden planks. Only a couple raiders were using this balcony, as it was far more exposed than the garage. But an LMG raider had gone unnoticed up there, even as another hostile wielding a pistol was hit, tumbling over the rail and taking the long fall back to the surface. I homed in on the gunner, lining up a quick shot and pulling the trigger. The round drove into his armored torso, passing just under his weapon to hit him. The force broke his concentration on his telekinesis, and his weapon fell from the balcony. Then, one more shot, and I killed him before he could try and run, which emptied my first clip.
“There! They’re starting to move into the armory!”
A call to my left, one that was very quickly passed around among the snipers scattered about that way, drew my eyes back to the ground and to where the main force of the company was pushing open the chain gate that was the entrance to the armory. Everypony moving at a gallop, they were splitting off into teams, some heading left, others right, and others still sprinting right down the road between the warehouse and the garage. Though casualties had been on a continuous rise, we’d breached the perimeter. But there were still plenty of targets out there that we needed to deal with, and with the main force now past the gate, they were far more exposed.
Quick as I could I ejected my spent clip and set the Torch down to sit up and reach around and into my saddlebags for a fresh one. As soon as I found one, however, a stray round punched into the dirt just a yard in front of me. A second round followed the first immediately after that forced me to retreat from my saddlebag, jolting me into awareness as I instead prepared to relocate, to run long enough for another sniper to try and take the pressure off me, a solid tactic that had gotten us this far. Now, for the first time I got a good solid look around at the rest of the platoon… though it was scary what I found. Another rocket raced out from the launcher farthest away, leaving a thin smoke trail in its wake. But between me and the launcher, I saw at least seven dead from our platoon, and others were moving to present themselves as a harder target to hit. I followed suit in that regard, scooping up the Torch by the stock and setting off into a gallop to the east, toward the far end of the platoon. Even as I ran, another round hit close to me, nipping at my tail with the dirt it kicked up. But after passing behind another half dozen snipers, and with no other bullets striking behind me, I took a gander and set up shop once more, setting my rifle back down on its bipod and resuming my search for a new clip. This time, I was able to snag it without interruption, and pulling it free, I set myself back down onto my gut, and with my hooves, guided the clip into its place and finally chambered a new round.
I had done so just in time, as the last squads of the main force were pushing their way into the Wheaton compound. A whole mess of gunfire beyond the chain-link perimeter told me that the raiders had set up a considerable defensive force deeper within the base. It led me to wonder if Royce and Ajax’s estimates of the enemy numbers hadn’t been as correct as I’d hoped. But all I could do was keep providing what support I could, and prepare to move up; once the whole main force entered the base and begun their own mission to sweep and clear the northern half of the base, we’d be heading up to join them.
*** *** ***
“YOU FOUR, HEAD RIGHT!! CUT AROUND THE GARAGE AND HELP HIT THE OFFICES!!”
Under the steady roar of gunfire coming just yards down the road, Captain Royce ushered us to the right with a frantic hoof. And tucking the All-Equestrian close, I took the lead of our group and made a mad dash to the west wall of the wagon garage. Thanks to the sniper support provided by the platoon we’d left in the fields, a great deal of the enemy presence closest to us had been eliminated. They’d done a near perfect job in paving the way for us, and in our charge, we’d come under a lot less fire than we’d been expecting. Now it was time to do our part – we were to take over each of the five structures that made up the Wheaton Armory one piece at a time, starting with the garage and the single great warehouse. As a part of one of the last teams to enter the compound, we were able to avoid entering those larger buildings; the first squads were already inside and fighting their way through. But with being among the last to enter, Raemor, Ivy, and I were now moving up to become a part of the front line force that was pushing their way to the office complex behind the garage, the third of our five target sites.
The three of us, along with one other Challenger soldier – Duke, the blue unicorn who was our greeter way back when we’d first discovered Challenger – moved at an even speed along the wall and rounded the northwest corner one by one. We were following on the heels of a squad of six, who had just brought down one stray raider that had chanced a peek over the stone railing of one of the upper floors of the garage. Thankfully, no one else copied that move, making it safe to say that the garage was well under control thus far.
“How are we holding up??”
Though I didn’t look behind me as I asked the question, I heard positive remarks from both Ivy and Raemor. And after, Duke called back, saying, “One of our flak guns should be right up ahead! That thing will give us plenty of protection!”
I could hear the signature ringing cracks of the twenty millimeter already, and as we closed in on the southwest corner of the garage, the squad ahead of us disappearing swiftly behind the wall to join in the ensuing firefight, I was already plotting out where I’d move once we joined the battle. Whether a part of the original base layout, or the result of Challenger’s acquisition of the facility, there were a number of crates and barrels in organized stacks, piled up on steel pallets. And beyond them, I could see the edge of a rusty shipping container. Already, Challenger soldiers had taken up positions there as they put down their collective fire on the office complex that I was also able to see.
Then we were moving into the fight itself, passing the last stretch of the wall to emerge into a short clearing before a small storage yard. And without slowing I sprinted into the open and toward the first available cover I could find. On my way through, I found the flak gun, set up between two pallets of metal barrels and delivering an unending barrage that had already torn up a great length of the office building’s wall. Then I was in position, finally stopping to catch my breath as Raemor, Ivy, and then Duke came and joined me. Immediately after we had settled, a whole mess of rounds struck sharply off the metal barrels that made our cover, causing all of us to flinch as we readied our weapons.
“We’ve got a lot of ponies stuck here in this yard!” Duke shouted over the noise, chambering the first round of his standard assault rifle. “If one of you wants to provide some cover, the rest of us can move down to the other end and flank those assholes!”
Hovering my LMG close, I met his eyes to give him a nod. “I can cover you! Raemor, Ivy!” Quickly, I looked back to the others, who were just now listening in. “Follow his lead!”
“We clear out one of those windows long enough, and then we can get inside the building and take the fight to them!” Duke called back. “We just have to fan out more, engage more targets at the same time!”
“Just say when!”
“Right now!!”
With a start, I saw as Duke hooked around our cover and dashed away without warning. As Ivy galloped by me with her SMG in tow, I followed long enough to emerge from hiding and face the office building behind my iron sights. Unlike the parking garage, the office complex only had one story. Most of the windows within fifty yards of us were occupied by a raider trying to keep the rest of us pinned, or trying to get the jump on the twenty millimeter. With so many targets to choose from, I took aim at the closest window and opened up. I held the trigger, sweeping to the right along the openings, and then back to the left. Right when I completed my first pass, knocking out three targets in the process, one of the windows I’d passed by belched out fire and debris as two grenades detonated within the building one after the next. Even without looking, I knew Raemor was lobbing the explosives with his grenade APW, and when I returned to cover to protect myself from retaliatory fire, I found the old unicorn standing just outside his own cover behind a pallet of metal boxes sitting just in front of the larger shipping container. With one more trigger pull, he sent one more grenade into the offices, blowing apart another room within the complex before he too returned to hiding.
With the three of them having made it to cover, I focused on my own situation. One of the raiders was watching my location, but with so many windows, it was impossible to tell where he was. That didn’t deter me from making another move, swinging my LMG back around and stepping partway out of cover to take aim. My sights fell on one raider immediately, and a burst of ten rounds put the earth mare down. At the neighboring window to the left, I saw out of the corner of my eye another raider as he was taken out by a soldier positioned closer to the flak gun. I painted a target on the neighboring window to the right, where an enemy unicorn was taking potshots at the soldiers closer to the garage with a bolt-action rifle. With him thus being so distracted, I lined him up and brought him down with another quick burst. But that was when, just to the right of him, I caught movement as another raider occupied a formerly empty window. I ducked back into cover on instinct, instinct that once again served well as my pallet of metal drums came under fire from a lighter automatic weapon with a high fire rate. However, unlike my own weapon, the fire let up only a couple seconds later as the raider emptied out her clip; that’s when I made my move. As I’d expected, I found an empty window where my attacker once stood. But I didn’t waste time waiting, instead adjusting to find another target that was focusing her own carbine where Ivy and Raemor and Duke had sought cover. A quick strafe across her window, and I knocked her to the floor, at least disabling her.
Then I ducked back and away, anticipating another attack against my position. But instead, I heard another trio of detonations from within the offices, the lighter-yield but powerful blasts of Raemor’s twenty-five millimeter grenades. I looked out from cover back to their position, finding him as he was reloading that grenade rifle. Just past him, Ivy was putting fire downrange with her heavy SMG. But past her, I saw with a start as Duke ran out from cover and made a mad dash for the offices in a bold and very sudden move. I didn’t know if other soldiers had already tried or not, but after one quick check of the area ahead, I leapt out from cover and ran for the wall, moving closer to try and cover him. It was a short run, but before I even got past a yard from my cover, I saw the same raider come back up from behind her hiding spot, now pointing a freshly loaded weapon to me. But a split second after, and she was strafed as an arc of heavy rounds caught her across the torso, sending her down. And farther to the left, I saw another raider out of the corner of my eye as a headshot took him down. Ahead, Duke beat me to the wall, not even slowing the momentum he picked up as he came upon an empty window. And with a leap, he sailed right through the opening and disappeared into the lingering smoke from Raemor’s grenades. I was on the same window a moment later, stopping against the wall to check inside. Duke had tucked and rolled, leaping over the corpses that had begun to pile up on the other side of the sill, and ending up on his left side to face the nearest doorway with his assault rifle floating above him. But from my position, I saw somepony that he didn’t, another hostile sticking to the far corner of the office just in front of a pile of old desks, cabinets, and cubicle dividers. He had been taken by surprise by Duke’s entrance, but was very quickly recovering to bring a double-barrel shotgun to bear against him. But I beat the raider to the trigger pull, putting over a dozen rounds in him before he finally went down against the pile of wreckage behind him.
Wordless, though receiving a nod of thanks from Duke, I backed up to get momentum, and then leapt through the window to get inside. Just as I did, another pony landed at the other end of the room to join us – Ivy, who quickly turned around and looked outside long enough for Raemor to haul himself into the room behind me; now we were all inside the target building. “Everypony okay??” Duke called out, picking himself up while keeping his weapon pointed for the doorway at the front of the room. “No injuries?”
“No injuries, we’re fine.” Ivy remarked quickly, trying to catch her breath.
“LOOK OUT!”
Raemor gave that warning just a second before he fired his pistol for the doorway, in unison with Duke’s rifle. Their combined fire drove back another raider who’d tried to sight us in. But just when I was sure he would’ve retaliated, that raider emerged again only to collapse onto the floor, downed by a round to the back of the head. As soon as he fell, two more rifle shots echoed through the hall, tracer rounds slicing through my field of vision just before two allies jumped over the fallen raider and rushed down the hall; we were gaining ground!
“Let’s go back them up!”
Taking the lead once again, I found Duke just before he hooked around the doorframe and into the hall to follow his comrades. Right as I made my way after him, falling in just in front of Raemor, he opened up with his assault rifle, the rapid muzzle flashes painting the darker hall with light. When I found him, I saw two different raiders collapse under the combined fire from Duke and the other two soldiers, the latter having ducked into two different office rooms. But right away another one took the place of the downed enemies, and taking Duke by surprise, she opened up with an SMG. Lacking cover, Duke hit the floor to protect himself, and I felt three rounds cross my chest plate. But the armor soaked up the lighter-caliber bullets with ease, giving me all the time I needed to send a quick burst of much more powerful rounds out in return that dropped the mare before she could hide again. I kept my iron sights on the hall after that kill, and only a second later, found another raider that tried to head back further down the corridor, approaching a four-way intersection. I got him before he could get to cover, striking along his poorly armored back and putting the killshot into his neck.
Duke pushed himself back up to all fours, keeping his own weapon facing down the hall. And just ahead of him, the two soldiers stepped out from hiding one after the next, and they pushed ahead past the bodies of the dead raiders and up to the lip of the intersection. But as we followed up after them, the soldier on the right suddenly jerked to the side under a barrage of automatic fire, and was sent sprawling to the floor, killed by two consecutive shots to the head. The other soldier managed to get away, ducking back against the wall and putting precious distance between himself and the crossing hallway. Then he retaliated with a short angry cry, swinging his rifle around the corner to fire blind as Duke hurried over to take the fallen soldier’s place, putting down fire of his own to back up his comrade.
“Up ahead, Gunny!”
Though there was steady enemy fire coming from the crossway, Raemor’s warning directed my attention straight ahead, further down our current hall that led deeper into the complex. From a corner at the end of the hall, three more raiders emerged as a group, all of them armed with long rifles. “DOWN!!” I shouted back, just as all three of them fired a scattered volley, shattering chunks of the walls around us with high-caliber rounds as I crouched down low. But right when I was about to rise back up and return fire, I was suddenly shoved to the side, pushed up against the wall right before three hollow thumps sounded one after the next. Before I could even look again, the three new hostiles were engulfed in shrapnel and dust as the grenades from Raemor’s APW blew them away.
After that we were clear to move. At the intersection, Duke and the other soldier had managed to bring down whoever had been targeting them, and were now fighting together down that hall, pressing farther in to where it turned left toward the far side of the complex. When I came to the intersection I checked left for more hostile contacts, and when I found the new hall cleared, I called for the others to join me. “It’s a straight shot to the exit!” I spoke up over the continuing firefights around us. Behind me, I heard a larger collection of running hooves, all belonging to the soldiers that had followed us in; they were moving further southward through the building.
“I hear more fighting farther ahead!” Ivy chimed in reply. “Other soldiers must have gotten in through different parts of the building!”
“There must be a lot more of them here than we thought!” Raemor added after. “Between the outside and then in here, we’ve cut through a lot of them already!”
“Let’s just keep at it!”
Taking my advice to heart, I made my way up, keeping the All-Equestrian partly raised as I begun to distinguish the fighting that Ivy had made mention of. This hall was devoid of additional rooms, likely a bridge between the offices and whatever open chamber waited for us up ahead; and it was in that room that the closest skirmish was occurring. Automatic weapon fire took precedence over the smaller cracks of lighter-caliber rifles and pistols. As we closed in, beginning to hug the wall as we neared the entrance to this new room, I could even pick up voices coming from both sides of the fight, shouting orders and warnings. But right when we drew up to the end of the bridge, I jerked back as a missile came flying by, coming from the left and racing to the right before detonating in a fiery blast that shook the floor beneath my hooves. As soon as the dust from the impact rolled into the room, I stepped out into the open, coming in right in sync with another three Challenger soldiers, one of whom was telekinetically holding over his back a whole triple-barrel missile launcher.
“Good to see friendly faces!” one of them called, looking right to me as Raemor and Ivy followed close behind me. “You all okay?!”
“Fine!” I responded quickly. “You?!”
“Same! We’re making our way toward the far end of the building!” the same soldier answered. “There’s at least one or two more teams past us trying to secure the building’s lobby! If you three could give them a hoof in taking that entrance, it’d let us link up with the main unit moving down the center of the base!”
“Yeah, we can make it there!”
The missile launcher stallion then suddenly raised a hoof, pointing to the hallway across to the one we’d just come from. “It’s right down that way! Shouldn’t be far!”
Behind their squad, two other soldiers appeared and formed ranks with them, making ready to move across the room and into their next destination. “There’s a bunch of em’ still hiding out in here!” I warned, keeping my eyes on the next hallway. “You all watch yourselves!”
“You three do the same!”
They allowed us to go first, and I took the opportunity to make my way through the small lounge, arriving quickly to the lip of the next hall. “Got one down the hall!!” I jerked at the sharp crack of a rifle right nearby, a shot that was greeted with a short but startling burst of automatic fire as I spun around. Both Ivy and Raemor hurried to me to get to cover, all of us facing the Challenger soldiers as they too scattered. But the missile launcher stallion stood right in the face of the enemy attack, leveling out his heavy weapon and letting another missile fly, racing straight and true into the hall before belching fire and dust into the room. “Move up, move up!” And as a single unit, the group of five charged ahead to enter the next hall.
Once they disappeared, I focused back on our own destination. Everything ahead of us was clear, all the way up to where the path branched into a three-way intersection about thirty yards down. Hearing the hooves of Ivy and Raemor keeping up behind me, I made my way up without a word, moving as fast and light as I could, though still keeping myself cautious. There were no other side rooms here either, not until we reached the intersection itself. Off to the left side, there were three dead raiders just freshly killed, and the hind legs of a fourth poked out from where another hallway branched out toward our destination. On the right side, it was all new territory, an empty hall devoid of friendlies or hostiles. But despite this, I wanted to keep us moving toward the lobby.
“Which way, Gunny?” Ivy’s voice piped up in question.
Like the left side, another hall forked away from the main path, following the same S-curve shape; and that was where I pointed the All-Equestrian. “Down here. Follow me.”
“I’ll cover behind us while we move.” Raemor assured quickly, lingering back as he kept watch.
Into the new hallway we went, Ivy keeping close behind, Raemor staying farther back, though matching our pace step for step. This hall was spaced with four different rooms, two on each side, and all of them with closed doors, before turning to the right. A new swell in gunfire came from that way, showing me that we were closing in. But first… “Ivy, let’s check and clear these rooms.”
“Alright.”
“I’ll take the right side, you take left.” I didn’t watch to make sure she complied with me; her silence made me feel comfortable enough that she was following through. Instead I made my way up to the first door and leaned up against the wall just before it. And in a split-second decision, I forsook stealth entirely and rotated the All-Equestrian to point right for it, and then opened up, strafing the center from right to left, and then crossing again at the bottom left to right, all in one longer burst. But just when I pulled the weapon back to me, dust and wood blew out from the door as an enemy returned fire from within the room with his own automatic rifle. I collapsed onto my gut, my armor soaking up two more hits with more difficulty, and I heard as Ivy let out a startled yelp behind me. But despite my immediate fear that she’d been hit, the door behind me was flung open, and a voice cried out a savage yell. I got my hooves under me and begun to turn, throwing up the All-Equestrian in an impulse reflex to defend myself. And I felt the jarring impact a split moment later, and caught out of the corner of my eye the long blade of a machete as it deflected off my LMG’s stock. With the blade off to the side, I snapped my weapon forward as I locked onto the attacker, clocking him in the muzzle with the end of the stock. And before he could even stumble two steps, he snapped back the opposite direction as a single round punched through his skull. That gave me the room I needed to spin back around and face my own target. The door was now open, and inside – Ivy was grappling with the raider who’d hidden within, and with forehooves locked, they struggled to try and overpower one another. But with a twist of her body, she got her opponent to lurch forward as she broke the grapple, and when he fell, she had her SMG on him, and with a quick burst, put him down; she was unharmed.
A pair of sharp detonations jolted my attention back to the hall, where the dust and debris fresh from Raemor’s grenades was churning wildly. Another raider lay dead in the midst of it, but one more emerged, the earth mare immediately opening up with a pair of repeater rifles on a saddle. One pair of rounds caught my right flank, but once more my armor toughed it out, and in retaliation I strafed the hall from left to right. My arc went too high, cutting through the dust just above her. But the attack got her to flinch and duck, which gave me enough time to reach for my second weapon, and a single blast of buckshot to the head from my riot shotgun brought her down. In that moment, Raemor pushed ahead, pistol and grenade rifle both leveled, and swung the latter into the right-side room. Two trigger pulls, and he blasted the whole thing apart, not even flinching at the wave of dust and splintered wood that blew out into the hall. And as he stepped away from the open doorframe I moved up to join him, sweeping the All-Equestrian’s iron sights over the empty space, finding no hostile target within.
Now we were finally clear to make our way to the entrance.
“All clear… you two okay?”
“Fine here.” Raemor responded.
“A little shaky, but good otherwise.” Ivy answered after.
“Good. Let’s move.” Picking up my pace to a solid trot, I returned my shotgun to its place over my back and brought the All-Equestrian back to the front before we rounded the next corner of the hall. A short distance ahead of that was one more turn, still clear of enemies. And crossing through that finally brought us in range of our target destination. One final stretch led to a set of collapsed double doors, beyond which a whole new firefight was in full effect. The enemy’s red and black was the first thing I saw, two more raiders positioned behind a pair of toppled filing cabinets stacked up like bricks, their backs to us. And they were both firing straight ahead of them, where I saw glimpses of muzzle flashes that faced them in return, definitely positioned outside the building. The sheer volume of gunfire within told me that there was a lot of players in the fight, but we had a clear advantage here that I was going to exploit.
“Heads up behind you!” The gunfire nearly masked the voice that called behind us, but I still heard when a stallion tried to reach us. And I looked over my shoulder just in time to see as Duke came trotting up to us, falling in right behind Ivy and Raemor. “This building’ll be ours shortly. All that’s left is the entrance.”
“They don’t know we’re here yet.” Raemor responded, facing front with a glare as he raised up his grenade rifle. “Let’s get in there.”
“Do your thing.” I encouraged, stepping aside as he crouched and trotted ahead to take the lead. And a moment later, he let three grenades fly in rapid succession. The two raiders didn’t even know what hit them as they and their cover were blasted away. “Okay, GO!” Together we sprinted fast as we could, Raemor switching his weapons to draw his pistol as I leveled the All-Equestrian. Without any encounter, we arrived at the open entryway to the lobby, and uniform, we skidded to a halt to take aim into the room. On my side, I immediately found two other positions where the enemy was dug in. Two sandbag barriers, long and tall, shielded over a dozen of them from the Challenger soldiers that were right outside the shattered windows and doorframes at the office complex entrance; there had been several allied casualties out there that I could see from here.
Raemor’s sneak attack had shocked them out of the fight, bringing their eyes to us, but not their weapons. And without even sighting in, I opened fire on the line and carved my way along the first position. As I held the trigger, cutting them down one after the next, a second automatic weapon joined me, Ivy following my lead, and Duke doing the same right after. In just a couple seconds, we had all of us mowed down everypony hiding there. But it was here that my clip finally ran dry, the same with Ivy as well. Then we had to scatter as return fire met us with almost equal ferocity. Those first two positions weren’t the only ones that had been built up in the massive lobby. To the right side, a whole other arc of sandbags coupled with crude iron plates had been established, and atop one of the barriers was a heavy machinegun, the weapon that sent us running. I had dived to the sandbags we’d just cleared out, scrambling to where the edge of the barrier met one of the four stone pillars that still stood in this room. When I came to a halt, setting about reloading, I saw Ivy as she put herself back onto all fours, keeping low and staying close to me as she ejected the empty clip from her SMG. The heavy machinegun targeting us kept its sights on the pillar that was shielding us, tearing away at the weakened stonework. A second after, and its trail of fire diverted, sweeping along the far wall and to the entrance that we’d come from, driving back whoever had tried to get a shot off from that position.
The heavy weapon passed by my pillar once again, the gunner keeping the trigger pulled, before directing its fury out past the office doors. By then, I’d clipped my empty magazine to its place on my armor and loaded up a fresh one, chambering the first round. And without a pause, I scrambled out behind the now shredded pillar enough to poke my head out and take aim. I focused right on the unicorn gunner, right down to his glaring eyes as he tried to keep the assembled Challenger soldiers outside from gaining any more ground. Even as he himself was under fire, even as one of his comrades went down right beside him, he kept up his attack, the barrel of his weapon beginning to glow with heat. But one trigger pull, one long burst, and I shelled his cover and drew up to catch him right in the head, sending him reeling back and finally silencing the heavy weapon.
Retreating back to my hiding place, I spared a quick moment to check on the others. Ivy was putting fire downrange against the last barricade, trying to bring down any stragglers still alive behind the sandbags. To the right, I found both Raemor and Duke, along with one new arrival, sticking together at the lip of the hallway we’d come from, all firing together to where the remaining enemy reinforcements were now filing through to try and reinforce their position here. Even as they kept up a constant attack together, another raider managed to get her telekinesis around the heavy machinegun I’d just silenced, driving the three of them back into hiding.
But just as I was about to come back out to fire again, poking my head up from cover as Ivy returned to her shelter to reload again, the whole enemy barricade erupted into flame when a missile smashed into it, coming from outside. The blast washed me with heat before I collapsed back to cover to protect myself. And after a cloud of smoke and dust passed over me, I hurried back up to my hooves to see the enemy position again. The barrier had been wholly obliterated by the high-yield explosive, completely collapsing it. And in the wake of the attack, no new reinforcements were attempting to make their way out of the hall beyond. However, off to the left, a half dozen Challenger soldiers leapt into the lobby in rapid succession, immediately making their way for that hall; the soldier in the very rear of the line was holding a single-barrel break-action missile launcher in his telekinesis.
They met no opposition as the squad advanced into the building and made their way down that hall, showing no more reinforcements in the immediate vicinity. And thanks to the breakthrough they’d been able to make, we now had the office complex entrance, with the rest of the building slowly turning over to our control. But as I rallied the others together once again, we one and all faced the outside as Challenger’s soldiers advanced down the road, crossing in front of the lobby on their way up toward the south end of the base, and putting down a wall of fire on whatever enemy positions awaited them.
The fight still wasn’t over; we had two more sites to secure. And without a word, we made our way to the outside to join in the charge.
*** *** ***
All the way to the base perimeter, I flew low over the ground to keep from being too exposed to any remaining hostiles in the closest two structures. But thankfully, the flight was clear all the way to the fence, and at my arrival, I pumped my wings quick to pull myself up all the way to the top floor of the garage. After the main force had successfully worked through those first two sites, our platoon of snipers had been called to advance and link up with the rest of the company. Most of them would be mixing in with the main force, as the base had few vantage points for sniping. But in my case, I knew where to go even without being ordered to do so.
I crested the top of the garage with one final pulse of my wings, settling into a glide as I passed over the top floor’s northern edge. This level, home to four different heavily corroded wagons, was the sight of a firefight that had just finished, as I saw one Challenger soldier just as he pulled the barrel of his rifle from the head of a fallen raider, having just executed her there. There were five other allies here on the roof, and one unicorn was already taking shots from the far balcony. I closed in on that position, landing a couple yards away to gallop the rest of the way over to join that soldier by the stone. And when I arrived, I paused long enough to look overhead as Sierra moved by at an intentionally slow pace, which was quickly sped up as she hooked a slight left and dove, letting loose a missile from her launcher.
“Good to see you, pegasus!” the nearby soldier called, pulling his carbine from the wall and ducking down to reload. “But shouldn’t you be airborne?!”
“The enemy’s too thick here!” I called back. “I can do more at long range right now!”
He gave me one nod as he loaded a fresh magazine. “Well I’m glad you’re up here! Looks like the biggest mess of them is in that big clearing outside our primary target and the command center across from it! They were getting started on some fortifications before we showed up! Now they’re putting to use!”
As he explained, I set the legs of the Torch’s bipod up on the ledge and reared up to balance myself on my hindlegs, situating myself into as good a sniping position as I could. “I see them!” From this vantage point, I had a full view of what was now the main battlefield through my scope. Tracing closest to my new position first, I traveled up along the office complex, which looked to be by and large secured. And at the entrance at the far end of the structure, I even saw, much to my relief, Gunny as he stepped through one of the doorframes, holding in his telekinesis an old yet sturdy iron plate and dragging it along with him as a shield. Ivy was right behind him, sharing his cover and keeping close for fire support. Raemor was with them, hanging back at the edge of the office building’s lobby. And Duke – little Lucan’s family friend – was there with him, waiting for a chance to move up. The sight of them on the move served well to rejuvenate me, pushing away the fatigue that had been taking its first steps toward slowing me down.
Just ahead of them was the bulk of the main unit. As casualties had begun to mount in their charge forward, many soldiers were able to find cover behind captured Black Blood fortifications – sandbag barriers, plate walls, and even a couple of old wagons near the center of the base itself. Those who were out in the open were being forced away under the fire coming from the Black Blood’s final line. Comprised of what was indeed the beginnings of a pair of new two-story, rectangular shacks, with a half-dozen sandbag barriers set up before them, there was a whole mess of raiders hiding out behind whatever cover they managed to scrounge up, from their main fortifications and all around them, all the way to Wheaton’s centrally-located radio tower and the two remaining buildings under their control.
But I didn’t take the time to study them, only sighting in and lining up my first shot. With the advantage of being undetected in the midst of the firefight, I could choose my first target more carefully. I found my crosshairs drifting over the second floor of the right-side shack, crossing over three different raiders all gathered up close by to one another. And in the middle of these first three, one trigger-happy unicorn mare was holding down the trigger of a bipod-mounted light machinegun. Two seconds and one trigger pull, and I put one well-deserved round right through her left eye. Neither of her companions even noticed as she went down, one still focusing on emptying the clip of his modified assault rifle while the second returned to cover to reload his carbine. As such I moved right to the former of the two, and after a second to steady my aim, fired and blew open his left shoulder, not killing him, but taking him out of the fight.
Though other raiders were on that second floor, I diverted my aim down to the ground after a suddenly larger eruption of muzzle flashes flickered in the bottom of my scope. A larger concentration of raiders were positioned behind the rear line of sandbags, and they’d managed to pull off a ragged volley. With no time here to be picky, I targeted the first raider I settled my crosshairs on, a unicorn with a stocked SMG as she fired in quick, short bursts; I pegged her with one shot to the side, sending her crumpling back behind her cover. The closest raiders to her gave the spot where she fell a wider berth in response to her cries, only to return their focus to the front. With that I still had the freedom I needed to find a new target, the male earth pony next door, and take another shot. This time I got an instant killshot, one right to the top of the head that smashed him down onto his sandbag barrier before he toppled over to the side.
Even these raiders weren’t so dumb as to realize that something was amiss. The raider next to the one I’d just killed was calling to his nearby allies as he fired another trio of rounds from his semi-auto rifle, trying to speak up over the rage that dominated the battlefield. He was the one I targeted next, lining up as he retracted his forehooves from atop the barrier and returned to all fours. But when I fired, the shot went just shy of him and hit the dirt right next to his left hind leg, the consequence brought by the distraction from his movement. He stumbled from the near miss, eyes falling right onto where the bullet hit even before the dust settled. And it was when I lined back up to try again that his eyes came upward, right onto my position.
I saw his mouth open through my scope, saw as he begun to call again. But I gave him not one more second, and with another trigger pull, I finally put him down with a clean, textbook headshot. Now, my clip was empty, and I pulled Blue Fire’s Torch off the railing and set it on the floor as I crouched down low. With practiced hooves I hit the clip’s release lever, dropping it to the ground. Then I was on my saddlebag, digging in to find my last magazine in the right-side pack. Once out, I returned to prone and set about guiding the clip to its slot, and beside me, the Challenger soldier with me joined me as he reloaded as well, having a much easier time with his telekinesis. “Hey!” Getting his attention after lining up the clip, I spoke out over the noise in question, “I’ve got an ammo pouch in my right saddlebag! Could you fish out twelve rounds and reload my two empty magazines?!”
“Yeah, you got it!” came his reply, rearming his carbine before setting it aside and coming over to look through my pack. “You need to stay in the game up here!”
With both forehooves, I guided my last clip into the weapon, securing it, and finally pulling back on the cocking handle to chamber a new round. And once my comrade gathered what he needed out of my bag, I slung myself back up and returned to my sniping position. Back through the scope, the fight below was turning into a stalemate. Lots of ponies from both sides were putting down constant fire, but were engaged in a massive game of cat and mouse, ducking and dodging, poking out to fire, then hiding again. And for a moment, nopony could seem to get a good angle on the other. On our side, Sierra was still at work with her heavy weapons, diving in to attack and then racing away, basically a flying tank all on her own. But on the other side, heavy weapons were tucked away to keep up almost equal pressure on our own ponies. And with adequate cover available to both factions, it was slow-going for Challenger’s soldiers on the ground.
But I still had my advantage of height in play against the enemy.
I sighted the forward line of sandbags, bringing the crosshairs down on a raider with a bolt-action rifle. As he was chambering another round, I took my shot and succeeded in disarming him, blasting his weapon from his telekinesis wholesale though missing my intended target area. Still, I wasted no time in moving on as that raider threw himself to the dirt to hide. Next to him about a yard away was another unicorn with a similar long rifle, a lever-action that he was operating rapidly; one shot to the spine brought him down.
CRACK!
Suddenly, in a violent clap, the railing right by my rifle split, and a shard of stone stung my neck. I recoiled sharply with a yelp of alarm, dropping my rifle as I lurched back for it to clatter to the floor. And with sudden realization, I ducked back down, crouching well below the top of the rail. “Sniper! There’s a sniper onto me out there!”
“I saw that!” the soldier next to me responded, keeping his cool and tugging on my saddlebag with his telekinesis; he deposited two newly loaded magazines and the ammo pouch within and closed it back up. “I don’t know where, but that round was too powerful and too precise to be anything but a sniper!” As I leveled out my breath, I took a glance over to my comrade, seeing him as he pulled his carbine across the stone and back to him. And with searching eyes he looked back to me to ask, “What do we do about him?! You want to move out, get to the ground?!”
It only took a moment of thought to answer with a shake of my head. “No! We need to find him and put him down!”
“Got any ideas?!”
“Yeah, we need to relocate, that way we can buy ourselves a couple seconds to try and find this bastard!”
The soldier nodded, hoisting up his rifle. “Sounds good to me!” he called back. “We do that, then I’ll try and find him and let you know where he is so you can take a shot!” And once I nodded my agreement and picked up the Torch by the stock, clamping my jaws down tight around it, we were on the move. As I headed left, he came right, and we crossed paths before putting more distance between ourselves, moving closer to the corners of the floor. I stopped just shy of my own corner, turning myself around to see where my partner was placing himself. He’d already set himself up as close to his corner as he could, watching me and waiting for me to position myself. When I did, I gave him the nod to go, and quick as he could, he reared up behind cover, floating his rifle to eye level as he tried to find our hidden attacker. But just a couple seconds of looking and he snappily ducked back down, just a blink before another high-powered rifle round smashed into the railing, scattering tiny fragments of the aged stone through the air amidst the concrete dust kicked up from the shot.
Amidst the continuous gunfire below, I had been able to pick up a distinguished sound, a lingering echo right after the bullet hit the stone; it was definitely farther back… but I couldn’t quite tell.
“I didn’t see him!” the soldier called to me as I set the Torch down on its bipod.
“Look to the rear, past those raider shacks!” I suggested, situating my weapon for when I’d emerge from hiding. The soldier didn’t reply as he drew in closer to me, finding a happy medium between his first and second location along the railing. Eventually he settled, but stayed low as he instead focused his telekinesis on his combat armor rig, unclipping from his right flank plate a canteen on a strap. And in the air, he turned it upside-down, hiding the strap, and then floated it over the top of the railing.
Just a second later, and the canteen was blown out of his telekinesis, water splashing out from the exit hole as it slid along the concrete, and eventually pooling up where it fell still. That was when I made my move, pulling myself up over cover to search. Past the raiders’ fortifications, the grounds of the armory were near empty. And just as I suspected, only a few ponies marked the surface. That was all the time I allowed to observe, to memorize the details I found. As Sierra made another dive, her minigun buzzing violently as she strafed one of the shacks, I ducked back down to hide myself again. No shot was returned by the enemy sniper, but I knew he was down there looking, waiting for the right opportunity.
“What do you think?!” my fellow soldier called, keeping himself crouched as he looked to me. “Did you find him?!”
“He’s out back behind the shacks!” I answered him over the continuing noise below. “I couldn’t pinpoint him, but there’s more than a couple sharpshooters out there!”
“I don’t have anything else I can use as a decoy!” he replied, making his way along toward the center of the railing.
“Then we’ll have to figure out something else!” I said back, then picking the Torch back up and passing him by as I relocated again.
“Yeah, I pop up first then you, find him and take a shot while he’s checking me out!”
His proposition came up when I got into my next position, allowing for me to drop the Torch to protest. “What?! Are you nuts?!... HEY!!”
But he didn’t even answer me. Instead, he was already bracing to move, and he gave me only enough time to bring my rifle back to the ready before he was up. He took aim with his carbine, and I followed him up quick as I could, rearing up onto my hindlegs, hoisting up the Torch and placing the bipod back onto the railing. After a quick adjustment, I was looking down my scope once more, already focused over the back of the raiders’ last line of defense. And after a quick sweep, I finally caught the bastard, a unicorn raider out in the open just as he closed the bolt on his rifle. He’d already gotten a shot off, and I could see as he already made to try and center up on me next. But I took my shot before he could, and right when he brought his own rifle up, I put a round right through the scope and into his eye.
An exhale of relief escaped me at the quick end to the standoff I’d won us, and ducked back down quick, dragging the Torch with me. “Hey! I got him!” I called to my friend, looking over to where he’d been positioned. “We’re okay n…” But instead of hugging the wall such as he’d done before… the stallion was sprawled out on his side just a yard away from it, his back to me… surrounded by spatters of his own blood and…
I took an involuntary step away at the sight of the dripping bloody crater on the back of his head… and only after a great deal of effort did I force myself away from the sight of him, bringing my attention back onto the fight below.
The battleground had changed – I could tell just from the symphony of gunfire below. Challenger’s force was on the move, having won some ground, and the raiders were thinning. When I rose back up to see for myself, I found Challenger’s force spreading out and bowing in from the main line, rejoining fire teams that had made their way around the office complex and the main warehouse. They had successfully formed an arc before the enemy, stretching all the way from the radio tower to the office building’s southeast corner. All three flak guns in our unit were set and firing, one by the radio tower, one by the office building, and one before the center ranks. With that, our missile turrets were back into the fight at the rear of our ranks, having just sent out two warheads that ripped one of the raiders’ shacks in half. And finally, further back, I found the first signs of fighting at the rear of the enemy line, only light skirmishes. But that sight put a much needed dose of hope in me – we were starting to break through!
As I focused back on the main line, setting up the Torch to keep up my support role, I finally reacquired my friends out in the mess. They had moved up with the right side of the arc, though still remaining close to the middle of the formation. Thanks to that, I had a perfect view of all four of them, and Duke as well, and could follow them right to their targets to help. And so I did, settling back into position and focusing through my scope again. All five of them were right next to the other, targeting different positions. Up ahead of them, the line was thick with raiders, most of them firing blind over their cover as they became more and more desperate. I zeroed in on one such enemy, who only rose up quick out of cover to take no more than a single shot with his carbine before falling back behind the sandbags. This time, he was trying a more precise shot, his mistake as I lined up and fired; I took him down with a shot to the chest, allowing Ivy to turn her focus on a new adversary.
I adjusted left, just slightly to find a raider that drove Gunny back to cover with a surprise burst of automatic rifle fire. And I caught him just before he could make it back to safety, putting a round in his shoulder to take him out of the fight. Then, further away in the opposite direction, I found another bold stallion emerge, putting down round after round with a heavy-caliber carbine. At the base of my scope, I saw as he took out one Challenger soldier before forcing Raemor and Duke back down. I lined up on him while he was in the rush of the moment, of having just made a kill, and one shot to the head put an end to his part in the fighting.
After that round, my clip was empty.
Pulling my eye back from the scope, the full view of the battlefield returned just as Sierra strafed the enemy position again with her minigun. Rounds sparked off her armor as she flew in low to strike her chosen targets, but she didn’t even flinch as she completed her run and took off and away to begin her circle back around. And only moments after, two more missiles hit home right in the center of the enemy position. That attack nearly cut the enemy line in half, and by the time I had gone through the process of reloading, our line was beginning to close the distance on the remaining enemy force.
“We’ve got you now.” I whispered this aloud to myself as I looked to the battle through my scope once more. My friends were moving up with those Challenger soldiers who had taken up the cry to advance. Gunny was in the lead, his makeshift metal shield held in front of him, and his LMG floating off to the right side of the plate, putting down a steady barrage. Ivy was right behind him, stepping out to take shots with her lever-action every few steps. And Raemor, having a short but adequate stretch of open terrain in front of him, was taking the opportunity to rain hell down on the enemy with his grenade rifle, with Duke backing him up with his own AR.
Together they formed a single powerful unit, and gladly, I took up the mantle of protecting their advance. With Gunny’s shield, they were becoming more of a target by those raiders that remained closest to them, and it was an almost constant light show as bullets struck and were reflected by the metal. My first target was in the middle of backing away from his barricade, holding down the trigger of his SMG as he did. He was easy to follow, and a round to the torso dropped him. As soon as he fell, fire from a missile detonation washed over the body as Sierra made another pass nearby. Her attack roused more targets, and I scored a headshot on an earth stallion who had been blown out into the open by the force of Sierra’s warhead. Then I brought my crosshairs back onto my friends, long enough to see their progress, and a new enemy that targeted them. Gunny had his shield planted into the ground as a unicorn mare with an assault rifle unloaded her whole clip into the plating. Still he held his ground, returning blind fire on her and two other raiders nearby her that also made him their target. I sighted the unicorn mare first, and one shot to her lower chest was all it took to silence her. Just as she fell, one of my friends managed to put down one of the others before I lined up on the last of the trio; I added another clean headshot to my record.
At that point, other Challenger soldiers started to appear within my scope. Breaking through the raider’s final line, they were able to get right up close and personal and finish off those few who hadn’t fallen back. Those that did were now trapped between two groups of allied soldiers, and with nowhere to run on the outside, those who could fled into the armory’s command center and our target building. Only a minute, just one minute of observation from my nest was all that passed before Challenger finally claimed the surface, clearing the garage, the offices, the warehouse, and now the whole armory itself up to the last two buildings.
After that, the gunfire that had once been a constant roar near my position was now isolated to the entrances of the command center and the armory itself. A couple dozen soldiers who had managed to come around from the south perimeter of the base were now taking the lead of the effort, and outside, new fire teams were being set up to follow in after them while other teams were simultaneously dispatched back out and around the secured portions of the base. With these new maneuvers, and with the majority of the battle site secured, I finally let myself back down onto all fours, bringing the Torch down with me before returning the trusty weapon to its rightful place over my back.
Afterward, I found myself standing still in the relative calm that now blanketed the Wheaton Armory. And even before it actually happened, I could feel myself slipping into the beginnings of a whirlwind of reflection that sought to come to life in the wake of the battle. But before I could, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye… or rather, somepony, as she hovered up into view over the railing. “Nova!” came Sierra’s call, her muffled voice still reaching me clearly through her helmet. “Are you alright?”
Her arrival saved me from becoming trapped by my own thoughts yet again. And at the present moment, I was grateful for that.
“Yes, I’m fine.” I called back, recovering myself and trotting over to join her at the edge of the garage. “What about you? You took a lot of hits out there.”
And her power armor certainly had the dings, dents, and scrapes to prove it. But I didn’t see any punctures. “None of them got through.” she assured to confirm what I saw. “I’m okay, and so are the others.”
“They are?”
“Gunny took a couple of hits when he charged in with that old metal plate, but nothing serious. A healing potion should see to his recovery.” Sierra answered; despite the calm in her voice, I still felt a very heavy pang of worry. “Apart from that, troops are moving into the last two buildings team by team. With it being close quarters, they’re confined to that limited movement for the rest of the mission.”
“Are we going to head in there?” But just as soon as I fanned out my own wings to get myself airborne, Sierra spoke up again, quickly to get my attention.
“I came here to find you for Captain Royce. He wants to see us both down by those fortifications, right now.”
I blinked, a little taken aback. “What… why? There’s still fighting going on…”
“I know, and I do not understand either.” came Sierra’s response. “But we’d better go and see what he needs either way. Come on, quick.”
With a single pulse of my wings I was up, watching Sierra as she banked down and away over the roof of the office complex below. Then I followed after her, copying her flight path all the way out to the thoroughly demolished fortifications that had only a couple minutes ago been fully prepared for battle. As I approached, beginning to slow for my landing, I was able to take in the details of the raiders’ losses… and our own. At least four to five dozen Black Blood soldiers had been concentrated in their final line, judging by the number of unmoving bodies hidden by the sandbag barriers, along with those inside the two shacks as well. Challenger soldiers were going through them, poking and prodding with their gun barrels to check them over, and occasionally putting another round into a raider’s skull just to be safe. And so, I wagered that between the fifty or sixty here, plus even more than that distributed between the garage, warehouse, and offices, an attempt at a rough guess came out to about one hundred and fifty enemy casualties, give or take a few; it was my hope that there weren’t many more within the last two buildings… because I could still hear the gunfire within them as additional fire teams followed after their leading comrades.
As for us, I saw a fair share of green-armored bodies along the way toward the fortifications. And just like the raiders, it was impossible to tell how many more might’ve died in those buildings. The only comfort I could take from all this was that there were definitely fewer of ours dead than the enemy’s. And spaced regularly along the road that cut through the base, the injured were being tended to by whoever was closest to them, and there were more than a few combat medics moving about, moving as quick as they could to try and get to everypony who was out of commission. In the end, however, I was still nervous. Because with everything the Lieutenant Colonel had said about Challenger’s last battalion and how badly it was needed to reinforce Ashton, there was no denying that our company had lost a good chunk of its strength in this fight… and that could potentially be very bad news regarding Ashton.
As I brought myself in to land, I found my friends amidst my taking in of the new scenery. Everypony looked okay, though Gunny was sitting on his haunches, clearly out of breath, with his LMG and plate shield on the ground beside him. And as he sat there with his head bowed, Ivy brought to his attention a healing potion, which he promptly took in his own telekinesis to drink. But as much as I wanted to go to them, to check on them myself, Captain Royce was already trotting out to meet us.
Sierra landed as he circled around the last sandbag barrier in his way, and even before he made it to us, he spoke up to us. “Are you two alright?”
“Yes, Captain Royce.” Sierra answered as I landed beside her and tucked in my wings. “We’re both okay.”
“Good.” A moment later and Royce stopped before us, nodding. “That’s damn good. I couldn’t afford having one or both of you out of the fight.”
“Sir, are we going to help secure the stockpile?” I asked, unable to keep myself from looking out toward that target building. “We can get in there and help, just say the word.” But in response, he shook his head, making me raise an eye. “W-why not, sir?”
“Because you two have already played your parts here.” he answered, simple and to the point; but I didn’t like that answer in the slightest.
“Are you sure, sir?” Sierra ventured, sounding a great deal as if she shared my uncertainty.
“I know you both are hesitant, and that’s good. But I’m sure.” he said, looking to her as he added, “You – I can’t even begin to emphasize how much of a Goddess-send you are. That power armor, those weapons, and your wings – all of that makes a strike package that gives us a great advantage over the enemy. You can hit them, and anything they throw at you, like nopony else can.” And then he looked to me. “And you – you may not have been flying here, but I saw your sniper work. You made the right call keeping your distance, not charging straight in. And I think that when the situation is ideal for you, you can put that precision to work in the sky. Either way, you’ll be saving a lot of lives picking off targets before they can get our boys and girls, just like you did today.” For just a moment, he let his words soak in… and though I still didn’t like where this was going, I couldn’t deny the simple fact that Sierra and I both were a very valuable asset in this campaign. Because of that… I guess I would have to learn to expect unique situations as a S.E.R.A.F. soldier. “Now that we’ve secured the surface of the armory, there are others out there that need you more than I do. And with all that in mind, I need you two to get a move on and reach the Moonstone Peak Outpost.” Royce explained. “It’s a six to seven hour march on hoof, so if you head out now, you should get there by late evening.”
And after a quiet little sigh, I was the one to reply. “Only so long as you’re sure you don’t need us here, sir.”
And again, patiently, he nodded. “Yes. The Moonstone Peak Outpost is the closest allied station to the Black Blood garrison barring us from Ashton. They could come under attack at any time, and if they do before we can launch our own offensive, you’ll be doing far more good there than sticking with this company while it waits for the occupation force to arrive here.”
“Then we’d better get moving.” Sierra stated, already fanning out her metal-clad wings in preparation to leave.
“We can handle whatever’s left of the enemy in those two buildings.” Royce assured, confident as he looked over his shoulder; the last teams had already gone inside… and the gunfire was much softer, and more widely spaced than before. “Once we take them out, we’ll find that second security key, open up the vault, and the next time you see us, we’ll have a balefire arsenal at our disposal for the attack on the raider base post.”
And with a hesitant nod, I spread my wings out full. “Yes, sir.”
“You two are already turning into a couple of guardian angels.” Royce remarked, even giving us a little sliver of a smile as he spoke. “And I’ve got a gut feeling that’s only going to become more and more a reality with each battle you fight in… Thanks… both of you.”
“We will do what we can, Captain.” Sierra assured, launching herself into the air and beating upward to gain some height over the surface. “Which way to the Moonstone Peaks?”
“Just head straight northeast from here.” he replied as I followed Sierra up. “You’ll see them well before you get there. They’re the only tall hills in that part of the region for miles, you can’t miss them.”
But through his explanation, my attention was briefly diverted one more time as I found my friends again. None of them were taking part in the final maneuver, one team of several that remained on the surface to recover. But they were all sticking close together in the wake of the battle. Gunny had already downed his potion, and Duke was sticking with them, watching the groups of soldiers back by the warehouse. But everypony else’s eyes – Gunny, Raemor, Ivy – they were on me as I hovered there, looking at me with a mix of curiosity and even a little worry, two sentiments that looked to be equally distributed between the three. Not knowing where I was going, what was happening… all a part of being at war; looking eye-to-eye was all we could do to say our goodbyes. That was the only time we got to see one another after this brutal fight… and after a prompt from Sierra, I forced myself to turn away, and then followed her out over Wheaton Armory and into the evening sky toward our next destination.
*** *** ***
<-=======ooO Ooo=======->
Portrait… a family photo with three members.
A mother – she was garbed in a simple white gown in the picture, a neutral color that didn’t clash much with the copper of her coat or the blue of her mane and tail. A father – he wore a dark green uniform, neat, crisp, and newly cleaned for the sake of the picture. On the chest was a pair of medals along with a number of service ribbons placed above them, and coupled with the uniform was a black beret with the Equestrian flag taking the shape of a patch sewn into the front. And between them – their daughter, a young mare I recognized in my memory, and the same mare that my host stared at as she smiled in the picture. Gold in color, with a flowing blue mane like her mother’s, all mixed in with a pair of emerald eyes like gemstones – this photo was of Mother Shimmer and her parents, all of whom I had seen once before in this pre-apocalypse setting. Macon – the father. Misty – the mother. Both of them – military. They made a couple that took full advantage of their honorable discharges from their military service and created for themselves a new life to take them away from the memories of the fighting. And it did just that, especially when they brought into the world their little miracle, the child that saved them both and gave them the power to live in peace.
They made a great family together.
I was greeted brightly by the very calm, very homey, very nostalgia-inspiring atmosphere of Mother Shimmer’s Old World abode. And in this new glimpse into the past, I was carried along by one of the mares of the family. Only with some hesitation did she and I together turn away from the picture, looking out into a comfy living room that made the central chamber of the house. A pair of long dark-red couches were set up at a right angle to face the back corner of the room, and an end table with a lamp was a part of the set. Just beyond that room, past a divider wall, was the kitchen, with clay pots cradling vibrant newborn flowers lined up along the countertops. All of the windows my host and I could see were wide open, curtains drawn back and tied up to let the clean summer air flow freely through the house. And it was a perfect day for it, as the wind was blowing audibly, with just enough force to channel a refreshing breeze throughout the house like a natural-made air conditioner.
Every second here, knowing how this place looked today compared to this… it only made me wish that I could see more of the Old World… of Shimmermist Farm and beyond.
“Hey, mom!”
Suddenly, a female voice called, coming from above. My host and I looked to our left, finding a stairway leading to the second story of the farmhouse. Though nopony was waiting for us at the top, we both zeroed in the call to the farthest room in the second-floor hallway. Right away, my host carried me up the stairs at a casual walk. “What is it, Shimmer?”
“I just need your opinion on these necklaces.” the other mare answered, to which my host uttered a little chuckle.
“Sweetie, you’ll look fine no matter which one you choose.” Misty called back.
“You already said that, mother.” Shimmer answered amusedly as we crested the staircase. In this hall, there were four doorways, all of them closed except for the door at the far end, which was only slightly ajar. “It’s just… we’re going into the city, and more than that, we’re going to the Moonrise Symphonic Theatre. I just want to look my best.”
“You’re so fretful sometimes.”
“You said that too, mother.” Shimmer answered, a little laugh of a pure and beautiful tone coming through the door’s opening to our ears.
And by then, we were upon that door, and together, Misty and I reached a hoof up to push it aside. Past it was the house’s master bedroom, complete with all the furnishings, all the living color, and otherwise absolutely pristine. And there, standing in front of the bed – Shimmer herself, beautiful golden coat, sapphire mane and tail, emerald eyes and all. She was reared up on her hind legs, forehooves set over the bed, as she stared down at two necklaces laid out before her. Even from the entrance of the bedroom, I could see them both in good detail, and my host took a moment to observe when we found them. One was a gold disk on a shiny chain of the same color, smooth and polished, with a single diamond in the center. But the other was a medallion I recognized – a clear-color, drop-cut crystal on a silver chain… within which a small, gentle, yet powerful blue flame flickered.
“They’re both beautiful, aren’t they?” Misty and I asked together.
Shimmer nodded as she continued to debate with herself. “Yes they are…”
“That gold disk was something that was passed to me by your grandmother.” Misty and I explained, staying by the doorframe and watching. “And she got that from her mother on her fifth birthday. She wore it everywhere she went while she was growing up… and because of that, there’s a whole life’s story in that pendant.”
For a moment, Shimmer broke her attention from the treasured necklaces, smiling with a reminiscent air. “It’s a story that I love.” she replied.
“Me too, dear.”
“This one has a story, too.” Mother Shimmer made her claim as she looked back to the medallions, this time focusing on the glowing crystal. “Though it seems that… it has a lot of missing pages.”
“It belonged to a stallion that your father and I fought beside when we were on duty.” Misty said. “We were a part of a joint operation with a new group of soldiers that came to reinforce our position. And the thing about them was that… they were ponies, our allies… and yet they looked so different from us.”
Shimmer nodded as she looked my host and I in the eye again. “Dad said they wore different colors.”
“Blue… blue and black and grey.” Misty explained, absorbed in her thinking. “They called it a simple designation, something to make them stand out among the rest of Equestria’s army… and they sure did. But… in regards to that medallion, one of those ‘blue soldiers’, as we called them, got to be a close friend with your father as they shared stories of their history, of their lives before enlisting, and what they had to look forward to when they were allowed to go home again. Your father talked about getting a farm with him, and he told your father in turn about his wish to open up a small wagon shop in the heartland. When your father talked about marrying me with him, he would share his hope of finding a sweetheart of his own once he settled down with his business… they shared many hopes. But… that stallion didn’t make it out of the war alive.” There was no missing how Misty’s voice slowed at this particular point in her recollection; Shimmer herself moved just slightly closer to us, a move guided by instinct as she sensed the distress in her mother’s voice. “Our camp was ambushed one night, and that stallion was fatally wounded in the fight to repel the enemy.” Misty continued, with a little difficulty slowing her down. “In the end, before he died, he managed to give your father that necklace. And according to him, when he was given it, he was told that there were many like it, but they all equally represented a great virtue, and were given to ponies who represented it in their actions and intentions… And your father was told by that stallion that he had that virtue in him, and so that stallion wanted him to take it to keep that flame alive.”
“That was… that was a very difficult time.” Shimmer responded with sympathy, nodding slowly as she bowed her head in respectful reverence to the departed stallion. “And it was only a short time before you both got to come home, right?”
“Yes.” Misty answered with a nod of her own. “And so, to fulfill that stallion’s wish, your father held on to it, and he kept it with us all this time until he chose to give it to you.”
“Because of this…” And that was when Mother Shimmer stepped back down onto all fours, turning just enough for us to see as she looked to her right flank… and to the cutie mark set there.
A blue fireball…… the blue flame…
Just like mine…
One and the same…
“Because of that.” Misty answered her, nodding again; now she entered the bedroom, approaching her daughter.
“That medallion’s really important to father, isn’t it?” Shimmer ventured, careful… already knowing the answer. “So… knowing how he acquired it… why give it to me?”
Shimmer asked that as Misty and I drew up to her. “He said that that medallion, according to its previous owner, represents the virtue of honor… a virtue that comes as the culmination of the six elements of harmony… The stallion who gave us this medallion told us that honor is the very definition of who we as Equestrians truly are, no matter how bad the politics, how deep the civil strife, or how dire the war.” she said, letting those words sink in as she and her daughter stared eye to eye. “And every time we’re reminded of that part of our lives… we think of you, and just how great a young mare you’ve turned out to be… Even with being raised by two parents who’ve spilled blood and were rewarded with… with battle scars and WTSD because of it… you’ve grown up like you’ve never even heard of war. You’ve done so many good things through your life… and when you got that cutie mark… it only served to prove what we already believed in.” At that point, Misty closed the remaining distance between her and her daughter, and pulled her into a hug, one that Shimmer immediately returned. “My point behind all this… is that that medallion is but a material representation of your virtue, and that with or without it, you’re showing to everypony you meet that you are truly special… that you are truly one of the good ponies.” Here, Misty leaned back, releasing her daughter and once again looking her in the eye; Shimmer was smiling a little but heartfelt smile back to us “No matter where you go, no matter what you wear… no matter how you look… you’re going to always be a mare of honor, because I know your heart, and I know the good in it.” And after uttering a happy little sigh, “And that’s something that’s going to live on forever, in you, in your descendants, and in the ponies whose lives you become a part of.”
<-=======ooO Ooo=======->
When I returned to reality, coming back through that same slightly disorienting transition, a short moment of silence in which my ears brought me back the sounds of my surroundings heralded a sweet piano melody, simple but set in a beautiful key, and then transitioning into a more flowing musical weave as strings begun to accompany it. It served both to remind me of the present, and to make me all the more nostalgic in the wake of viewing Mother Shimmer’s second and final memory that she had given to me before we parted ways. At first, I couldn’t decide for myself where to set my focus, as I was both hesitant to put aside what I saw in that memory, but was also curious to rediscover my new shelter. The sight of a straw pillow overtop an intact yet dirty mattress, however, was what made the choice for me, and my eyes were drawn up to look over the wooden walls around me.
Sierra and I had made good time in our flight to Challenger’s Moonstone Peak Outpost, moving unhindered and unopposed. And as Captain Royce had predicted, thanks to the benefit of still remaining in Challenger’s territorial triangle, we arrived just before nightfall. Upon landing, we were greeted by one Lieutenant Ziggy, outpost commander, and definitely a little unusual among the rank-and-file soldiers in Challenger’s army. This was, however, only the case in regards to formality, of which he did not much believe in. He waved away our acknowledgments of his rank as an officer, and encouraged us to relax ourselves, even urging us to just call him by his blood name. With all of that in mind, we gave him the lowdown on the situation at the Wheaton Armory at his request. Both Sierra and I were glad to give him the good news of the turnout there, and even though we hadn’t been allowed to see the rest of the fight through, we were both confident in the strength of the rest of the company, enough to tell the Lieutenant that Challenger was going to get its armory back… despite losing Searchlight in the process.
That served as a bit of welcome news to the Moonstone Peak Outpost, because while it was intact and fully operational when we arrived, there were problems here as well. The Lieutenant in turn explained to us about the constant stream of skirmishes between his own scouts and Black Blood troops trying to get in past the outer ring of hills in the area. It was a routine thing here in the peaks, and those fights almost always ended in stalemates… just one side probing for weaknesses while the other showed them none. Despite this, things were in good order here, and the Lieutenant personally assured the both of us that we would be able to get a solid dinner and good rest tonight. And seeing as how the outpost was well fortified with numerous barricades, a flak gun team, a mortar crew, and, much to my surprise, an automated minigun turret atop the command shack, I had every faith that his promise was true.
In fact, he’d already fulfilled one part of that promise, as I remembered the hardy dinner of assorted veggies that we’d received just shortly after our arrival. Now, the time was drawing near to lay down and try and rest for a while under the protection of the night watch.
Sierra and I had been given our own beds in the barracks building, raised up from pure scrap. It was a solid enough place, the planks on the floor, walls, and roof all even and with very few cracks and holes. And it was a big building, long, and complete with two stories as well as rooftop access for an assigned sniper to use the guard post built there. As it was now, the two of us shared the first floor with about twenty other soldiers. Almost everypony with us was already sound asleep, weary from the constant alertness the day required from them. As such, Sierra and I were doing our best to keep our voices lowered where we’d been placed in the far corner of the building, just a few steps away from the stairs climbing to the second floor. Thankfully, in that regard, we were able to match our voices to the volume of the radio that the outpost had been provided with, brought to them almost immediately after Buckley began broadcasting. As I expected, it served to lift everypony’s spirits here, and in my case, it provided me a great luxury, as Sierra and I were almost right next to the nightstand where the radio sat.
As soon as I saw it, I knew I’d be sleeping wonderfully tonight.
The song that greeted me upon leaving the memory orb was still going, the piano restating that beautiful theme as a solo, one I already felt was going to be stuck in my head for a while thanks to a combination of the key and the smooth progression of the notes. And that melody was only augmented when the strings returned, more virtuosic on their own restatement of the accompanying figure. And it was then that the music coaxed me to speak my thoughts, solid and happier thoughts that I gladly welcomed as an intermission from everything else. “It’s beautiful… don’t you think?”
Sierra was to my right, laying against the wall on her own provided mattress, and looking almost wholly asleep. She was stretched out on her side, basking in having this music to grace us with its healing energy, and in being free of her power armor which was now stowed away outside the barracks. But in response to my question, she stirred from her own meditation, gradually adjusting herself onto her belly and taking a moment to get comfortable again. “I must admit,” she responded. “I’ve never heard anything quite like this back home.”
“Do you have music back where you come from?” I asked, openly curious as I removed my recollector and set it off to the side.
And when she nodded, she took hold of my interest. “Yes, but my tribe has music that is very different… and likely quite primal compared to this.” she explained; she seemed to take a measure of enjoyment in her recounting. “Most of the instruments we have are made from nature. If you were to visit my tribe, you would see things like drums made from wood and animal hides, and shakers made from hollowed gourds filled with pebbles. We even have some instruments made from scrap, like metal flutes forged from old rifle barrels, or even metal bells carved from old wagon plating.”
“Wow…” That truly was fascinating to hear. “I’d love to be able to see those.”
“My tribe, and other tribes in The Halo have their own appreciation for music. And in my own it’s used for many different occasions.” Sierra continued. “We have songs and dances dedicated to specific days or seasons, some tied to historical events, some used for ceremonies. In fact, for many of the tattoos that I earned living among my tribe, a drum circle would be summoned to acknowledge my achievements.” And after a pause in which I nodded my understanding, she cracked a small smile. “We have a very different culture out where I come from, very far apart from Buckley’s more modern musical character. But like I said, this music is very enjoyable, and I do appreciate getting the time to listen to it.”
“Is it weird that I’m already entertaining thoughts of visiting The Halo?” I asked, unable to keep a feint blush from my face. “Of course, only when I get the time to do so… you know, when all this mess is done and over with…”
But Sierra chuckled in response, shaking her head. “No, I do not think it’s weird at all. In fact, I’m flattered that you are so interested.” she said. “While I came here by order of my tribe’s leaders, and I’m still focused on my mission to learn everything I can about the enemy here, I do miss my home very much. And so, hearing positive thoughts on it from somepony else is actually rather refreshing.” After I nodded my understanding, she added, “But, to answer your question with a fuller answer… I’ve been around you long enough and learned enough about who you try to be that I certainly wouldn’t mind introducing you to my people. So long as outsiders that enter their territory possess no ill intent, they are welcomed.” And all of this, she said with a small smile that put in me a feeling of accomplishment, brought from the knowing that I’d been making a good impression on the mare that had rescued Blake and I from the Talons.
“Citizens of the southeast…”
But before I could respond, another voice with a shocking tone cut in between us. And so different was it in its voice that both Sierra and I snapped our eyes back to the radio, right before it spoke up again. “Friend and foe, pony and griffin… trader, wanderer, raider and soldier… from last night to the present, you have been listening to my voice and the voices of my ponies… all our hearts combined to reach out to all the region, to Challenger and beyond.”
“That voice…” For the first time, we were hearing somepony else from the other end. And she spoke to her listeners with a weary voice, burdened with age and heavily marred with a terrible grating rasp. But despite all that, the words were carried by determination… and passion… and all of that put together told me who we were hearing.
Sierra and I glanced back to one another before Buckley’s compassionate leader spoke up again. “I am Mother Shimmer, elder of Buckley Air Force Base… and you have been listening to our Eternity Radio.” she said, speaking with strength drawn from the very subject of her great deed. “For my youngers and I, this broadcast marks our greatest step in leaving the seclusion that we have lived by for nearly seventy years. And for everypony who is able to listen to us and receive our messages, it is something much greater – history in the making. But for all of us together… it is a force that brings our minds together, brings every eye and ear to one place no matter which side of the war we fight on.” In this moment, I was wholly drawn in by her words… this premier speech, carrying her voice all across the region; and she spoke with all the wisdom I remembered. “As I speak to those of you who can hear me, I wish to say that Buckley is not oblivious to the conflict that has spread across the region. We too have been a part of it, and we know what it is like to fight and die in it. But still, despite the cloud of war that has settled over us, and over all of you, we reach out to you. So listen well and remember – Buckley speaks, and no matter where our futures may take us, we will continue to give our music equally as a gift to all who can hear it.”
As Shimmer paused in her words, I lowered my head away from looking at the radio, instead slowly bowing as her voice became an unstoppable force in dragging me back to the recent past in Buckley itself. And my very first memory came as my final moments at Buckley’s gates, where she had seen me and my friends off… leaving with me her prized gifts. Hearing her voice again through the radio was all it took for me to fall into a bout of reminiscence, in which things I once thought were behind me only returned to stare me down. My regrets, my pain… their pain… it all came back here to serve as a reminder of something that really wasn’t in the past… but was just buried underneath the actions of the present… and the worries of the future.
Sierra and I were silent in the pause Shimmer gave us. During that time… I had a gut feeling that she was taking that time both to let her words sink in to whatever audience she possessed, and to contemplate her own presentation of Buckley’s emergence. And we waited until she finally spoke again. “From this moment on, we will continue sharing our gift. No matter how cherished or ignored it may become, we will give it to all who can hear it. And in so doing, it is our ultimate hope that we can show to the region who we are, what we have… and to those who have shared history with us… show how we have changed.” And after one more short pause, “And so with that message… that promise… I bid everypony and everyone good night.”
And as soon as she finished, a new song rose to take her place, entering in the form of a gentle piano that played with a mind of its own, set in a key signature inspiring mystery, calm… peace… every keystroke echoing in the barracks to wrap everypony up in its crystalline tone. Despite that beautiful touch, however, my own mind lingered on the history that I shared with Buckley… keeping me from that music… And Sierra – she noticed it at a mere glance, to which she asked, “Are you alright?”
Though it took me a moment, I managed to do my best to shrug it off with a shake of my head. “I’m just… just thinking…… again.” Of course, that was totally convincing. It was so much so that Sierra saw right through me, even before I’d made my full reply. And when she only continued to stare, I was forced to add more body to my words. “I’m thinking about Buckley… about Shimmer… And while this war kept it at bay for a while, being here makes the ideal setting to remind me of how much I miss that place.”
Sierra nodded as she took in my words. “I see.”
And now that she’d roped me into spilling, I had a question on my mind for her to answer. “Have you ever had a moment in your life where… where you think that something that happened in the past is going to stay in the past?” I asked. “Did you ever find yourself thinking that you were completely over something only to have it come rushing back?”
And again, she nodded. “Oh yes. And on several occasions.”
“Well… that’s how I’m feeling about Buckley.” I explained. “In all this time I’ve had to think… I think about how in the olden days, you had all the time in the world to dwell on something, think about how to approach fixing it or… or how to move on, all without a lot of distractions. But here and now, you move from one potentially life-changing thing to the next in a blink, all for the sake of survival, and the circumstances that come with all that pull your attention away from those things that affected you the greatest… That’s until you finally get a precious moment of peace, where you can move and think and… just breathe for a bit… without having to look over your shoulder. And that’s when everything comes rushing back…” After a pause, during which I ran through my cobbled-together thoughts again, I continued with, “At first, when I was exiled, I accepted the punishment for the sake of myself, my friends, and for Buckley’s ponies. I knew that disappearing was going to be the best course of action, and so did everypony else. But back then, given the circumstances, I didn’t have any room to think about much else other than trying to keep the peace, and leaving to keep myself and my friends out of hot water.” I couldn’t keep myself from uttering a little sigh at my more bitter recollection. “But now that things are different… I’ve been given the time and the reminders to bring me back to that moment. And it didn’t come from just this, but right when their broadcast first started… and now it’s ramped up a bit more with this memory orb Shimmer gave to me…”
“And what did you see?” Sierra asked, cocking her head slightly to the side.
“It was just a short glimpse, no more than a few minutes of the past.” For a moment, I couldn’t help but smile a little as the scene replayed in my head. “Shimmer was getting ready for a concert in Marefax with her parents. And she was looking over a couple of medallions to wear… one of which happened to be the one we found in that wrecked convoy.” Though Sierra showed a small measure of surprise, she remained quiet. “Or, at least it was an identical necklace, because I guess a bunch of them were made back then. But it was at the tail end of the memory that I came to understand why Shimmer gave it to me in the first place. And that was because before she became a ghoul, she had a cutie mark that was… an exact copy of my own.”
“An identical cutie mark… really??”
If we’d been having this discussion thirty or so days ago, I would’ve been just as surprised as her. As it was now, I only gave a casual nod. “I know.”
“Seeing you and your brother with a similar mark was surprise enough.” Sierra remarked in thought. “But finding the same mark on somepony with no relation to you at all…”
“The story behind all that is a really long one.” I replied, taking a moment to stretch out my wings. “But Shimmer and I both came to agree that there was a rather unique story behind that mark, and now I know why she felt that way.” And here, I paused long enough to utter a light little laugh. “In the end, I guess that memory was just the final piece in the proverbial puzzle to show how my history with Buckley wasn’t done with me yet.”
“Hm… I came to understand how fond of that place you had become. Raemor told me some stories – winning their trust, going to Marefax.” Sierra replied, falling in smoothly with the change in subject. “You did quite a bit over there, didn’t you?”
“They introduced me to a culture that I never thought would’ve existed on the surface. And once I got them to open up to me, they let me be a part of it….” I stated back. “All this time, I don’t think I really ever fully understood just how much I missed that music… being up on their stage, singing for them… In Buckley, a habit in Stable One Eighty-one was making its first steps to becoming something… extraordinary. But being where I am now, my mind’s just kind of stuck on how all of it came crashing down…”
“It must’ve been hard.” Sierra remarked; I appreciated her empathy. “From what I heard about your exploits there, it really seemed like a place where you could fit in, and in many unique and important ways.”
Nothing but the truth, that. And it drew a little wistful sigh from me. “It was… It had a lot of gifts, a lot of ties to the lifestyle of the olden times that ponies elsewhere might think are unobtainable… and it had a lot of good ponies there. Shimmer herself was easily the most compassionate pony I’d met, and a lot of her flock followed her example almost to the letter. I made a lot of friends there, from the base’s military commander and his wife… a few soldiers… a couple musicians… and hell, even a couple of spa mares… I can recite all their names in a flash, you know…… And…” But as I ran through those names in my head, with a happy wistfulness… it came down to one last name on the list that I paused at, right when it was on the tip of my tongue. “And there was Archer, too…”
“Ah yes.” Sierra remarked, a little smile coming to her. “I take it he was a bit of a unique character among Buckley’s ranks, yes?”
I couldn’t find any room to disagree. “Yes he was… is…” It was right then that I began to focus only on memories involving him… and it became impossible to stop. “When the tensions settled to more civilized levels, he was one of the first to greet us… and I admit… I rather quickly found him… well… attractive.” Goddesses, I was already blushing a little… and Sierra herself was beginning to smirk, small and polite. “But it wasn’t long after our arrival that I found myself working with him on various tasks, helping Buckley within the fence and later without. We stomped some mutated bugs to get the base’s spark generators running again… We ran a patrol together and brought back some Old World artifacts for Shimmer to help her remember her old self. We uh… oh, and before that we raced each other once… and of course, he won.”
Sierra giggled with me. “Aw.”
Once we settled, I happily continued with our toughest shared ordeal “After a while came Marefax… and traveling through that city was… well, I would almost call it a nightmare. I saved his life only for him to turn around and save mine right after… constant fighting after that… yeah, it was a real mess out there, but Goddesses, was it worth it.” But then… then came what had to be my fondest memory. “Because after that came Buckley’s concert… and when that came along… he and I danced together, to two different songs. And I remember them both, crystal clear…” At this point, I was smiling bright, nostalgic but glad for the memory. And Sierra was sharing a smile of her own, one that told me she was happy for me to have been able to win that experience with Archer. “Over all the time I spent in Buckley, through all the good experiences we shared and all the bad ones that we helped each other through, he just continued standing out more and more among all the others… and I really… I really begun to admire him.” And that was the truth of the matter. “For who he is, for how he served his home with fierce loyalty, for how he treated me so respectfully and honorably… I really begun to like him… He’s a good stallion… I’m grateful for the time that we shared, and I’m especially glad that he made it through what happened at Buckley… because he almost didn’t.”
“Yes… he really came through for us that night… for you.” Sierra remarked, with a much more serious tone that brought me back into a firmer focus. “He went through quite a lot those couple of days. Everypony could tell he was struggling.”
I couldn’t help but sag slightly at that. “Yeah… he went through far more than he deserved.”
“But now that he’s in Challenger, staying with your group… I can’t help but think he’s getting better.” Sierra spoke up after, growing a little more optimistic on the subject. “And I think a great deal of that comes from being around you.” But before I could do any more than raise a questioning look, she asked, “Would it not be safe for me to say that you’ve developed deeper feelings for him?”
At that… I only froze…
“After the stories you’ve told, after the way recent events have played out… I’m sure you understand why I ask.” Sierra continued, taking my silence as her que to press her point, even while I found myself falling into a mental gridlock. “You think very highly of him, and I think the feeling is the same with him as well. And like you said, you two have had many experiences together, shared happily in the good, and helped each other through the bad.” And as she formulated her words, she nodded in approval of her own dialogue as I only continued to meet her eye-to-eye. “Given what I now know, I feel that you two have gained a lot of strength from each other. And I think that’s something worth considering if you continue to think about it.”
“I…” I was still stuck, not so much surprised by the question anymore as I was… just unsure. Of course, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about him… that way… at least once… But… with things the way they were right now, was there really a time for that? In that regard, it was a subject that even put a little nervousness in me. Way back in Proudspire, Cross and I had nearly reached that point. He admired the way I thought and acted, what I believed in, because it had coincided with his own ideals and given him much-needed strength and focus. And despite his quirks, he had been showing himself to be a real dependable, good-hearted, honor-bound stallion. But then, it had been as if the wasteland itself had condemned him for it… and I lost him right in the heat of battle. It was a terrible tragedy, plain and simple… and it had really hurt to see somepony like him taken in such a way.
And with that in mind… I found myself asking in the wake of Sierra’s words - could intimacy like that survive? Could… love… could love of that nature come out on top of a hail of gunfire, or more than that, a whole war? The southeast… this war that plagued it… was taking the chance a wise decision? I didn’t want to go through something like what happened with Cross again – to get close to somepony only to have them stolen from me… and seeing Archer go… I honestly felt that that would really cripple me. Like losing Grace… or any of my other friends… I’d been around Archer long enough to be able to easily call him a friend, a friend that I could count on, and a friend that I really cared for.
But was I ready to take that further? Did he even feel that way toward me at all? And if he did, could we make it work? Could we keep it alive?
But as Sierra herself watched me contemplate the words she’d left me with, I found that, right now, only one response could come out. “I don’t… I don’t know, Sierra.” And no matter how I tried… that really was all I could say. “I just don’t know.”
Footnote: 33% to level up.
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This story dead?
As a huge fallout fan, I can say this:
Fallout: Equestria is stupid.
Gah! This another Fall of Hope scenario, fic incomplete, author gone...gah! I can't take it anymore!
Ugh, well...it was amazing while it lasted. Huh, to think that I read this in two days...
RIP. this was a lot better than I anticipated so sad to see it go incomplete.