The treads rolled smoothly over the snow-covered ground as we drove away from Shady Shores, the wind biting a bit at my face. I rolled my shoulders a bit, finding them oddly stiff as we continued south back towards Crash Dive’s lighthouse. Twisting the handle of the half-track, the engine growled and we sped up a little, myself turning to follow along with the coast, the sheer cliffs becoming slightly less steep as we continued. The ground dipped and a small beach nested neatly in the cliffs could be seen, the sand awash with seaweed. Following the curve of the coast, I spotted a few old carts sitting in a small lot above a flight of steps leading down to the beach. The mini-tank rolled onto the lot, the trailer bouncing a little behind us as we were soon driving along the coastal road. “Ay, didn't ye say something about askin' about a generator? Still some chance they might've had one, but from what I could tell it looked like Shady Shores was runnin' mostly off of some sorta geothermal or magical earth power supply.” Scouring asked. I sighed, shrugging.

“No clue. Maybe there’s something in the files she gave us that can help, like a do-it-yourself earth magic energy generator or something. I’ll look them over once we find somewhere to stop. Last time somepony I knew tried Pipping and driving, it ended with an 81-ton tank halfway embedded into a weapons shop. Good thing the turret was facing the other way,” I said, wearing a bit of a smirk. Night Strike gave me a little glare, a light blush crossing her face. Hey, I didn’t name names, Miss ‘I’ll only be looking for a second’. The sun was starting to reach the horizon, the shadow of the mini-tank long and distorted as it flowed over rocks beside the road. I blinked a few times, my eyes watering a little from the bright sunlight shining from the side. The road thankfully turned a little further inland, saving me from going blind as we trundled onwards.

Soon a small building appeared on the side of the road, surrounded by fencing, beside it another building, slightly larger than the first. I slowed the tank down as we approached a gate in the fence, a booth resting beside the gate, where a guards pony’s skeleton lay inside, decaying. “Looks like some old basic training site, boot camp, maybe.” Crash Dive said, peering around me to get a better view of the main building. “Security’s probably just for show, there shouldn’t be any sort of robot support at a place like this. Nothing that should be worth protecting, anyways.” I nodded and leaned over to reach inside the shattered window of the booth. I pressed a button and the gate began to roll open, rattling loudly as it did.

The engine of the mini-tank rumbled as I drove towards the main building of the facility, only to die down as I flipped the switch off. We all climbed off of the tank, Night Strike leaving the cameras in the trailer as we stepped into the main entrance. We were greeted by a small waiting room with a secretary’s room built into the wall, the roof bowed in rather alarmingly, but still holding. Trotting through the hallway, we came to a room full of beds, each one sporting the same plain white sheets and thin pillow. “Suppose this’ll do for tonight.” Night Strike said, walking over to one of the beds and dropping her saddlebags onto it. I walked over to a separate bed, flipping back the covers to climb in underneath. “So, yeah, anything about those generators in the data?”

I flipped over from the map on my Pip-Buck to the files I’d downloaded off of Pearl’s logs. Yeesh, that’s a lot of notes. Twisting the nob to scroll through the various files, I scanned the names, looking for anything useful. Subdermal armor, radiation resistance, extra limbs… I thought Pearl said she deleted the body horror ones. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything in here… oh, wait, maybe this’ll help.” I began to read one of the notes giving information on a small generator. Okay, screws, rubber, gears, steel, we could get these… oh. “Uh… any idea where we could get some nuclear material?” I asked. Aerith and Scouring shrugged, Crash Dive looking over to Night Strike, who was twisting open a bottle of RAD.

Night Strike paused for a moment before looking down at her glowing soda, promptly hugging it to her chest. “No! No way are we wasting perfectly good soda on some hair-brained scheme to build some generator we only just found out about!” I rolled my eyes as Scouring shook his head. Crash Dive looked equally annoyed, but turned to look back towards me again.

“Well, she does have a bit of a point. I doubt the strontium in that stuff is really that strong, let alone assuming there’s enough in there to power a generator on or how we’d isolate it. Besides, I don’t really trust you building a mini arcane reactor in my backyard.” I grumbled a little, flicking away from the entry to continue scrolling through the data files. Nothing else popped up that seemed useful, though, so I flipped back to the map and lowered my leg, Scouring stepping out of his power armor and slipping his helmet off to get into bed. Flopping down onto my own bed, the mattress’ springs were creaky and stiff, myself taking a moment to adjust to it. Shutting my eyes and rolling over to wrap the thin blankets around me a bit better, I tried to doze off, wondering how soldiers put up with such awful bedding. Better than the floor, though, I guess...

---

I leaned up in bed, my back complaining from the rough night’s sleep. Guh, never thought I’d prefer to sleep chained to a chair again. My hooves swung over the side of the bed and I stood up, cracking my back around. The others were still asleep, the sun only barely coming in through the window. Well, I suppose now’d be a good a time as any to grab some food. I trotted out of the sleeping quarters, searching for the mess hall. Passing by a few offices, I soon came to a large cafeteria filled with long tables. Heading towards the kitchen, I pushed open the swinging doors, the old cookware dusty and rusting from years of neglect. Ok, let’s see if this military food is as long lasting as snack cakes.

My vision was filled with tins of Cram and stacks of MREs as I opened one of the cupboards, my stomach growling at the sight. I reached up and slid a few of the cans out of the cupboard, peeling open the top of the tin. Oh, it might be about as healthy as a bucket of salty rocks, but dang if I don’t enjoy it. I wonder if the stoves still work here... I twisted the knobs on the front of one of the stoves, the lighter clicking several times, but no flame appeared beneath the metal grating. Shoot... yeah, a massive megaspell exchange probably wasn't good for natural gas pipelines. Well, come on, they’ve got to have some hot plates around here for emergencies, right? To my luck, tucked away in the bottom drawer were a few hot plates, one with a cobweb strung between it and the side of the drawer. Soon I had a block of the gelatin-like hay sliced up and sizzling away on a pan over the hot plate. The sound of hoofsteps met my ears and I looked over my shoulder to see Night Strike stepping into the kitchen, rubbing one of her eyes. “Morning!” I said, cheerfully. “Want some breakfast? I’ve got Cram, Cram, Cram, Cram, and Cram.”

Night Strike simply yawned, pulling a stool over to one of the counters and leaning forward onto her hooves. I pulled a plate over from the cupboard, flipping a few slices of Cram onto it and sliding it over to Night Strike before placing the rest onto my plate, quickly starting to wolf down the food. Night Strike ate her slices, looking at me with a bit of surprise. “Jeez, I would’ve thought after exploring an abandoned science facility you’d be anything but hungry.” I stuck my tongue out at her before finishing off the Cram, my stomach quieting down. Twisting the knob to turn off the hotplate, I got up and grabbed a few more tins of Cram and MREs for the road, Night Strike taking a couple as we began to head back to the sleeping quarters. “So, what exactly was that implant thingie you found there, again?” She asked, balancing the MREs on her back.

“Oh, the files said it was some kind of super-adrenaline or something. The implant synthesizes a lot of the chemical, your senses get overloaded and everything’s easier to think through and the like. I don’t really get the specifics of it, somepony at the Triage could probably get their head around it better. The files said the zebras they tested on felt like time was slowing, though.” Night Strike’s widened a bit, looking interested.

“Heh, you don’t think they have another one of those, do you?” She asked as we stepped into the room full of beds. The others were starting to wake up as well, Crash Dive already set to go, while Scouring was trying to shake off his early morning drowsiness before stepping back into his armor. I trotted over to my saddlebags, slipping the food into them before hitching them up to my back as Night Strike did the same with her saddlebags.

“I doubt it, it looked like they’d lost a lot of funding for the anglerpony project… just like about everything else. All that money allocation sure seems like a good idea now, eh?” I chuckled, picking up my umbrella as Aerith patted her suit down, looking over her guns. “Anyway, you guys ready to head out?” They all nodded and we began to head back towards the entrance of the training facility. We opened the door to the brisk morning air, all of us climbing onto the mini-tank once again. “And, uh, not to be rude, but the implant chems seem pretty heavy on the body, and you’re not exactly the most durable pony around.”

Night Strike looked indignant, crossing her hooves as I started up the engine and slid my goggles over my eyes. “Hey, I’m plenty durable! I’ve got my RAD if I need any serious healing anyway.” I shook my head as I turned the tank around and began to roll out of the main gates. Yeah, you keep relying on that soda to stich up your wounds. I’ll stick with the approved healing potions, if you don’t mind. Or not getting hurt in the first place, that’d probably be better. We were soon on the costal road again, the sun rising up over the mountains to our left, large patches of fog still sitting in the low fields beside the road.

The smell of salt reached my nose as winds blew up from the sea along the cliffs, swirling the fog around a little. As we drove across the fields, Crash Dive sat up a little straighter in the trailer, looking out over the fields before us. “I think there’s something lying beside the road up ahead.” Her voice crackled through her helmet’s speaker. I started to slow, a dim shape starting to appear in the fog as we approached it. The figure became clear as I pulled up beside it, revealing itself to be another robotic dragon. Its metallic skin shimmered in the rising sunlight, its wings dripping with a few beads of morning dew. “The hell is this doing here?!” Crash asked.

I simply stared, my eyes scanning over the wrecked body. The dragon seemed to have been blasted out of the sky by some sort of heavy artillery, a gaping hole left in its chest. “Hm. Hasn’t been here that long, look. Power’s still running.” Scouring said, pointing towards the wound. I squinted, noticing inside the dragon’s body gears were continuing to click and whirr feebly as oil dripped out of the wound like blood. “Don’t know who around here would have that kind o' Anti-air capabilities, Maple Creek's too far off and the Cadence just has those three ponies aboard it, and I doubt that DJ'd be getin' his hooves on an AA battery anytime soon. Better question is how we missed all the fireworks, it must’ve been in the middle of the night.”

“Hey, there’s something out over there, I think it might be another building. Maybe they shot it down?” Night Strike pointed towards the coastline, the ground dipping down towards the sea. Far in the distance was another dark shape looming up in the fog. I looked back at her, not particularly eager to go waltzing towards a group of ponies with enough ordinance to shoot down one of those metal dragons. She shrugged, looking back to me. “I dunno, they shot down one of those things, they probably aren’t friendly with whoever’s been sending them out.” Yeah, but those raiders weren’t friendly with the dragons or us. Still, I twisted the handle of the mini-tank and began to head towards the building. Guh, stupid curiosity, you’re going to get me killed one of these days...

The building became clearer as the distance closed between us and it. Wide openings could be seen in the complex, seawater churning slowly around them. Surrounding the complex was another high fence, similar to the one around the training facility, but instead topped with rolls of barbed wire as the fence around Seahoof Armory had been. I tried to squint through the fog, but beads of water were collecting on my goggles, obscuring my vision and forcing me to take them off. The building became clearer as we moved closer, a few artillery pieces sitting behind the fences. A sign could be seen posted outside the gates around the facility. The fading words ‘Vanhoover Submarine Bunker’ had been scrawled over with a few symbols I didn’t recognize.

Aerith’s horn lit up as she began to sign-speak. ‘That looks like Zebra writing… I don’t have a clue what it’s saying, though. I think that might be the symbol for… boat? This doesn’t seem quite right.’ She pointed towards one of the twisted characters, scratching her head. I raised an eyebrow, looking around the sign towards the main complex. How in Equestria did a group of Zebras get control of a pre-war facility? The doors to the facility opened up past the fence, creaking loudly as a pair of Zebra ghouls stepped out into the air. Zebra ghouls? How long have they been stationed here? They halted in place, looking towards us, all of us just staring at each other for a moment. One reached over his back for a rifle, flipping it into place and biting down on the firing mechanism. Oh, crap. I revved the engine, the tracks spinning on the ground for a second before catching as I ducked, the bullets whizzing over my head. The other ghoul readied his own rifle, shouting out orders in some foreign tongue.

Suddenly a loud shot rang out, and a second later a fireball appeared behind us, my heart immediately jumping to my throat. Oh, shit, this was terrible idea! I sped away from the facility as Aerith and Night Strike returned fire, another shot being fired off. The artillery shell landed behind us and I could feel the heat against the back of my neck. I gave a few yelps of panic as we bounced over some rocks, a shell landing dangerously close to us. Swerving away, Scouring launched a barrage of rockets towards the gates in the fence. The metal blew apart, one of the doors smashing into the ghoul zebra, the other jumping out of the way and shouting at the artillery gunner again.

Yet another shell was fired off, but this one landed several feet behind us as we sped out of their gunner’s range. I continued to speed away from the complex, back towards the lighthouse, but I began to slow after we got further away. “What the hell’s a group of pre-war Zebras doing at an Equestrian military base?!” I half-shouted, my heart still trying to slow back down to its normal pace. Night Strike lowered Thumper, wiping her goggles free of some condensation from the fog.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think they’ve heard the war is over. Either that or they heard about your dad’s opinion on them.” I shook my head, continuing along the road. They're both reformed, mostly! Even if Minty still likes to make some less than appropriate jokes here and there. The tank continued to roll along, Scouring folding Sunburst back up and hooking it to his back. I sighed, leaning back into the chair, getting ready for a long drive back to Crash’s lighthouse.

---

Pulling up beside the tall brick structure, I let off a long yawn, the sun having dropped below the horizon a while ago. I hopped out of the mini-tank, slinging my saddlebags over my back as Night Strike reached into the trailer to lift out one of the cameras. She grunted a little from the effort, eventually deciding to just leave them in the trailer. “Ah, they’ll be fine, so long as it doesn’t rain. I guess we could grab a tarp or something.” I said, trotting up to Night Strike and glancing up at the cloudy sky. She shrugged, following Crash towards the door of her lighthouse.

“Yeah, it probably wouldn’t hurt.” We stepped inside the lighthouse, Aerith levitating her hat over to the table sitting in the kitchen. “You got anything like that, Crash Dive?” She asked, stopping her from trotting upstairs with Scouring. She nodded, moving over to the closet and opening it back up. She pushed aside some dusty boxes, finding a folded up quilt stuffed into the corner. A spider scurried out from underneath it when Crash Dive picked it up and handed it over to me. Oh, great. If something starts crawling out of this while I’m carrying it, I’m throwing it off the cliff. Night Strike headed back outside after me as Crash trotted up to her room, the stairs creaking under the weight of her armor.

As we trotted out to the trailer, I unfolded the blanket and handed one corner to Night Strike, who fluttered into the air to help drop the cloth over the trailer. As she slowly came back down to the earth, she looked over at me, her ears slightly droopier than normal. “Hey, um, Static? Can we talk for a minute?” I looked up at her, her serious tone taking me off guard for a moment. I nodded, walking around the trailer towards her. Night Strike paused for a moment, looking down at the ground. “Static, I… What you did when we were back in that library… please, just don’t ever do something like that again. It just... I... ” She looked back up to me, her eyes starting to well up with tears as she stared at me. “I don’t know what I’d do, if you… you...” She sniffed, wiping her tears away. I didn’t say anything, instead wrapping my front hooves around her, pulling her into a hug.

“It’s okay, Night Strike, it’s okay. I’m sorry I scared you so much, I just... I wasn't thinking straight at the time.” I gently rubbed the back of her neck, feeling her squeeze me into a hug as well. “I don’t want to lose you either. You… I just… I don’t want to think about it. I promise I won't do something that crazy again, if I can help it.” I could feel my own eyes start to water up as I held her closely. We stood there for a moment, not moving or speaking, just holding each other as we quietly wept. I could feel a drop of rain fall onto my head, quickly followed by a few more. Night Strike and I broke our hug, myself looking up at the sky. “Come on, let’s go inside. Don’t want to get a cold.” She nodded, wiping her eyes dry again. We turned and headed into the lighthouse, trotting to our room.

I slipped my saddlebags off of my back as Night Strike did the same with her duffel bag, setting it beside the bed. Neither of us said anything more, instead just rolling back the covers of one of the beds and crawling under them together, squeezing each other closely as the rain pattered against the window, both of us quickly drifting off to sleep.

<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>