Fallout: Lavender Wastelander

Dust fell from the rafters like snow in the shadowy attic of a nearly unused tower on the western edge of Canterlot Palace. Two mares, one gryphon, one pony, lay beside one another.

“Waited till the last fucking second didn’t you,” Onyx Sword muttered, peering through a tripod-mounted spotting scope beside Blackhawk.

“Pegasi are cheating bastards, and Alex—” Georgia Blackhawk caught herself, “—Red Glare, was twenty years younger than me.” She grumbled curses under her breath as she lowered her rifle scope away from her eyes. She was getting too old to be useful. At least turning into a gryphon had improved her eyesight enough to spot the firetruck-red pegasus, who had taken up a position in a room on the third story of the Palace-View Hotel. Blakhawk shifted into a more comfortable position on the soft pillow she lay on. “At least Princess Luna won’t need to find another changeling to be her body double.”

“Don’t count your chicks before they hatch, granny birdbrain,” Onyx laughed bitterly, not peeling her eyes from the spotting scope as she scanned for other targets for them to neutralize. “I don’t see the spotter he was sent with. Starry could be anywhere.”

“Gonna be a long fuckin’ day of cat and mouse then,” Blackhawk complained, slowly cycling the bolt of her silenced rifle. The smoking brass shell casing flew out with a soft ‘ching’, clattering and rolling away on the wooden floor.

With how the infiltration teams worked, there had been minimal contact between them pre- or post-crossing to reduce the chance of everyone getting captured. Blackhawk wasn’t even sure how many teams there were, much less how many were loyal to Eden’s insane plan. Red Glare’s spotter was as loyal and adamant to the cause as Red Glare had been. It would take something special for Starry Stripes to betray the Enclave. His entire family had given their lives for the Enclave, many having been on the oil rig guarding President Richardson when it was destroyed, and too many more had been picked off afterwards in the flight east. The only memento Starry had was the star-cap necklace given by his father to his mother before he was born.

Blackhawk’s beak twisted with her grimace. “If Starry needs to go down, can you take the shot?” she asked. “I was in his mother’s group during the big escape east. I helped deliver him into this world. I can’t be the one to take him out.”

Onyx didn’t respond right away, her eyes closed in thought as she breathed deeply.

“Yeah,” She said, her voice low. “This whole situation is fucked.” Onyx shook her head, finally looking away from her spotting scope. “Nine months ago, I get orders saying I need both of my ass cheeks tattoed. Now, I’m laying here in the attic of a palace, shooting our own people over a bunch of fucking colorful horses as one of them. Is this how you older soldiers felt when the rig blew? Like nothing makes sense anymore.”

“This is a close second,” Blackhawk said. Her tone was clear that she wasn’t going to talk about it any further than that. The situation was crazy, but not as crazy as everything crumbling to pieces around her while fleeing from the New California Republic.

Blackhawk wondered how many Enclave soldiers would have joined the New California Republic if given the chance. Just to be in the military again. But the NCR hadn’t given them the chance.

Power armor was good at keeping the smell of burn pits out, but it didn’t block out the sight of them, and the smell clung to the armor which had to come off eventually.

At least Luna kept the nightmares away, and for that, Blackhawk would do anything to keep Equestria and the Enclave from going to war. Even if it meant protecting the Enclave from itself by betraying it. War was pointless, honorless, and wasteful no matter where or when it was fought.

Blackhawk knew… because war never changes.

<>~<>~<>

Major Alex Dobson stood at parade rest with his chin held high in the command room of the Rockland Satellite Relay Station. The room was a large, dimly lit space so full of nooks and crannies that the lights embedded into the ceiling and the glow of dozens of terminals and screens didn’t quite reach all the way.

Despite the dozens of televisions around the room, none of them were for entertainment… usually. Today, however, was proving to be unique.

“They’re determined, that’s for sure,” Major Dobson said with a smirk, eyes locked to the largest of the color screens on the back wall of the room. The live feed coming directly from a concealed exterior security camera displayed a pair of unicorn mutants fumbling with the back door of the base. The brown one had resorted to kicking the door to no effect.

Casually lounging in a nearby chair was his second-in-command, Second Lieutenant Marisha Bailey. She chuckled into her mug of coffee as the brown mutant threw his hands into the air and yelled something, clearly frustrated. Major Dobson didn’t know what it could be, he didn’t read lips, and the external microphones had been a lower priority on the repair list.

“Sir, permission to start a betting pool on if they’ll get through?” 2IC Bailey asked.

Major Dobson regarded his 2IC with a mild-mannered frown. Gambling was a violation of the Enclave’s rules and regulations, but tensions were high after contact with Raven Rock was lost. A little distraction wouldn’t hurt anyone.

“Go ahead,” Major Dobson said. 2IC Bailey saluted him and rose from her seat. She traveled around the room and took up bets as Dobson looked down to the boots of Comms Officer Sara Brown. The comms officer was laying on a small wheeled-sled underneath a large console. The glow of the flashlight she used to inspect the inner workings glowed bright enough to illuminate her legs. Major Dobson raised his voice slightly so Brown would hear him under the electronic equipment. “Status update on our comms to Raven Rock?”

The stained overall-wearing woman rolled out from under the console. She looked like microwaved death—the bags under her eyes had their own luggage. “I’ve triple checked my double checking. Our equipment is fine, sir. It must be on—” she cut herself off with a yawn, “—Raven Rock’s end.”

Major Dobson regarded her with a nod. Comms Officer Brown had been troubleshooting and diagnosing the issue all night. If it wasn’t their equipment on the fritz, and Enclave Radio had defaulted to a numbers station…

Major Dobson’s teeth ground from the intensity of his scowl. He didn’t want to complete the thought. With as many technicians and specialists in Raven Rock as there were, a comms blackout for this long could only mean that Raven Rock had suffered something catastrophic. Further pointing to the grim possibility was that Adams AFB was sending them messages every hour asking for an update on what was going on. They weren’t talking to Raven Rock, either.

After a moment of slow breathing to compose himself so he would appear level headed to his troops, he said to Comms Officer Brown, “Try messaging them one last time, then go hit the rack, you’ve earned it.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Comms Officer Brown said, pulling herself upright with the aid of a desk.

2IC Bailey had finished her round of collecting bets and stopped her tour of the room beside Major Dobson. The officer cap held in her outstretched hand was halfway-full of credit chips. She waved the hat at him with a playful grin.

Staring at the hat bursting with code violations, Major Dobson reached into his right pocket and pulled out a five credit chip, which was styled after an old American quarter.

“What’s the current odds?” He asked.

“They’ve already been there for ten minutes,” 2IC Bailey said. “Most think they aren’t getting through.”

“Then it’s five credits to them getting through,” Major Dobson said as he let his chip fall into the hat with a satisfying clink of metal coins hitting more coins. “That purple one is the only wastelander I’ve seen with a proper set of lockpicks.”

“Do you think that they’re with SOCOM?” 2IC Bailey asked, nodding her head to the side to point to the screen. “They’re better equipped than most wastrels.”

“I don’t know,” Major Dobson said. “Special forces can’t get off their—”

“SIR!” Comms Officer Brown yelled, all trace of exhaustion in her voice was gone. “Raven Rock is calling us this time, and it’s a video call.”

Major Dobson’s heart quickened as he snapped into motion, spinning in place on his heels to face the Comms Officer and asked with a raised voice, “Can you split the call with the feed from the security camera?”

“I can’t, sir,” Comms Officer Brown replied. “These systems are two-centuries old. I’m not sure that they can handle a dual-feed, even if I knew how to do it.”

Of course she couldn't. It was to be expected with the age of the equipment and the deaths of true technological progress. A vast quantity of technical knowledge had simply disappeared with the great war. Even the Enclave wasn’t immune to attrition. Most of the power armor suits his soldiers wore around the base were cheap imitations of Advanced Power Armor, and were only on par with the T-45d model that the Brotherhood of Steel used, which had been obsolete even before the apocalypse.

“Someone else can keep an eye on them, then,” Major Dobson said. He shifted to the left a few paces so he was in the central view of a camera on the ceiling before making sure that 2IC Bailey had hidden the evidence of their mass infraction. Satisfied that the wastebasket the hat was thrown into was sufficiently out of view of the camera, Major Dobson puffed up his chest and snapped a crisp salute.

“Put it through,” he ordered with gusto.

The large screen on the wall flickered, and at once was replaced by the video of a woman he didn’t recognize. The camera being used was a top-tier government issue one, providing a higher fidelity and sharper color palette than the external base cameras. The woman was in a large leather office chair, leaning forwards against a wooden desk on her elbows. She was a caucasian with sun-tanned skin, blond hair, and stunning green eyes. She wore an Enclave officer’s uniform with no rank insignia of any kind, alongside a large brown cowboy hat.

Major Dobson slowly lowered his salute. He had been expecting Colonel Autumn, who after a moment, stepped into view to stand behind and off to the side of the large leather office chair.

“Howdy,” the woman said with a friendly smile, tipping her hat. “Yer Major Dobson, correct?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Major Dobson said, then inclined his head just enough to regard Colonel Autumn without being disrespectful to the unknown woman. The woman was uncomfortably friendly, which could only mean she was dangerous and wanted something he had. Major Dobson had verbally sparred with Colonel Autumn several times in the past when jockeying for promotions and assignments over his peers. He would prefer to deal with a known entity. “Colonel Autumn, sir, this is highly irregular. The woman with you doesn’t have any rank or insignia on her, so I don’t know how to address her.”

Was there some sort of test? That was unlikely, Raven Rock had gone silent on Adams AFB as well.

“That’s because she does not hold a rank,” Colonel Autumn said with an even, genteel voice. “You are addressing President Abigail Jacklyn. It is with a heavy heart that I must regretfully inform you that President John Henry Eden is no longer among the living.”

There were several mutters from the other comms officers and staff in the command room. Colonel Autumn certainly didn’t sound regretful. The side-eye President Jacklyn gave him made it clear that they shared the same opinion.

“How?” Major Dobson asked. “All of us knew that he was a machine.”

And machines could be fixed.

The secret of President Eden being an Artificial Intelligence was the worst-kept internal secret of the Enclave. Even with Colonel Autumn or his father before him being the only ones to ‘see’ the President, after over thirty years on the East Coast, enough maintenance guys had complained about the massive tower-sized mainframe that needed constant tender loving care. Colonel Autumn and clunky robots weren’t trained or suited for delicate mainframe maintenance. With no chefs at Raven Rock ever making or delivering custom food orders—a luxury many officers like himself enjoyed when rotated to Raven Rock—it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

“That darned box of scrap gave us no choice,” Abigail said, frowning heavily. Her accent was thicker than Colonel Autumn’s or the late President Eden’s. “We tried talkin’ to him, convince him to resign, but he wouldn't peaceably step down.”

“So it was a coup?” Major Dobson asked, inhaling sharply and clenching his fists. Colonel Autumn was the last person Major Dobson expected to betray the president. He was a model officer, proud, and with a rich pedigree including a living family member who had made it to the rank of General. Colonel Autumn was one of the few officers who was both old enough to remember the oil rig, and still had living family members. Even if some of that family hated his guts.

“Yes,” Abigail said, with no hesitation. She didn’t try to deny it. Major Dobson narrowed his eyes. The blunt honesty was concerning. No one told the honest truth in the Enclave unless it was to serve some greater goal. But if she was in the oval office, what greater goal did she have? She had become queen of the castle, especially with Colonel Autumn backing her.

“Major,” Colonel Autumn said in a tone that told Dobson he had seen the look in his eyes. “Tell me this, how many of us were truly loyal to the machine that has directed us on a path to nowhere in the thirty-six years since we lost the West Coast? I only had to send six vertibirds of Eden loyalists to Adams AFB.”

Major Dobson worked his jaw, biting his lower lip as the tips of his fingers dug hard into his palms. They had spent decades hiding while claiming that the Enclave were the mightiest power ever, and that they were there to save America and rebuild it. An entire generation had grown up listening to Eden’s patriotic music and propaganda. Yet a single contingent of the Brotherhood of Steel was able to waltz into the Pentagon and do more for the Wasteland than the Enclave had ever done.

Major Dobson was forty-two. He had vague memories of the great flight from the West Coast and dodging bounty hunters from the New California Republic. Many of the officers of the Enclave remembered the great shame of those years. A shame uncorrected over thirty-six years.

After a moment of consideration, Dobson finally untensed. A shakeup of leadership could be a good thing.

“So what is your plan, Madam President?” Major Dobson asked. “Have you been made aware of the security threat to the Enclave?”

The last two and half weeks had been the strangest ones of Major Dobson’s life. With Rockland being a communications and satellite relay station, they also had the equipment to act as a listening post. Unless there were some other listening posts that Major Dobson was unaware of—which was likely given that it was the Enclave—they were the only Enclave soldiers he knew of that were allowed to listen to Galaxy News Radio and other radio chatter in the Capital Wasteland without being harshly reprimanded, since it was for intelligence gathering purposes.

“We have,” President Jacklyn said, shifting in her seat. “Which goes right nicely with why we called. I was mighty shocked when technicians recovered some of Eden’s records. Apparently, a unicorn’s been workin’ fer the Enclave for months now. Tell me everythin’ you know.”

“Yes, Madam President,” Major Dobson said. He was of course going to withhold as much as he could get away with for leverage later. “She was some mutated woman from SOCOM… her mutations line up with what we’ve been hearing about the Equestrians on Galaxy News Radio, but she had the paperwork and clearance levels to have free reign of the base. Your predecessor even sent us a forewarning about her arrival. She said that she was here to prevent security anomalies. Left a lot of carvings on the walls and engravings on the metalwork before she left.”

“Sounds a lotta like the runes that our maintenance folk have found recently,” President Jacklyn said to Colonel Autumn. “Thank ya’ kindly for your cooperation. If you encounter any Equestrians who aren’t with SOCOM, treat them kindly and direct them away from your bases to the nearest civilian occupied zone. Don’t hurt any a’ them.”

“Madam President,” Major Dobson said, tensing again. “They’re mutants. Not as ugly as the zombies or supermutants, but they aren’t human.” He turned slightly to regard the screen a sergeant was using to view the security feed. The pair had stopped their lockpicking and had taken off their backpacks. The fireteam waiting on the other side of the door was probably getting bored waiting on them. “I have two unicorns trying to sneak their way into my base right now. One of them even has wings.”

“What!?” President Jacklyn’s eyes went wide as she leapt up from her seat, the office chair tipping over to crash behind her. “Harm them at yer own peril. I’m sending a special agent to collect them now.”

President Jacklyn turned and ran offscreen. A split second later, a door opened, then closed with a loud hiss.

Colonel Autumn stepped into the center focus, and the Major stepped back from the intensity of the baleful scowl on the Colonel’s face.

“S-sir?” Major Dobson asked, snapping to a salute.

“Let me make this ultimately and undeniably clear,” Colonel Autumn’s voice was like knives made of ice. “If you have a death wish, I can put you on the wrong end of a firing squad. Otherwise, you and your men will stand down and treat any and all Equestrians with respect. They come from an industrialized nation with a population in the millions. Pissing them off would be the end of us.”

<>~<>~<>

Twilight was glad to be on terrain that didn’t want to swallow her ankles. The hills were rocky and uneven, and gave her braced leg a fit, but at least she and Daniel were dry.

Daniel had volunteered to try and carry both bags so she could fly, but Twilight declined. He still had to lug around a suitcase lined with lead… and filled with an evil book. Twilight wasn’t going to overload him with her backpack. There were too many sharp stones around, and she didn’t want to be the one stitching him up this time.

They had lucked out so far and neither of them had tripped, though as a precaution, Daniel traveled behind her, ready to catch her if her leg gave out.

Weaving between a pair of massive boulders, Twilight looked ahead and up the rest of the hill. They were close to the top, only a few more hoofsteps away, then it would be downhill from there. She smiled with glee at the thought of being able to see the giant satellite dishes more clearly. She was curious about them, since pony-made satellites, and space exploration in general, weren’t really a thing in Equestria. Princess Luna had to be sent to the moon with the Elements of Harmony. Humans, in their infinite insanity, had filled metal tubes with explosive chemicals to brute-force themselves into space.

“And that’s the extent of what I know about space travel,” Daniel finished the short explanation he’d been giving while they’d been hiking. His explanation had been a lot more eloquent and well spoken, but Twilight liked her shortened synopsis better.

Pushing herself the last few hooves to the top, Twilight crested the hill, and immediately ignored the satellite dishes as she took in the sight of the vast expanse of the Capital Wasteland.

She could already see the Dunwich building, maybe two miles away down the mountain. Farther off past there was an almost fully intact white tower surrounded by a wall. She could see power pylons and old overpasses crumbling away. And far, far off in the distance was the DC ruins.

Twilight’s attention ripped northwest to the mountains on the horizon as an impossible flash of darkness exploded across the sky.

Like a sonic rainboom… but as black as a starless night.