HMS Redoubtable
One Day after the end of “The Long Road”
Cosmo

When Sombra had said he had expended whatever goodwill he had with the Princesses I would’ve imagined that he was kidding. But as we milled about the bridge of the veteran frigate Redoubtable I began to believe his statement more and more. She certainly has the advanced sensors he’d need…

As the former tyrant and his partner strolled onto the bridge I had to do a double take. Instead of the simple tunic that I was familiar with he had donned a rather fancy grey uniform likely taken from the wardrobe of the Redoubtable’s last Human commanding officer. “All right, gather round.” He ordered as he walked up the main holotable.

At his word the entirety of my assembled team quit their meandering and found open spaces around the glowing piece of human engineering. For this journey I had only taken Phalanx, Cloud, Sky and Trixie along. “Are you going to tell us more about where we’re finding this last fragment?” I asked.

“Indeed.” Sombra replied, punching up a holographic representation of the tundra north of the Crystal Empire. “Based off of what I can gather we’ll find the last fragment a few miles away from the North Pole.” As he pressed another button a red dot started blinking on the map. “But I stumbled onto something when I originally came up here to recover the fragment.” The image changed, and over the red dot the three-dimensional shapes of buildings developed.

“Where’d the building come from?” Phalanx asked.

“We believe it was built some time within the last decade.” Radiant explained. “The original map was constructed using data provided by the cartographers in the Crystal Empire. The current image was provided by one of the UCAVs that was stored aboard this vessel when it passed over the site early last week.”

“Based off of the scans of the structure, our best guess is that ONI built it during the war.”

I couldn’t help but shake my head. “That's a bit too much of a coincidence.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Sombra noted. “If I could track the fragments by their magical signature, I don’t see a reason that ONI couldn’t have somehow detected the fragment as well.”

“But didn’t the humans give the locations of all of their bases and facilities on the planet?” Trixie asked. “If I remember correctly that was a stipulation of the peace treaty.”

Sombra nodded. “While that is true, that doesn’t mean that the public is allowed to know where they all were.”

Sombra brings up a good point. I did ask about ONI’s bases after the treaty was signed, but I was instead told that the information that was given to the Princess was classified. “I guess that the Princess saw some locations on there that struck a bit close to home?”

“That's what I would assume as well.” Sombra replied. “But discovering this outpost is why I asked for your aid. Just because the facilities that ONI constructed were all turned over to the government, there’s nothing to suggest that there isn’t some sort of security measures in place to prevent unauthorized access.”

“Sounds like Felix should’ve tagged along.” Sky observed.

“We’ll just have to make do with who’s here.” I said.

“Indeed you will.” Sombra handed me a tacpad from across the holotable. “That has the map of the facility that we’ve developed. You’ll find the main entrance marked on it.”

“Excellent.” I said with a grin. “Let's go to work gang.”

***

If I was asked by someone if they should bring a heavy coat if they were to go on a polar expedition, I’d have to tell them yes. Just find a heavy jacket you’d bring, then go find one twice as heavy. Even through my bomber jacket, snow pants, face wrap, goggles and hat the chill that the winds through about still managed to reach my fur. As we marched from the dropship to the door to the outpost even Cloud began to have problems, the joints in his power armor freezing up if his hobbling and the groans of metal on metal were any indication.

As we finally reached the metal sliding doors that would let us out of the cold Phalanx stepped forward, and with the fine skill of a duelist jammed his sword into the seam that marked the two halves of the entrance. “Come on!” He groaned as he tried to lever the door open.

Cloud finally stepped forward and jammed his hands into the gap and started pulling against one half. Slowly the door gave way to reveal the dark interior of the structure. And one by one we all managed to slide through the crack and out of the elements.

While dark and chilly the interior of the outpost was a decided improvement over the bone chilling winds of the tundra outside. Behind me the lights on Cloud’s armor flickered to life to unveil a sparse entrance to the rest of the structure. “I’m starting to appreciate those lights Cloud.” I said, thinking back to when he installed the recessed LED lights.

“I told you they’d come in handy one day.” Cloud replied, an air of pride evident in the way he spoke.

I simply stepped out of the way and gestured. “Then lead on.”

As Cloud stomped past I got a good look at the new paint scheme that he had applied. He kept the same black, but replaced the Enclave logos with the crest of the Northern Guard. Sky, my old friend and Cloud’s partner, was right on his heel. She had long discarded the standard riot gear for a bright blue and gold set of armor, one that originally started out as a standard set of combat armor that Dusk and his crew had brought back from their expedition.

The building was, of course, empty. No signs of life, just the occasional work station or inactive computer. But as we hit the end of the hall the room opened up. In the middle of the floor was a large hole that led down into the permafrost. “I’m starting to think that ONI was looking for that fragment.” Phalanx said as he stared down into the dig site.

Someone finally found the main breaker, as that point the entire building lit up. “That’ll do it.” Cloud called out from his place at the electrical cabinet. And do ‘it’ Cloud did. Spotlights all flickered to life, instead showing a excavation far shallower than it appeared, maybe only four feet down at most. But in the center… In the center was a crystalline structure that looked rather like a pedestal. “What the hell is that?”

Sky, having gone with Sombra on some of his expeditions, instead jumped down into the pit, landing right next to the crystal. “Shit…” I heard her mutter.

The rest of us dropped down and joined our pegasi companion. “What’s wrong?” Trixie asked.

“The fragment isn’t here.” Sky said as she smacked her palm down on the crystal. “ONI must’ve taken it.”

“Well they didn’t take everything…” I muttered. “Spread out and the main computer core. We’ll pull it and take it back to the Redoubtable.”

By the time I had scrambled out of the pit both Cloud and Sky were bouncing between terminals, pulling up the file listings in hope that they found the main computer. I walked up to a terminal I saw that one of the access panels had been removed to show a large box with two handles. “I found it!” I called out as I slid the core out of it’s enclosure. As the entire group gathered round I couldn’t help but shake the item, feeling a bit better now that we have actual information. “Now let’s get this thing out of here.”

***

HMS Redoubtable, Half an Hour Later…

“I thought you said that you could get that thing working…” Sombra muttered.

Felix was on the floor beneath the stallion, his head inside the guts of one of the Redoubtable’s terminals. “Well I’m sorry, but I can’t snap my bloody fingers and produce results!” The fox called out from his workspace.

After a few more minutes of watching a blank screen, it finally blinked on. While I’d expect to see ONI’s sigil, an unknown symbol that read ‘Materials Group’ appeared before changing to an interface. I pushed past Sombra and took a seat at the terminal, and tapped the ‘logs’ tab on the screen. “Lets see what we’ve got…” I tapped the most recent entry at the top of the list, dating from the final days of the war with the Enclave. “Says here that specimen 01.225-E was transferred to a secure storage container, scheduled to be moved to an annex site…” I had to read the location again to myself to get it to finally register. “In Casbah City on Tribute.”

“Son of a bitch…” Felix muttered. “They took the fragment to another planet?”

I nodded. “That's what it looks like.”

Sombra sat down in the adjacent chair and sighed. “Damnit…” He cursed. “We don’t even know where this planet is, do we?”

“Not a clue.” I answered. “But even if we did… Sombra, this is way out of our ability to handle.”

“I know that…” He answered. “Besides, I can’t drag you off to another planet. You’ve got Archer to worry about.”

And he has another point. I can’t just leave Archer alone… “We’ll go with you.” I whipped around and saw that Sky and Cloud were both standing over us.

“Even so we still need transport.” Sombra pointed out. “And we don’t know where Tribute is.”

Cloud’s grin finally became noticeable and he shook his head. “You’re worrying too much Sombra. Besides, I’ve already got it covered.”

“How do you already ‘have it covered’?” Sombra asked.

Cloud simply handed the old king a datapad. “I called Dusk after we came aboard, and asked if he could call in one of those infinite number of favors that Admiral Osman owes him. She’s got a prowler on the way to Canterlot as we speak.”

***

Canterlot, Two Hours Later…

Cloud wasn’t kidding when he said that Osman had sent a prowler. By the time we had arrived in Canterlot the sleek black craft was already sitting in the castle courtyard, guarded by a group of three Spartans. As the dropship we were riding in touched down we were greeted by both Dusk and Dart. He explained that as he didn’t know where we would be taking the prowler, Osman assigned Red Team as ‘escorts’ should the makeshift expedition run into trouble.

But to admit that Trixie and I would be remaining on solid ground while both Cloud and Sky instead took to the stars seemed to catch Dusk off guard. As I put it with him, it’s one thing to go off for a few hours and leave Archer back in Vanhoover, but it’s a completely different story to abandon her for what could be weeks. It’s just not responsible parenting. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t help load supplies onto the ship, and that’s where I was when Dusk and Dart returned fitted out in full combat gear to take our places.

“You two are nuts.” I groaned as I stowed one last rifle away in the weapons locker. “Neither of you really know Sombra. Sky does, and where she goes Cloud tends to follow.”

“You’re also letting my little brother run off to another planet.” Dart retorted from her seat next to me. “I wouldn’t be a responsible big sister if I didn’t look out for him.”

“You didn’t even know that you had a family until a year ago, and unless something changed you don’t remember growing up with them either!” I spat. “Seriously, neither of you have a reason to tag along on this wild goose chase.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dusk shake his head in disagreement. “I think that’s exactly a reason to.”

As one of the Spartans trudged past I simply pointed at the super soldier. “You’ve got three of them to babysit. Do you honestly think you’d be needed?”

“I’m probably the only one who can convince ONI to return that chunk of Amore.” Dusk pointed out. “As for Dart… Why are coming again?”

“Because I can’t let you have all the fun.”

“There we go!” Dusk exclaimed. “Look, we’ll be fine. We’ll go see the Materials Group on Tribute, do our thing, and be back before you know it.”

While that is good to hear I can’t help but feel a bit apprehensive. As we loaded the last of the supplies and I stepped off the ship, that feeling didn’t go away. And seeing the prowler lift off the ground and blast away into the sky only made me feel worse…

“What’s wrong?” Trixie asked as we stood in the wake of the prowler’s departure.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” I muttered. If my gut is anything to go by, I doubt that their trip will be as easy as Dusk makes it sound.

Author's Note

While short, I felt I needed a good setup... Next time we arrive in the Epsilon Eridani system.

In the meantime, anyone got questions? Like what you're seeing so far? Hell, maybe have some gripes? There's a comment section and the Mirrorverse Codex. Read and comment away, because I want to hear from you fellow denizens of this corner of the internet. Until next time gang!
-Striker