Fallout Equestria: Shaping Shadow - Book 5

With Mareland secured, the Equestrian Pegasus Military was taking a few days to heal up and rearm. Many of their soldiers switched to novasurge battle saddles for better ammo carrying capacity. Everypony else switched to armor piercing rounds in preparation for the final battle.

A few more units arrived to join the assault, mostly Wonderbolts who had been instructed to take other bases. That made up for the units that would be staying with General Gunmetal in order to hold the ammunition stockpile and prepare for their more peaceful descent. Slice would be with Gunmetal. The Equestrian Pegasus Military might not be going to war, but they would have to put up a strong defense to prevent the forces below from taking advantage of them or pushing them around.

Shadow was once again in charge of his Zebra team, minus Ukuzwa who was with Deke. They had spoken about the assault. When he could, Shadow would switch to Black Widow and slip away to ensure that no one drew a correlation between him and Black Widow based on their timing.

General Misty Thunder found Shadow. "Command Sergeant Major, I have a job for you."

"Of course," Shadow said with a nod. "And that is?"

"We have contact with some Wonderbolts in Las Pegasus. We want you to take your Zebras and scout ahead. You have those nifty cloaks to hide yourself and you are all experienced scouts. Our scout force is limited at the moment. The ACUs must act like regular platoons. The job will be risky for you though and honestly, if you get caught and we need to, we can deny involvement because they are zebras and they don't wear our uniforms."

"That is understandable," Shadow said. "We won't get caught. How early are we going in?"

"Almost a full 72 hours. We plan to strike three dawns from now."

"Consider it done," Shadow said.

"Mareland is more important than Nellie, but Nellie had more of their soldiers, while Mareland had the larger fleet. That is how they set themselves up initially as battle lines were drawn, But they didn't change it for some reason. Something has them spooked and keeping the soldiers in Nellie. Deke eradicated their fleet and is in between us and them, so they couldn't move the soldiers after he did his job, but before that time they could. They were holding their troops there for some reason."

"Could it have anything to do with the rumors about captured wonderbolts?" Shadow asked.

"Possibly," Misty Thunder nodded. "The Wonderbolt deployments do correlate with the Enclave's earlier movements. If they captured even a single wonderbolt, they could be concerned about a lot of things. Your primary mission is not to search for any captured units though. We need to know the layout of their defenses, the units left, and the officers in charge of the units."

"Basic intel gathering," Shadow said with a nod. "With Deke being in that position, we will relay it to him and then he can better relay it back to you."

"That was going to be my suggestion," Misty Thunder said. "If you can get in a position to disrupt their response when we do attack, it would be appreciated, but without knowing the full situation, I won't give you that order. Having you set up in a place where you will get slaughtered would never outweigh the disruption you could cause."

"I understand," Shadow replied. "If we find something good, we will set up. If not, we will fall back to Deke's fleet to remove the need to watch our backs as we sleep. That is assuming we have time in between the mission."

"I don't know if you will have any or not, but I do hope so. We want you to be as fresh as we can get you for the battle. We almost have it. One way or the other, this civil war comes to an end within the next five days."

"We will come out on top," Shadow said. "I'll make sure of that by providing us with the info we need."

Misty Thunder saluted Shadow in response. Shadow saluted back and gathered the Zebra's together. They were rearmed and ready to go. It only took a few minutes to plan the flight path and entrance area. They had to get onto the base without being caught, but the cloaks could not hide them while flying. They would arrive late, under the cover of night, which was to their advantage.

Shadow stalked through the base as Black Widow. Shortly after they had landed. They had split the team into four groups and Shadow had departed on his own. Two teams were mapping the defenses and two were on unit identification and officer ID. Shadow would be looking out for it all as he moved. Leaving the Enclave quaking in fear over Black Widow would weaken their resolve. If they lacked morale, the Enclave would lose the upcoming battle.

Shadow had identified an officer barracks and eliminated two captains and a major. He left a generic calling card, stating their crime being killing their fellow pegasi and waging war against the peaceful ponies of the wasteland. It didn't need to be more detailed than that to get the job done.

Now he was working his way through a heavy bunker that was out of the way. It was well guarded, but he had infiltrated worse places with the Zebra cloak as his cover. The entire place was constructed of steel and dug into the clouds that made up the base. The supporting clouds had to be strong in order to suspend the bunker.

Shadow came to a side hallway and heard a shout from further down it. Six rooms with heavy steel doors were off of it, three on each side. Shadow carefully slid down to the one that had the commotion. It was easy to find since he could hear a muffled exchange behind it. He didn't know what it was about, but with the building they were in, it was important.

Shadow pressed his ear to the door to listen in. "You are a traitor and you will answer my questions. We caught you...and for that the sentence is death. It will come quickly if you just give me the info I want."

"Go to hell!" Someone else spat. "I've held out this long, despite your best efforts, and I can hold out longer. It won't be long before they come here and bust down the door."

The other pony laughed maniacally. "No, they won't. Their assault on Mareland was a failure. The ones you hope are coming ain't. I need to know where they moved the traitorous cowards who were once our Council so we can snuff them out and bring this infighting to an end. Your side lost. It failed. You put too much faith in them. And if you don't talk, this might help loosen your tongue."

"That doesn't scare me!" The prisoner declared, but Shadow could easily tell that those words were a lie. The voice hesitated and had a slight quiver. "Do your worst."

Shadow had heard enough and pulled out the cloud key. It took nothing for it to conform to the shape he needed it to be and then he unlocked the door. It swung in on well oiled hinges. Not making a sound. The Pegasus in the Enclave uniform didn't even notice it had been opened. Shadow drew his sword and iced the blade over. He stepped in and skewered the pegasus, coming in from behind the ribs and out the heart. They looked down at the ice blue blade sticking out their chest in disbelief.

Shadow pulled it out and they had time to turn and look at Black Widow before they collapsed.

"The rumors...they are...true," the Pegasus said as she struggled to breathe. "I thought they were wonderbolt operations, not a mythical unicorn."

"Black Widow is here to judge the Pegasus race," Shadow replied in his masked voice. "Torture is not a good thing, no matter what they might have done. Lying to get info out of your enemy isn't morally justifiable either. Mareland is in the Equestrian Pegasus Military's hooves." Shadow sheathed his sword and dropped a calling card on the body as the Pegasus died.

He looked at the tied up Pegasus. Torture was putting it lightly. He knew the face under the wounds and abuse. It was Marble Falls. She was supposed to be at Fort Wind, in command there. He couldn't say anything to her though. She would be able to tell it was him, especially if he started asking questions."

"I probably deserve what she got," Marble Falls stated. "But if you want your judgment to mean the Enclave is defeated and your home below is protected, killing me is against your interests. At least killing me right now is. Leave me, chained up, and when they come they will find the body and me still here. It will freak them out. If they lose morale, it will make a difference in any battles fought. I know they have to be coming to Nellie soon."

Shadow nodded. "Black Widow will not pass judgment on you at this time. That is a rare outcome, but I also can't help you escape this bunker, so I will take your advice and leave, stalling on my judgment."

Shadow immediately left, locking the door behind him. He explored the bunker and found a central control station. He killed the three Enclave soldiers on duty and opened the computer terminal. It gave him the information on the units who were at Nellie as well as the officers. He printed it out and left. On his way out, he killed the front door guards and set the alarm off so they would find them. It would cause them to lock everything down and check on their prisoners, where they would find the body.

Shadow got away clearly and found a safe location to contact his team. With the information on hoof, they could focus on mapping the defenses. The Enclave had fortified themselves fiercely. Simi's team had even been plotting points that would make prime locations for the cloudships to bombard.

They finished up with the map just before dawn. The news of Black Widow had already spread. Shadow had the Zebras rondevu at a safe location except for Simi and Kami. The two of them would join Shadow in eliminating the enemy officers. If they could cut off the head of the snake, the soldiers would have a lot harder of a time staying organized.

Shadow found the senior officers in a briefing room. They were holding it over Black Widow. He shut the door and uncloaked. The slaughter was quick and merciless as Black Widow eliminated them all. On the chalkboard, he painted "Black Widow passed her judgment" in their blood.

He continued his crusade for the rest of the day, and between him and the others, they knocked out almost all of the officers. They regrouped and waited out the day. Shadow got back into his power armor. They used the cover of night to make their escape.

They landed on the Twilight Sky. Deke was waiting for them. They saluted and he welcomed them aboard. On the bridge, Shadow relayed the information to Misty Thunder.

"I can't believe you did what you did," Misty Thunder said. "Especially as quickly as you did."

"I have something else to report," Shadow said. "While scouting, the base was on high alert because Black Widow was around. Apparently she had already killed several VIPs. Or passed judgment."

"How you managed to scout everything while they were in heightened alert I will never know," Misty Thunder said.

"Actually, she served as a great distraction," Shadow explained. "We used it to our advantage. It seems like she had a similar idea that we did. After we discovered she eliminated their senior staff, we eliminated almost all of the other officers. The soldiers will lack a key piece of their structure when the battle happens."

"That was fortuitous," Misty Thunder stated. "I've heard the rumors about this Black Widow. Good call piggy backing on that insane unicorn's actions."

"I've heard the rumors too," Shadow replied. "Which is why we chose to do what we did. They should be soft enough for us to crush."

"That certainly has softened them up," Misty Thunder said. "Rest up, you deserve it, and rest up so we have you at your best. We will be in time for a dawn attack."

"Roger that," Shadow replied before the communication line went dead.