The control room had at some point, been the site of a horrific attack judging from the thin film of blood and gore that coated the walls and consoles. On the ground lay the smashed remains of what Access assumed to have been a pony at one point, weakly clutching the shredded grip of a personal sidearm separated from the rest of the weapon.

Just from the look of the weapon’s remains, as Access was unwilling to physically touch it for fairly obvious reasons, whoever once wielded it didn’t even get the chance to fire a shot before they were turned into a fine red mist.

“See anything?” Star called up. “Access?”

“Just a corpse.” he replied.

“Is it the pony we were supposed to talk to?”

“Hard to tell through the gore, anything we could've used to identify them has been mangled beyond recognition, there’s no name badge that I can see either.”

A few of the consoles still flickered with life despite the damage sustained during the scuffle, one of which displayed a general alert.

Attention, there is a Condition Zero alert in effect for all facilities above ground level, please proceed to your assigned safe rooms.

“So what’s this idea of yours?”

“It’s gonna be a little grisly, but you need to root around in that corpse’s pockets for a key roughly the size of a datachip.” Star called out. “That’ll go into a slot in the console, which should open the outer blast doors.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I can’t, we’ll just have to hope that this doesn’t set off an alarm or release a murder-bot swarm or something.” Star chuckled darkly. “Look, just deal with the blast doors, I’ll work on the shutters.”

Star was liable to shock herself stupid in the process of figuring out the right wires to bridge, but she seemed determined despite her lack of know-how, which was surprising given the situation they were in.

Ponies with any useful level of clearance usually kept their passes and credentials in easy to reach places, such as on a belt or chest rig, but it seemed like someone had already emptied the pony’s pockets of anything useful.

A short yelp caught Access’ attention, likely caused by Star’s hamfisted attempts at hardware hacking.

“Did you watch the vids I sent you?” Access said smugly, delving into the last pocket he’d yet to check.

“No, Access.” Star grumbled as the rolling shutter screeched to life. “With all that’s been going on I’ve barely found the time, besides, I managed without it.”

“Judging from the smell, you’ve also torched the controls, better hope that doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass.” Access remarked through a barely concealed grin. “Got the key as well, pony kept it really well hidden for some reason.”

“Probably wanted to keep it hidden from whatever turned him into pizza sauce.” Star replied. “I hope we never have the misfortune to meet them.”

“Something tells me we might have already.”

A cursory glance across the console revealed the receptacle the key needed to be slotted into. It was labeled as an “Emergency Override Token Port” and despite the name implying it was only to be used as such, it appeared to have seen quite some use due to how heavily scratched up the slot was underneath the translucent red cover.

Access flipped open the cover and slid the impossibly small security credential into the slot with a satisfying click. At first, nothing happened, but a loud hiss resounded throughout the loading bay indicating the release of a heavy-duty hydraulic lock.

“Got movement, look after Snowy’s core for me real quick.” Star said, placing her friends electronic brain on the ground. “I’m gonna check it out.”

Access nodded and jumped off the catwalk onto the ground below and took up a position behind some boxes, sliding Snowy’s armored AI core onto his back.

The vast black steel blast doors slowly groaned into motion, slowly at first, then faster as the pressure differential between the inside and outside of the structure equalized. A wave of damp foul-smelling air rushed into the room, a product of the industrial pollutants dumped into the forest over many decades.

Star peered around the corner, hoping to see Sheet Rock and Scarlet waiting for them, but instead she was greeted with silence and she waved over Access cautiously.

The van was just about visible through the brush, but it also obscured their view of anything that might be waiting for them, as it was unlikely that the blast doors opening had gone unnoticed.

An AV suddenly roared over their heads followed closely by another, both flying at speed toward an unknown destination. They were of the type that carried a small number of passengers in relative comfort, the kind a senior dignitary might make use of.

Star pointed at a half rotted tree stump a little distance past the brush that obscured their view of the van, weapon in hoof, and then pointed toward where they’d exited.

“You sure?” Access mouthed. “I should go ahead, my shotgun is more effective up close.”

Instead of giving an answer, Star went to take up a position behind the stump, moving low and slow as she went.

While her knowledge of Crown activities and their operating procedures was likely a little outdated by now, she understood that a strike team usually consisted of at least three AVs and they only saw two leave, which meant there was a squad unaccounted for.

The squad in question was more than likely the one Raptor commanded, likely taking the long way back to the surface after their little encounter. This however meant that the pilot, or pilots, of the AV that brought them here were probably lurking around somewhere.

Access suddenly gripped Star’s shoulder, pointing ahead of them.

Sat on a pair of heavy ammunition crates stacked up beside the van’s rear bumper were a pair of stallions dressed in lightly armored flight suits. Their flight helmets had beentossed lazily into a pile at the foot of the crates, helmets that they really should’ve been wearing, if only for safety’s sake.

Not that a flight helmet would’ve saved them from a stray bullet, a shredded piece of fuselage or explosion, but still.

“Pilots.” Star whispered. “Probably only lightly armed, assuming they’re armed at all, think we could take them?”

“Probably, if we got the jump on them.”

The two pilots appeared to be playing an augmented reality game of some sort, but it was impossible to tell without breaching their cyberware or invading them via the net, regardless, their game had them quite distracted.

“I’ll take the one of the left, you take the other one.” Access mumbled. “Don’t let them reach for their sidearms, or we’ll have a firefight on our hooves.”

Wordlessly, the two counted to three then popped out from behind the stump, dashing toward the pilots and leveled their weapons at the two before they could even blink. The surprise was written all over their faces, and they could do little else than stammer with their mouths agape.

One reached for a light sidearm by his hind hooves, but a shot from Access’ shotgun knocked the weapon away into a pool of stagnant water.

“Stand up, back away from the van.” Access said, loading another shell into his shotgun. “Reach for your sidearms and you die, clear?”

“The others, where are they?” Star demanded.

“In the back.” the unarmed pilot said. “The boss had them restrained, I’d assume they’re still in there.”

“You didn’t think to check, huh?”

“We’re pilots, not soldiers.” the pilot stammered. “Taking care of prisoners was not part of the job description.”

The van’s rear door had been left unlocked, judging from how the handle wobbled as Access took a hold of it. With a tug he pulled it open, only for a hoof to fly out of the interior square into his jaw, sending him careening into the dirt.

Star pointed at Access’ assailant out of reflex, only to realize that it was Sheet Rock that had thrown the punch, probably expecting one of the pilots to be on the receiving end.

When she’d realized what she’d done, she turned her fury on the pilot closest to her, a swift kick to the face knocking him out, while the other caught a less serious but still quite terrifying verbal tirade.

“You’re welcome, by the way.” Star chuckled, lowering her weapon slightly. “We need to leave, now.”

“What about the others?”

“We were ambushed, Matterhorn’s been captured and Snowy took a bullet for us, we had to abandon his body.”

“I recovered his core though, we can probably buy or build a new body for him at some point.” Access remarked. “It should be pretty easy.”

“What about Phantom?” Sheet Rock asked, helping Access to his hooves. “Where is she?”

“That’s a little hard to explain.” Star said carefully. “We had to leave in a rush.”

“You have until I get in the driver’s seat and start the engine, and it better be a good.” Sheet Rock said, her voice turning cold. “If I don’t like your answer you can expect to walk back, and if I find out you left her to die, you’d do well to make sure I never see you again.”

“It’s not like that Sheet, just… get in van okay, I’ll do the explaining.”

“Fine.”

Author's Note

This chapter would've been posted sooner, had my office suite (LibreOffice) not decided to freeze when copy-pasting it from the document to FiMfiction, but here we are.