Fallout Equestria: S.T.A.L.K.E.R

Chapter 45: The Bridge of Death

"I'm not really Corporal Aurora Borealis."

The pegasus sitting before Nikolai had opened up a can of worms that she couldn't hope to close, there was no going back now. She looked up at the sky, sighed, then looked back over at The Stalker in the waning light of the barrel fire. "Do you want to continue this tomo-"

"Please, Aurora. I'd like to hear it now, take as much time as you need. I am in no rush." He folded his hands and gestured to her with earnest.

"Alright." She shifted her wings about. “Has it ever crossed to my mind as to why I dodge so many of your questions about my life? When I give you vague answers or simply telling you I can't tell you? Why The Enclave one only send one lone corporal to look for somepony who they consider valuable instead of a proper rescue squad? It's not because those personnel are needed anywhere else, that's for sure. Have you ever wondered why I try so hard to avoid my skyborn kind every time we face them?"

Nikolai scooted a little closer and motioned for her to keep talking.

"The truth is, I've been lying at your face this whole time, Nikolai. I’m not Corporal Aurora Borealis. Aurora Borealis is the name of the Officer who sent me down here with a squad of forward scouts. Aurora Borealis is actually a pretty common name in The Enclave. It was the perfect pseudonym. No one down here questioned it much, so I stuck with it. The real truth behind my identity is that I'm just another enlisted pegasus with no real importance to the war machine and no political connections." She paused again.

"My real name is Thunder Light; rank Private. And a murderer. And Windy Vivacity? The mare that I claim I've been looking for all this time? She isn't important either, she isn't worth one bit to the higher-ups of the G.P.E. who looked down at my city and call it a backwater rookery infested by a massive swirling cod of Dashite pests. She was just a medical student who got herself twisted up in some project to make some of the irradiated farmland around Horseshoe bay arable. She wanted to make it into a controlled agricultural district that both Wastelanders and pegasi alike could like safely in. But the Enclave doesn't tend to tolerate opinions like that too much. I can't speak for any other city or pegasus settlement but we Cloudhaven pegasi were taught to value the teachings of the old world, we once had a Councilmare named Open Skies who tried to advocate for relief efforts to the surface-and the Enclave sent a few companies of soldiers and a fleet of cloudships to put down what they dubbed a "Dashite Uprising". They installed a military junta headed by the most piss-ant colonel you've ever seen. He'd abuse his power to the extreme; Arrests without reason, fake trials, anyone who he suspected of being unfaithful to The Enclave. I've watched ponies I'd know all my life be trotted or flown away by soldiers never to be seen again. They shut down the city's library because-according to them-the literature stored there promoted rebellion. They limited the amount of food that could be brought into the city-they manufactured starvation. Most of the young pegasi enlisted into the military to try and get away from it all... All the good that did." She looked down at the ground, then up at Nikolai, studying his face and trying to gauge what his reaction would be.

Nikolai crossed and uncrossed his legs, then pointed at the pegasus sitting across from him through his folded hands. "Can you keep going? I-eh... I kind of want to hear about that whole murderer thing. Give me the backstory to that, please." Thunder continued, Nikolai could hear venom in her voice. Not the malicious kind, the regretful-vengeful sort.

"Evidently it seems like justice and the "Rule of Law" only really applied to pegasi dead loyal to the Enclave, which-the ponies of Cloudhaven were, or-tried to be. But the damage was done and they couldn't care less about us. I didn't care for most of my youth. I was in a circle of friends who loved to spend time with me at the local bar regardless. I grew up with Windy Vivacity, and we stayed friends right up until she disappeared. We clung together throughout life, we played together, attended school and university together. I pushed her to pursue medicine and... I guess she got into biology somewhere along the way- she's my best friend, I'd never abandon her. She went off and joined some military survey team-and then Colonel fuck-off decided that she was some kind of threat-and sent her entire team down to the surface on a mission made up to make them disappear. She did the same with some of my other friends as well: Star Seeker, Ash Dawn, and Star Seeker's sister Marigold Locks... The list goes on. I don't know why the Colonel went after them-maybe out of spite... I still don't know. But as the disappearances went on and on and on, all he seemed to do was want to spite me. He wanted me to go and curl up in some corner and cry to my parents. But, like the stupid teen I was, I enlisted."

Nikolai hadn't really been wholly sure what he was going to hear, but he hadn't heard the whole of her story yet. She kept going.

"It didn't take all too long for me to realize that there were more than a fair share of Enclave apologists among my fellow enlistees. There was this one mare named Acolyte who everyone thought was a bit of a loony bitch-she'd go around parroting every new propaganda poster that she saw like it was gospel. Even the outsiders from beyond Cloudhaven found her gibbering annoying. But that's neither here nor there. There was this Private First Class who went by Vapor Springs, she'd been moved-more like exiled to Stratus Military Base after she'd accidentally killed someone during a botched surgery. She was friendly, she was even bold enough to give me some actual survival training when our NCO's favored their own kind over us and neglected to provide actual training that'd keep us alive on the battlefield, from what I've seen you're a better fighter than almost anyone in my squad was."

Here Nikolai chuckled a bit, patting his own knee. "Aurora-I mean, Thunder. I you might not know this but-I have no formal military training. It may look like I do, but to become as proficient as I am now-It took a lot of instruction from a lot of gracious strangers, and a lot of... How shall I say? Learning on the Job?" He motioned for her to go on with her story.

"I hate every single bit of my existence for lying to my parents, but I didn't enlist to move to Thunderhead City, where ponies like me are a bit more tolerated. I enlisted so I could come down here and find Vivacity. If Borealis knew what I was up to he'd've had me thrown into a cell, and I knew that my chances of convincing anypony to go along with my idea was slim to none. One pony, Shadowfall, got wind of my plan and volunteered to help me. She went out of her way because she admired my will to want to try and save a friend who's likely dead. I graduated. But when the time came I barely been taught how to use my power armor-but they let me graduate anyway, they needed new soldier, I guess. Time went by, eventually we were sent out on a reconnaissance mission beneath the clouds. The squad I'd been assigned to was filled with strangers. Strangers... And Shadow. I don't know if it was coincidence or spite but she'd ended up with me and I, being a private, couldn't do anything about it. Our unit departed from the cloud layer and flew for a couple of hours, all the while the little bits and pieces of their real mission began to slip through the cracks. Shadow and I came up with an escape plan: I'd kill the rest of the squad while their backs were turned, and then I'd injure Shadow to make it seem like she was just barely able to escape my murderous rampage. That way, she could return to the skies-and, perhaps even be honorably discharged and sent back home." Aurora lowered her head and shut her eyes.

"We made a slight miscalculation and, she paid the price. Her injuries were too severe. She didn't... She didn't want to die... I made sure to take my time burying her. When it was all said and done I flew off into the Wasteland without a sense of direction. I've looked all over for Vivacity. I expected to meet other pegasi down here, ponies I could relate to. Perhaps even a few of my old friends or-maybe my neighbors. But that wasn't the case, I explored every single facet of the ruins around Horseshoe bay but I still couldn't find her. I gave up and just focused on searching for Vivacity, my search took me northwards, into the Smokey mountains, where I found you and Flashpoint and Willow. My plan to leave the cloudcover was a success, now I'm down here, but it wasn't without sacrifice-Innocent or otherwise the ponies I came down here with are dead. I killed them for my own personal goal. So what now?"

Nikolai scratched his whiskery chin, then stood up and sat down beside Thunder, whose eyes had grown sullen and dim after telling her friend the truth. "Thunder, whether you believe yourself to be irredeemable or not, I really do not care. I think you did the right thing-A fellow, he makes his own life what it is, yes? There can be fortune or moments of misfortune, yes. But it is all still up to you, fate ties into it there... Somewhere, but that is not so important. What you did, you did. Now that you look back on your past actions... Well, tell me, are you familiar with the expression: Hindsight is twenty-twenty?"

"I think I've heard it somewhere before, why?"

"It means that you always criticize your past experiences without properly recalling why you made the choices you made. I am not a gambling man, but I would be willing to bet to you that you are looking back at the past thinking of all the ways you could have done better, yes? Learn from the past, because once you've done something, done anything, you can never take it back. I say that you aren't a murderer, what you did was self defense, and what happened to Shadow was an accident. You both knew the risk, it's best not to beat yourself up over it. And Windy Vivacity? If I could find Flashpoint in Splendid Valley, then I am certain that you, a creature who can fly-will have no problem hunting her down." Thunder turned her head to look Nikolai in the eyes.

"That was... Wow. Thank you Nikolai. Thank you for believing me."

"Well what did you expect? You've been with us for over a month, and you've done more in that time to prove your trustworthiness than some people back in my homeland would do in a year." Thunder reached under the lining of her power armor and passed a small piece of torn paper to Nikolai. He turned it over and glanced over it. There wasn't much to look at. The Stalker looked at the photograph, then glanced back up at Thunder.

"That's you? And the pony beside you is?"

"Vivacity." Thunder clarified. "That's us out in front of the library in Cloudhaven." Nikolai pulled off his gloves and ran and ran a thumb over the image.

"I have not seen too many photographs in my time here, and this-are those clouds in the background, you're standing on clouds in this image?" He passed it back to her.

"Yep." She answered quickly. "We took that just a few hours before the Enclave began to liquidate it." Nikolai picked up his rifle and his grenade launcher and inspected the chambers of both. He turned his radio back on and the ferries wheel of Pripyat came filtering through the static. Nikolai curled his fingers around his launcher and reached for a water canteen, he took a gulp, then looked back over at Thunder and asked:

"What about Willow and Flashpoint?"

"What about them?"

"Are you going to tell them your real name or, should I? Would you like me to?"

"They're asleep already." Thunder pointed over at the barrel fire nearest to them, two equines lay curled up under thin blankets besides one another. One zebra and one thestral.

"We'll be leaving at first light, as soon as the sky begins to brighten, which should be about...eh, eight or nine hours from now." Thunder stood up and nodded. "Alright then, 'night Nikolai."

"Goodnight Thunder."

Nikolai propped himself up against his rucksack with his hand on his pistol, his eyelids went heavy-and his consciousness faded. His vision was black for a long, long time until-like a lightswitch bursting in a dark basement, his vision was filled with a flury of green and blue and shifting alabaster white light. Up past his brow he heard something.

Tick Tick Tick-Tock Click.

It was a clock, it was another manual clock, it's second and minute hands counting away. Nikolai looked around, he was dreaming but...he couldn't tell if he was dreaming. He looked up from a bar table. That same bar table that he had... Where had he seen this place before? The Pripyat Palace of Culture? No, he had only seen it in photos. He had never been to Pripyat. Seen it, yes. But he had never set foot within the city limits. That poisoned city was a kilometer too far for him. He looked around at the other customers in the room. Grey and brown dress suits, old workman's clothes, a baking smock. A family pushing a baby stroller past the front door. The Stalker looked off to the right and the world dropped off at the concrete wall. It dropped off into the cavernous ruins of a city street filled with vast, brutal, metal towers filled with green light.

"Приходь до мене. Come to me." Something spoke through the ruins.

Nikolai stood up from the seat at the bar and strolled to where a wall was supposed to be. He took one step too far, and stepped out into the city on the other side. His Geiger counter clicked, things moved in the shadows just out of view. Things were watching him, but nothing intended to harm him, nothing-not the robots or the shadows came close enough for him to get a clear enough picture.

"Приходь до мене. Come to me." The voice spoke again, booming this time. He looked up and saw a massive black tower ahead of him. Something within, something around him felt far too familiar. Had he been here before? It felt like it, it felt familiar. But it was alien. It wasn't a dream, and it wasn't really a nightmare either. What was this place? He couldn't tell but it felt familiar. He knew where this was, he was sure of it. He wandered about but everything kept looking alien.

And then Nikolai woke up. The hours had gone by in an instant, time seems to work differently when you sleep.

**

"You've never had the chance to operate heavy machinery before?"

Through an early morning fog bank strode Nikolai, with Willow, Flashpoint, and Thunder behind him. Up and over a little rise, through a patch of dead trees, past a farmhouse crawling with rad scorpions, past two wandering feral raiders. None of whom they tried to pick a fight with, they only avoided them. The fog was particularly thick this morning and anything that would have any desire to want to sneak up on them would be wholeheartedly disappointed in what they would find.

"So, Nikolai?" A question and the flap of Willow's leathery wings broke the quiet amongst them.

"What?"

"What? What were you and Aurora talking about last night?" Flashpoint finished Willow's sentence.

Nikolai slowed his pace until Flashpoint was right up beside him. "Aurora's name isn't Aurora, it's- "

"-Thunder Light." Willow finished her sentence. "I overheard you two talking back and forth last night, super hearing. What else can I say? It's one of the upsides of having these giant ears." The zebra blew through his nostrils and gave Thunder a quirky side eye.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. I didn't know if I could trust you guys-even after all we've been through. I've been thinking about telling you the truth for the last couple of days and-well last night I finally decided to tell Nikolai."

"She's got a not so pleasant history with the Enclave, some folks wanted her dead. She ran away to look for her friend, and now, here she is. And aren't we all glad about that?" Thunder smiled below her mask.

"Yeah, I am. I have to be honest with you all, my life on the surface has actually been better and safer in some ways then up in the clouds. Especially since I met all of you. I can read whatever I want, we can go wherever we please... Plus some of the jokes that Nikolai tells would get him thrown into prison up there."

"So it was like my homeland before 1991, yes?" They all looked at him in confusion; Nikolai realized that he would have to explain what he meant by that, which meant trying to explain The Soviet Union and it's system of totalitarian puppet states. They knew some things about his life back on Earth, even of his life before he had traveled to the Zone of Alienation, and he had talked about or briefly mentioned historical events from his own world. They knew about human religion, they knew that humans were omnivorous, they knew that the quality of life was much greater in most of Nikolai's world then their own, there were other things of course that went without saying. For everything that was foreign or abnormal to one party or another it wasn't like Equestria was a completely new circumstance for The Stalker. A lot of what was here existed on earth. Including his second language, which he was ever grateful for.

They passed over an interchange and a set of tracks potmarked with minecarts in various states of disrepair, Nikolai nearly tripped over an old skeleton. He checked his PDA: They were getting closer to their destination. And still his compatriots were looking at him with accusatory curiosity. He supposed he really would have to explain the 20th century to these three little colorful talking equines. The ground underfoot turned to gravel, and then to patchwork asphalt, and then wound up on an overpass which had crumbled away in places. They could see the Hoofington Stadium off in the distance, though they would never go there. They passed under a collapse metal power pylon. and maneuvered around old downed power lines which still crackled and sparked every once and a while. The passed an armor clad skeleton which had been strung up in a sickly looking oak tree. Another one which had been crucified to a road sign. Nikolai started into his story-the abridged version (For now). His world history and, even his national history was rusty and fuzzy, so he tried to do his best by telling them what he did know and comparing it with his life in the present day, and mixing that with laughter here and there. He had just about gotten to trying to explain the Iron Curtain when he heard an electronic click.

"There's a radroach up ahead." Flashpoint informed them.

"I can smell it," Willow began, "How can you see it?" The zebra held up his PipBuck, letting his friend get a look at the Eyes Forward Sparkle Display. "Cobalt taught me a little bit about how to use my PipBuck, now it's more than just a radio and a map."

"What else can it do?" Nikolai pried. Flashpoint fiddled with the dials on it's side and held it up for Nikolai to see.

"Holy shit is that-"

"A list of everything I'm wearing and everything in my saddlebags? Yep. It even lists item weight, quantity, and nutritional value."

"What do you think would happen if I strapped it onto my arm?"

"It'd malfunction? Maybe... Shock you? Explode?" Thunder suggested nonchalantly. Nikolai fished out his own PDA and shook it vigorously in one hand. "This thing does none of those things. Anyone can use this. Anyone, as long as you can manipulate the buttons. Which all of you can. But none of you will."

"Why not?"

"Because it's mine and it's dear to me and it doesn't use a spell matrix and-blyat, guys-do I have to spell it out for you in the dirt with the heel of my right boot? This," He held up his PDA and wagged it like a wad of paper money. "Is not communal. There are certain things that we keep to ourselves, hm?" He motioned over at Thunder.

"For different reasons."

"Speaking of secrets," Thunder quipped. "Nikolai, have you ever wondered how your radio can pick up signals from another dimension or plane of existence of wherever you came from." A silence came over the group as Nikolai radio crackled and the the broadcast man on the other side was giving a short lecture on anomalies, which promptly faded and shifted tone back into hard bass, that weird blending of Slavic culture, hip-hop, and dubstep that Stalker's like Nikolai craved by the digital bushel. It was fun, it was stupid, and it was human. Which mend that it wouldn't be filled with obscure species puns... Usually. Certainly some was better and some was worse. But that wasn't quite what was on Nikolai's mind. His mind was now drawn to the inner workings of his radio. He knew how his PDA worked, he knew how his rifle worked. He... Sort of knew how his night vision device worked. But his radio? He had never questioned it, not once. Pray tell he was a bit terrified of breaking it if he ever tried. He settled against the idea, and that was that.

They broke away from the road and found their way past an old fire station, then across a flat bit of ground marked by the remains of another outlying Hoofington area town. A few streets, a few pop and art deco buildings, then farmland beyond that.

To their left was a patchwork of enervation, but the town itself was empty except for a few pockets here and there. All in the most bizarre of places, completely at random. If that strange life sapping energy was a weapon then it's deployment made no sense, if it was the result of an accident or disaster, then it was spread out in the strangest ways. Ways that defied wind patterns or ordinary physics. Dust storms blew, earth moved, but the enervation remained. It was magic, it was anomalous, so that made sense in a way. Nikolai had determined months ago that the magic here wasn't magic at all. Magic, was indeterminable, but here there had been a whole government organization dedicated to what it called the, "Arcane Sciences." Sometimes mesmerizing, sometimes confusing, oftentimes terrifying when uncontrolled. But at least it seemed to operate off of some sort of cosmic principal that wasn't wholly a mystery.

Nikolai supposed The Zone of Alienation was the same way back on earth, just... Another kind of magic, waiting to be uncovered. They passed by the town, through a field partition made of glowing eucalyptus trees, and the telltale form of a black and grey flight control tower about a kilometer away.

"Miramare Airbase." Nikolai announced as they walked across the open field towards the derelict military complex. It was a small base, unlike the massive naval facility Nikolai had gone through about two weeks ago up in Manehatten. An airfield, a few hangers and support buildings, and one giant big black brick of a structure that looked like it had survived a nuclear blast. In a way, it had. Down the runway, about a kilometer away, sat a great big nicely sized glowing red crater that sparkled with green particles that Nikolai could see from where he stood.

"What makes this place special?" Willow asked to the point.

"Tell me," Nikolai started as they strolled past a concreter road block. "Do you know what usually happens to places like this?"

"I feel like I don't have the answer." Thunder said matter of factly."What's your take on it?"

"Two things happen to high value places like this, I've noticed. Either they are quickly ransacked by opportunists looking to make a quick buck or establish some sort of hideout, or... Every single sentient being with half an ounce of a sense of self preservation avoids it for dear life. Most Wastelanders don't have Geiger counters." They walked past an industrial cargo wagon with a bed loaded down with four nondescript metal drums covered in peeled warning labels that glowed with a prismatic rainbowish light.

"So they come here, they see their friends mutate and decay and die, and they avoid it. But we, well... We are uniquely privileged, yes? Besides, we aren't going anywhere near to that. We are leaving the entire southwestern half of the base alone, we are looking for the motor pool. The place where they keep all of their vehicles, the garages-essentially."

"Why's that?" Flashpoint cocked his head. Nikolai laughed jubilantly in turn and clasped his hands together dramatically.

"I'm car shopping." He announced earnestly. "Looking for a box of metal on wheels that can take us places."

"How can you be so sure that you won't just find rusted out hulks and useless pieces of scrap?" Thunder inquired with validity. "It's been likely two hundred years since any of them ran. That's a long time, and... Well, unlike trains I doubt anyone down here on the surface has the knowledge and skills to keep one of them running."

"How about the Enclave?" Willow suggested. Thunder shot him a dirty look. "They could, by why would they want to? We can all fly, we have Vertibucks and sky carriages, why would they ever invest anything into maintaining something that costs them their one big advantage?"

"Hobbyists?" Nikolai asked with a wave of his hand past a length of chain link fence. "I'm certain there must have been some fellows who had some sort of interest in pre war transportation."

"I've told you all before," Their resident pegasus said neutrally, "But the Enclave is strained for resources... And pony power. Even the largest cities above the clouds only have a couple thousand pegasi in any one place, no where near pre Great War numbers. Not to mention that almost everything up there is made out of clouds. Every home, every 'street' every amphitheater, every floor. Most foals go years before they stand on anything that isn't white and fluffy, to park anything on the cloud layer requires special spell work that's in short supply due to the lack of unicorns to easily cast spells up there. What magic of that sort that does exist all goes to the military." Nikolai signaled to his friend that he understood her explanation as they paced across the lot towards the first few hangers near the runway.

"So no automobile hobbyists. I am still not entirely convinced. Someone somewhere on this continent must currently possess a working vehicle. I don't know who, but I am sure someone does. In my time in this world I have seen flying machines, robots, working elevators, working magical computers, and armored trains. There must be something that can run under its own power with four wheels and a suspension that I can use." He paused to catch his breath amidst his rant.

"Now is an air base the best place to look for such a machine?" He said quickly. "I am not sure! But we will find out for all our sakes, yes? How will we power this thing? Great question that none of you have asked!" He pointed fingers at the three equines amidst himself. "But we will also figure that out. We will burn that metaphorical bridge when we arrive there."

"Where even is-" Nikolai stopped Thunder's question cold. "I got my information from Finders scouts who have visited the area within the last seventy two hours. From what I heard they never came within twenty meters of the base perimeter."

"Did they have a measuring tape with them?" Willow cracked.

"I'm eyeballing it as we go Willow, don't worry. I have total confidence that we will find what I am looking for." Nikolai looked up at the remains of the air control tower about a hundred meters distant, then jogged the width of the runway with his compatriots in tow. The hills on the other side of the complex weren't hills at all, but rather fortified hanger-bunkers that had been built from concrete, and then piled over with dirt which had grown assorted amounts of sickly and dead looking flora over the last two centuries, of course the slopes facing the crater were all scorched and lifeless. They scanned the perimeter thresholds of the structures and their strewn apart metal doors as they traveled past them, towards an older collapsed brick building and the motely uniform concrete garages near-to them.

"That's the motor pool up ahead," Nikolai highlighted the structure.

"Why's it called a motor pool?" Flashpoint asked him.

"Because it is a place where people pool vehicles... Together... In one spot. A pool is a congregation of something, motor-well, guess for yourself." They passed a few skeletons in tarnished military fatigues and paced up to the set of garages they were looking for. Nikolai and the others rolled back the door and stepped on inside.

Shulmp.

A gas mask clad pegasus skeleton tumbled out of the way.

"That's reassuring." Thunder remarked, decidedly creeped out. It looked like the place had been abandoned right in the middle of a busy day. Lighting still flickered in the back of the building. Nikolai unslung his plasma carbine and turned a radroach to dust in a blinding flash of green magic. A ghoul came at them from behind one of the old vehicles and Nikolai melted it's skull apart with another flash. Flashpoint and Willow went opposite directions, clearing the length of the garage. The Stalker ran up to a metal beam and flipped a switch, illuminating the entire interior with dim harsh white light.

Having made sure that there were no other life forms in the building, thus making internal security a non issue, they finally got a chance to examine their quarry: There were a few vehicles inside, little civilian one and two seaters, a transport truck, an armored personnel carrier, a couple of armored cars, and something that vaguely resembled a vintage hotrod geared up for war.

"Let's see, let's see... Let. Us. See..." Nikolai mumbled, pacing besides the old vehicles, he walked to the back of the garage and pulled a dusty canvas tarp off of something the size of a small bus. Six wheels, sloping armored sides, mesh panels, mucky windows with armored panels, a miniature tank turret armed with a light machine gun.

"Hohoho!" Thunder hovered up to Nikolai's face and gave him a look of, "are you serious?"

"Yes, I am serious. Let's see if it starts up."

"That's what counts all, right?" Willow snarked from up in the rafters. Nikolai pried open one of the hatches and took a look at the dashboard, he looked at the wheels, then the undercarriage, and finally, with a little poking around, the engine.

"This isn't what I'm looking for." He wagged his finger and hopped down off the roof, landing with his fist up against the concrete. He paced forwards and tossed a canvas tarp off of a second vehicle. Underneath was an old armored pickup truck painted over with deep green, sandstone red, and black-brown camouflage patches.

"What's this now?" He ran a gloved hand across the hood, and glanced back into the bed. Empty, but intact. He crawled underneath, and came out the other side with a grin under his mask.

"It's what inside that counts." The Stalker replied to Willow's earlier comment as he heaved open the hood and took a look down at the engine block.

"Great mother of..." He ran his hands through his hood and exhaled. "Hey! Thunder, come here, does this thing look intact to you?"

"Don't ask me Nikolai, you're supposed to be the engineer here. It just looks like a bunch of metal and plastic to me." Nikolai pulled his mask off and stuffed it into a pouch on his vest.

"Let's see if it starts up, yes?" He pulled the driver side door open and climbed inside, trying to make himself at home in the tight compartment which had obviously not been designed for a creature of his stature. He wiped dust off the dash and dials, and set his hands on the strange feeling steering wheel.

"Let us see... Gas, gears, brakes... Keys? Blyat-where is the-Ah!" He picked a brass key up off of the dashboard and jiggled it around in the ignition.

Crackle! Pop! Fwoosh! Kzk.

Something sparked and glowed under the hood of the truck, sending Flashpoint tumbling away in a frenzy. Nikolai jumped out of the side and carefully lowered the hood. He looked up and out at his clearly distressed friends and lifted his hands.

"Don't worry! Don't worry! I can fix this! I know how to-Well..." He pulled his mask back on over his head and threw the hood and engine cover up into the air. A giant puff of hot aquamarine soot flew up out of the block. And he gave it a curious look.

"How the fuck am I going fix this thing?"

He looked up from the engine block away and fanned the smoke out of his eyesight, he pointed off into the corner of the room. "Thunder? Would you be a dear and get grab that fire extinguisher? The one marked 'Co2?' yes, yes that one. Does it still work after two centuries? I don't know, but let us find out, yes? дякую. Thank you." He smothered the magical burst of energy in frigid carbon dioxide, set the extinguisher canister off to the side, and began to rummage through the engine block looking for the source of the burst.

"Are you sure that didn't cause it too much damage?" Flashpoint inquired.

"I have worked around machinery before, I have family who works and worked in industry. And that's not just counter take your son to work days. They aren't really too difficult to understand once you get a few basic principals written down into your brain. Of course, the bigger the machine the... Eh... You get the point, yes?"

He traced the engine down to the only reasonable section of the engine where a spontaneous fire could have occurred, that being the battery, when it suddenly and subtly dawned on The Stalker that there was no fuel line running into the engine block. That was strange, he certainly could have recalled seeing a gas or a diesel fuel tank cover further back on the truck, near the bed. When he glanced back there, nothing of the sort was found. It couldn't have been fueled anywhere else, he had looked all over the truck. It was obviously a North American sort of design. He looked down and found scotch marks over the battery, and it wasn't just any battery: It was a spark pack. As in, the kind of spark park that contained those magical crystals. The kind of crystals which were used as focusing devices and power supplies for energy weapons, including the plasma carbine he had tucked away in his rucksack.

"What is it?" Willow poked up from behind him.

"It's a spark pack. Aurora-I mean, Thunder. Sorry, I'm still getting used to the name. But you recognize this, yes?" She nodded. Nikolai reached down and pulled the spark pack from the engine block.

"Well, I believe its safe to say that this thing is beyond useable. It is past its expiration date, yes? I don't want my new truck exploding on the side of the road. So, here is what will happen: Willow, Flashpoint? You two are going to have the delightful task of searching the rest of this base for something that looks like this," He held up the smoking magic battery for them both to see. "And when you do find it, bring it back here. Ok? Ok."

"So where do I fit in in your plan?" Thunder pressed him. Nikolai gently set the battery down and crossed his arms. "You have got power armor and wings, and I have know-how. This eh... this shitbox still needs some work done on it before it is roadworthy. Luckily we don't need to pay to use the things here, not in money, just in time. I will finish assessing the damage and wear from the past two centuries, and then we will take all those tools from the back of the shop and start tinkering until we fix it!" He pointed at the garage door.

"Willow, you're in charge. Find me a giant spark pack, I will radio you if I find one in any of these vehicles. Take anything valuable you can get your hooves on. Stay out of trouble. And, if you see anyone who looks like they possess belligerent intentions, ka-put!" The Stalker clasped his hands together and shooed his friends away. "Get out of there and come back here when you're done, ok? Flashpoint, please don't get separated." His friends nodded and gave him a pair of affectionate solutes, then trotted off out the door with their assignment in mind.

"What about us?" Thunder's mask slid down to reveal a face steeped in confusion. Nikolai whipped his left hand like a broom across a tool bench, sending dust and grime flying. He snagged a crowbar off of a nearby rack and tossed it to Thunder, who caught it in her mechanical tail, wrapping the blade around the center of the bar in an instant.

"We're going to start looking for other issues with this vehicle." He broke a lock off of a cabinet beside the tool bench and bludgeoned a mutant spider which had grown to the size of a small grapefruit to death. He fished through a stack of old books, and came across one with a deep green cover and the insignia of the Ministry of Wartime Technology. He bashed it against the bench, wiped the dust off the cover, and flipped to the table of contents as he paced back to the armored truck.

"We will learn as we go along, it can't be too dissimilar from what I am familiar with, yes?"

**

Flashpoint paced quickly besides Willow as the two made their way up to the nearest hanger, a hearty fortification whose blast doors had been graciously thrown open for some unknown reason (Maybe the scorched plane a dozen meters from its threshold had something to do with that) minutes before the megaspell had struck the runway. They glanced around it, but there was no use in searching for valuable items out of fortified areas here. No one had presumably been here in years or even decades, and anything from before the war would have been torched by the magical firestorm which blew through here. Even armored vehicles and armored wagons weren't spared. They trotted inside without saying anything to one another and began to search about.

It was funny, in a way. When Nikolai was with them, when they were all together they talked incessantly-non stop. All the time. Very rarely would they have nothing to say to each other. Nikolai was always being Nikolai, Thunder came from a hyper advanced society that lived in the clouds, Willow had been a scout and a courier before he began to stalk his now dear, dear friends. And Flashpoint had been recaptured and forced back into unwilling servitude for the upteenth time in his miserable life. They weren't exactly lacking in the topic department. But that was when they were all together. Flashpoint alone wasn't the most talkative. He never was, he never had been. Willow was like that as well; friendly and chipper, but only when it was coerced out of him by the presence of a large group of other sentient beings. Peer pressure, more than anything. That or he'd eventually get too lonely from spending too much time away from his "pack". Otherwise, they were quiet as a pair of church-bound mice unless they needed to say something of importance.

They searched the interior of the hanger in similar silence, until Willow broke it when he bounced over and around an old wrecked single helicopter that looked like a miniature vertibuck.

"Find it?"

"Nope." Flashpoint waved the comment away. "How about you?"

"Nope. Just rusted metal and radroaches. They moved onto the next hanger, and then the next; it was the same story over and over again. Not particularly seeing this as an acceptable reason to stop they kept looking. They walked northwest a little ways past the motor pool and the faint sounds of what must have been carefully managed chaos coming from inside. Were they confident in Nikolai's abilities to restore an up armored military vehicle that looked like it came straight out of Elvis' personal collection? Perhaps. And that was a very wide and very vague perhaps at that. Nikolai knew more about that sort of stuff than anyone amongst themselves, potentially anyone in the entire Hoofington area.

Flashpoint stepped over the rotor blade of a veribuck which had crashed onto the runway long ago and peered inside: Nothing of value but some old submachine guns-Ironshod Firearms Model 44's, Willow heartfully pointed out. And damaged beyond use, the thestral squeezed inside while Flashpoint kept watch outside. A grey fuzzy head with a deep green mane and snarky yellow-black cat eyes poked up from the wreckage about a minute later and shook its head: Unsuccessful, again. That battery back in the garage had looked intact enough, they just needed to look harder. Out in the open was no good. They passed a portion of the runway where the earth and the asphalt had given way to now exposed underground tunnels. Experimenting like that was just a bit too reckless for the zebra who valued his and his friends own lives a little too much. That was an exaggeration, that was impossible, and unfair towards a group of strange fellows who at present time were being led around by an overly friendly two legged pale alien monkey thing with a propensity to try and make friends or deals or partnerships or... Really try to do every concealable reasonable thing to get the strange creatures around him to like him.

Willow and Flashpoint crossed the runway and began to poke around one of the support buildings adjacent to the large black structure that took up a vast majority of the eastern side of the airbase. It was standard Equestrian military construction-though most of the southern half was leveled and the rest was in a pretty significant state of disrepair. They climbed up into the rubble and paused for an instant.

Flashpoint held down on the transmitter button of his PipBuck's radio.

"Hey, Nikolai?"

"What is it?" The Stalker's voice crackled in reply, sounding not-all-too preoccupied and disinterested.

"Is there any place in particular that you'd like us to search?" There was a moment of silence over the airwaves.

"Check the large black structure that we saw when we passed the bases perimeter. I was looking forward to going through that myself-but-"

Kthunk! Zap!

The sound of magical tension and something fizzling and exploding cleared the PipBuck's receiver.

"What happened?" Flashpoint asked, a bit worried.

"Don't worry about it. Just keep searching, some of these components have proven to be a bit more-agh!" Nikolai shouted, and the feed cut off for a moment, before The Stalker's voice came back through, filled with venom.

"Finicky." He drawled. The transmission cut out. Willow trotted up to his friend took a gander down at the hunk of metal, glass, and spell matrixes clasped to his forehoof.

"I don't suppose that thing comes with a spark pack locater built in?" The thestral attempted to joke, to no avail, of course. It wasn't like him. He rustled his wings under his cloak and directed them further into the support structure. Again, more radroaches-occasional ones at least. But no larger mutants and no ghouls and... No apparent signs or recent tampering. They maneuvered through the building, past signs of old death and decay, until Willow decided to turn back around and head to the largest building on the grounds.

The structure itself stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the dull browns and greys of the rest of the Wasteland and airbase. Sleek, modern, with a jet black exterior that made it look like a high tech massive brick parked in the middle of nowhere. There were a few blacked out windows here and there, all looking intact and unshattered. But the majority of the exterior was solid. There were a few entrances spread around the first floor, all locked. But easily accessed by anyone who had the slightest know-how on how to use a lockpick. And Willow was in the aforementioned know-how. They pushed their way inside and were met by a motley of long disabled security systems, though not nearly as many as the other facilities they had visited in the last few months. At least, for the first hallway or two. Something that truly struck them as odd was the fact that the interior lighting was still on. Everywhere else on Miramare was dark except for the motor pool, and that had to have been running off some sort of independent power supply which had been dormant for the last two hundred years. Another thing-most of the side rooms were strewn with debris, but the hallways were, for the most part, all still intact.

Flashpoint took a look at the clock on his PipBuck: Well past midday, almost evening. Had they really been here that long?

They swept through the next room, and the next. The interior was made up of bland, colorless concrete walls covered either in spotty plaster or propaganda posters. They shuffled into an old bunk room, a few old bags and discarded pieces of clothing, but nothing else of interest. Flashpoint spotted what looked like the main staircase just beyond the cafeteria and began to move forward. Willow nickered at him.

"Flashpoint, hey! Something ain't right. I can smell it, somepony's been here recently. The debris back there had been cleared out by someone."

"Can you tell anything else about them?"

"No, it's been awhile. Maybe a day or two. There's no hoof scuffs on the floor." Flashpoint nodded and radioed back to Nikolai.

"Yes, what is it? Battery? Have you found my battery?"

"Willow's picked up on somepony's scent. Someone's been here in the last couple of days, all the debris in the hallways here has been cleared out and the electric lighting is on-only the emergency lights, but none of the other buildings we checked out have power." There was static for a moment.

"Keep looking Flashpoint. We need that battery."

"By the way," Flashpoint replied, "How far are you into fixing up the rest of that truck?"

"I just got started!" The Stalker answered coarsely.

"Taking things apart, moving things, rearranging stuff and revitalizing-get back to work blin! I do my part, you do yours! Davay! Go on!"

The feed cut off. Nikolai had come off abnormally crass, but he had an awful lot on his hands. And magically powered vehicles tended to be just the slightest bit finicky when it came to maintenance and upkeep. Flashpoint looked ahead, at the empty cafeteria. His ears darted to the sound of Willow cantering up the stairs.

"Let's check the next floor up. Maybe we'll have better luck up there." The bat pony chirped in a low tone.

As it turned out his words were right. The second floor connected to an adjacent segment of the building which led them down another flight of stairs which led them into a pilot locker room. Mostly filled with junk, mostly looted-all the lockers and any trance of weaponry was gone. But one thing remained. A radio, not too unlike Nikolai's in appearance, only with dials and buttons designed for equine use, sat up against one of the metal storage boxes on the far side of the room. Willow took it, he would have to find another time to figure out how to use it. But now, provided it actually worked, he now had a radio. That was a win in of itself. If only there had been a vehicle grade spark pack to go along with it, they would have been able to leave right then and there. They went deeper into the structure, oblivious to the dark figures flapping by outside.

"We should check the armory next." Willow's ears flattened and he turned to look gravely at Flashpoint. "I heard a voice, there's someone about fifty paces up ahead.

"Really?" Flashpoint cocked his head in return. "What are they saying?"

"They're talking about how bad their rations are... Rations. Huh." He sniffed the air.

"I smell feathers and traces of cloud. Those are pegasi."

"Pegasi? Do you think Thunder is-"

"No." Willow's head twitched in a nod of disagreement. "Nikolai would have called us, and I know her scent." His leathery wings curled up and out of his cloak.

"Let's backtrack." They turned to leave, and got to the end of the hallway before Flashpoint started hearing the voice as well.
The lone blip showed up on his PipBuck as green, then yellow as it drew closer.

"Stop looking at that thing, let's go." Willow pulled Flashpoint away from the dot on his device as they started to backtrack their way out of the building.

**

Back at the garage about ten minutes later Nikolai was having an absolutely delightful time trying to bring the armored vehicle before himself back up to working order. It was... distressing, if anything, having to do it alone. Him and Thunder had spent the last twenty minutes rummaging through every single vehicle in the building, looking for compatible parts and, hopefully, a magical battery like the one that had almost exploded the first time Nikolai had tried to pop the hood on the truck. So far, he had come up empty. The actual vehicle itself wasn't even in too bad of a shape to function, it just needed something to power it.

Nikolai heard the tell-tale rattle of a mechanized scorpion tail as a sign that his pink and peach fur colored friend was nearby. His head was down in the engine block, patching things up with one hand while reading the owners manual in the other with an absent minded wandering eye that flew from page to page to page without all too much care as to what was on them.

"Hey, Thunder!?" He shouted over the sound of his radio playing in its vest pouch.

"What?"

"Can you give me one of the power cells for your Novasurge rifle?"

"Um... What do you need it for?"

"I'm going to try and jump start this thing."

"You're being serious?" She huffed aloofly.

"Yes." Nikolai had an idea. He wasn't certain if it'd work, but... There was a chance it might. And he was curious. And impatient. And a whole host of other things, not to mention the fact that Willow and Flashpoint hadn't checked in. It wasn't as if they needed to but it would be nice for The Stalker to know the status of whatever it was they were doing. That didn't matter right now. Thunder fished a spare cartridge out of the mounting pocket on her power armor and Nikolai took it, and snapped it into place where the much larger battery was supposed to sit he messed with the electrodes and-

Fzap!

The sudden torrent of white light from the headlights nearly blinded the poor pegasus through her visor. Nikolai clasped his hands together and cheered up at nothing. Quickly, he made his way around to the drivers side door to start the engine.

"Do you know what this thing needs? It needs a turret." Nikolai inquired to Thunder as he jammed the little hunk of metal into the dashboard, spun it, and listened with delight as the engine roared to life... For a moment. It died with a sputter, and the spark pack, with a crackle. Nikolai cursed and pounded the bizarre equine steering wheel with the palm of his left hand.

"Ok, this may take a while." He groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. He was going to have to check the other vehicles again. Not for functionality, but for a battery because he simply couldn't wait.

**

Willow and Flashpoint moved on down the stairs of the large black structure, but somewhere along the way they turned west instead of southeast and were now headed deeper into the building. It wasn't necessarily their fault, even with a PipBuck. All the hallways looked the same. Once they passed the cafeteria Flashpoint saw the first red dot on his device. There were ponies here, to be sure. But what did they want? Were they armed? Were they wearing power armor? Did one of them have an RPG? Willow couldn't tell through his senses and the otherworldly nature of the spell matrix in the PipBuck could only determine individual intention, not appearance and armaments.

The two plodded deeper into the building, passing a small check-in terminal before going through a door or two and finally ending up at the staircase which wound up to the air traffic control tower. Here they didn't find a lock, but, rather, a keypad. An old dusty keypad with a terminal. That was a shame, neither of them were good when it came to hacking.

Hoofsteps. There were hoofsteps down the hall. Just one set of hoofsteps but hoofsteps nonetheless. Somepony was coming. Willow and Flashpoint bounded away from the keyboard and hid in an adjacent corridor while a red pegasus stallion with a lemon yellow mane and a grey-black uniform jacket with a black cap adorned with an Enclave insignia. A magical energy pistol hung on a shoulder holster, Willow tracked his movements carefully as he typed in the passcode and sauntered on in. The thestral flew into a silent frenzy behind him, just barely missing the door closing but catching the code through his keen eyes.

He stamped out the code: Error. Could he have misremembered it? His memory was pretty good.

"Let me try." Flashpoint offered, Willow jauntily stepped out of the way. "We really shouldn't be doing this? What if we're discovered?"

Willow trained his gun down the hallway at the intersection. "Then you and I'll put bullets in pegasi until Nikolai and Thunder show up and pull us out of trouble."

"Do you think Thunder would actually turn against her own kin-"

[Error: Zebra_Signature_Detected_Access_Prohibited]

Shit.

The terminal screen flashed with a red light, and Willow's keen ears heard something click inside of a door.

[Notifying Base Security: Please remain where you are.]

The thestral tore out the alarm system and disconnected the wiring that ran to other alarms down the hall in the process.

"Let me try again." Willow pounded the code back into the now poorly functioning terminal. It beeped and flashed green. The door swung open and the two bolted inside and up the stairs to the control center. Willow bounded up the steps past Flashpoint without making a sound. There was a short sound of struggle. And when Flashpoint finished making his way up to the top, the pegasus was sleeping soundly in the corner.

"He won't remember a thing." Willow grinned, proud of his work. They stared out over the airfield. Radar dishes up on the hill behind them, the runway below them, and the hangers and Wasteland beyond that. They could see the main highway from up here. Willow spotted the sleek black form of an armored pegasus off in the distance within the boundaries of Miramare obviously not Thunder. They had to work quickly. If they were spotted they might very well have an entire squad or platoon sized element of pegasi armed with energy weapons that they would have to fend off. And none of them wanted to push their luck that much.

"Nikolai?"

"What is it?"

"The Enclave is here. In the building. There's at least three of them in there, and another one circling the field outside.

"Outside?" Nikolai inquired dangerously. "Where are you?"

"The air traffic control tower." Flashpoint replied, "Why? Is that a problem?"

"No, not at all. Hurry up, find the battery, and get back. If we are lucky then they might just be passing through here." Flashpoint's eyebrows furrowed even though he couldn't see The Stalker. His tail whisked across the floor and his rifle shifted about on its mount.

"One of them knew the code, and he wasn't wearing any armor. So either they sent cannon fodder down here, or they think it's safe enough on this base to go around indoors without any protection."

"You can figure it out later, find that battery!" The transmission ended and the tower began to rumble, just a little bit.

"Battery found." Willow's said ecstatically, hauling the modestly sized magical brick out from one of the control terminals. He disconnected the wiring, and the terminals went dark. He crammed it into his saddlebags and adjusted their straps to make up for the new weight on his right side.

"Let me take it." Flashpoint insisted. "I've got more room." Willow sighed and passed the battery to Flashpoint. Willow turned and, with some difficulty, removed the power cartridge from the Enclave soldiers sidearm, just to make sure that he couldn't follow them and shoot them in the back. They hurried down the stairs, and flung the door open. Something

"Can't believe I've got to be the one to go and check on him, hey-what fucked up the terminal-" The mare on the other side collided head first with Willow.

"Hey, what the-agh-" She froze, staring at Nikolai

The bat pony and the zebra behind him froze as well. Her eyes were wide with surprise as she realized that Willow was most definitely not who she had been sent to check on. She was better equipped then her unconscious compatriot up in the tower. A ballistic vest and shoulder plates-and a headset. Before she could make a move towards the laser carbine by her side Willow plowed his left forehoof into her muzzle. She doubled back, still unable to contemplate what was happening. She raised her carbine and fired off a shot in a daze. The beam went high, searing the ceiling with angry red magic that left the barrel in almost dead silence. Willow blinked and, Flashpoint fired two shots from his own rifle. Both shots hit the mare center mass, and she went down. Her armor had caught both rounds but the energy transfer to her torso had been enough to knock her on her hindquarters, and out cold. With no damage beyond a seriously bruised scapula.

Now everything was coming to life. The energy rifle wouldn't have drawn any attention but the two shots from Flashpoint's AR pattern rifle, indoors, certainly was. Four, five, six red blips appeared on the display of his PipBuck. Willow rubbed the brim of his muzzle where he had collided with the pegasus.

"We should leave."

"Good idea." Flashpoint looked over his shoulder. The two galloped back down the hallway towards the stairwell they had come up.

"There they are!"

Fzth! Crack! Crack! Crack!

A short burst of energy rifle fire from another Enclave soldier in light armor was silenced by ten rounds of poorly aimed 5.56 from Flashpoint's rifle. Nikolai had been right the other day, this was a certain upgrade to his old submachine gun. The two raced past the casualties and left the building.

Zap!

"Ow! Dof!" A bolt of pink magic sent Flashpoint face planting into the asphalt. It had struck him in the helmet, leaving a smoking scar. Willow helped him up and turned to face the pegasus who was pursing them.

Bang! A shot from his suppressed carbine sent their pursuer tumbling to the ground. Flashpoint checked his PipBuck: They were in the clear for now.

They bounded across the airfield towards the tarmac on the far side of the runway, past the hangers. It took them another half hour to get back to the garage, trying their hardest not to let pegasi pin down their exact route. Two bolts of red magic arced over their heads from within the motor pool, before Thunder realized that she was actually shooting at her friends. She stopped and sheepishly let the two cross through the threshold into the garage, apologizing as they went by.

"I heard the gunfire from here. What happened? Flashpoint, what's with the eh... New helmet scar?"

"He got shot in the head by Enclave air infantry." Willow clarified on his friends behalf. Nikolai gave his friends a sharp look. "Really? Holy shit. Flashpoint, how do you feel?"

"Great for a stallion who just got shot in the head." The zebra smiled lightly. Nikolai crossed his arms and nodded.

"Well great. Come on back and I'll show you what me and Thunder have been up to. By the way-did you find that-" Willow fished the magical battery out of his bag and presented it to Nikolai. Who snatched it away and cradled it jealously.

"Hohoho! Nice work! Now... Now..." He led them around to the truck, really more of a gloried armored jeep with a large bed, and began to run them through what he had done to their new set of wheels. He had done his best to screw with the large clunky spell matrix inside of the engine block using the limited knowledge the old guide book and his own brain contained. It wasn't perfect. But it was Wasteland perfect. The fact that this truck had also been essentially entombed inside closed doors partly made that possible. Nikolai carefully inserted the battery into the engine block, reconnected the power line, carefully closed the armored hood, and climbed up into the cabin, flipped the key, and was greeted with the rough hum-whine of the engine. Purring like an electro thaumutic kitten. Perfect.

"Now, to see if it will run." He pulled it out of park and into drive, then tapped on the gas pedal.

Screech!

The truck bounded forward in a sudden, sensitive jolt that rattled The Stalker. He slammed on the break pedal an instant before he collided with the thick steel of the garage door.

"Wow." Aurora muttered, slightly beyond belief. She and that talking monkey had actually brought that old heap of scrap back to life. It was a sight to behold. Nikolai shut the truck off and pointed over at the IFV beside them. "I need some help getting the twenty millimeter cannon up here. There is a chain winch pulley system that runs along the roof. I will dismount the cannon, you guys haul it over over see these brackets? Clearly this truck was already designed for such a procedure.

"What about ammunition?" Flashpoint inquired.

"Ammunition-shit. You're right... I can't believe I didn't think about that. Nevermind then. We'll just roll out just like this."

"Going where?"

"Across the expressway towards Chapel, that little village centered around the church near the bridge crossing we will be taking into the Core." They all looked at him with a mirage of confusion. Nikolai sidestepped and began to walk towards the door. He swung it open again and stepped outside into the open air with a measure of caution. He glanced around: Nothing. Wait, what was that sound?

All of a sudden, as the last slivers of iron grey light vanished over the western horizon, a vertibuck broke the cloud layer and began to make its descent into Miramare airspace. And then another. And then two pegasi clad in actual power armor. Several hundred meters off one of the vertibucks landed, leaving a few dark figures behind before landing behind the large black command building. The other vertibuck took up a hover just above the control tower a good thirty meters off the ground, and stayed put.

"блін, це не добре. Damn, that's not good." He watched them a little longer, and, when one of the vertibirds made a sudden veer towards the motor pool, he slammed the door closed and stepped back inside.

"Well," He announced to his compatriots. "We've got company, my friends. There is a whole swarm of those fellows out there. So here is what's going to happen: We'll stay put! Give it maybe a half hour and we will take a look outside."

"And if they're still there?"

"Then we have the materials to make it through a sort of... How do I put it? Stealthy siege? Of course if that doesn't work we could always try pulling a Luke and Bo-You know what never mind, eh... none of you would get that joke." He waved his own comment off.

"So we're just sitting here and waiting for them to find us?" Thunder asked rapidly, wings rustling in discontent. Nikolai nodded his head, unslung his grenade launcher, cracked the breach open, slid a shell in, and slammed it shut. He took aim at the far wall, and danced his fingers across the trigger guard.

"If they do come in here... Then we fling those garage doors open and I pop a forty millimeter kinetic fragmentation grenade in their ass. We will fight like there is no tomorrow; we get in that truck and drive south by southwest until we either annihilate the enemy force in a rolling gun battle, or we outrun them and then turn and make a beeline on the highway running east until we pass the sports arena and make it into Chapel, is good plan... Yes?"

"Is that truck of yours vertibuck proof?" Willow remarked sarcastically, flexing her mechanical tail out of habit. "It's a valid question: I've seen those things tear buildings in half like they were nothing.

"I suggest that we consider the latter of our two options, it gives us the greatest likelihood of not ending up as scorch marks on the pavement." They all murmured in agreement, and so resolved to wait for a little while longer before making their escape.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. Thirty minutes passed altogether. Willow got the opportunity to show Nikolai the radio he had taken from the base. The flap of metal wings faded in and out and in and out again, periodically. Finally Nikolai went on with his tried and true trick of poking a pocket mirror out of the side door and using it to scan the tarmac and the sky above. The vertibuck which had been jealously guarding the air traffic control tower had now landed. Nikolai pulled himself back inside.

"Alright, I think they're gone. Gone or not paying attention. Let's go!" He, Willow, and Thunder darted outside and swung the garage doors open with a loud rattle. Nikolai circled back around to the drivers side door of the armored pickup and swung it open. "Everyone in! Flashpoint, you're up front. Willow, Aurora, get in the back. You are our anti aircraft until we come up with something better!" The armored pegasus and her fanged friend scrambled into the back, Flashpoint cozied in, and Nikolai set his hands on the wheel.

Nikolai set his AK in his lap, he pulled back the charging handle halfway to examine the chamber: Brass glinted back at him. He set his grenade launched between the seat and the window, which he rolled down. The glass looked like it was rated to take a beating, but probably not from magical energy rifles. At least not for long.

"Alright, roadtrip time!" He pounded the dash, the capacitor dial read 'full'. Without another thought he put it in drive, adjusted his side mirrors, and eased onto the gas pedal. He contemplated strapping on his seatbelt but decided that if they needed to get out in a hurry, at least while still on the grounds of Miramare, it might be a death sentence. He pulled out of the garage and onto the patchy tarmac, trying to remain warry of both the Enclave beyond the runway, and his own jerry rigged repairs, Nikolai steered them in an around the wreckage on the tarmac, when Willow heard the distant rotors of a vertibuck.

Eight Enclave soldiers, four in combat armor and four in power armor that looked not too dissimilar from what Thunder was wearing came up over the top of the control tower, climbing fast. It took Willow and Thunder a minute to realize what they were doing.

"Speed up Nikolai! They're going in for a strafing run!" Nikolai rammed his foot against the accelerator and armored truck surged forward, just as a shower of violent red bolts of magic showered down from the heavens all around them, Aurora ducked low as they shot past the truck in a steep glide, laser fire speckled the roof and hood, Nikolai swerved, and the rounds missed and struck a ruined fuel tanker propped up against one of the hangers.

They were in the thick of it now.

"We-we're not dead!" Flashpoint cried.

"Well don't just sit there like a potato!" Nikolai said sternly. "Get ready to return fire!" They sped out onto the cratered runway and struck a pothole, rattling the cab.

"Woah!" He heard Willow call out. "Simmer down!" His suppressed rifle barked fire and metal up into the air as the pegasi flew past in another barrage, by now the vertibuck had noticed them, and the ball mounted laser Gatling gun on the bottom of the craft threw dozens of beams in their wake, turning pavement to slag as they sped towards the hangers and support buildings near the end of the runway.

Fwoosh! Flap! The pegasi came around for a third barrage, and one clad in power armor caught a volley of bolts from Thunder's Novasurge rifles, causing them to break off. They regrouped while still in motion, and Nikolai heard Willow his in pain as a bolt stuck him in the haunches. Flashpoint popped out of the passenger side window and started taking shots with his own rifle. The report sent gunsmoke and muzzle flash back into the cab, along with a healthy dose of tinnitus. One of the pegasi in combat armor flew down low towards the ground and showered the drivers side door in laser fire as they made their way across the adjacent parking lot and into the parking lot. Nikolai veered into him and the stallion just barely managed to get out of the way in time, loosing little more than his dignity as Willow peppered him with a few rounds from his carbine.

Tsew! Tsew!

More pink bolts flew down from the heavens, two more pegasi, one in a heavier variety of power armor, the other in normal ballistic kit, his or her face obscured by a grey cowl and sunglasses. A bolt struck the window and Nikolai instinctively veered away, going over collapsed fence.

"Nikolai! We've got a problem!"

"What!?"

"We have a problem."

" I know we have a problem!" He shouted back, not taking his eyes off the commotion in front of him.

As the final slivers of grey light disappeared in the western horizon, something crested the hanger-hill fortifications on the far side of Miramare. Thunder's heart sunk clear down into her stomach when she saw the sight of a cloudship corvette looming over the horizon, then, it broadside turned to them.

"N-Nikolai!"

The Stalker glanced into the mirror and his eyes shot wide open. Truth be told he wanted to rub his eyes and ask himself if he was imagining what he was seeing. he poked his head out of the window and looked back at warship swerving as he went. The vessel truly looked like a half breed between an ocean going ship and something out of Star Wars. Sleek, hexagonal black plating covered its exterior. The helm of the vessel held what must have been the bridge, and-rather than traditional thrusters the vessel seemed to be keeping itself along with massive hardpoints across the ship's underside that generated gusts of cloud as it hoovered in place. The thing had to have been a good twenty or thirty meters from end to end, at least two or three times the size of the Veribuck's they had seen earner. Gun emplacements jutted out from every side, and the ones on the starboard side, to Willow and Thunder's horror, seemed to be spinning around to face the armored truck.

"Shit!" Nikolai pounded the wheel and veered around the burned out hulk of a tank next to the roadblock at the edge of the parking lot. A pegasus came down right in front of them, blocking the entrance. A bolt of green plasma melted the left headlight off, another bolt zipped right past the window. He'd had enough. The Stalker transitioned the steering wheel to his right hand, taking up his grenade launcher with his left. He stuck it out of the window, leveling it at the pegasus in power armor as it darted away, trying to circle around them. Nikolai peered absently down the leaf sights of the launcher as the target was highlighted by a glowing floating reticle. He tracked the creature's flight path, and pulled the trigger.

Thump! The grenade exited the barrel so fast Willow could barely track it. Twenty meters off to their left the enchanted proximity detonation spell built into the launcher worked its magic, and it detonated in midair with a heavenly bang that rocked the truck, the overpressure wave and shrapnel ripped an armored wing off the pegasus and sent them crashing to the ground in a heap of scrap and smoke.

"Woo hoo!" Nikolai cried out in success.

"Yee-haw chucklefucks!" He heard Willow jeer as they passed the demolished guardhouse at the edge of Miramare and flew down the road doing fifty five miles an hour in a thirty zone. They rounded a hill and passed out of visual range of the cloudship.

"Sweet Babuska!" Nikolai laughed uneasily. "You weren't joking Thunder!" He heard his feathered friend sigh in contentment behind his head. He looked over at Flashpoint, who was gripping the edges of his seat with his hooves with a face full of shock.

"I can't believe this is happening." He whispered to himself, trying not to crack a goofy smile of terror. Nikolai eased up on the gas and swerved off the road for a moment as it turned to fractured asphalt and old, irradiated traffic congestion.

"I will pull off once I find someplace safe," his anomaly detector clicked as they sped past an enervation field. He chuckled, patting the wheel some more and looking past the windshield up at the darkening sky, looking for signs that the Enclave was giving chase. He saw nothing. The sun above the clouds disappeared above the horizon, and about fifteen minutes later he pulled off onto an old farm road and a field of long dead pumpkin vines. Thunder scrambled out of the bed and retracted her mask, gaging into the earth. Willow hopped out and rubbed the thermal burn on his back. Nikolai buckled on his night bug eyed night vision device and used Cottonburn to heal the damage caused by the shot his friend had taken to the back. Thunder threw up.

"You're motion sick. I made to many tight turns, sorry." Nikolai apologized with brevity. Thunder coughed and smiled up at Nikolai. "I'm all good, don't worry." The Stalker slid open the breach of his launcher and let gravity drop the warm casing into the dirt underfoot.

Willow was hungry, Flashpoint trailed him around to the other side of the vehicle. Probably looking to get something to eat considering neither had eaten anything since before mid day. Thunder leaned back against the side of the truck and studied the burn marks left by the Enclave troopers. She sighed, and finally looked up at Nikolai and managed a smile.

"Thank you for getting me out of there alive Nikolai." The Stalker heard a certain sadness in her voice, and rubbed the bridge of his nose through the rubberized polymer of his mask.

"Don't worry too much about it Thunder." He glanced through the open windows of the truck at his friends on the other side. One sucking down hemoglobin from an old military IV bag, the other eating a pack of dried apples. Nikolai activated his night vision device and the world lit up.

"Flashpoint." He said aloud. "You're changing seats with Thunder. I need someone up here with me who has night vision capabilities; I don't want to drive by headlights out here. It would be too risky. Not much riskier than what we just did back there. Anyway, you understand. Ok? Ok." He clasped his hands together and, as if on command, he and his compatriots piled back into the truck and took off going southeast, past the town they had passed on the way into Miramare and out onto the highway which would take them past around Hoofington.

It hadn't quite occurred to Nikolai just how troublesome navigating the road system around a major Equestrian prewar city would be. The bombs on the last day had fallen much too quickly for any substantial mass evacuations to occur, but that didn't change the face that hundreds of thousands, indeed probably millions of carts and carriages and cars and trucks and all sorts of things had been left to decay on the roads with no one to clear them away, leading to an interesting circulate that forced Nikolai into driving near to the road shoulder and being extra vigilant. The hum of the trucks magickly powered engine was quiet compared to a gasoline or diesel vehicle. Off in the distance, and in the rear bed especially, the team heard the crackle of gunfire and the cries and howls of uncountable mutants and creatures that called the ruins home. There was a time when Nikolai had to gun it and plow through a pack of feral two headed cats when they tried to surround the vehicle. An oversized radscorpion and its family forced Nikolai to take an exit up onto a shady overpass that he didn't want to take. It went on like this for about a third of the night. They drove non stop for about five hours, until at last the ground under the tires turned from patchy overgrown asphalt to dust strewn gravel, and finally to barren dirt. The sight of distant church steeple came into view, overshadowed in the distance by the grandiose glowing spires of The Core. They were here.

Nikolai, Willow, Flashpoint, and Thunder had only visited two places in the whole Hoof that could be even remotely considered to be what any normal soul would call, "Civilized." Megamart was one, this was the other. And Chapel was nothing like Megamart. Far from being a trade hub with big walls, around the clock armed guards, and gun emplacements that covered every possible ground based approach vector that made the idea to of trying to raid it downright laughable, Chapel was downright quaint. There were no walls, only scattered remains of picket fencing that might have once looked aesthetically pleasing but offered no protection. It was near the main road, and literally right down the street from the bridge that led into the Hoofington Core.

The village was centered around, per its name, a chapel. A stereotypical Anglo Americana esque non denominational chapel, white steeple and all. Around the chapel was a few small wood sided houses and one or two ramshackle shacks that had seen better days. Nikolai hopped out of the truck with his AK 101 at low ready. He scanned the exterior of Chapel. No one was outside, though, in the windows of the chapel, firelight flickered softly, candles, he guessed. And he could see light in a few of the other homes.

Should he go and knock? Ask them for a place to stay? They might be welcoming enough. And The Stalker could certain pay for a night's lodging, but then again-this close to The Core of Hoofington, and with Nikolai and the others geared up the way they were there the residents might very well just take potshots at them as soon as they close. But Nikolai guessed that this isolated community probably didn't possess night vision capabilities, just as it also didn't seem to possess night shift guards. Nikolai and his compatriots looked too well kept to be taken as raiders at face value alone, he hoped. If they were asleep they might not even notice him until he crawled through a window or knocked on the front door. They were in a well lit structure surrounded by pitch blackness. If someone was outside, they could see all the goings-on inside. But not vice versa.

Nikolai climbed back into the cab of his truck and drove it down into a high thicket about fifty meters north of Chapel, that would hide it from prying eyes until they were either turned away by the residents, or, hopefully, until morning when they would set off across that bridge just down the road into The Hoofington Core.

"Willow, Thunder?" He began to instruct his friends carefully. "Wait here, I do not want to scare whoever comes to the door out of letting us stay for the night." Both of his winged friends looked at one another and nodded understandably.

A pegasus in Enclave power armor, with its glowing visor-eyes and insectoid body, and Willow with his similarly glowing eyes, fangs, and devilsh leathery wings that were the stuff of nightmares to anyone who didn't know him. Flashpoint may have been a zebra but hopefully that wouldn't matter. Nikolai was perhaps, from a broader perspective, the strangest looking one amongst them but he had charm that Willow and Thunder simply didn't. He could always send Flashpoint to the door and remain just out of sight, ready to react if things went south. The Stalker went with that plan.

The two trudged across the dirt and cobblestone and patchy brown grass towards the collection of buildings. Nikolai left his grenade launcher and his rucksack in the truck, (Which he had locked, being the holder of the sole key) but kept his AK 101 slung at low ready with his right hand on the pistol grip and his index finger inside of the trigger guard in case anything arose. They passed the picket fencing and strolled past a few buildings, hearing nothing but quiet from inside. They beelined right for the Chapel proper, and Nikolai stood off to the side and quietly motioned for Flashpoint to knock on the door.

"Tap, tap." He whispered, jabbing a thumb at the old mahogany. Flashpoint smiled in the dark, and gave the door three short little raps with the tip of his left forehoof. They waited for a few seconds.

Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. A set of hooves advanced towards the door, and Flashpoint stepped back as it swung open, and the smell of burning candle wicker met his nose.

"Hello?" A black unicorn stallion with a white mane asked kindly, looking about confused, and... Strangely unconcerned about the weapons on Flashpoint's side. The zebra waved curtly through a half raise of his right hoof. The stallion standing in the threshold met his eyes.

"Are you lost?" The unicorn inquired. Flashpoint put on his best smile and got straight to the point, lying on the fly. "Hey. No, I'm not. I was passing by, and... I saw lights in the distance and I figure since there were no raiders around that I'd check it out. I'm looking for a place to stay, just for the night. My name is Flashpoint."

"Tell him we can pay him!" Nikolai whispered loudly from around the side of the Chapel.

"Flashpoint... You're... not alone?" The unicorn inquired neutrally.

"No." Flashpoint admitted, standing stiff. "I've got one friend waiting somewhere off in the dark, and a few more at the edge of your village. We need a place to hole up for the night and-like my friend said, we can pay you." At this the unicorn chuckled a bit and stood off to the side.

"Well... Celestia welcomes all, Flashpoint. Come right on in. My name is Priest, you are welcome to stay as long as you would like, free of charge."

"Priest..." Flashpoint thought to himself. Nikolai was thinking the same thing, ironic coincidence that a fellow named Priest was in a Chapel. Nikolai stepped out from beside the building and radioed to Thunder and Willow that the coast was clear. They all filed inside, and Priest's magic shut the door behind them.

"We have our own supplies, we don't want to burden you." Nikolai informed their new host. Priest smiled again and nodded in return.

"Very well."

Thunder looked around at the pews through her visor. "Nikolai, something doesn't seem right here," She bumped up against him. Nikolai shook his head and pulled off his mask.

"Don't worry, Willow will be on guard duty through the night." He spread his sleeping bag across one of the pews.

"Get some rest. You'll need it." They were out in an instant.

Like a lightbulb cutting out abruptly during a rolling blackout Nikolai's dream-nightmare scale in his mind seemed to be slightly defective. The content of his dreams seemed to have nothing to do with his life experiences, or otherwise-they were almost exact parodies. With him watching himself in the third person, going about business. He recalled having read something about "dream walking" during his time here but-he didn't quite recall where he had heard it.

The contents of the particular dream he had today nearly perfectly mirrored those of the previous night. Like an instructional guide mixed with a static painting. Though tragically cryptic. When the brain lacks information it tends to rely on imagination to fill the gap. And Nikolai was fantasizing about what he might find on the other side of that supermassive concrete wall.

**

Daylight came. The sky was once again filled with an iron-grey glow and Nikolai and the others found themselves invited to a communal breakfast of old preserved foods which had been heated either in a Dutch oven or over a large cast iron stovetop. If cold the food might have tasted stale, but as it was it... actually wasn't quite so bad.

Nikolai and his compatriots offered to pay for the meal but Priest refused any sort of payment. Not bottlecaps, not anything. Charity, he claimed. For all those under the princesses' watch. Charity: What a bizarre thing in a world where an armed group could so easily take advantage of such a thing. Except for the dozen or so foals armed with a motely of improvised spears and old Ironshod autoloading pistols that they had, guess what, taken from the outskirts of the old frontlines only a few kilometers southeast of them. They were a part of a little group they called the, 'Crusaders'. And they all wore the same colorful patch of a foal's silhouette either on their ragtag clothing or on the backside of a cape. From what Nikolai understood they were all orphans, something which made Thunder's heart melt with sympathy. That power armor clad pegasus soldier quickly won them over with stories of what the world above the clouds was like. They tugged at her wings with eyes full of curiosity-though they all avoided her mechanical tail with its razor sharp metal scorpion barb on the end.

Cetus was here. Cetus, that mare who had chosen to go separate ways with The Stalker and his gang rather then try to navigate through an enervation field. Not shortly after they had been attacked by a hellhound and scattered to the winds. For what Cetus knew she was the only one left alive from her group. That was all, and... Quite frankly there wasn't anything Nikolai and his compatriots could do for her. Nikolai and Willow were left amidst themselves, until Priest came by and Nikolai decided to break out his bible and start asking the unicorn questions about his own profession and his own religion. That left Willow, awkwardly waiting until it was time to leave.

The truth about thestrals out in the Wasteland is that they were among the rarest kind of pony you could see. Seeing one or two at a distance was highly uncommon unless you knew where to look. Meeting one was even rarer, and something like what had happened to Nikolai; with Willow befriending him, let alone traveling with him was a once in a lifetime experience that the vast majority of Equestrian Wastelanders would never experience. When a pony would come into contact with a bat pony they often wouldn't even know what they were. Earth ponies, they'd assume. Thestrals usually wore heavy barding and hoods and cowls and all manner of eye coverings to mask themselves. Because believe it or not, most weren't too keen on letting what most saw as a blood sucking night crawler into their towns and camps. A pony could meet a dozen undercover bat ponies in their life and never know it. Only other thestrals could detect other thestrals hidden that well. In reality, bat ponies were all almost universally the kindest and most empathetic ponies out there, and they never attacked other ponies for food if they could help it. It was a shame, Willow thought, that he hadn't met any other ones since he had began traveling with Nikolai and Flashpoint. But that was neither here nor there.

Service at Chapel wasn't much of any service at all. It was recognizable yet completely foreign to Nikolai. Now that breakfast was over, and they were singing a soft chorus in the front few rows of the church, The Stalker realized the uncomfortable truth about the town. The ponies here were sick. They were hurting. One even looked like he had raider disease, and The Stalker had to hold himself back from marching the fellow around back and turning him to sanitized ash with his plasma carbine before he could bite anyone. But he knew better, and hoped that the poor stallion would leave this place before something like that happened. What else was a chapel at the end of the world supposed to be but a place where people could try and find some shred of hope? The Stalker had spoken with Priest for about fifteen minutes about the similarities and differences between Christianity and whatever it was Priest was doing.

They worshipped Celestia and Luna, the immortal alicorns-natural, not the biohazardous hivemind freaks of nature Nikolai had had run-ins with in the past, who had benevolently ruled over Equestria in the prewar. Vanished without a trace, though apparently Priest didn't seem to think so. He thought of them as Goddesses, Nikolai knew better. But he had never met them so he couldn't tell. Maybe they just like what Priest depicted them as, or maybe they were fakes who ruled through manipulation, maybe they were just immortal and super powerful, but not omniscient. Nikolai hadn't really told Priest very much about Jesus. He recited some things from the New Testaments' Sermon On the Mount, a bit Mathews, a bit of Luke, and some stuff from Proverbs and a few of the Ten Commandments for good measure. Priest seemed pretty impressed, and even asked if he could copy down some of what Nikolai had quoted to use in his own sermons. It might have been a different religion but that didn't change the fact that most of what was in The Bible would be considered sound advice and sound knowledge to anyone whether they believed in the good book or not. They bid Priest a curt goodbye, and wished the Crusaders and Cetus the best of luck, as much as wishing counted in The Wasteland, and drove off down the road towards the bridge that led into Hoofington.

"Wait, is that..." Nikolai eased into the brakes and rolled down the window. It was the stallion with the raider disease from earlier. He had disappeared about ten minutes before Nikolai and the others had left. And now he was about a quarter of the way across the bridge.

Flash! A violent red beam arced out from the top of the concrete wall and vaporized him, leaving a cloud of glowing ash which blew into the contaminated river below. None of the four said anything. Some other pony might have been concerned about the fact that that stallion might have very well just ended his own life. But Nikolai and the others were much more concerned about what had done the ending. That plasma lance.

Since the wall hadn't started trying to death ray them quite yet The Stalker made the guess that they were either outside of its range, beyond its sensors, or beyond its preprogramed zone of influence. The Core of Hoofington was built a bit like a medieval castle in that way, and these bridges and the damns further up the river were just immovable drawbridges. Nikolai scanned the wall with his binoculars, picking out defensive hardpoints and marking them on a mental map.

"If only we had a drone." Nikolai murmured sarcastically, pointing at the bridge and wall and the wide open gates just below. Yes. For some reason the gates, the only realistic way anyone could make it into the city were, at least in the case of this particular segment of the wall, wide open. But that was a false flag. As Nikolai assumed that anyone who got close enough to see what was on the other side would find that it would be the last thing they would ever see. But none of them had a heavily armored multi ton truck piloted by a bipedal drunk.

Nikolai reached into his rucksack and washed the weird aftertaste of breakfast down with a quarter bottle of vodka.

"Windows up and everyone inside!"

"What's the plan?" Thunder inquired strategically. Nikolai set his hands on the wheel and slammed the door shut once Willow and Thunder had forced themselves into the backseat. He wiggled about, trying to get comfortable in all his gear. His shoulder plates forced him to nearly sit in the fetal position.

"We bum rush the gate. meaning we drive straight at it. Thunder, Flashpoint? Has your E.F.S detected any mines on the bridge?" The pegasus' metal ears twitched, and she shrugged.

"I hadn't thought of that." She admitted. "None, by the looks of it." As she said that she shed her cloak that Nikolai had fashioned for her way back in Murkycrest.

"Probably won't need this once we get to the other side." She admitted. She had grown a little attached to it, though it made taking off more difficult, and here, now, that was unacceptable. She shoved it up against the glove box and settled in, hooves pressed up to the door.

"Ok-ready!?" He looked around as he slid the truck out of idle and pulled back onto the road, lining himself up with the open entrance to the Hoofington Core, a quarter kilometer distant. He wrapped his arm over his seat and looked around at everyone through the lenses of his mask. His friends all returned his gaze with nods.

"Ready." Willow spoke for the three of them.

Cheeki breeki!"

He gunned the engine and stomped the pedal into the floor. The truck shot forward, picking up speed as it approached the bridge. They crossed the threshold. The world outside sped by. Nikolai's eyes were focused dead ahead: The speedometer read sixty five miles per hour. For a moment, nothing happened. It was like whatever force that was in control of the Core's defenses were simply too stunned to react. They were about halfway across the bridge when the world turned bright as the sun. Hundreds of bolts of magical energy rang down from the top of the wall, and a pair of automated turrets on the far end of the bridge lit up the truck in a shower of red beams, melting the armor and siding. A missile struck the bridge behind them, Thunder caught a glimpse of several dozens of... pegasi?

Not pegasi, pegasi drones. Robots.

Robots with Novasurge rifles.

Nikolai swerved and veered but there were too many of them. One pair of bolts surged through the passenger side window and singed Flashpoint's muzzle. The zebra pulled himself back into his chair, not quite comprehending what had just happened. Thunder returned fire through the shattered window and slaged one of the drones.

Boom!

An explosion rocked the back of the truck. A missile had struck the bed, sheering off the tailgate.

Boom!

The front right tire popped and melted and met a violent end. Nikolai held fast, the others had no time to react as the wall loomed over them, the entrance to The Core was right there.

And then they hit the perimeter force field.