Fallout Equestria: The Indefatigable

December 5, 1277 - Mission Day 57

Elder Bronze Pip sat at her desk, security feeds from around the facility arrayed out in front of her. Decoded messages from other contingents were arrayed out in front of her, the latest news from the rest of the Wasteland finally restored after the system shorted out the previous month. Previously, she may have been concerned about the shifting balance of power, who was struggling, who had Knights to spare... but now, only one thing was on her mind.

That ship.

Her two most trusted subordinates sat in front of her, Star Paladin Roaring Thunder and Star Paladin Blazing Arc. Blazing Arc, the earth pony mare, had her nose raised high, "With all due respect, my liege, we are just... allowing them to brush coats with the tribals?"

Elder Pip sighed. Only those in the upper ranks had been made privy to the information of the Phantom Ship's close levels of cooperation with the wastelander settlements and the Syndicate, "Indeed. They told us they were planning as much. I raised no complaint."

"It's hard to blame them for this kind of thinking. Imagine being in their boots," Roaring Thunder sighed wistfully, "You see your entire world destroyed, your families extinguished, all the comforts and staples of pre-war life ripped away, then you're in our reality. They even call the tribals..." he scrunched up his muzzle, "Civilian. Innocents. It's almost like a mother bird stealing Radigator eggs after losing their own children."

Blazing Arc still seemed dissatisfied, "Shouldn't it be our place to teach them the folly of wasting resources on these ponies?"

"I have warned their leadership about this folly," Elder Pip rubbed one of her tired, half-lidded eyes, "They believed it would go against their morals to cease. I did not wish to antagonize them further by pressing the subject."

Arc narrowed her eyes, obviously wanting to say something very untoward for somepony of her rank. She simply took a deep breath through her nostrils and raised her chin again, "...I must ask, Elder... why are we cooperating with these..." she struggled to find the right vocabulary, "...Ponies?"

Roaring Thunder nodded, "Surely we have the resources to capture the ship intact if we play our cards right?"

"Mmh, perhaps," Elder Pip nodded, "I've contacted other contingents. Fillydelphia and Manehatten are very firmly tied down, but others may be able to lend assistance. As it stands, though, even if we were to all array ourselves against them, it would be a bloody battle. Too bloody. There's also just too many things that could go wrong," she chuckled softly, "If you haven't noticed, their ship happens to have a set of functional engines. In the first hours of battle, they could simply just... sail away."

"We have those old torpedoes. Perhaps we could dupe their scribes into repairing them for us?" Blazing Arc suggested, "We could aim them for their propulsion system. Surely a ship that massive would not sink to such a small amount of damage?"

"Perhaps," Elder Pip hummed, "For now, assault is entirely off the table. Even calling for reinforcements may tip them off. Just because they're naive about the state of Equestria doesn't mean we should risk them not being able to understand basic military tactics. For all we know, they could be more familiar with tactics than us."

Now there was a terrifying thought. Somepony who knew the game of battlefields and logistics better than Bronze Pip. Of course, the highest level of tactical acuity was knowing where your weaknesses lay. She glanced upwards, at the skies that the aircraft carrier could wrest to level their compound and every last Ranger in it at a moment's notice.

"...So what's the plan, then?" Roaring Thunder quirked an eyebrow, "Them inspiring the Initiates and repairing our tower was nice, but are we just going to sit around and let them waste all of that technology on the tribals?"

Elder Bronze Pip nodded, before leaning back in her chair and placing her forelegs over her barrel, "The first step of any war is to know the enemy just as well as you know yourself," she reached down and retrieved a freshly printed radio message, "Which is why we've asked for a permanent liaison aboard the Phantom Ship."

Blazing Arc took the paper, humming as she looked down at it, before passing it off to Roaring Thunder. The latter gave an amused huff, "Seems they wish to return the hospitality we showed them when we allowed them to our headquarters."

"Indeed," Elder Pip smiled, "Three Rangers, three Scribes. A prime opportunity to collect some intelligence. Tell us how they operate, who's at the top giving all the radio commands, what resources they have, what that megaspell is..."

"I would be honored to be selected for this operation," Blazing Arc bowed her head.

"I mean absolutely no ill against your talent and loyalty, Star Paladin, but Roaring Thunder is the better choice here," Elder Pip said, turning her eyes towards the stallion, who tilted his head, "I've observed your interactions with the Phantoms. You seem to know how to talk to them, and you have a good relationship with their Rangers."

Roaring Thunder opened his mouth... but seemed to quickly realize he had nothing to say. He bowed his head as well.

"Collect two of your most trusted ponies. They will pick you up at dawn tomorrow. They have strict rules about carrying weapons aboard their vessel, I suggest you follow them. Manehatten-Class carriers were rated for a crew of four thousand," Pip smirked, "...Not good odds, Star Paladin. Simply keep to your mission of passive observation."

"It will be done," Roaring Thunder promised.

There was a pause as the two were dismissed, though the Elder's eyes crinkled just before Roaring Thunder exited the room, and she raised a hoof to halt him, "Oh, Paladin Thunder-"

The stallion looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow.

"Their Captain, Brass Bugle..." she pursed her lips.

"Yes, Elder?"

"...If it should come to war, I hope to illuminate her to the folly of her superiors," the Elder averted her eyes, "Not for the reasons you may think. If their Rangers should take our side, our chances of success rise."

Roaring Thunder nodded with understanding, before promising, "I'll do my best, Elder."

"I am sure you will," she said, looking back down to her terminal as the stallion exited the room and re-donned his helmet.

The head of the Tarcoat slowly looked down towards the papers set in front of her. Her comrades around her muttered to each others, keeping their voices low enough for Calm Seas to not hear. They sat around a long, rectangular table in one of the private rooms of the Gun Rush Casino. Two MAs stood behind Calm Seas, wearing combat armor marked with 'Royal Navy' printed across the chest and back.

"We would control this power substation then?" the mare asked, looking up towards Calm Seas, eyes invisible behind the smoked welder's goggles she wore.

"And we would control the flow of the power to the substation," Calm Seas nodded, "We would place no contest on oil, we would allow you to trade it to us or use it in your ceremonies."

A stallion standing to the side of the table weighed in, "What about the AllSpark Power Plant?"

"The facility would become redundant. The maintenance efforts placed on keeping the plant operational would be better placed elsewhere," Calm Seas shrugged, "We are more likely to be able to manufacture more thaumic reactor fuel than we are to find a steady petroleum source in Equestria where much better funded and equipped companies failed in the pre-war," a sniff, "Well, not for a while anyway."

The mare pursed her oil-stained lips, looking back down to the charter, "...And if we agree?"

"An invitation onto the winning side," Calm Seas said casually, "Our power source doesn't need the logistics that your oil imports do. We could simply undercut your corner of the market until you had no political power. Instead, we're offering you a place at the table," she steepled her hooves, "Your culture remains intact, the amenities you experience don't go away, as long as you vote the way we tell you to."

"We did not form the Tarcoats for amenities," the mare scowled, "We did it to protect our interests: the ponies who risk their lives to go into the bellies of steel beasts against ponies who would take it from us by force."

"-And by force we definitely could take," Calm Seas gave a mellow smile, "Yet we're not. We're offering a fair trade, considering the value of the resources we offer, and the comparatively little you have to offer in return. Violence won't make things better around here."

An appeal to morality to counter an appeal to morality. It gave the Tarcoat mare the pause Calm Seas had wanted.

The Tarcoat, however, quickly firmed up again, "If you believe in this so strongly, why do you work with the Steel Rangers, then?"

Calm Seas kept her smile from twitching at that. Not allowing the silence to hang too long, she quickly came up with something, "The Steel Rangers have a shady history, you're right. Yet, they're just misguided. Think about it. We're four thousand, they're six hundred. Whose opinion is going to win out in the long run?"

The mare giggled, finally making Calm Seas's smile fall slightly, "That's dicey business, thinking the Rangers will ever listen to reason."

"It's dicey business dealing with ponies complicit in keeping slaves in their basement, yet here we are," Calm Seas fired back, quirking an eyebrow at the Tarcoat.

Fortunately, that finally shut her up, the mare giving the executive officer a sour look, "...The Stable Dwellers are not ones to listen to reason either, Phantom."

Phantom, that's what the survivors had taken to calling the residents of the Indefatigable, just as they had called the ship itself the Phantom Ship. Calm Seas tapped her forehoof on the table, "Reasonable or not, it still doesn't change the fact that, if we were less armed, less influential, any one of us could be down there breaking our backs. Yet here we are, with the power to make changes."

"And you're sure you would be the ones to make those changes?" the Tarcoat leaned forward.

"Yes," Calm Seas said, voice even as she reached forward and tapped the paper, "Let's make sure those changes are not a transformation of the bricks of this building from mortar to ashes."

The Tarcoat sighed, finally seeming to surrender, "...I will bring your offer up to my fellows, privately. You will... hear back from us within a few days."

"Of course," Calm Seas smiled, pushing her chair away to get up.

She was unsurprised when they returned with an agreement the very next day.

Captain Star Strider - or at least the walking corpse that claimed to be him - slugged back his fifth cup of orange juice with a deep, rough sigh. With a slam, the glass was returned to the table, laced with flakes of some sort of biological material that made Azure Bluette's sternum seize.

"Ahhhhh..." he leaned back in his seat, drawing the starched white cloth of a borrowed uniform coat closer to his body, remarking, "It's even better than I remember it being."

The zombie had successfully recited every authorization and identifying code on file for Captain Strider, which was the only reason they were sitting in the ship's wardroom under the light of the crystal chandelier, rather than with him locked behind the bars of the brig. The medical staff had tried to scan his DNA, only to find that it was too badly scrambled by a series of mutations to be recognized even as anything vaguely equine. Still, the Wastelanders amongst them had confirmed that zombies, or 'ghouls' were functionally immortal if they avoided losing their mind.

Firm Hoof had seemed uncertain about how a creature could intentionally prevent their brain tissue from decaying, but still, the benefit of the doubt had been given.

Azure glanced towards Anchor Aweigh, who returned a similarly perturbed look, before her eyes focused once again on the corpse sitting across the table, "...So, Captain Strider... you were saying..?"

"Oh! Right!" Star Strider huffed, adjusting his ragged navy cap, "Well, after that general alarm was raised, you simply disappeared from our scopes. It was the strangest thing! We decided as a group to make for land-"

"No disruptions to your sensors?" Captain Anchor asked.

"No disruptions, aside from a few that we thought was due to the radiation," Strider looked down into his cup mournfully, before holding it out towards the Steward again.

The robot rotated its spigot arm over to the cup, only for Azure to hold up a hoof and instruct, "Water, this time."

The Gutsy quietly complied, causing Star Strider to give the Admiral a look with a nastiness unbefitting the difference in rank between them, "...Anyway," he eventually grumbled in his hooves-on-chalk voice, "We made for land, but it was heavily irradiated. Half the city was on fire. The hull was the only insulation from it. We started radioing for help, but there were only automated broadcasts..." he slowed, "...Heh, I haven't really told this story before. It's a bit... painful, I'm sure you understand."

"...Right," Azure Bluette nodded slowly.

He drank the purified water, before holding out the glass again towards the steward, "Gah. Some shit happened, supplies ran low, ponies started to get desperate. We tried to scavenge, but we didn't have anything. Everypony who left the ship never came back. There were multiple mutiny attempts, though there was never any good reason for 'em. Just desperate ponies with nowhere to go. One was eventually successful and they tossed me into my own brig.

"Mmh..." he frowned, "...Then somepony finally answered our radio calls."

Admiral Bluette raised an eyebrow, "Who? The Rangers?"

"I don't know. They never identified themselves," Star Strider said, voice suddenly sober, "...The mutineers brought me back up to the radio bridge to talk to them, thinking it might help get us rescued faster. They just asked if we had any Pegasi on board who hadn't been exposed to radiation. It was a weird question, but I told them the truth. We'd all been exposed to radiation, leaking through the walls, but that we'd been keeping them at a non-problematic level through medication. Then they cut us off.

"The crew were disappointed. Some blamed me for it, they said they should shoot me. They went to throw me back into the brig, but then suddenly the ship exploded," he pursed his cracked, raw lips, "Water rushed in through a giant hole in the hull. If I were in the superstructure still, the blast would have cleaved straight through me. Where it landed, the beam cut us stem to stern, hitting us just below the command bridge and exiting via the keel just in front of the engine room. Cut through multiple compartments, she never stood a chance.

"I don't rightly remember much of what happened next, just that I was in the water. We had anchored as closely to shore as we could. I saw the Victory for the first time since I'd been imprisoned, but soon enough she was hit by a big fuckoff laser from a Cloudship. A Raptor, if memory serves me right..."

"A Raptor?" Azure Bluette knitted her brow, "You're absolutely certain?"

"Too small to be a Thunderhead, and only Raptors and Thunderheads have guns big enough to cleave a surface ship apart like that," Star Strider cracked a rotten smile, "I knew we'd be decommissioned by Cloudships one day, I just didn't think that would be the day..."

Azure Bluette's mind filled with trouble. Had there been some sort of secret order about destroying contaminated ships? Surely it couldn't have been an order for all irradiated military, or else they'd likely have heard some sort of similar story from the Steel Rangers. Had the Zebras captured cloudships? Perhaps they had not been as damaged by the counterattack as the Survivors thought?

Then again, they had told about pegasi escaping to the clouds. Maybe there was a more insidious side to that story...

"How'd you get like this, Star?" Captain Anchor asked, concerned for his friend.

Meanwhile, Star Strider had grown more and more distant. He raised a hoof and turned it over in front of himself, almost introspectively, before remarking, "...The water was hot. The Balefire Lava had gotten into the bay and most of the coast. Caused the water to boil. Also made the water real radioactive... took a lot of time for Las Pegasus's beaches to stop boiling. I got dunked straight in that stuff when the Constellation sank, can you imagine?"

The disturbing feeling of heat pulsing over Azure's fur came, pushing some of the thoughts about the cloudship away. Still, she had her eyes to the table top in thought. The more she looked at the mostly furless corpse in front of her, the more similarities her mind drew to a burn ward victim... just with fewer bandages.

"Yeah, well, I died pretty fuckin' quickly after that," Star Strider said, voice now frank and strangely irritated, "Then I was alive again. I'd rather not talk much more about that," a pause, before his eyes suddenly widened, "Ah! Ah! Ah! But, fast forward a few decades, fires die down, water stops boiling, smoothcoats start poking their heads out of the ground, we start seeing weird images on the horizon. I realize it was the bloody Indy, and that she's getting closer every couple decades! Then, one day, just when I was grabbing some groceries from the inner city, you suddenly fuckin' appear in the harbor! Bloody Hearth's Warming miracle! How'd you get here, anyway?"

Groceries? Smoothcoats? Azure simply shook her head to dismiss the thoughts, "The working theory is that the Sunrise Shield Projector interacted with the necrotic magic in the atmosphere and caused some sort of overglow that powered a time spell. The shield used in the megaspell's matrix is apparently in the same family tree as some ancient Starswirlian time magic."

"Huh! How about that! Well, I'm a lucky ghoul. Most other pre-wars I've met have had to cope with knowing they'll never ever see their family again! Most go crazy over it..." Captain Strider gave a rasping chuckle, "I even met one once that claimed he banged Applejack! Crazy, crazy, crazy! You being around is a reason for me to not just give up and blow my brains out before I go feral!"

"...Right," Azure mentally filed away her questions about the cloudship for later - from what it sounded like their friend wouldn't share much more about it without rigorous questioning, "It's good to have you back. We've been looking for a perspective on our... situation, that comes from somepony allied to us."

Star Strider didn't answer the question, he instead stared, perplexed, into his glass of water for a moment before straightening up and suddenly asking, "Hey- if the Sunrise sent you here, isn't it possible it could send you back?"

Captain Anchor nodded, "We've been toying with that theory, though it's rather useless toying without the parts to repair our array. Megaspell spell matrices aren't exactly common."

Star Strider held up his hooves to his muzzle, "Y-You've gotta try, Captain, Admiral," he pleaded, finally using their actual titles, "Any time is better than this shit. We gotta go back, I-I gotta talk to my wife again, we gotta stop this shit from happening!"

"We can't even think about answering that question without locating the equipment to even create megaspell matrixes," Azure explained calmly, "That equipment was created in only two places, both places we're fairly certain from intelligence have been destroyed."

"Maripony's way too dangerous," Star Strider agreed, "That taint shit is terrible, even for ghouls... heh, not to mentioned the alicorns and hellhounds. But what about the hub underneath Pegasus?"

Captain Anchor raised an eyebrow, "What hub?"

Azure's face darkened as she leaned forward, "That's classified information, Captain."

"Listen, I've been kicking around since the bombs fell, been to one side of the wasteland and back. I've gotten to know some things I might've not been privy to, even as an officer of Her Majesty's Royal Navy," he said, mocking a Canterlot accent despite his chain smoker vocal cords.

Azure's eyes lingered on Star Strider for a while, before eventually wandering, "The Las Pegasus MAS Blacksite is buried under a mountain of rubble the size of the Canterhorn," she dismissed, "Not even with both of our tactical megaspells could we remove that much stone, even if any remains of the facility were there to recover."

"Well, the entire facility was underground and built like a Stable, so it probably is intact," Star Strider said, as if it were obvious, "...But you're right about the rubble," a pause, before he perked up again, "Hell! I don't care if we gotta mine for the next century straight, getting that shit online and getting out of this goddesses-forsaken time period is worth any amount of time and resources!"

"Not right now it isn't," Azure explained, "Right now, our focus is on restabilizing this region and getting a supply chain set up for our most pressing deficits, namely food and jetfuel."

Star Strider looked a tad disappointed, but seemed to brush it off after a moment, "Fair enough, I suppose. Just be careful not to stretch yourself thin, I've not come this far to watch you waste this ship on attrition - not that I support a policy like the Rangers', mind you..."

He winced, "Just might be that there's more important matters than saving the civvies in the here in now. Why would they matter when we could save 'em all by going back in time?"

A safe distance away from the shores of the Bay of Fortune, the Phantom Ship had dropped its anchor once again. From its flight deck, a long bridge had been erected out of steel cable and other salvaged material, connecting it to land. Running underneath this bridge were heavy cables, carrying power from the ship's twin reactors into the power grid of post-war Las Pegasus. Upon her flight deck, a Vertibuck was being lowered by an aircraft lift as a trail of personnel walked towards the hatches leading inwards.

Roaring Thunder and two of his trusted Paladins, Tungsten Core and Light Shredder, walked down the stairs of the vast aircraft carrier, following closely behind the Ranger-Marines who had escorted them aboard. So far, being aboard the Phantom Ship was like some sort of waking dream.

Every surface was freshly painted, every single piece of technology worked as intended, and it felt as if he was in the presence of something holy. His boots, although cleaned very recently, still had residue of the mud of the training grounds of headquarters, where they had boarded the Vertibuck to fly here. Every single, faint print he left behind on the deck made him feel like he was violating the sanctity of some great shrine.

It all put a big, dumb smile on his face.

"You'll be berthing with us. Not a lot of space, so it'll be cramped, but they've shoved an extra bunk in," Brass Bugle explained as she dismounted the stairs, leading them towards a large, open compartment.

"I'm sure it'll be no problem..." Roaring Thunder muttered, looking over his shoulder towards a fully functional Mr Gutsy, still rocking its factory hardware, waxing the floor just down the hallway.

Yet, what was beyond the door amazed him even more.

Flying machines, over a hundred of them. Planes with engines he wasn't completely familiar with, sitting in huge rows. Markings on the floor, ponies swarming left and right performing various tasks. Some of the aircraft had tallies on the side, boasting of the many Zebra targets they had destroyed. A trolley mounted to the ceiling moved racks of air armaments around, and the stomping of heavy hooffalls wrenched his head around to spot a utility powerlift system.

The powerlift system was made out of a yellow skeleton, with muscles and sinew made out of pistons, hoses and wires. Two great grippers on the end of two arms hauled around cargo efficiently as a pilot inside a reflective glass-encased cockpit moved the system's four legs.

"Whoah..." he gawked.

"Coming through, mate," the pilot of the powerlift roared at him through a set of speakers, causing Thunder to look down at the yellow-striped zone under his hooves marked with the text 'DO NOT LINGER'.

Hurrying along and urging his similarly enthralled paladins, they followed them through an archway labelled 'ARMORY'. There were racks of secured, mint condition small arms, firing ranges to test them out on, and a fully operational workshop for packing ammunition and maintaining weapons. Though, nothing was quite as impressive as the next doorway they ducked through - the Power Armory.

Roaring Thunder stopped for a moment, gazing with a bit of drool trailing from his muzzle at a locker room with what could only be Pegasus Advanced MK II Power Armor models, all lined up and empty at power armor stations. He was once again grabbed away from the sight and half-stumbled through another bulkhead leading into what was clearly the Ranger-Marines' own Power Armory.

Sixty stations for Power Armor were all laid out in a long, tall hallway. Most of them were filled with T-51s, painted white and with the modified rebreathers on the fronts signifying their use in the maritime arms. Scribes- no, Technicians patrolled between the inactive models, wearing the patches of the Ministry of Wartime Technology on their shoulders as they took notes and performed maintenance.

"Alright, fellas. This here's where we keep our armor. Unless the General Quarters alarm goes or we're scrambled for a mission, everything 'cept our service pistols stay here. When it comes to guests, all of your weapons stay here, even the pistols. No offense, just ain't right to have unrated personnel stomping around with kit. Got it?" Bugle explained, stepping up to one of the empty stations, her name labelled above.

"Yes sirree.." Roaring Thunder muttered breathily, slightly punchy as he struggled to comprehend how many of his wet dreams had come true over the past ten minutes.

"Right, well-" Bugle's voice changed as she stepped out of her power armor, a mechanical hoist coming down to grip her suit as she brushed off her khaki uniform, "Take one of the stations with no names on it."

Roaring Thunder and his two companions did so as the rest of Bugle's squad moved to dismount their own power armor as well. They also surrendered their armaments, placing them into a locker by their armor that was locked under Bugle's biosignature. It didn't bother the Steel Ranger too much, as the Elder had said, even with their power armor they were far too outnumbered to fight anything close to a fair battle aboard the phantom ship.

"Want the techs to look over your models?" Bugle offered, causing the ear of one of the technicians to flick towards her.

Roaring Thunder gave an uneasy smile, "Err, no thanks. I assure you our Scribes do a perfect job."

Bugle, for some reason, gave him a doubtful look, before shrugging, "Well, suit yerself. D'ya have anything on the schedule right away?"

"No, not yet. I am to schedule some talks with your Elder, though," Roaring Thunder explained, pressing a switch on his armor to make it close up behind him. His fellows did the same, though notably the Ranger-Marines didn't follow the same practice.

"Our leader's called an Admiral... or well that's the shiniest brass aboard the ship," Bugle chuckled, "Since yer not busy, how 'bout I treat y'all to some of our hospitality. Grab some victuals from the mess then head down to Recreation?"

"Sounds like a plan," Roaring Thunder smiled. He had to admit to looking forward to something that wasn't made out of a mushroom.

A few minutes of navigation through the admittedly labyrinthine corridors of the phantom ship and they arrived at the mess hall. After Roaring Thunder excused himself for a visit to the shockingly clean bathroom, he came back to find Bugle finishing a conversation with somepony in an apron a sailor's cap, right underneath a sign taped to the wall reading 'FISH FILLET RATIONS NOW MANDATORY'. The cook walked away, and the earth pony turned towards the hornless unicorn.

"Don't worry 'bout this," Bugle pointed up towards the sign, "I twisted a wing or two and got us full rations of herbivore food. Just don't get used to it."

Roaring Thunder snorted at the concept, "I don't think I could if I tried."

A sailor pushed past them as they entered the mess hall, green in the face. Disregarding it, they entered the hall to find a room full of sailors in various states of misery as they poked at fillets of near-blackened fish next to servings of vegetarian foods. Roaring Thunder was tempted to roll his eyes at their clearly entitled tastes, considering the average initiate would be lucky to get half the ration size.

He was soon distracted by the food presented in front of him, however, as he took a tray from a shelf. There was yellow, fluffy (chicken?) eggs, thick and nutritious soup, macaroni and cheese - freshly baked, and some sort of vegetable casserole. He got a portion of all of it, noting with some amusement the significantly larger portions the Ranger-Marines were taking.

As they went to sit down, Bugle stalked off towards a glowing vending machine in the corner. Sparkle-Cola the front proclaimed, though there was some sort of note taped over the coin slot. Digging into his meal, he watched as the pre-war mare read the note, scowled, before turning around to square her hind legs towards the machine.

With a loud, metal clang, bucked the metallic front place of the machine. Two hoof-shaped dents immediately formed in the places where it was struck, the entire room turning their heads towards the damaged machine. Shortly after though, two bottles of cola popped out of the exit slot, scooped directly up into the foreleg of the military mare.

She walked back, sauntering slightly as she laid the cola onto the table, sitting down in front of her meal, "Got one for you, Thunder. The machine'd been deactivated cause they don't got more Cola."

He gave her a disapproving frown, "Isn't that a prudent decision?"

"Hmm?" Bugle raised an eyebrow, twisting the bottlecap off of the bottle with a hiss that reminded him strangely of a suit's atmospheric seal being broken.

"The decision to ration the further consumption of..." he looked down to the bottle, "...Luxuries?"

"You'd get a fucking flogging for that back at Blueblood," Paladin Tungsten chuckled darkly, poking a plate of casserole with a fork.

"They won't miss two bottles o' Sparkle Cola," Bugle said, giving a slightly annoyed look.

Roaring Thunder sighed, but took the bottle anyway. A spicy scent went up his nose as he popped open the cap. The glass was cool under his hoof, and for a moment he wondered if some of the scribes had gotten onto something when they'd started putting Sparkle Cola and Sunshine Sarsparilla into refrigerators. Still, after eating a few mouthfuls of frankly delectable food, he took a swig.

The liquid was vicious. It immediately bubbled, frothed, and went up his nose as he slugged it back. Coughing, he rubbed his nose viciously as the Ranger-Marines across the table broke into laughter.

"Damn, son! Did that bottle fuck your wife or something?" one stallion remarked.

Roaring Thunder, coughing a few more times, wiped his nose again as he drew his eyebrows together, "What???"

"You drank that cola like it owed you money," Bugle giggled, taking a more conservative sip of her own drink.

Thunder finally realized his mistake as he saw the carbonated liquid bubbling inside of the glass bottle. Rolling his eyes, he simply rolled with it as he excused, "Forgot these damn things weren't actually meant to be flat."

After dinner, they made for the 'rec room'. Bugle tossed the cap of her Sparkle-Cola carelessly into a recycling bin. Paladin Shredder understandably reached into the bin to correct her mistake, only to get strange looks. She half-sheepishly pocketed the cap, before cantering to catch up with the rest of the group.

Recreation was indeed a thing amongst Steel Rangers. There was target practice, wrestling, the occasional duel, watching corporal punishments being carried out, or perhaps reading some pre-war literature if you were a civilian with access to the library and time to waste. Though, as soon as they entered the recreation room, it immediately became clear to Roaring Thunder that - like many frivolous things - the pre-war military took their relaxation times a lot more seriously.

There was a library with sections and concepts he'd never even heard about (such as 'self care' and 'home & gardening'), a room dedicated entirely for playing table games, and an entire computer room just for videogames.

Videogames were not something the Rangers used for their original purposes. Intact cartridges and systems were so rare (they weren't built by manufacturers with 2 century warranties in mind) that finding and identifying one was almost as rare as finding a Water Talisman - though much less useful of course. The single console and holotape they had in the archives of their headquarters was only used to study the culture and thought processes of the pre-war ponies and nopony outside of the highest circle of scribes had even seen it run.

Then they arrived in the computer room, Bugle hastily slapped something called 'Tartarus Rangers II' into the drive slot, and connected four controllers to the console as the program booted on a large widescreen vidscreen. As Paladins Core and Shredder were lead elsewhere by some of the Ranger-Marines they'd become acquainted with, Bugle gestured Roaring over to a bean bag next to her as she sat with one of the controllers.

Sitting down, a controller was thrust into the forehooves of Roaring Thunder, who looked down at it dumbly, "I... er... have never used one of these before," he admitted.

"Oh don't worry, this here game's cooperative," Bugle reassured as two of her subordinates sat down as well, taking up the other two controllers.

Roaring Thunder couldn't figure the first thing about what cooperative could mean, but his eyes were attracted back to the screen as a video began to play. Flashy, pixelated artwork of spaceships leaving a blue, green planet came on screen, along with the text:

'IN THE YEAR 2277, PONYKIND HAS MOVED TO THE STARS. THEY HAVE ESTABLISHED COLONIES ALL OVER THE GALAXY, EVERYTHING WAS PEACEFUL UNDER PRINCESS LUNA'S MAGNIFICENT RULE...'

The art changed to images of giant, red eyed robots, covered in spikes and painted in black and white. Ponies wearing spandex suits that vaguely reminded Roaring of Stable jumpsuits fled before them as weird, spherical buildings burned. The text along with the image read:

'UNTIL THEY ATTACKED!'

Bugle frowned, spamming a button on her controller, "Must've reset th' darn save data. Can't skip this Luna-damned intro."

The image changed again. Ponies wearing futuristic - and frankly ridiculously unrealistic - power armor stood proudly at a barren ridge. The smoking husks of robots lay at their hooves. The text scrolled once again:

'THE SPACE RANGERS ARE COMMISSIONED TO END THIS ROBOTIC THREAT TO ALL PONY LIFE! ONLY WITH YOUR GUIDANCE CAN YOU BRING LIGHT BACK TO THIS GALAXY!'

With that, funky music began to play from speakers mounted on the side of the vidscreen. A screen titled 'character select' popped up, showing four characters, a pegasus in light armor titled 'Blitz', an earth pony in extremely heavy armor titled 'Tank', a unicorn in some form of electrically augmented armor named 'Zapp', and finally another earth pony in a bubble helmet leaning on a futuristic sentry turret named 'Engie'.

"Move with the right stick, then press the green button on who you want to play as," one of Bugle's subordinates explained.

Peering down at the plastic controller in his hooves, he awkwardly moved the stick until he had the large earth pony selected. Giving the Ranger-Marines an awkward look, he pressed the green button, locking him in with an electronic jingle.

"Y'sure? Tank's not the easiest..." Bugle raised an eyebrow.

One of her subordinates, however, contradicted her immediately, "Nah, he'll be fine if we play on easy."

"What... are we doing?" Roaring Thunder narrowed his eyes, utterly lost as the others locked in their characters and the screen changed again - first to a mission selection screen and then showing them arriving in some sort of miniature Vertibuck with rockets instead of propellers.

"We gotta go an' find a Megaspell on this map, then arm it and blow up a robot stronghold with it. Look around with the left stick, move with the right one, then press the green button to shoot. The little flippy levers on the back let you reload or switch your gun," Bugle explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Roaring Thunder, to his credit, could at least comprehend simple objectives. Though, despite his skills in real life at this exact sort of thing, he'd describe his actual ability to even input the simplest of commands past the labyrinthine and nonsensical controls as likened to a river trout stranded on the bank.

In other words, he proceeded to be guided like a foal to follow his squad, some sort of enemy apparently attacked them while he was staring at the ground and rapidly switching between weapons. He proceeded to die until he had no respawns, then was informed he had to watch as the rest of his comrades completed the entire mission without dying once.

Not only was the concept of coming back after death and not honoring the sacrifice of a fallen comrade rather ridiculous on its own, but he was even more flabbergasted to find that after extracting from the mission - that was it. They were given some sort of currency (Roaring got next to nothing due to being dead for the entire mission), and then were told to move on.

"...Why?" was the only thing he could say.

"Erh, why what?" Bugle asked, not taking her eyes off the screen as they embarked on yet another 'easy' mission.

Roaring Thunder didn't bother to pick up the controller, "Like... why? What's the point?"

"Ta have fun, I s'ppose," Bugle gave an amused smile, "Sorry, maybe this was a bit of a difficult came when y'all never picked up a controller before."

"Yeah but-" Roaring Thunder looked around, at the ponies playing at different stations and relaxing on couches and beanbags. The same ponies who'd been there thirty minutes ago, "...Why!? Surely there are better things to do than sit around here, press buttons, and complete fake objectives? Surely we have real objectives to complete! Surely you had them before the war, at least!"

Bugle pressed a button on the controller, pausing the game just as Roaring Thunder's character died, unattended, "I mean, not all th' time we didn't? Don't got nothing going on right now, either."

"Then you could be drilling! Doing something that readied you for battle, maybe? Maintaining your gear? Reading your doctrine?" Roaring Thunder asked, unable to keep a veneer of charisma in the face of his incredulousness.

"Listen, Thunder, I get two hours o' relaxation time a day when we're on the ship. I usually spend it doin' this," Bugle shrugged, "There's only so much maintainin' and drillin' a single soldier can do."

"You can never be prepared enough," Roaring Thunder's face hardened.

Bugle smirked, "Okay, warrior colt. I see ya. Why don't we make a bet?" she shuffled on her bean bag, the eyes of her two subordinates wandering over, "Us two, firing range. Your guys against me and these two," she jerked a forehoof towards the two other ponies on the bean bags, "You win, I admit I'm wrong and you can bequeath your wisdom upon me. I win, we come right back here and I keep showin' ya some hospitality."

Roaring Thunder grinned, "Deal!"

"I assume you are all familiar with the service pistol?" the range master, a beige-colored unicorn in a khaki uniform, asked.

Picking up a standard 10mm pistol, obviously well kept and smelling of the manufacturing line, from the counter of one of the range booths, Roaring Thunder nodded, "More than familiar."

The range master watched in horror as Tungsten Core inserted the pistol directly into their mouth, "Er- you folks planning on wearing a mouthguard? ...And the ear protectors?"

Looking at the rubber, teeth-shaped guards and the ear mufflers on the counter next to the pistols, Tungsten spat the gun back out, gingerly inserted the mouthguard and donned the headset, before once again picking up the pistol. Another look was given by the Range Master, before the stallion finally got the hint and also donned the eye protectors. Bugle and her two ponies took positions on the left three booths of the range, while Thunder, Tungsten, and Shredder took their positions on the right.

"Right," the range master grumbled, "Holographic targets will appear in your lane. Shoot at the ones in your lane, closer to the centers of mass the more points. Civilians - those are the ponies and not the Zebras - will pop up occasionally. Don't shoot 'em or they'll deduct three times the score for hitting a real target, but watch for the ones that pull out guns on you. Each team's points will be averaged, the highest average wins. Don't shoot the projectors, or else I'll shoot you myself."

Roaring Thunder squared up in front of his booth, checking the sights of his weapon a few times. They had a very similar range back at Blueblood, though that one was outdoors and had metallic targets. This one was indoors, with holographic projectors covering the ceiling every few meters. The bright fluorescent lights of the range even made it better lit than the targets back at base.

"Ready?" the range master asked, stepping back and placing a hoof near a switch on the wall.

"Ready," Bugle mumbled around the pistol in her mouth.

"Ready," Thunder said, after giving a quick glance towards his comrades, who had their eyes similarly locked downrange.

A loud buzzer sounded as the trial was started. Instantly, two close-range targets popped up. The pistol fired twice, ramming itself into the rubber cushioning of the mouth guard. The range filled with the muffled sound of gunfire, along with the muzzle flashes of pistols firing in rhythm. Eventually, ammo ran out, Roaring Thunder's tongue sliding evenly to the release as he inserted another magazine in.

Two targets. A civilian. Three targets. A far target. A moving target. Two civilians, before one faked out and turned into a zebra sympathizer. There was the vague understanding of a score counter above his booth climbing higher and higher, though he was entirely tunnelled into gazing at the targets as they popped in and out of existence. His reverie was only broken on the second to last bullet of the second to last provided magazine as the buzzer blared and the targets disappeared.

"Damn!" the range master marvelled, looking up to the counter above Roaring Thunder's booth, "That's only one point off perfect!"

Thunder looked up to the electronic counter, reading '189'. However, he was distracted as the master turned his attention leftwards.

"Yet, as usual, seems this difficulty is no match for you, Captain," he muttered, looking up to Bugle's score of 190 sharp.

Taking off the various layers of protection and stepping back from the booth, Roaring Thunder's face settled into a deep frown as he saw the averaged scores. 180 - 176. Bugle leaned on the counter of her booth, a smirk on her face, "Ain't no amount of drilling that can sharpen ya quite like ten straight years of front line service!"

Just as she finished, another voice came from Roaring's right. It was Shredder, who had sunken into a bow, "I have failed, Star Paladin. I vow to not touch sustenance until I amend my pistol skills to the example you have set."

Thunder looked up to the counter above her booth, which read 171. A truly shameful display, though he couldn't exactly blame the mare - she was definitely more of a grenade launcher pony. Still, discipline had to be upheld... though perhaps a display of camaraderie was appropriate in front of the likely softer Brass Bugle.

He raised his chin, gripping the mare's shoulder and raising her back up, "We have all failed the Steel Rangers today. None of us shall eat or drink until we match our competition's performance."

He turned around with a magnanimous look on his face, only to wilt slightly at the odd look Bugle gave him.

"...Erm, well..." she coughed awkwardly, "Guess we beat you fair and square."

That definitely took the wind out of Thunder's sails. The thought of going back to that ridiculous, chirpy excuse for an 'immersive shooter' made him sick. Still... he wasn't about to go against his word in front of both his subordinates and the Captain.

"Yes... it's... time for... videogames," he shivered, his ears reflexively drooping.

Bugle gave him a slight smile, walking over and giving him a pat on the shoulder that he could only interpret as being condescending, "Sorry, sugarcube. Weren't fair to shove somethin' like that right on top of you. Maybe y'all would be more up for a game of cards? Social deduction, maybe?"

Roaring Thunder, though, hardened at her offer, "No. I don't require your... pity. I will take my punishment as promised..."

Bugle, once again, gave him another one of her disappointed looks, but at least she softened this time, "Maybe somethin' with only two dimensions... and somethin' ya can't really lose at might be better. C'mon, I'll show y'all one of my old favorites: Ponyville Valley."

Roaring Thunder couldn't say that he precisely enjoyed the next hour or so of videogames... but at the very least the game, about raising crops on an inherited farm, was a bit easier to understand.

Calm Seas walked, once again, into the council theater of the Syndicate, this time under her own power and without an escort. With a slight yawn, she settled into a seat between the Stable Dwellers and the Tarcoats. Reaching into a coat pocket, she took out a thermos of coffee, taking a sip as she glanced between the two parties.

The Tarcoats, who she remembered being particularly ambivalent about her presence, now regarded her with analytical glances and stares of trepidation.

She moved her eyes away from the glorified electricians, towards the Stable Dwellers. Definitely a tougher nut to crack... but she was already brainstorming a few in roads. They were definitely her next target to influence. They at least seemed to think of themselves as civilized, unlike the Raiders. There was probably some common cultural grounds, along with some economic benefits she could hold over them.

Still, she saved those thoughts for a later briefing with the Indefatigable as the crowd quieted and Blazing Whip emerged onto the stage. He moved quickly, quicker than he usually did, and mounted the steps up to the podium, face full of emotion.

He wasn't high. That made Calm Seas narrow her eyes.

"Ladies and gentlecolts, I have dire news," he growled, a hoof visibly tensing on the side of the podium as speakers amplified his voice, "The reports and rumors have all turned out to be true. The Shattered Cog gang, the same ponies who gave their blood to flush the Steel Rangers out of Stable 83, have been destroyed, down to the last pony. My own son, Crack Whip, is among those disintegrated!"

The Raiders erupted in a roar of protest. The Stable Dwellers placed hooves over their mouths. The Tarcoats... the Tarcoats stared long and hard at Calm Seas.

Whip was talking about yet another MoA fuckup, Calm Seas knew. Their very own 51st Reconnaissance had gone off-mission to rescued some hostages, including what was apparently the undead form of Captain Star Strider... but at a great risk. They'd only managed to take a single combatant as a prisoner and had dusted the rest.

"Not only were they slaughtered, but their defenses were not breached! They were attacked by a cowardly ambush from above! And-" the stallion suddenly paused, breathing heavily... though it was strange he was out of breath. He hadn't talked for that long since his last inhale.

Calm Seas, however, wasn't thinking about that. Instead, she had quickly reached for her PipBuck, activated the StealthBuck that was already in the peripheral port and had the inventory system levitate every single drug that was vaguely useful in this situation into her hooves. Disintegrating into a cloud of slightly refracted light, she spread her wings and flew up, away from the lighting that illuminated most of the theater seat rows and into the darkness.

The theater was in uproar as several of the Raiders jumped over the seats, moving towards where Calm Seas had last been seen.

"The- the presence of..." Blazing Whip stuttered, seemingly not realizing the uproar in his own chambers as he clutched the podium harder, "Thf... bwuh... guh..." he began to pant.

Calm Seas, for her part, the world cleared by Mint Als, moving in slow motion from Dash, and her muscles strengthened by Buck, zipped over the side of the theater light setup. Weaving right between the guards, them only turning around, blinking dumbly as the rapid tap of hoofsteps and the flutter of wings brushed past their ears.

The commander confidently crouched down, biting down on a bobby pin and taking out a professional lockpicking tool, quickly twisting the lock of a door labelled 'EXIT' open, before fleeing out onto the roof of the casino and into the night.

Behind her, in the theater, Syndicate delegates looked around in confusion as the mare who had definitely walked in a few moments ago seemingly disintegrated into thin air. Some indeed suggested the usage of a StealthBuck, and began to sweep the seats row by row, finding it inconceivable that she could have pushed past the guards at the exits.

Only a few of them gasped in horror as Blazing Whip suddenly collapsed on the stage.