Fallout Equestria: The Indefatigable

November 27, 1277 - Mission Day 49

Clouds scrolled endlessly above Ice Slushee as she flew in formation, spaced out at 2 meters between wings. The Indefatigable grew smaller in her periphery, the carrier's form illuminated in blinding contrast to the low, blue night vision her power armor granted her. Without the contrast of its floodlights, she could take in the world much better as it spanned out beneath her.

Where massive skyscrapers starting from the ground and reaching all the way into the clouds had once loomed, instead a mountain of rubble had taken its place. The clouds that supported the Upper City had completely dissipated, replaced with a subtly glowing halo that rose from the ruins like an aurora. Chunks of concrete and steel debris, assumedly falling from above, had crashed into various sectors of the Las Pegasus downtown and suburbs; stretching out like a giant splatter of acid on a great, pony-made field.

There were some lights she could see from her position. Up the River Rush, lights dotted the bank and shone from an overhanging concrete boulevard. There were the lights from the old Navy base, which the Rangers were busy investigating while the 51st undertook its own mission. Other than that, one of the most brightly shining gems of the Equestrian Principality was dead, silent, dark.

Slushee tried her best to think of a joke, but the effort never left the recesses of her mind.

"Command, 51st. We are now above the LZ," Crystal Trail said, her voice linking across the radio channels to her squad and back to the ship, "Skies are empty, beginning approach."

Ice's eyes turned down to the ground directly below them as the squad banked to circle around it. It was one of Las Pegasus's famous, sandy beaches. Her memories of her multiple leaves at the resort city framed the beach with towels everywhere, umbrellas, volleyball courts, ponies swimming and splashing in the waves, with lifeguard towers in the back to frame it all. There was even a television program about heroic lifeguard rescues on this beach back in the day, which was why before the Great War was declared she had wanted to be a lifeguard.

Now, though, seaweed and driftwood coated the beach in great droves. Sickly, grey plant life choked out the beachfront villas and residences, whose shingled roofs were scorched black. Some of the lifeguard towers still stood, built to resist cyclones, but most of them had seemed to straight up collapse as their wooden struts had rotted through. However, most notably on the shore were the wrecks.

Shipwrecks, hundreds of them.

Most of them small yachts, rowboats, motorboats, fishing boats, you name it. Alongside them, though, were the wrecks of larger ships. Cast by the currents from the southern side of the bay, where the naval base and industrial dockyards were, were the more immense models - freighters, ferries, and the like. Most of them were beached and turned over by the waterline, but many were above it as well; a product of the waterline recession, if Ice had to make a guess. Rust covered their hulls and paint peeled back.

One specific wreck stood out amongst the wreck. Lying on her side, the outline of a cannon sitting on its bow, massive RADAR and sensor arrays along its superstructure and a name written on her side:

H.M.S. VICTORY

Just as she observed the ship's designation, her suit's automapping system pinned the location of the ship to her drive.

"Automap system has picked up her tag," Crystal Trail noted, "This is definitely her. It... looks like the wreck's been here for years, though."

"Affirmative. We can see that much through the video distortion. Any visible damage to the radio mast?"

Ice's eyes moved to the superstructure at that. It seemed as if several things were missing from the wreck. Several floodlights were missing, along with the utility crane on poopdeck. The bulk of several of the Honorguard LMIS had been disassembled, leaving just their blackened barrels to stare into the sky above.

Most notable of the damage to the wreck, though, was a large, gaping hole sheared down the side. The sides were clean, with no blowout. Not a high explosive blast and not enough jaggedness on the sides for an AP core. Likely a gout of dragon's breath.

"We're seeing several missing components from the deck out here, including the radio mast. Do you got eyes on that big hole in amidships? Looks like dragonfire," Crystal Trail reported.

"Yes we're tracking that. Doesn't explain all the corrosion damage on it and all the other wrecks. You're clear to access that wreck. Keep your eyes on your compass and remember your ROE, there may be survivors. As a reminder, your primary objective is to retrieve the ship's logs from the computer room. Secondarily, clear the wreck for any survivors."

"I love the Rules Of Engagement. Very tasty," Spear Bash whispered.

"Affirmative, Command," Crystal Trail said, ignoring her subordinate, "Making a landing approach now. Slushee, Stack, Bash, Cone, Chaser, land on the foredeck and make your way into the superstructure. The rest with me, we breach through the side."

"Yes ma'am. Fireteam, on me," Pounce Chaser said, rolling out of formation as the pegasi made their final approach to the shipwreck.

Slushee, along with the others on the second team, split off from the main formation. Crystal Trail's group swept under them, going for the gaping hole in the hull as the others alighted on the deck above. Their plated hooves clanked and crunched on the heavily corroded steel weather deck.

"Spooky," Shot Stack whispered as they formed up behind Pounce Chaser.

In the slightly scratchy, night vision feed of their helmets, there was indeed a sense of eeriness. The shipwreck was slightly tilted, at around 3 degrees of an angle. Items that had seemingly been left loose on the deck had slid all the way to the side, except for a few heavier examples, which stayed glued to the floor by a layer of gunk and slime. The ship's lifeboats seemingly had been deployed, as the cranes to carry them lay empty along the sides.

Catching Ice's eyes were rows of hoses along the railings and in the middle of the deck, fastened with special nozzles. She immediately piped up, "Looks like they rigged the same washdown system as us."

"Boats are gone too," Pounce noted, "They may have evacuated."

Pursing her lips, Ice stood at the center of the foredeck, just behind the ship's cannon, slowly turning in place. Above her, the smokestack for the coal engine had collapsed, the structure buried in the sand next to the wreck. Below the jagged remains of that stack was the bridge, the windows shattered inwards and empty. Stains of ash, dust, and burn marks pock-marked the rest of the plating with scars. Maybe acid rain or some sort of talisman-enhanced dragon attack could explain the corrosion, but the filth was definitely a product of neglect, and not just a month's worth of it either. She looked away with a frown.

Crystal Trail's voice came over the squadlink, "Celestia. This place is filthy. Command, this place looks like a Spark Station bathroom on a friday night. Maybe we can explain the corrosion, but this stuff looks like its been abandoned for decades."

"Noted. Corporal Slushee, can you pan your vision back towards the superstructure?" Command finally answered.

Ice looked back, up towards the bridge at first. She was told to look down, however, until her night vision finally illuminated a marking amongst the rust. Green spraypaint, sprayed over the bubbling, corroded steel around it. It was two words, one of them cut off by the angle she was looking at it from. She stepped closer, orbiting until she could see the whole message.

"Ghouls Within," she read aloud.

There was a moment of silence. Wind blew in from the sea over the deck, causing the liferaft cranes to clink and jangle, empty hooks hanging from ragged cables.

"What are they, trying to fuckin' scare us?" Spear Bash muttered.

Pounce Chaser, for her part, stepped forward past Ice towards a bulkhead in the side, "We're breaching here. Stack up. Shot, get ready to weld this thing open, I doubt the mechanism still works."

"Same down here. We've found an opened watertight door leading forward. We're moving to secure the computer room. I doubt anything on the bridge works, you ponies move to the CIC and try and see if any of the security systems are working down there," Crystal Trail said, "Stay frosty and light on those triggers."

"And keep your respirators on," Lead Syringe added, "Contracting some disease from this place would be a hell of a way to go after all this."

Ice took a look down to the bottom right of her HUD. A tiny symbol there told her that the internal pressure of her suit was stable. She took a reflexively deep breath at that.

The five pegasi on the topdeck stacked up by the door. Pounce Chaser grabbed the handle, only for the lever to pop off with a crunch. Stepping back, she nodded towards Shot Stack, who moved forward and reached for his battle saddle. Procuring a long tool with a wide enough handle for a hoof to fit through, attached to his back by a rubber hose, he aimed at the two hinges holding the bulkhead to the wall.

"Flash warning," Shot Stack muttered. With a mental command, Ice shut off her night vision. The world went dark for a moment.

A loud fizzling filled the air as a the plasma cutter made quick work of the corroded hinges. While the night vision's flash protection could mute out the light from a laser rifle, it was dangerous around bigger things - like explosions and metal-vaporizing cutter tools. With a single hoof, Pounce Chaser kept the door from falling over as Shot Stack finished off and holstered his tools.

The world ignited again in a blue hue as Shot Stack resumed his position in the door breaching order, Chaser stepping back to let gravity do the work. With a loud, shuddering 'THUNK', the bulkhead fell to the floor, sending dust and flakes of rust shooting down from it. Laser Rifles popped out of battle saddles as they moved in, Pounce Chaser leading the way.

On the left side of Waffle Cone's battle saddle, there was a mechanical click as the barrels of one of his laser rifles cycled to a different type - a laser diffuser.

"Scatter Laser?" Spear Bash muttered, "Really?"

"I like to keep it for close quarters engagements," while Waffle's face wasn't visible past his respirator, Ice knew he was grinning.

The team made it to a fork. The hallway branched to the left and right, with a stairwell just around the corner leading up into the superstructure and down into the lower decks. The bulkhead had already fallen off its hinges, resting on the opposite wall. A tiny, skittering insect shot by, squeezing underneath the metal slab for shelter as the pegasi moved in.

"Squad. We're seeing bodies down here. Skeletons in Navy uniforms. They've been looted, too," Crystal Trail reported from below.

"Fuck. Command, do you have any idea what the hell's going on down here?" Hay Weave's voice came through.

"Standby, 51. New information is coming through from the Rangers at Cracked Clam. We'll advise as soon as we can."

Pounce Chaser suddenly stopped, the telltale raise in her rifles making the rest of the squad pause behind her, "Red Contacts! Bearing northwest on my compass."

"I'm seeing that too, Pounce," Waffle said.

Ice looked down towards her EFS compass. A single red dot had appeared on it, the only thing her own system could read. Her guns followed her eyes back up as she looked to where the heading pointed - towards a wall. She hated when EFS detected things that she couldn't see.

"51, be advised, in light of new information we have reason to believe that there may be hostile elements aboard that ship. The situation has not changed, complete your objectives and extract back to the Indefatigable for debriefing."

"Not fucking ominous at all," Shot Stack muttered from the back of the group.

Switching to her speakers, Pounce bellowed down the hall towards the red ping, "This is the Equestrian Armed Forces! We are clearing this wreck for survivors! Drop your weapons and lie down on the ground with your hooves over your head, or else we may have to assume you are hostile!"

Her amplified voice echoed through the ship, causing Ice's ears to flatten. For a moment, she thought she heard something scratching, shuffling through the walls. The red dot did not turn yellow.

Back on squadlink, Pounce nodded towards Ice, "Drop a beacon here. CIC's on deck three. Waffle, take point," a pause, "Since you love that scatter laser so much."

"Yes ma'am..." Waffle muttered nervously.

Ice reached for her crossbelt, taking out a small, saucer-shaped disc and placing it on a wall. It beeped and on her HUD a bar appeared. Waving a hoof in front of the beacon, the bar turned red. Giving a satisfied nod to herself, she followed as her team began to mount the stairwell.

"We have contacts down here as well, team two," Crystal Trail piped up over squadlink, "Around fifteen."

"What the fuck is that?" Radio Whistle suddenly said, "Sarge? You seeing this corpse? Looks like a zombie."

"There's more of 'em down here," Sugar Beach whispered, "They look like their skin was burnt off... holy shit. Those are Navy uniforms."

Ice took a look behind her towards Spear Bash. She couldn't see much behind the other mare's faceplate, but by the way her heavy Gatling Lasers followed her eyes she knew she was just as nervous.

A faded, rusted sign hanging over a nearby bulkhead read 'Deck Three', the team dismounting the stairs and heading through, checking corners with sweeps of their softly glowing laser rifles. Further navigational aids pointed towards the ship's armory, a berthing deck, sickbay, and most importantly the Command and Information Center. More and more pings appeared on the compass, exponentially increasing Ice's heart rate.

"Pings are spread around. We're fucking surrounded. Command, do we have any intel on what the hell we're looking at here?" Pounce demanded.

"We have no intel at this time. Exercise maximum caution."

"Maximum caution my plot," Pounce muttered in response, a rare talkback coming from the second most senior member of the squad, "Reading around twenty pings on my end. No yellows."

Shot Stack turned around, walking backwards as he took up the squad's rear, vision constantly moving around towards every passing bulkhead and crevice. Battle Saddles panned to face every entrance as the squad passed by, Ice's ears twitching constantly as her heart thundered. Up ahead, Waffle's scatter laser jiggled constantly, the arm holding the saddle mirroring its user's eyes twitching as he lead up the front.

They turned a corner, the CIC being just a few hallways away, when they encountered a corpse. It... was a yellow earth stallion, his body in the process of desiccation. He wore a ragged boiler suit, not the type that was standard Navy issue either. On his head, a Buckball helmet had been bashed in, the metal visor dented inwards by some great force to the point where it had punched a hole in his skull. His flesh was mostly missing from the bone, pools of long-darkened blood trailing across the rust below him. Ice swallowed a gout of rising bile in her throat as she saw bite marks across his carcass. She'd seen a lot throughout the War, but she'd never seen cannibalism.

"Got a body. Looks a good few weeks old... though it's hard to tell, seems to have been cannibalized," Pouncer muttered, approaching it carefully as Waffle stepped forward past her to scan the adjacent hallway, "Doesn't look like Navy... don't even think we had Buckball gear on our ships," Pouncer scooped up the shotgun from the floor, opening the lock and peering inside, "One shell left. This thing's a civilian firearm. This can't have come from the ship's armory."

"CONTACT!" Waffle suddenly shouted, nearly making Ice jump out of her own skin.

Ice's eyes, along with those around her, moved up to follow Waffle's. At the end of the hallway, a pony walked towards them... though it was more like shambled. If it had moved in any faster, Ice might've not had the discipline to hold her fire. The uniform of a Junior Officer hung to its form in rags. A red dot followed the figure as it approached, an ominous clicking sound emanating from its every step, as if it was wearing metal taps on his hooves.

That was when she looked down, seeing that the pony had no hooves. Just chew marks around its fetlocks and boney protrusions sticking out from under them. The team froze, all weapons trained on it.

"Sir..?" Pouncer said through her speakers.

Its mouth parted, showing cracked, bloodied teeth. Its white, milky eyes focused right on them as it howled, filling the air with an inequine screech.

It leapt at Waffle, whose scatter laser blasted a split second later, turning the creature's head into ash.

Before the first's body even hit the floor, Shot Stack screamed as something else impacted him, sending him smashing forward into Ice. Whipping around, she brought her lasers to bear on the form of a sailor, flesh bubbling from burns that should have been lethal, trying its best to gnaw through the ballistic fiber protecting Shot's neck. An open door sat to Shot's right, where it had likely came from.

"WEAPONS FREE! IF IT'S RED, IT'S DEAD!" Pouncer screamed. No sooner was the command given did Ice activate her SATS.

The world slowed as the targeting system designated the limbs of the zombpony in front of her. Recognizing an IFF tag on the sailor's uniform, a name read on her HUD: 'Seapony First Class Leaf Blower'.

She queued up six blasts to the torso and let loose.

A hail of blaster fire perforated the monster's torso. Bones were exposed as pink laser pulses vaporized flesh and organ. Wrapping his forehooves around its neck, Shot Stack wrenched the monster free, where it bounced off the deck and scattered for a few meters, pouring blood from six, clean holes in its flesh.

Ice's eyes widened as it got back up.

Her laser rifles hissed as two more pulses of pink blasted into its skull, manually aimed. Finally, the sailor went down.

Only for three more to thunder around the hallway behind him.

Spark cells cycled through a belt fed system on her back as Ice began to feather her triggers, a meter on the right side of her HUD warning as temperature inside the rifles' heat sinks rose sharply. A few went down, only for five more to fall in right behind them from around the corner!

A hoof landed on her left shoulder and pushed her out of the way. Stepping up, Spear Bash's gatling laser began to whine as it spooled, before a hail of flashes lashed out towards the enemy. Her laughter was only barely audible over the chatter on the radio as the encroaching horde was quickly turned to ash.

"Team two, report!" Crystal Trail shouted.

"Contacts, south hall!" Pounce shouted as more lasers pulsed from behind Ice.

"Contacts east! East hall!" Waffle added in.

"I'm good, I'm good!" Shot Stack shouted, hauling himself up to his hooves, "Didn't get through the fiber!"

Ice turned towards Pouncer and Waffle, whose battle saddles flashed in unison. Three more were turned to piles of glowing powder on the floor, while two went down as blasts sawed a hole straight across their torso. A few more jumped over their corpses, only from combined fire from Pouncer, Waffle, and now Ice's saddles brought them down in quick fashion.

"Hold fire!" Pouncer ordered as the deathly howls of the creatures finally went silent. Laser rifles hissed as their sinks were cooled down.

"I repeat! Team two, report!" Crystal Trail shouted over the radio.

Taking a deep breath, Pouncer reported, "We're alright. We got attacked by something, the fucking undead, I don't know. They were like walking corpses. All of 'em were in sailors and officer's uniforms."

Spear Bash walked over towards one of the downed zombies, kicking its body with a hoof. Grunting, she noted, "'Least they seem just as vulnerable to energy weapons."

"51, Command. We now have much less reason to believe there are survivors aboard. Proceed with caution and clear the area, your objectives remain the same."

"Yeah, sure! I can fucking take a Stripe hopped up on fifteen different chems but zombies? Nopony fucking told me there would be zombies!" Shot Stack growled, removing his forehoof from a frayed part of the weave covering his neck. According to Ice's squadlink, there was no breach in his suit's pressure seal, but still...

"Shot Stack was bitten, maybe we should just put him down before he turns on us," Ice sniggered as she poked the stallion in the shoulder. He gave her a hard look, before shaking his head and moving up with the rest of the team.

"Keep the yapping for the debriefing, squad. Eyes on the objective. Keep moving, now you know what you're looking out for," Crystal Trail ordered.

"Yeah, yeah, just tell us if your dick falls off, Shot," Spear Bash said, a wisp of steam trailing off the end of her gatling laser.

As they progressed through the wreck, more of the zombies showed up. Indeed, as they went on Ice found herself calming down more and more. None of them were a match for their weapons, neither for their armor plating or stingers if they managed to get close enough. The natural military instinct to fire for the center of the mass was foregone as it turned out they seemed to fall much faster to blasts to the head.

On the other side of the ship, as Crystal Trail's half of the squad forged forward, they too had their fright and comms chatter as they blasted apart a herd of zombies that jumped at them from the cargo bay. Reports from down below were the disturbing - the cargo bay doors had been barricaded shut from the inside and the deck hatch had been welded shut. The food supplies had been completely eaten up, along with the coal and spark cells.

Still, command urged them onwards. Ice, and a few of her other squaddies she believed, subtly hated being in radio contact with the mothership. Sure, it meant cool stuff like being able to call in airstrikes and for cover when shit inevitably hit the fan, but it also just made her feel like that Career mare Lightning Bringer was constantly squatting on a raincloud overhead, ready to piss.

The bulkhead into the Command and Information Center had been locked shut from the inside... with the frame also rusted to the door itself. Another quick weld through aging hinges and the door fell away, revealing a relatively large compartment.

Dusty, crusty terminals ran along its length. Chairs sat at sporadic points throughout the center, upholstery worn and cushions filthy. Ice paused as her eyes ran across the skeletons occupying some of the seats.

Seemingly mostly held together by their uniforms, the skeletons gaped up towards the ceiling, jaws strung with cobwebs and debris. Hollow eye sockets stared back at the team as they cleared the room, illuminated by the night vision glow.

"Area secure. Spear Bash, Waffle, watch the door. Ice, see if you can get any of this shit to work," Pounce reported.

Ice walked to the head of the room, eying up the skeletons as she passed by, "These guys must be the ship's entire officer corps. How come none of them zombified?"

Shot Stack kicked at something on the floor next to one of the bodies, "I think I know the reason," he said. At his hooves, ten rusty, tiny syringes sat on the floor. The text on the sides were indecipherable, but any soldier worth their salt knew what those syringes were for.

"Med-X. Suicide dose," Pounce muttered, looking between the consoles to similar piles next to the others, "Looks like they took the easy way out."

Ice frowned, arriving at the master terminal at the far back of the room. A Captain's uniform lay slung around the skeleton of the pony sitting at the station. His cap sat on the desk in front of him, next to a pile of empty syringes and a heavy revolver. An Ironshod .44 magnum, if she had to guess. Sitting below the desk was a sword, a golden hilt imbedded in a sheath. The symbol of the station of a commissioned officer.

"Captain Sea Leg. Poor fucker. It's always when they've got a good retirement coming up," Shot Stack sighed.

"I'm moving the Captain's body to gain access to the control terminal," Ice reported, before, as delicately as she could, she hefted the skeleton out of its chair and laid it down onto the floor next to it. Despite her effort, a pelvic bone still snapped out place and the body fell in half.

Shot gave her a comforting 'you tried' shrug.

"Just plug in the spark cell, will you?" Ice grunted, hoisting herself up onto the chair. She reached over to the revolver sitting on the desk, placing it in a pocket. Unlike a lot of things around it, it was in good condition - weapons were enchanted to resist the weather like that.

Procuring a glowing, pink energy cell from his big bag of tools, Shot accessed a nearby junction box. A few wires sparked as they were plugged in, power coursing into the room soon after.

Despite all the odds, one of the ceiling lamps, fallen down and partially resting on top of a terminal rack, blinked to life, completely washing out night vision with a harsh fluorescent buzz. Instinctively squeezing her eyes shut and deactivating the aid, the world returned back to normal light levels as the terminal screen in front of her began to glow green.

Drawing out the access wire from her suit's onboard PipBuck, she inputted a few codes into the system and was granted access. Placing her forehooves on the keys, she began to navigate towards the crew function, where the IFF tags of all those aboard could be tracked locally.

"51, we have a new objective for you."

Not looking away from her work, Ice scowled. There came the rain.

"Go ahead, Command," Crystal responded.

"Once you've retrieved the recorders from the computer room and team two has the IFF scanner accessed...."

"Almost there already, ma'am," Ice grunted.

"In the computer room now," Hay Weave added.

"We need you to retrieve a few of the zombie bodies from the ship and prep them for extraction. Also, we need at least one living one restrained for transport."

"Command, please come again. You want us to restrain one of the zombies?" Crystal asked.

"Yes. Medical wants to see if there's any way to treat them. A 'Buck will be on its way to airlift those bodies as soon as they're out on the deck. They'll drop a stretcher and some cuffs. Just tie one down to it, I'm sure your power armor has enough strength to keep them pinned until you can."

"With all due respect, ma'am, have you ever seen a zombie movie in your entire life?" Shot Stack said, disbelievingly, "You know in movies like that, the military guys that brought the zombies into the safe haven usually get eaten eventually, right!?"

Queuing up the download of the IFF data, Ice grinned and remarked, "They used to, until the MoI decided that showing the military getting eaten was unpatriotic."

Radio Whistle immediately chimed in over squadlink, "It is. We can totally take out zombies, look at what we just did-"

"Clear comms. 51, is your objective clear?"

"Yes ma'am," Crystal Trail affirmed, "We just got the recorders now. They look mostly intact, somepony stripped most of the wiring out of the computers though."

"Got the IFF data too," Ice Slushee reported, "Stowed and ready. Sharing it now."

As soon as she said that, ten pings appeared and stabilized on her compass.

"Rendevous on the foredeck. Pick up some bodies on your way up. Shot Stack, I'd like you to come and take your look at the hole in the side of the ship, I got some suspicions," Crystal Trail muttered.

"Mind sharing those suspicions, Sergeant?"

"It's just that I find it really strange that the ship's launchers were all fully loaded. Looks like most of the missiles were stripped for parts, but still. You would've thought if they were attacked by a dragon, they would've fired some of their dragonkillers."

It took the combined effort of Hay Weave, Spear Bash, and Syringe to haul the one of the frothing, dessicated, thrashing corpses up to the topdeck. With one of Spear's armored wings shoved inside of the zombie's mouth to gnaw at uselessly, they staggered over to the foredeck, where the wind whipped off of the backdraft of a hovering Vertibuck, and a blue flare designated its LZ.

Tossing the zombie onto a stretcher, suspended by steel cable over the side of the vehicle, it took them a few attempts to properly fetter the undead creature to the platform, by all four its legs and its neck. Screaming, moaning, and thrashing all the way up, it was winched back up to the Vertibuck, joining three of its dead brethren, contained in bodybags.

Meanwhile, Ice Slushee, along with the rest of the squad, stood by the giant hole in the side of the ship, faces in various states of consternation as they examined the damage. Shot Stack stood ahead of them, looking closely at the markings on the side of the ship.

"Yeah, this definitely isn't dragonfire," Shot Stack concluded, "Dragonfire has a certain effect on steel. You can tell slag from dragonfire from other kinds, cause of certain impurities in the dragon's breath. This just isn't right. Looks more like a laser hit it, to me."

"Take note of that in your report, Private. 51, it's time to exfil. Job's done."

Crystal Trail huffed, her battle saddle finally folding up as the squad turned to take wing, "Can't wait for the debriefing for this one."

After a thorough decontamination shower, a full-squad debriefing that told them practically nothing, the Sergeant being invited to Lightning Bringer's offices herself, the 51st had settled down in a vacant room for their slightly late dinners. Tacos, with sides of Sparkle Cola for a job well done.

The door finally opened, Crystal Trail walking back into the room with a deep frown on her face.

"So, boss? What's the explanation?" Hay Weave asked, looking up from her meal.

Crystal shook her head, not meeting any of their eyes as she rolled her tongue in her mouth.

"Fucking time travel," she eventually said, "That's the fucking explanation."