Fallout Equestria: Rangers North

Fallout Equestria: Rangers North

Chapter 006: Sanctuary

AE0090.03.24.1536

“Leaders should be careful of pushing their charges too hard. Your regrets are only yours, but theirs are yours as well.”

Jack-Hammer

“Jack?”

I did not answer. The last beacon we had encountered was now a half-an-hour behind us, and I could not see it, even with thermals.

“Jack?” Shear asked again. “Jack, are you still with me?”

I stared ahead. Everything was burning.

“Jack!” Shear almost demanded.

I managed to choke out a groaning, “What...?”

I would have sounded angrier if I could have. I did not want to speak, or move, or anything. Just walking with two ponies on my back and a half-ton of damaged, half-working armor there was hard enough. That, and it was buckin’ freezing without the integrated heater, which had been disabled by a rocket shot earlier.

“We’re here.”

I almost collapsed in relief. As if on cue, the snow parted just enough to reveal large metal doors about five meters in front of us.

“Open the door.”

Knight Midnight Shear moved forward, with a bit more bounce in his step, I noticed. He must have thought we would be safe soon, but as luck had been so far, that was likely not the case. Doc had not posted guards outside, if he was even there at all. I couldn’t see the AutoSled either. So for all I knew, they had fallen off a cliff or gotten lost. Maybe it was parked nearby, and they’d never gotten inside, frozen to death in the confines of a half-destroyed assault craft.

That was my first guess, since Shear could not open the door.

“Sir, it’s sealed.”

“Figures.”

I readied my rocket-launcher set, the control arms folding out from their protective housing. We were going to get inside, even if I had to blast a hole through the ground and come up through the floor on the other side. Didn’t think it would come to that, though, since I was going to blast the doors instead.

“Knight Shear, stand back.”

“Wait, Sir. There’s an intercom here. It looks like it was brushed clean a few hours ago.”

I stared at my charge incredulously through my visor.

“What makes you so sure?”

Shear pointed at the intercom. I squinted instinctively through the falling snow, but it didn’t help, so I walked to his side.

“No ice, Sir.” he said simply. “Mostly. Honestly, I’d hack the door’s access console, if there was one here to hack.”

Damned if he wasn’t right about both. The intercom was chipped mostly clean of ice and there was very little snow collected on its steel housing. There was no sign of an access panel, either. Shear pressed the button.

“Anyone in there?” he asked the speaker, “We’re stuck outside, it’s cold, and we have injured.”

Immediately, I saw that Shear was gambling and under normal circumstances, I would have stopped him from telling anyone we had injured soldiers, but the situation called for desperate tactics. In my mind, inside was one of three things: Nothing, enemies, or friendlies. If it was enemies, I would kill them. If it WAS Doc, I would be tempted to kill him anyways at this point for leaving the door locked without someone to look for us out here.

“Dammit Doc... if you’re still alive-”

I caught myself. That sort of thinking lead to darker thoughts and actions. There was no excuse for that. It was freezing outside. Guards standing outside without working climate control would die within the hour unless they were moving around. Sickness might even take them hours later, considering how the holes in our Powered Armor had not healed themselves yet as they were programmed to. I would have to talk to maintenence about that when we got back to SR-15.

“Identify yourselves.” the intercom belched.

I could not recognize the voice through the howling winds and the crappy quality of the device in front of Shear and I. The younger stallion looked to me for guidance. I nodded simply, not needing to say a word for him to get the message.

“Steel Rangers. Delta-3 detachment. Last of the Delta detachment for all we know. There were others, but we were separated in combat earlier today. It’s freezing, and we have wounded. Open the door, or we will be forced to blast it open.”

Very nice. He offered detailed information, and then threatened. I hoped that was the right call, and that these ponies within could be intimidated by the Steel Rangers name. Or high explosives. With my body slowly absorbing the radiation the accompanied the storm, I would be less useful than usual, but I could still launch explosives.

“Hold your saddlebags, dammit.” I heard someone yell faintly in the background. “Get out of the way, Knight Snow Cap. Open the door while you’re at it.”

My ears perked at that as I heard a muffled “yes, sir,” before the slightly garbled voice of Doc Hollow came through the box.

“Welcome home boys, the door will open shortly.”

I let out a curse. Not an angry one, but a relieved exhalation.

“We made it, Shear. We finally made it.”

Shear nodded. I couldn’t be sure what was going through his head a that moment, but I was glad he had been around and in good enough shape to help me out along the way. He had hidden the beacon, and stayed awake and aware despite what looked to be considerable injury.

“It was of little concern, sir. I kept my helmet on.”

I was thankful for that.

Midnight Shear

AE0090.03.24.1545

For once in my life, I was glad not to be a Knight. Being as elite as I was had its perks, but oddly enough did not come with Powered Armor. Instead, it came with a sneak suit, one of the most advanced suit systems to date. Certainly, it lacked the strength and rigidity of the Knight’s powered armor, and it did not have the cloaking capability of the Stealth suit that I’d heard the Zebras had used during the war, but it had something that both of those really lacked: Freedom of movement accompanied by complete silence while doing so. It even had pressure seals that prevented the radiation-filled air from entering my suit, unlike my heavily armed comrades. Somehow, the lab rats back at base had managed to design and manufacture a small number of what they lovingly dubbed the SS-14d, or Sneaky Suit. Through their assumed genius, I was capable of achieving the aforementioned, as well as gaining a considerable a boost to my already substantial skills in explosives, hacking, and picking locks through a series of suit-integrated devices, and adapted macrochips specifically repurposed to make me the baddest-ass Commando that SR-15 had ever seen. Not that I needed any of that, of course.

Needless to say, a lot of ponies were jealous of both my skills and the tech that was available to me because of those skills.

Despite all of that, however... I had failed.

“Shield...” I mumbled under my breath as Jack and I entered the bright light of the now-open door to Geothermal Station #7. Doc ushered two Knights towards us to relieve my squad leader of their burden. He was, hopefully, just unconscious like Red.

I had failed my team. It felt... pretty awful. I looked to Jack for support against the wave of guilt that had struck me, which was something I was not used to. He was in no shape for it, and despite Doc Hollow removing his helmet, simply stared ahead.

“You need Rad-Away.” the doctor insisted as Jack pushed the bag of Rad-Away in the direction of Red Rain and Broken Shield.

“Take care of my soldiers first. Then me.” he insisted, “Have someone check Shear over too.”

The mention of my name made me jump a little as the pony who’s voice I recognized as Snow Cap began doing what I could only assume was basic first-aid. A pinch from my front-left leg alerted my senses sharply as the boyish mare pressed about through the thin kevlar, searching each wound with all of the finesse of a foal with a hammer.

“Careful!” I hissed at her, “You want to make it worse?”

“S-sorry.” she stammered, “I’ve been pulling a medic’s duty since we arrived. Doc Hollow taught me just enough to get by...”

“Not nearly enough...” I growled, “If you must know, Cappy, the only bullet that got through was that one. Go mess with someone else.”

Snow Cap frowned, and stuck out her tongue at me. I snorted and waved her off. The bullet hadn’t even made it all the way through the skin. I’d remove it myself before I let that dumb mare poke around at my suit. He might damage the seals. If we needed to go out again, Ministry Mare AppleJack or whoever forbid, I’d need those to keep from ending up like Jack or Red Rain.

Besides, it was the right thing to do anyways, probably. Red Rain and Shield needed assistance more than I did.

The thought caused a twinge of guilt hit me again. I know I had tried to do my best. I know what I had done had saved our asses, turning Shield into a walking psychological, hyper-telekinetic weapon, or something. I couldn’t have dreamed that would have ended like it did, though, no matter how much credit I wanted to take.

Worst of all, I knew the truth. Shield was a stronger, better pony than I was. It was insufferable. Shield could not even acquire a mare of his choosing for a weekend foray! How could he possibly have been the turning point for us all?

The question simmered in my mind until Jack called my name.

“Sir?” I asked, mocking up my best servile manners.

“As soon as Rain is on his feet, we start looking.” he stated, his tone dark and weary.

I nodded as he continued.

“And as for what happened out there on the field, between Rain, yourself and Shield... don’t say anything to Shield about it. We have no idea what he remembers, or how he’ll react if he doesn’t remember and finds out.”

Doc spoke up, he was rigging up a saline IV to Red Rain and Shield each, “And if you say anything, I’ll kick your hindquarters so hard that you’ll be seeing your ass-end first every time you wake up in the morning.”

I scoffed internally. Somehow through my mask he managed to see that.

“He needs a psychological profiling from a professional before we can be certain that he’s safe to be told anything, or be around anyone. That, and I wasn’t kidding. I will kick your aft-end.”

“And where does that leave the rest of us, Doc?” I asked in anger, more at being threatened by Doc than anything else, “What about our safety? Should we just let him bucking rampage to save his conscience?”

Rain coughed, opening his eyes a bit, groaning, and then falling back to sleep, or whatever. Doc Hollow took that as a sign that my less-noteworthy companion might survive, then turned to me.

“This is as much your fault as anyone else’s.” His tone was cold, sharp. “You probably thought you’d be a hero by saving his life, when in truth, he really just needed a stimpack, which our medics who were alive at the TIME, could have provided.”

I stepped back, a burning in the back of my throat, anger rising.

“He wouldn’t be where he is if not for you, nor us. But the fact remains. Now shut it.”

I looked to Jack. He shook his head in a way that I knew meant I should keep my tongue. He was right, the battle was lost. Bastard old doctor... How dare he question my motives? As if he knew me!

I decided it was time that I got moving, look around a bit. Get my mind off of the old hashoof-medic, and maybe actually accomplish something.

“Yeah, as if I hadn’t accomplished something already.” I mumbled under my breath.

My gaze followed the ceiling at first as I meandered slowly around inside the main room which we had come into. The floor was clean other than the blood, snow, and dirt that we and the rest of the surviving Steel Rangers had dragged in with us and was just a very basic concrete grey. The walls were steel, as was befitting a structure built by our forces as it were so long ago. Fluorescent lighting fixtures cast a bright but harsh and revealing glow on the pristine walls surrounding me, leaving little to the imagination save shadows that might jump when one of the lights flickered, which was rare. Oddly enough... everything was flawless, as if the machinery within had been properly maintained for the past 90 years.

I mumbled to myself. Something was off. No way in deepest depths of Tartarus should the building have been in the condition it was still in, especially not with the elements outside raging as they had been. If such a thing were the case, then it was safe to assume that the building even was even protected from the radiation from the RadBlizzards outside, considering the thickness of the walls themselves. That too, raised questions in my mind. Why were they so thick? Had we seen this coming? Had we known? If so, why hadn’t someone stopped the megaspells in the first place?

I whipped my mind back to where it belonged, trotting into a nearby room. Questions like that lead to a pony thinking like Red Rain, the admittedly acceptable sort of conspiracy theorist. Even though he was accepted and even loved by many, I was certain I did not want to be like him. He was weak, emotional, and annoyed me greatly.

Terminals lined the wall of this room. Likely databases. Maybe just workstations, or a way to send mail over a likely long-dead LAN line to some faraway server so that a pony could send mail to his family or something while working out in this snowy, frigid wasteland. None of them were online, though. So my talents would be wasted until they were powered back on.

It was just my luck that it seemed as if somepony had purposely destroyed the wiring along the walls in a sorry attempt at making the terminals work. How was *I* going to be a hero if no opportunities presented themselves, or if I had to waste time on mundane tasks just to accomplish a grander goal? Who knew what kind of information there was inside those machines? Contrary to my internal disdain, I was undeterred and so began looking for a backup battery, or at least some way to repair all the wiring. I would find a way, it was only a matter of time. I WAS a certified, exemplified computer genius with what WOULD have been considered an engineering degree in an Equestria past.

With that thought, I chuckled to myself, spotting an auxiliary power conduit.

“Child’s play.” I sneered through my cracked visor.

Or so I thought.

Broken Shield

AE0090.03.24.1536

More snow-covered pathways materialized before myself and my Pegasus guide as she lead me to the next set of screens floating in the blackness of this... where ever it was we were. More questions buzzed around in my head, but I knew that she would just avoid answering them. It bugged me.

“Why are you avoiding my questions?” I chanced, “You seem to know an awful lot about me, but I know very little about you.”

My guide stopped, her gaze darkening before me as sadness returned.

“It’s best you don’t know.”

I heaved in a sigh, becoming annoyed.

“Look.” she started.

“I am.” I interrupted.

“I just... can’t answer everything yet. It’s not time. The only way I can talk to you here, is if I follow the rules set forth.”

I stomped a hoof, not caring that we were floating in mid... space? and that I had no idea what would happen if I fell, “That’s dogshit.” I neighed, “What’s the point of bringing me here? Is there even a reason?”

She went silent. Tears welled up in her eyes. My heart sank, like I’d hurt my own mother.

“... Ask... ask the Sons.” she stammered, “They have answers... and they are not bound by the laws I am bound by.”

A voice boomed from the space above, “YOU HAVE REVEALED TOO MUCH.” it bellowed.

I recognized that voice. It was the same as the one from my dreams before. The very same voice that had attacked my dreams just before we left was now attacking me again. It was as if my problems were parasprites and there was no way to just bottle them up or roll them out of my proverbial town.

Hadn’t someone tried that once?

“WE HAD AN AGREEMENT. YOU WERE TO BRING HIM TO US.”

“What?!” I barked, “You’re lying!” I roared, “It’s lying right?!”

She shook her head. “It’s... true. But...”

“THAT’S RIGHT. SHE BETRAYED-”

“Can you politely buck off?!” I yelled back, temporarily silencing the what-ever-it-was, “But what...?” I asked her, glaring.

“It was only so... I could see you. It’s been a long time... I... I wish I hadn’t left you at-”

A massive, all-consuming noise struck my ears at that very moment, taking the form of a pony skull and subsequent vertebre, shattering the air with its presence. Elongated, canine teeth pierced the fabric of the space around us, bearing down on our position. There was no time to think, so I reacted.

“No!” I roared back, baring my own teeth and jumping in front of the pegasus who had sold me out, “I will not allow it! I’m tired of being saved, and I will not watch another life disappear today!

“HAH!” the voice boomed, “YOU THINK THAT THIS PEGASUS IS REAL? PATHETIC.”

All four of my hooves dug into the floating pieces of pristine, snow covered platform as I conjured up the most powerful shield spell I could manage, releasing it in front of us to try stop what felt like the equivalent of a train bearing down my pegasus and I. Sheer and unimaginable power bore itself down atop my barrier, cracking it as if it were glass, but unable to shatter it. For a time at least.

“DO YOU NOT SEE?” It asked, “SHE BETRAYED YOU TWICE. SHE WILL AGAIN. YOU PROTECT HER, BUT FOR WHAT?”

“Because I can!” my teeth ground against each other with effort, the words inching from my mouth between pulses of energy from my horn, intending to knock it back with my will, “And you suck! What more reason do I need?!”

“FOALISH.” it insisted, “YOU ARE AN ABOMINATION. DO YOU NOT REMEMBER WHAT YOU DID ONLY MOMENTS BEFORE YOU WERE DRAGGED HERE?”

It struck home, my shield cracking, but I held firm.

“Do not listen to him, Shield!” my now traitorous guardian cried out, “You are a good stallion!”

The voice only laughed. My shield cracked more, beginning to push me down.

“I know your heart, dear!” urging me on, “I know that you want to protect, to make life better for those around you.”

“HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT. YOU CRUSHED A PONY IN THE VERY SPELL YOU WIELD NOW!”

Shards of the blue, ethereal glass that now made up my bubble began to fall to the platform I stood upon, disappearing as they hit, temporarily hardened from the assault. My mental state wavered, crumbling under the weight of my guilt. Only a few seconds remained, I knew. Between the exhaustion from earlier which was suddenly affecting me as if I were back in the land of the living, and the horrible things I’d done, my magic, was at its limit.

It was going to crush us both. Obliterate our beings. There was no telling whether or not I would wake up if it did, but I was certain of one thing at least: If it could exert this much control over my pegasus guardian, then I was certain it would destroy her if it defeated me here.

I roared back at the incoming train of destructive power. Enough had been lost today. My sanity, some of my Ranger companions, the very purity of my most powerful spell. In that brief moment, I managed to conjure the strength to bring up another shield.

“Run!” I demanded.

But she did not move.

I yelled over the deafening rage of the being that would stop at nothing, I was certain, to get at my companion.

“I cannot!”

Her admittance was unforeseen.

“There is no where to go! I cannot leave here until you wake up!”

My defeat was absolute and unavoidable. The shield crumbled once more, as I braced for impact, taking one last look at the pegasus who had always been with me, if not at least only in my dreams.

Jack Hammer

AE0090.03.24.1550

“To think, Doc...” I started, “Only this morning we were all alive, well, and on our way to the first real mission in decades.”

My bones ached still, despite the fact that I had been given heavy doses of Rad-Away. I knew it would take time to go away completely, but at least the pain of being severely irradiated didn’t feel nearly as bad as it had the first time, back when I was still new to Delta.

Doc Hollow-Bone snorted. Just by the way he moved, those slight nuances that years of operating together allowed me to see when nopony else could, I could almost hear what he was going to say next, before he even said it.

“This wasn’t our first. It was theirs. Considering the circumstances, my friend, we are lucky that any of us are alive to complain about it.”

He was right, and I knew that saying anything else on the matter would be a waste of time. Neither of us liked the idea of wasting time. It was then that I noticed that Shear had run off, which would have had me worried, except that we were actually safe for the time being. I hoped.

“Wish you’d teach your soldiers to keep their damned helmets on.” he grumbled, “You never did like the damn thing either. ‘Why’ is something that I’ll never know.”

My armor hissed and protested as I sat down, likely as at the end of its rope as I was. I grinned just a little.

“Well, if they kept their helmets on, you wouldn’t have anyone to work on, would you?”

Doc Hollow-Bone stopped short. I could see the weariness behind his silver, scratched visor. His shoulders slumped and he looked as if he were about to say something, but stopped short and let it be as he began chuckling softly.

“I suppose not...”

I smiled back at the old doc, but it hurt far too much to continue making the effort. Instead, I lowered my gaze as Doc Hollow turned around to yell at Snow Cap, who, visible to me from a hole in the vehicle’s side, was busy stuffing her head curiously into our last working AutoSled’s mangled internals. She bumped her head and wobbled out of the back of the machine with a dazed look in her eye, managing an uneasy salute.

Our best soldiers. These were our best, and despite our efforts, SR-15’s Delta Detachment had been torn to pieces and left to die by an enemy that we couldn’t even identify. Rather one that nopony except Doc, Star Paladin Steel Spool, and I could identify. We had seen it coming, sure. But under strict orders by Elder Opal Tulip we had kept our mouths shut even to our own subordinates, leaving them completely unprepared. Musing, I realized that even had they known, it would have done little to stop what had occurred earlier today.

My stomach growled. I was hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. Even so, our job was incomplete, and as soon as Red or Shield awoke, I would take Shear and head into the underbelly of the slumbering beast we were hiding within. I heaved myself back onto my feet and took a look at the doorway into which Doc had entered earlier leading to the garage, I approached to get a look at what was left of us. The sight was depressing. A few ponies in bedraggled armor, an old doctor, and a knocked cold and severely wounded Star Paladin a task-force did not make.

“Where in Tartarus did they get all those ponies?” I fumed, “In all the time we had been watching them... after all the scouts we had sacrificed, where had what we thought were bands of roaming foragers found enough commonality to gather together and form a leadership heirarchy? Where had they acquired the guns and rockets?”

A few ponies, those who had become MY soldiers, looked up at me, questions and concerns in their eyes. Star Paladin Steel Spool wheezed weakly on a stretcher-cot, unaware of what I had said, and likely unaware of anything at all.

“S-sir?” Snow-cap asked meekly, “What do you mean...?”

I gritted my teeth. I had said too much. In my frustration I had revealed far too much that I was supposed to keep a secret. A strained hissing from my suit reminded me that not only had they attacked and killed a large portion of our task force completely unprovoked, but they had also somehow prevented our suits from repairing themselves, costing us even more. I sighed. Doc stared at me. I could see imagine the glare he was throwing at me from beneath his helmet.

And I didn’t care.

“Doc... it’s time to tell them. They deserve to know.”

Doc Hollow only shook his head and left the room. He was a soldier to the core, and followed his orders without question. I knew what he was thinking.

“I’m going to check on your boys.” his gruff voice echoed across the pristine steel internals of the garage, followed by the sound of only his metal-coated hoofsteps. “I’ll be back when you stop being an emotional filly.”

Great. That was the last thing we needed, insults. Unfortunately, it was Doc, and I didn’t have the will to tell him that. The old stallion was gruff, but from another generation. He couldn’t understand, and was cold and harsh because of the era he came from..

“Everypony gather.” I ordered, “Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.”

The remaining Steel Rangers piled around me. Some had kept their helmets on. Others had theirs off, burning away the last remaining cigarettes that they had. Smoke from those cigarettes wafted lazily about in slowly disappearing tendrils. Silence filled the room.

“Twenty years ago, that being seventy years after the megaspell incidents that thrust our once beautiful Equestria into the state it is in today, we began picking up radio signals of unknown origin.” I began, “These signals were too garbled at the time for us to decypher, so... we sent out scouts.”

Murmuring filled the small crowd. I heard their doubts. Weren’t we the first to have left in 90 years? Wasn’t this supposed to be a recovery mission for equipment and activation for the power plant they were now supposedly in?

Their confusion was quickly put to rest as I continued, “You were not given the whole truth. It was assumed that the full disclosure of possible movement outside SR-15 would spark panic, rioting, or an attempt at mass exodus.” I took a breath and started pacing a bit.

My armor protested loudly, “With no real way of confirming whether or not the radio transmissions were from a possibly hostile force, or if they were just radio beacons uncovered by the shifting winds from before the war’s end, we sent scouts out to investigate.”

A few of the Rangers nodded, others simply watched with rapt attentions, all simply taking the information in.

“This is one of the locations in which our scouts would dump information. Many times scouts would operate for weeks, even months outside the base and needed a place to back-up their collected data... just in case they did not come back alive.”

Snow Cap spoke up, “I... I’m guessing that we’re here to pick up data of somepony who didn’t come back... right?”

I was surprised. A little. Snow Cap had guessed right. What came next was more of a surprised.

“I... I found what we were looking for, and thought it was important... so... I downloaded it to my suit, so I could show it to somepony with more rank later... I just didn’t know that we were after it specifically... or I would have said something by now.”

Dumbfounded, I stared at Snow Cap until the mare cringed and shrunk where she stood, and made me realized I was frightening her. Clearing my throat, I apologized quickly, then addressed her directly.

“I want to see that data immediately...” and added an encouraging, “Good job...”

Snow Cap smiled a quick smile, but I suspected she was still frightened. How somepony so meek-sounding and quiet had made it into the Delta Detachment was beyond me. I would have to ask Opal Tulip about it later. Still, she was a blessing, thank Celestia. Now I wouldn’t have to search for the data nearly as hard.

My briefing wasn’t over yet though so I continued, “In hindsight, I should have pushed for more information to be released... but nopony had any idea that they, whatever or whoever they might be, were so well organized or numerous. Clearly we are dealing with a threat much larger than most of us had anticipated.”

I looked down at the frightened, beaten, battered ponies that had survived the encounter. None of them would ever be the same, least of all those who had seen Shield's breakdown. I dismissed the small group, allowing them to rest more and play a few games of cards. There was little more I could do for them, no matter how awful it felt not to at least try. I pulled Snow Cap off to the side shortly thereafter, and and began asking questions about her find, to show me where she had found the files, and to make me a copy on a holotape. After a few short discussions about what she’d read in the entry she brought me to a small office-space where I spotted Shear mucking about with the wiring and grumbling about something.

“Dammit, Sir.” he complained upon my entering, “It looks like somepony shorted everything out a few hours ago! At first I thought it was just a lack of power, but NOW it looks more like to me that somepony just started attempting to-” he began waving his hooves around in a comically frustrated manner, “-jury-rig power-conduits together to get this damned terminal back online!”

I stared down at the mare next to me. Snow Cap managed a quick, nervous smile and a slightly more nervous laugh. I just shook my head and smiled back a little. looking back to the frustrated Unicorn Ranger.

“Good news, Shear.”

“Sir?”

“I think we’ve found at least part of what we’re looking for already.”

Shear stared at me for a moment, seemingly not comprehending. So I spelled it out a little more, in case he was just too exhausted to understand good news.

“The little saboteur who shorted out this entire room? She also happened to get the terminals working, and copied the very documents onto a holotape already.”

Shear did not look pleased, which struck me as odd. In fact, he seemed a little devastated, or maybe relieved? I couldn’t tell which in the state I was in. Knight Snow Cap had her chest puffed out proudly, happy that she’d done at least something right. I guessed she had done a lot more right today than either herself or Doc was giving her credit for.

“I want you to keep working on this though.” I told Shear, “She didn’t know it was what we were searching for, so I want to be certain that we have everything we need before we make an attempt to return home, barring extraction by a rescue team.”

Shear only nodded, not looking at either myself nor at Snow Cap. I took it as a sign that he was tired, but willing, and left it alone.

“What should I do?” Snow Cap asked.

“Do you know how to operate a radio?”

She nodded, “I was the communications expert for my squad.”

I smiled wearily, “Think you can get us a signal booster set up? We need to contact base for extraction and explain the situation.” hoping that it would encourage a boost in morale, however small.

She nodded and cantered off to find the supplies necessary, rummaging through supply closets and bins of old scrap, presumably from when the place was first built. It wasn’t long before she was on the roof running lines to a radio that she’d salvaged from a back room store, proving she wasn’t just talking out of her flank.

Above all, that’s when I felt things were starting to turn around. We had a communications expert. Thank Celestia above.