The flight to the stable only took about an hour or so, thank goodness, but that was flying at the fastest pace we could manage, so by the time we saw the tell-tale maw of the stable's entrance carved into the mountainside, I was beat. Wasn't there another squad available that had already been stationed outside of the city and didn't have an entire day's flight that same day to tire them out? If I didn't know better, I'd say Heidi was living up her promise and was trying to get me killed…

...come to think of it, I didn't know better, so that was entirely possible. Guess she was just betting that the more experienced members of our squad wouldn't bite it at the same time.

In any case, I was stuck with this job unless I really did lose my mind and try to desert, so I followed in rough formation as we came up on the camp outside the entrance. We approached from the side, presumably to not present ourselves to any opportunistic snipers hiding in the cavern leading to the stable, and touched down around the cages that had been modified into shipping containers for slaves. Three of the large carts had been pulled around into a rough half-circle like some antiquated wagon train, surrounding what I guessed was the camp the army troopers had set up.

Our squad was the first down, and we touched down just far enough away we could take some cover behind the rough mountainside on our approach. We could see some movement at the campsite from the air on the way down, but couldn't be sure it was friendly. Two members of fifth squad remained airborne as their comrades joined us, taking up positions on a low lying cloud to keep an eye out.

Ahead of me, Leigh held a claw to her headset and listened. “Looks like two army soldiers are at the campsite, sergeant. No sign of anything else.” Wow, already I was loving this new radio we'd been given.

Serge nodded. He peeked around from his cover and shouted toward the carts, “Talon company is here! Show yourselves!”

I chanced a glance to see if the unknown ponies would cooperate, and saw a white unicorn stallion slowly ease up from behind the cart he was taking cover behind. “Talon company? Thank the goddesses.”

A green unicorn mare popped up next. “It's clear, the slaves are all down in the stable.”

Serge looked back to Leigh. “All clear?”

“Snipers have them covered.”

“Alright, everyone move up. Stay away from line of sight to the stable.”

We all broke cover and practically stalked our way over to the wagons, ready to jump back into cover or take flight in an instant if necessary. My heart was thundering in my chest again at the thought of an armed slave waiting on an outcropping somewhere to take pot shots at us, or for the soldiers to turn out to be slaves that stole their uniforms, or something equally bad.

Nobody shot at anyone on the way over, so momentarily Serge and Sergeant Greypaw of fifth squad were busy interrogating the soldiers on just what went wrong.

“The slaves never came back up to the surface like they were supposed to. We radioed for help, but didn't know when anyone would come so… a few hours after they were overdue the rest of our team went in to look for the slaves. Haven't seen them either...” the stallion explained.

“How long ago was this?” Greypaw asked.

“About four hours.” The pony squirmed and pointed toward the stable. “The place looked deserted already when we got here, so we only gave the slaves some low caliber crap that was up for salvage. Never heard any gunfire, so we just don't know what happened.”

Serge grimaced. “Do you know what this stable's experiment was?”

Huh, so that rumor was true? In my travels with my parents as a griffawn, I'd heard a few ponies talking about the “stable experiments”, but figured it was all just a bunch of superstitious talk. Like, if the computer malfunctioned, everyone assumed Stable-Tec was out to get them or something. Was there really more to it than that?

“No sir,” the mare answered. “Our briefing didn't have any info on it, and we haven't been inside.”

Lita snorted. “Fabulous.”

A beige griffon from fifth squad grumbled something. “If everyone inside was dead or gone when you got here, that's not a good sign either. We might be looking at a death trap.”

Serge rapped his talons on the rocky ground. “Possibly, but we have to investigate anyway. Ilya, your squad's going to be understrength, so why don't you take the lower levels? Less space down there so you won't be tripping over each other at every turn.”

Greypaw shrugged. “Works for me.” He held up a claw and motioned toward the cave. “Form up, people.”

Back with us, Serge explained, “We'll take the upper levels. Living quarters, mess hall, medical, and so on. Lots of open space compared to engineering and storage, so if the slaves are held up somewhere they won't have as much room to hide. If they're in the living quarters a few grenades will convince them to leave.

“Lita and I will lead. Leigh and Isaac are behind us. Kaz, you and Amalia will be behind them. Fifth squad will follow us and split off at the atrium. Let's go.”

Oh boy, here we went. I sidled up with Amalia and tried to quell the anxiety building in my gut. This could go wrong in so many ways…

She flashed me a confident smirk. “Relax. You have to keep a level head. Can't afford to lose your cool now.”

Ironic that I was teaching her things in Fillydelphia just a week ago, and here she was teaching me. But I wasn't about to argue when bullets could fly at me any second. “Right...”

The ten of us huddled up against the mountainside and crept over to the cave. I couldn't see Serge and Lita from where I was, but after a few seconds I heard her announce that it was clear, and we moved further inside. The narrow cave was longer than I expected, twisting its way about twenty meters into the mountain before terminating in a dimly lit and very mundane looking door. I couldn't believe that a simple steel door on a hinge was supposed to protect these things from balefire blasts…

Serge and Lita took up positions opposite each other at the door. She held her rifle up and nodded. Before I even realized what they were doing, Serge slammed the door open with his weight and she snapped around to scan inside with her gun. “Clear.”

Belatedly, I realized I was also the only one still standing. There wasn't exactly room to take cover, but everyone else had the common sense to at least hunker down while they checked the room beyond. I was so going to get killed…

We filed through the door and into yet more cavern, but I had to take a moment to fully appreciate what I saw as I entered. A massive door, ten meters across, emblazoned with the number 69 and shaped like a gear, was pulled away from an equally vast entrance. A flickering gemlight from inside the stable cast harsh shadows from the teeth of the door and railings behind it, filling me with even more foreboding. But, at least the stable had power, right?

In pairs, we took turns with short flights up to the walkway while the others kept watch at both the giant cog ahead of us and the exit behind us. Now I could understand how a stable withstood impacts from balefire missiles… that door was half a meter thick! I could only imagine the strength of the mechanisms required to shove such a thing into its resting place.

Amalia gave me a hard tap and a frustrated nudge toward the hole left by its removal, snapping me out of my daydream and reminding me where I was and why. “Sorry,” I whispered as I scurried inside to join the rest of my squad, who had already fanned out to cover yet more doorways. Great, were we going to run into a room somewhere that had more doors than we had griffons?

As fifth squad followed behind us, Serge pointed toward a terminal attached to the extended walkway leading from the door. “Leigh, see if that thing is operational, and if so, what you can get out of it.” Someone from fifth took up her watch position as she peeled away and fluttered up to the gantry and started fiddling with buttons and knobs.

“How big is this place?” I whispered to Amalia as I tried to peek down a hallway she was covering. I pressed up against the wall across from her and pretended to help keep watch.

“Big enough for a thousand ponies,” she whispered back, not taking her eyes off the silent, but at least illuminated hallway beyond. “Stay focused, don't get distracted.”

Ugh, right. I just nodded and kept my piddly little pistol in claw as I waited for someone to do something else. A minute or so later, that someone turned out to be Leigh as she announced, “The computer systems all seem to be up and working. I can't access much from here because this terminal isn't connected to the core network, but there is something odd.”

“Go ahead,” Serge said.

“I'm looking at the census records. One thousand ponies on the list, like usual. Nine hundred ninety nine mares, and one stallion. Some pony named Leisure Suit.”

“...not usual,” Lita said from her spot across the room. “What the hell?”

“I don't guess that's just by chance?” someone from fifth asked.

Leigh kept tapping away at the terminal. “No, they always have an exact fifty-fifty mix.”

Serge said, “Well, guess we know what the experiment was now. So we shouldn't run into anything unusual deeper inside. We have to assume the security systems are still online. Leigh, can you confirm that?”

More tapping. “Not from here.”

“Right then. The atrium is this way. Move up and secure it. We'll split up there. The overmare's office and mess hall are on the top floor. Third squad will start there and work down. Fifth will head down and sweep the generator, stores and maintenance facilities while working back up. We'll meet in the living quarters and medical.” He nodded toward the door. “Let's move.”

The atrium consisted of a section of modular staircases spiraling around something I'd only heard of in fabled stories from before the war: a functional elevator. I have to admit I was a bit excited at the prospect of seeing one in action, but that was quickly buried under the understanding that there were few worse death traps in this building than a big, noisy elevator to announce our approach to any hostile slaves with guns.

We split off from fifth at the elevator and headed upward, by way of the decidedly mundane but comparatively safe stairs. I expected there to be a few levels between us and the overmare's office, but to my surprise it was all contained with the mess hall, fashioned so that she could look out over the ponies of the stable from her office as they ate and caroused. A bit creepy, I guessed, but effective at maintaining situational awareness.

From the stairwell we emerged directly into the upper level of the mess hall, dining hall, cafeteria or whatever it was the stable residents called it. There was frustratingly little in the way of meaningful cover or concealment, so we perched silently in the door for a full minute, listening for sounds of anyone moving.

Nothing came, so Serge pointed a talon to Lita then indicated a door just visible to our right. He repeated the gesture with Amalia and another door just beyond the first. Both nodded, eased inside and lifted off to approach without having fight to avoid their talons clacking on the metal flooring.

My chest tightened as I watched them drift over and take up position at their doors. Lita glanced out over the recessed dining area and made some anxious waves of her claw toward us. Serge nodded and pointed to Leigh and Isaac, who disappeared down the hallway behind us. There was another doorway on this level back that way. Were there more rooms on the other side we couldn't see? Probably, and those would need to be covered too.

I swallowed and tightened my grip on the pistol in my claw, following Amalia and Lita with my eyes. They watched the far wall for agonizing seconds. Pinfeathers… get this over with before my palm sweated enough for the pistol to slip-

The two visible griffonesses snapped around and pointed their rifles through their doorways. They swept their guns about and vanished inside. Seconds ticked by. I switched claws. More time passed. I recited a few more curses in my head and switched the pistol back to my right claw.

Finally, Amalia peeked out of her room and waved to us. Lita did the same.

All clear?

Serge tapped my shoulder and pointed out into the room. Oh boy. We both scurried out of the hallway and the only source of sturdy cover in sight. I intentionally lagged behind Serge a hair to follow his lead, and we ended up in the room with Lita, who was picking through a cabinet.

“Just stores of some kind. No sign of recent activity,” she whispered.

“Right. We're heading up to the overmare's office. We can try to find some answers there.” He blew out his breath. “Looks like the inhabitants just vanished. No signs of the slaves either. This is usually the first place they'd go.” He peered out through the door. “Let's check the kitchen before we head up. If the slaves have been here then anything worth eating will be gone.”

Leigh and Isaac set up a watch from their side of the room as Serge, Lita, Amalia and I formed up and headed down into the recessed seating space. It was hard not to feel uneasy, even before Serge pointed out how eerily clean everything looked. I'd never seen the guts of a stable before, but it looked just like it was on display for possible patrons. The floors had a few scuffs here and there, but all of the tables were neatly arranged and clean. No chairs were out of place. All of the lights hummed and filled the room with a soft blue glow. If there had been a thousand ponies here, where did they go? I was looking forward to finding out from the overmare's office. Everyone had probably left years and years ago when supplies ran short or something, but… why clean up before leaving?

The kitchen looked clear from where we were, but even still we took no chances. Serge and Lita covered the door and he directed Amalia… and myself… to sweep inside.

...shit…

Amalia went first without hesitation, and I followed with quite a lot of hesitation. She hunkered down and prowled below a counter, keeping her rifle ready in one armored claw while crawling along on the other three with more grace and silence than I thought possible. My pistol at least was easy to keep ready while trying to emulate her, but even without the gauntlets she had I was quite a lot less stealthy. But, nobody was around anyway, so it didn't-

Something exploded behind me in a deafening cacophony, and my heart did its level best to rocket through my throat and out of my mouth. I squealed and jumped, trying to reorient myself to face the deadly danger that had just assailed us from behind! Stabbing pain shot through my claws and I lost my balance as my gun went sliding out into the room we'd just left. Fragments of whatever exploded scattered beneath me as I hit the ground. “Agh… I'm hit!” I yelped, rolling over to examine my claws. Blood trickled from tiny pinpricks in my palms…

“Shit, get down!”

“The fuck was that!?”

“Don't see anything!”

Something snatched me by the tail and heaved hard enough for every joint in my back to pop. I panicked and grabbed at the drawer of spilled silverware in front of me to keep the thing attacking me from dragging me off to my doom.

Wait…

“Dammit!” Amalia thundered up behind me and… silence fell.

“You have got to be shitting me,” Lita grumbled.

Isaac groaned loudly.

“Dammit, Kasimir!” Amalia stressed. “Everyone on this side of the continent knows we're here now.”

My spinning head slowly settled and I began to piece together what just happened. I'd snagged a drawer somehow, spilled silverware everywhere and stepped on a couple of forks. The stinging pain in my claws throbbed with each beat of my heart, and I could feel my cheeks flushing…

Dammit indeed…

Serge grabbed my pistol and snapped his head around to check the dining room. “Amalia's right. They know we're here. We need to get up to the overmare's office right now. That's the most defensible place in the stable. Leigh, can you get fifth on your radio?”

“Their operator is still outside,” she said as she pulled back from cover.

Amalia yanked me back to my feet and pushed past me. “They've been here. There are open boxes in the kitchen.”

“Then we need to be extra careful. They may have laid an ambush for us. There will be at least one robotic turret protecting the entrance, so we have to assume it's been reprogrammed.” He held my pistol out for me. “Let's move, now.”

I wiped the specks of blood from my palms on my sides and took the pistol. “Sorry...”

“Forget it, just hurry.”

So we did. The stairwell leading up to the office was on the opposite side of the room, leading off from where the kitchen entrance was on this side. Serge and Lita went first, followed by Amalia and myself and trailed by Isaac and Leigh. There was only room for two abreast as we scrabbled upward, and the words 'robotic turret' kept repeating in my head. I decided we shouldn't wait for it to start shooting before I asked about it.

“What are we going to do about the defense system?”

Lita rounded a corner after Serge and suggested, “I've got a couple of frag grenades. That ought to handle it.”

“It'll wreck everything in her office and we need her terminal if we can get to it,” Leigh piped up from behind me.

Serge called back, “Wait until we see where it's positioned. If there's no door to block the blast then we can't risk it. It's too cramped in here. I'll take it out with my pistol if I have to.”

A pistol didn't sound like a great option to me, but after screwing up earlier I wasn't going to say anything. I kept mine tightly in my grip as we rounded one last turn and faced up the flight of stairs leading to the door marked 'Overmare Tulip Petals.' I arrived just in time to see a panel set into the ceiling click and slide open. Sparks preceded the arrival of a short barreled turret descending. It rotated to face us and Serge fumbled for his pistol.

Sleep deprivation has robbed me of a lot of memories, but the bad ones seem to stay around no matter what I do, and I'll never forget what happened next. In slow motion I saw the barrel track to boresight my chest. Serge's pistol moved up, but wasn't going to make it in time. Something clicked and I briefly went on autopilot.

“Get down!” I yelled and tried to dive back into the safety of the stairs behind me. Instead of the open space I expected, I landed against hard armor backed by a surprised and much less sturdy griffoness.

Leigh cried out as we tangled together and tumbled down a flight of stairs, but that was immediately drowned out by rhythmic booms of the turret opening fire. My helmet muffled the blast some, thank goodness, but a gun going off in confined quarters like that was just too loud. All sound cut out to a dull ring and I felt the floor and wall shudder under impacts from bullets bouncing down the stairs. Leigh's scream barely cut through the ringing as she convulsed under me…

My wits came back to me and I rolled off of her just in time to see a giant orange griffon barreling down stairs behind us. Isaac grabbed me by my breastplate and hurled me back up the stairs, right into the line of fire!

Without missing a beat I bounced up from where I landed and pressed myself against the wall, expecting a hail of bullets any second to punch through my armor and end my life.

Instead, just a wisp of pink dust rolled past.

I whipped my claw up to point my pistol at the turret, knowing I would be too slow, but discovered that both the turret and my pistol were gone. My gun was probably back down in the dining room by now, but the turret was just a pile of gently glowing powder on the floor.

Serge holstered his laser pistol and pushed me aside to go see what had happened while his back was turned and met Isaac on the way back up. Leigh was slung across his back and clearly in severe pain, but I couldn't hear well enough to tell what she was saying. Isaac wasted no grace or gentleness and plowed past me, followed by Amalia. She shot me a dirty look, but said nothing. Guess she couldn't hear either.

Rather than face any of them right that second, I scurried down the stairs to find my pistol, which mercifully had come to rest two landings down instead of back out in the open of the mess hall. No sign of slaves, so I snatched it up and bounded back up the stairs to the office.

I just managed to set a claw inside when something grabbed my by my armor straps again and hefted me off of my feet. I found myself eye-to-eye with Isaac, who looked very much like he was preparing to do to me what he'd done to the coffee maker back at Fillydelphia. With a sneer he drew back a claw and formed a fist. I didn't even have a chance to raise my arms to cover my face.

By the time I realized where I was, Lita was crawling onto Isaac's back and fighting to hold him back. I heard Serge shout something. Then something else. I scrambled to get to my feet and away from the giant that was quite possibly going to kill me for getting his girlfriend shot before I could even help her, but my paws and claws couldn't get purchase on the slick metal floor.

“Ike, stop!” Leigh shrieked. And he did.

Carmelita let go and backed away from the enraged griffon slowly. Serge exploded into view and hoisted me up. Damn was I getting tired of being on the floor…

Serge jabbed a talon toward Isaac. “You, watch the window. Now. Lita and Amalia, cover the door.” He pulled at my leg and led me around to the other side of the overmare's desk, where Leigh was lying on her back and fighting to remain still. “I don't think it's bad,” he said.

Leigh clenched her fists and groaned. “My leg...” she moaned, just audibly.

I spat out a gob of blood and did my best to ignore the pain in my jaw. I surely wasn't hurting as badly as she was… and… damn did I deserve it instead… she could have been killed!

It only took a few seconds to find where she'd been hit. A bullet had hit the plate on her hip dead on and punched right through it and her thigh. It was bleeding pretty badly and might have even hit a major artery, but if there was anything a healing potion did well it was stop bleeding. I grabbed my medical kit and plucked one of the purple vials from its padded container. A thousand blessings upon whoever thought to pack them securely like this, else every last one would probably have been crushed in my fall earlier.

Leigh greedily drank the little potion and visibly relaxed. Her sharp breaths leveled out and she cautiously tried to flex her leg. She winced a little, but the potion had done the job. “...thank you...” she groaned.

“I'm sorry! I-I didn't know you were right there and-”

“Serge and I had the fucking gun covered from where we were! Why did you barrel out into the open like that?” Lita shouted from the door.

Amalia shot me another dirty look. “Why did you break cover?”

“I-I didn't know we were right there at it!”

Serge held up a claw. “Hey, hey! Shut up, everyone! Keep your eyes on the door!” He stooped down to help Leigh up too. “I know it hurts but we don't have time for that. See if there's anything you can find on the terminal.”

Lita was still glowering at me. “I'll shut up when I want to, sarge. I vote we leave Kaz here until we finish sweeping the stable or he's going to get-”

“Lita, so help me now is not the time!”

I shrank away from the unfolding argument and toward a set of lockers adjacent to a door leading to a back room. Bloodfeathers… if everyone wanted to just kick me out the door and say “never come back” that would be just fine by me! I didn't want to be there anyway!

Lita wound up for another volley when someone male moaned loudly from the back room. She slowly closed her beak and looked my way, followed by everyone else. “What was that?”

My first instinct was to open the door and find out, but after my experiences over the last few minutes... fuck that. I backed away from the controls and glanced at everyone else. They were all fixated on the door and leveling weapons at it. Leigh started working her way around the desk into cover, but Serge eased closer. He waved me over with a finger. Against all common sense, he wanted me to help. “Kaz, get ready. Open the door on my mark.” He held up 3 talons.

With my pistol back in hand, I pressed up against the wall. I'm pretty sure my heart didn't beat at all as he folded each talon in succession, and when the last was down I slapped the controls on the door...

Serge shot inside the instant the door was up. Scratches of talons and claws against metal issued from the opening, but ended abruptly with the distinct crack and flash of his laser pistol discharging. Someone screamed. All of the eyes in the room widened.

“Kaz, get in here!”

There went my heart again. I think I might have actually gotten a little lightheaded since the rest was a blur, but a moment later I found myself behind Serge, standing over a light purple stallion cowering in a corner behind an upturned bed. His horn had been broken off, a long time ago judging by the bad scarring, and the rest of him looked little better. It wasn't until I saw the bloody bullet holes in three of his legs that I recognized that the floors were stained red, and he was clearly in bad shape. At least Serge had the kindness to shoot the wall instead of him. He wasn't in any position to fight back and didn't appear to be armed.

The stallion whinnied weakly and held up his only good hoof. “Please don't kill me! I-I thought Rusty was coming b-back for me... wh-when I saw it was Talons I tried to hide!”

Serge kept his pistol trained on the pony's head. “Who's Rusty and where is he? Where is everyone else?”

“Th-they said they were going to medical... to find some potions...” He cringed and gasped. “...th-they're not coming back for me... are they?”

“They probably ran into our friends, so I doubt it,” Serge said dryly. He waved his pistol. “Can you move?”

Absolutely not! This pony needed serious medical attention and didn't need to be moving anywhere. I held up a claw and unstrapped my medical kit again. If he just had bullet wounds to the extremities then a potion would get him back on his hooves. “Hang on, I can fix this...”

A claw gripped my shoulder. “Kaz, stop. Those are for Talon Company use only.”

...of... course they were. “He can't move like this.” To prove my point, the pony flexed his leg and grit his teeth to avoid crying out.

A heavy silence fell. Serge stared into my eyes for an eternity, then the pony's. “We can't leave him here. He could crawl out to the terminal and blow our position. If he can't come with us then that leaves only one other option...”

Mortal dread washed over the pony's face. “W-w-wait! I can walk!” He tried to stand and instantly collapsed into a shrieking heap. “N-no, please!”

I threw an arm up to block Serge from leveling his pistol at the pony. “Wait! What... what if we do find something in medical?”

“And if we don't? Kaz, listen to me. I know this sucks but none of us have a choice, okay? If you give him a potion then both you and I are going to be in deep if command finds out. And they will, because those potions are inventoried and nobody is going to believe Leigh took two. He can't come with us and we can't leave him. There aren't any other options.”

“Then I'll fucking carry him!” I snapped back.

Serge visibly recoiled, and only then did I realize I'd pinned his pistol claw to the wall under my own. He wrenched free and cut his eyes to me. “Kaz, stop. I mean it. You can't do that-”

“Why not? If I want to take that chance then it's on me.”

He tapped a talon against my beak. “Watch the tone. I'm in command here, so do what I tell you. If you try hauling this pony all the way down to medical then you're putting everyone else at risk.”

No. No, sergeant, I didn't care if this amounted to insubordination or whatever. I wasn't going to just shoot this pony because we were stingy with potions. “Then I'll stay far behind everyone else. If I get picked off by someone then it's just going to make everyone happy anyway. The lieutenant will probably pop a bottle of champagne.”

His talon tapped my beak again. “Can the attitude. Despite what just happened nobody wants to see you dead, but someone could end up dead if you try this little stunt. Maybe someone other than you.”

...he wasn't going to give in, was he? By rights he was doing what he had to, and what made sense from Talon Company's point of view, but... “But it's okay for him to definitely die?”

Serge glowered at me, the pony, then me again. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to say yes, Talons were more important than slaves. I knew everyone else in our forsaken organization believed it. He did too. He believed it, but something kept him from saying it.

He holstered his pistol and said in a deliberate tone, “Kaz... I'm walking out of this room, and I'm giving you a choice. I'm not going to let you put the squad at risk by dragging that pony all through this stable. I'm not compromising on that. But you do whatever you think you have to. I'm not going to see what happens. I'm going to disavow anything, so you're going to be completely on your own if Lieutenant Blackfeathers learns about this. Either both of you walk out of this room, or only you do. Understand?”

The relief was almost enough to make me lightheaded again, and I had to really process it for a second. “Yes, sergeant. I understand. Thank you...”

He took a deep breath. “Don't mention it. I mean it.” He shook his head and slipped back out of the room. “It's alright everyone. Go back to what you were doing...”

I ignored the chatter sparking outside and reached for my medical kit again. One potion would have to do. I really didn't want to risk using two and finding no replacements for them in medical. That would get ugly, fast.

As I fiddled with the vials, faint crying met my ears. The stallion in front of me was curled up and weeping... from fear or relief I didn't know. At least I could make that clear to him now. “Hold still, I can't afford to waste any of this.”

I don't know if he heard me since he didn't let up at all, but he was still enough for me to drip the potion into the wounds on his hindlegs. Drop by drop, I emptied most of the vial into the four ragged and bloody holes. To my indescribable relief, the wounds all closed... and I even had a little left over. I considered dabbing it into the hole on his right foreleg, but instead held it down near his mouth. “Drink this.”

Between the heaves and sniffles it was hard for him to get the lip of the vial in his mouth, but he got it down. There wasn't nearly enough left to heal the remaining wound, but it would stop any more bleeding and hopefully restore some of the blood he'd lost. From the way things looked he'd lost enough that he wouldn't have been able to walk even if his legs weren't busted, but this would give him a fighting chance. “Better?”

He coughed and blinked a few times. His hindlegs tensed and slid under him as he rolled onto and put weight on them. As I feared he was very unsteady as he rose up, and nearly toppled over when he tried to stand on his remaining bad leg, but lo and behold... he was up. He didn't have to die.

“...thank... you...” he said, fixating me with reddened purple eyes.

“You're welcome.” I stowed my supplies again and asked, “What's your name?”

“Twisted Fate,” he wheezed. “It's... kind of funny, but I used to think I had... good luck. Then the... the turret...”

I slung my medical kit back over my side and nodded slowly. “Luck is fickle... believe me. But time is short, so we should go.”

“Wait... what's your name? Kaz?”

If he heard that much then if he blabbed about this anyone that cared could pin it on me anyway. Might as well be polite and answer. “Kasimir Longtalons.”

He nodded and hobbled a bit closer. “Thank you again, Kasimir. I'll... never forget this.”

“Don't mention it. Really.”

I gave him a small, tired smile and headed back into the office. Now that I had time to really process my surroundings, it was clear that the slaves had been there. Two filing cabinets had been overturned and their contents spilled. The locks on the lockers were smashed, and even though they were closed I knew they were empty. I saw the trail of blood from the turret to the door I stood in...

“It looks like everyone is dead, sergeant. The only one who doesn't have a death certificate on file is Tulip Petals herself.”

“Any unusual causes of death?”

Leigh rubbed her leg. “Not that I can see. Most are age related.”

Carmelita glanced my way and her beak fell open. “You've got to be kidding me...”

Everyone else turned their attention to me, including Leigh.

I didn't have an answer for Lita or anyone else, so I just slunk back into the corner farthest away from all of them and tried not to look anyone in the eye. Twisted Fate followed as fast as his crippled leg would let him. He nestled between me and a locker, and kept quiet.

Serge said, “Everyone back to what you were doing. We're heading down to medical as soon as Leigh is done.”

Leigh's analysis of the data in Tulip Petals' terminal painted a grim image of the stable's last years. The stable's experiment was clear enough before she poked through the records, but sure enough, it was a test to see what would happen when a single stallion and nearly a thousand mares were cooped up in an underground bunker for what they planned to be a few decades.

Leisure Suit's coroner left some black humor on the poor stallion's death certificate. He only lived about three months after the door was closed and died of cardiac arrest. The cause of death was listed as “unsurprising given his living conditions” and she left a personal note that he was a “cheating bastard.”

Against all probability, the seven foals he helped conceive in that time period were all fillies. Suddenly, the stable found itself in the unenviable position of having only female occupants, and based on the security reports, tension rose rapidly over the following months.

We didn't have time for Leigh to read every last entry in Tulip Petals' diary, or security reports, death certificates or whatever, so some of the details were hazy, but it seemed like the overmare before her took it upon herself to refocus everyone's anxiety and energy on finding a solution to their problem. Through magic or science or whatever means they could.

Leigh didn't read everything, but she did read the last entry aloud to us, and as we crept back toward the atrium stairwell, I kept replaying it in my head.

”This will be my last entry, I believe.

I'm eighty-seven years old now, and alone. I've been alone for two full weeks as of today, and I'm starting to understand why people lose their minds or die of loneliness. Writing in this little terminal has been only the tiniest glimmer of relief since Meadow Grass passed.

In her final days we talked a lot about whether we should leave the stable. There was nothing left to lose, after all. She was dying, and we knew it. I'm old enough that we knew it wouldn't be long before I joined her, and I didn't want to be alone like this. We never did come to a decision in time for her, and now that she's gone, I just don't have the heart. The radiation levels being unsurvivable don't bother me anymore, but I still don't want to leave.

It's not because this place has been my home for nearly sixty years now. It's home, I suppose, but that's not the reason that I'm choosing to stay.

For the last few days, I've taken it upon myself to spend what little energy I have left in my tired old body to tidy things up. For the last couple of years there has barely been anypony to dirty things up anyway, so it didn't take long. I must say that the stable looks practically like it did the day I stepped into it.

I wanted it to be nice and clean for when Stable-Tec showed up to see what the results were of their little experiment. I'm going to leave this terminal unlocked so they can read everything, although I'm sure they could read it anyway. After all, with an experiment of such grand importance, they wouldn't want to risk not getting every last bit of data out of it that they could.

So, in short, I hope you'll all read everything that I've recorded here, as well as all of the entries from the first overmare, Marble Gardens. Pay extra special attention to the entries after Leisure Suit died, since that's when things get interesting. I'm sure you all knew that, though. He might have died with a grin on his face, but we were left to pick up the pieces. I don't think the mares that were hospitalized in the fights afterward had quite so much to smile about.

But don't let me spoil the surprises for you. Go ahead and read for yourselves.

I'll be waiting on you down in the hospital when you get done. Don't ask me why, but I've been sleeping down there lately. It reminds me a little of Meadow, I guess.

Oh, and please remember to wipe your hooves at the door. I did go through a lot of trouble cleaning the floors.”

It was difficult for me to imagine being trapped in a stable and watching everyone else I knew slowly die of age related causes until only I was left. The mere thought of it formed an icy sensation in my extremities, so as we reached the stairs I tried to think of something happier. Something like Twisted Fate ahead of me. I'd saved him. That alone made this trip kind of worth it, didn't it? I made a difference to him if nobody else.

Yet, as we descended the stairs, I knew this was only the beginning. There was a gaggle of armed slaves scattered around the rest of the stable somewhere, and that meant a great many more opportunities for things to go wrong. What really scared me though, was the fact that there were some of Red Eye's security team down here too. If they hadn't reported back to their comrades on the surface, something clearly had gone terribly wrong.

The lack of gunshots or other telling sounds from the depths only made things so much worse. An idle mind will wander in dark places, and if fifth squad hadn't run into anyone yet, that didn't leave many places for the ponies to be.

We emerged from the stairs and were greeted with both the gentle glow of a sign indicating that we were on the medical floor… and a sharp clang from somewhere deep inside the sprawl of rooms beyond the atrium.

Everyone, including Twisted Fate, tensed and spread out to the walls flanking the door. Lita checked her rifle and whispered, “Guess this is it.”

Unlike the level above, there was only one path for us to take and thus no reason to split up. We were almost certainly heading into imminent combat at this point, so my mind immediately set to trying to think up tactics to save my sorry ass if something went wrong. If we were all together we didn't have to worry about helping another fireteam, but at the same time if we got pinned down nobody was coming to help us. In these narrow halls there was nowhere to get into cover either, and for all we tried there was no way to be completely silent either. Whoever was ahead, they would know we were coming.

We wound our way through to a receptionist area which, in contrast to most of the stable, had been ransacked. Like Tulip Petals' office, filing cabinets had been emptied all over the floor. Drawers had been picked through. A cabinet had been smashed open and empty pill bottles were strewn about the floor, which Twisted Fate set to inspecting while we moved on to more important matters. For pony goddesses only knew what reason, the receptionist's terminal was in approximately one thousand pieces on the floor too.

“This stable has an abnormally large medical area,” Leigh said in a quiet tone as she limped over to pick through the debris of the terminal. “Labs, waiting rooms and the operating theater are just through that door.”

Three heavy clangs and thumps sounded from that way.

Lita kept her gun trained on the door and eased toward it. “The hell is that?” she stressed.

“Fuck's sake, Rib! Open this damned door already!” a stallion yelled.

A mare screamed something from much deeper inside, almost a wail that sounded like, “Please...”

We all exchanged glances and joined Lita near the door. Serge looked to Leigh and whispered, “Did you see the layout ahead? How do we proceed?”

She shifted her weight and shook her head. “You know as well as I do.”

“Great.” He reached into a bag and pulled out a long and narrow grenade. “After this goes off, we storm in. Shoot anyone that isn't down already. Red Eye's troops may be down here too so try not to hit them, but don't take any chances.” He stared directly at me. “Everyone understand?”

“Yes, sergeant,” I muttered, tightening my grip on my pistol. My palm was getting sweaty just thinking about using it…

Serge cut his gaze to Twisted Fate. “You get back in the receptionist area and don't move. If you leave we'll shoot you. End of story.”

After everyone confirmed they were ready, Serge pulled the pin on his grenade and tapped the door control in rapid succession. The door clanked and spluttered to life just long enough to open enough that someone could fit their claw or hoof through, and that's just what he did. Serge rammed the grenade through the gap and let go. The ping of the spoon flying off preceded the door slamming shut again.

The bang was more impressive than I expected for a stun grenade behind a closed door, and everyone shuddered a little. Serge hammered the door controls again and my heart jumped into my throat. Here we go…

The door buzzed and clanked again, but nothing. A red light on the panel lit up.

“The grenade must have jammed it!” Amalia exclaimed.

Isaac shouldered past her and threw his weight into the door with a deep, crackling shout. The light went off and with a groan the door shot up in its track. The giant orange griffon leaped through without a pause, and we all rushed in after him.

The grenade made a righteous mess of the nurse lounge, but I only vaguely noticed the chaotic redecorating we performed as I jumped in behind Amalia and swept my pistol across the room. No movement…

“Dammit, they must be further ahead,” Lita said as she took up position behind a column.

“Move up!” Serge shouted while waving a claw for all of us to follow into the hallway on the right.

“What the fuck was that!?” a mare shouted.

The stallion from before screamed back, “Red Eye's here now, dipshit! We're all dead because of you!”

Yep, definitely right ahead. I gasped for air to keep calm and kept my eyes on Amalia as we glided down the hallway. Any second now…

The walls on both sides of us gave way to half-height windows. At the head of the squad, Serge drifted back to the floor and crouched to stay covered by what metal was left of the walls. We all did the same, but I caught sight of a yellow pony through the glass as I dived for cover.

“Oh, fuck me. They called the chickens on us!” he shouted. Hooves thundered in the room beyond as he scrambled away from us.

“Good, they can send my message!”

“Would you shut it and open this goddess-damned door!? They're going to kill you you stupid bitch!”

I shot a glance to Serge for some indication of what to do, but didn't like the answer. He glared at me and pointed his gun up toward the talking pony. Amalia and I were closest to him, so it was up to us to neutralize him.

Fuuuuck…

Okay, I heard what Serge said earlier, but I wasn't going to just shoot him if he was unarmed. I'd already potentially caused enough trouble, but I still wasn't a murderer!

Amy tapped me hard on the shoulder and moved to stand. “Come on,” she hissed in a whisper.

I grabbed my pistol and jumped up, trying to let instinct take over. If I overthought this I might die. Or Amalia might die. No time to think. Just act!

The yellow pony spun in place as I jumped up. His black mane and tail spun behind him and the flicker of light reflecting off of a pistol in his mouth caught my eye.

I pulled the trigger.

The bang deafened me too much to hear the glass shatter, and for an instant the crumbling sheet became too opaque to see the pony beyond. I pulled the trigger again and again, not wanting to risk missing him if the first shot didn't connect.

Only after Amalia grabbed me by the waist and pulled me back down did I realize I'd been standing up and exposed for ages. I fell into a seated position and gasped and panted for breath. The pistol shook in my claw as I brought it up to to check it over. The slide was jammed back for some reason…

Dead silence fell for a few seconds. Lita eased up from her position and announced, “He's down.”

Serge and his cadre eased around the corner and started down the hallway. Amalia nudged me and started after them.

It took a few seconds longer for me to realize what was wrong with my gun. I ejected the magazine and held it in my left claw. Empty. I'd emptied an entire magazine. That quick.

“The hell are you doing?” Amalia hissed from around the corner. “Get up here!”

“S-sorry.” I fumbled with a fresh magazine and snapped the slide back into place. Shit. I'd just killed a pony. Like… like it was one thing to execute one because I had been ordered to, but I just shot and killed a slave in combat. But he'd have shot me if I didn't shoot him. And Serge had ordered me to, so-so-

“Kasimir, get it together.” Amalia grabbed me by the wrist. “Get it together or someone's going to get killed. Come on.”

Someone did die, dammit. I had to resist the urge to click the safety on the pistol right then and there, but she was right about one thing. I didn't want anyone else to die, and it could be one of us next. “Coming.”

Around the corner, I caught the tail end of Lita's update. “He's dead. I think Kaz got him with the first six bullets, but it's hard to tell.”

Fuck you, Lita. I didn't want to shoot him once, much less that much. Why didn't you do it?

“Let's hurry then. Whoever he was talking to knows we're here, and she'll be waiting on us.” Serge waved us onward, and onward we went.

It took a minute or two of moving forward carefully before we found the Rib that the unlucky stallion I'd wasted was talking to. We emerged from a hallway right in view of another theater sealed off by glass panes. We were also right in view of a black and blue mare behind the panes. A rifle floated up in her magic and she ducked down into concealment behind the half-height metal wall. More unseen ponies scrabbled against the metal flooring

“Glad you're here! Now you can hear my message to Red Eye!” she shouted.

Serge didn't respond. We all fell back into cover and concealment ourselves, and he leaned out. A deafening boom was followed by a mare shouting, but it was hard to make out what she said through the ringing. Not pained screams. More like profane shouts.

“...idiots… Red Eye… technology… demands...”

I covered my ears and Serge fired three more times. A crisp, shrill scream pierced the ringing in my ears.

Rib's rifle floated back into view and opened fire. The glass exploded and bullets ricocheted everywhere in the room beyond, but her aim was thankfully way off. “Stop shooting and listen to me, damn you! I'll kill your friends if you do that again!”

Serge asked, “Anyone have anymore stun grenades?”

“I've got a real grenade,” Lita replied.

Isaac pulled two more of the peculiar grenades from a pouch and held them up. He nodded toward Rib's position.

“Do it,” Serge instructed.

Everyone raised their rifles. I clutched my pistol with both claws, trying to keep the shaking to a minimum. Isaac readied his first grenade and hurled it down the hallway, but I ducked back into cover before I could see if it hit its mark.

“Shit!”

Guess it did.

I huddled up to prepare for the bang, but it did little to keep keep my beak from rattling and my head from spinning. The ventilation ducts coughed puffs of dust and I wafted the clouds away as fast as possible to keep my eyes on the others.

Just in time too. Serge made a grand sweeping gesture toward the fortified position and he and Isaac spilled into the hallway. Lita and Leigh stood upright and held their rifles high enough to cover their approach. Neither had to even take a shot though, since Rib never even got back on her hooves. Isaac threw his weight into the door on the right, drew his rifle up and fired off three shots faster than I could even blink. He waved at us to move up.

Just like that, another pony died.

“Come on!” Amalia stressed, grabbing a strap on my side and tugging it hard once as she bolted down the hallway to join the others.

Another hallway extended deeper into the stable beyond the observation area that we just took, which Serge and Isaac were now positioned to cover. My ears were still ringing too much to hear anything deeper, but based on the clattering of hooves earlier I knew there had to be more. I followed Amalia inside and tried to keep focus on listening for them instead of what Isaac had done to Rib. I know she'd shot at us, but my stomach turned at the sight of her. He'd removed most of her skull and somehow shot one of her legs off at the knee…

I backed into a corner and looked away and into the remains of a potted plant dead for a hundred years. At least its remains were just withered and desiccated instead of mangled and painted all over the floor…

“They're falling back. Let's move!” Serge stressed. He and Isaac started down the hallway in a low position while Leigh and Lita followed up with weapons held high and ready to drive attackers back.

Amalia reached for the strap on my armor again but I beat her to it this time. “Coming, coming...” Following her lead, we took up position at the sides of the door to wait for everyone to make it around the corner. We darted into the hallway as soon as they did so we could hold the corner. Amalia beat me to it by a solid three seconds as my gelatinous limbs refused to get in a hurry.

A peek around the corner revealed what I guessed was a surgical ward, but I had to duck back into cover a second later as I saw flashes of movement beyond. The other four had exited into the room, but I hadn't seen where. What were we supposed to do now?

The answer came in the form of a strong nudge and grunt from my partner. She indicated the floor, fell into a low position and rounded the corner. I took a deep breath, readied my pistol, and followed suit.

We emerged into what indeed was a surgical ward of some kind, but it was apparently greatly expanded into include what appeared to be a chemistry lab. A pharmaceutical lab maybe? I wanted to go look over the tables and tables of colorful vials and supply closets in search of something valuable or to replace the potion I'd spent on Fate earlier, but my attention was much more intently focused on the skeleton lying on one of the tables, and the much more freshly dead stallion lying on another. His armor was emblazoned with a single red eye, and he had a gunshot wound to the throat.

If the missing soldiers were here, then-

A greasy blue pony erupted from a room to our side. My heart stopped when I saw the SMG held in his magic and pointed straight at us. There was no time to dive for cover or even try to get out of the way. I didn't even blink before the shooting started.

I loosed a squeal and dove to the side as the first deafening report from the gun met my ears. Something slammed into my chest like another punch from Isaac.

The unicorn flashed a confused look for an instant before Amalia ventilated his chest cavity twice. His magic spluttered and faded. The gun clattered to the ground, but he stayed upright. My finger finally found the trigger and I shot him again. This time the shot struck him in the mouth, and the pony collapsed with a wheezing gasp as teeth sprayed the wall.

“Get up!” she shrieked over the ringing in my ears, and I felt her grab me by the arm and yank me back to my feet. With another shove she pushed me behind a chemistry table. “Are you hit?”

I fumbled with my free claw, checking my armor and exposed flesh for damage. There was a noticeable dent on my breastplate just below my neck. Little flecks of shattered bullet fell as I brushed it with a claw. “Y-yeah, but I'm fine I think.”

“I think it misfired,” she half-yelled. “Just one shot. Where are-”

Amalia cut off as another pony, this time a pink earth pony mare with a curly black mane, poked her head through a pair of double doors on the other side of the room. The pony spotted us, and with wide eyes tore back through just as half a dozen shots rang out. The spot she'd emerged from vanished in a haze of dust and wood fragments, but the clouds didn't block her screams as the flimsy doors did nothing to keep the bullets from finding their mark.

We'd killed or found five ponies so far. How many more could there be down here!?

As a single mass, Serge, Lita, Leigh and Ike surged from the room they'd occupied and formed up on opposite sides of the swinging double doors. Following Amalia's example, I crawled after them, using the tables as concealment. My sweat-slicked palms slipped and skid on the tile floor as we went. This had to end soon… please, please let this be over soon!

Serge waited for us to join them before he and Lita forced the doors open. Ike and Leigh kept rifles trained on the hallway while the first two ducked back out of the way. All I could see was the pink mare twitching on the floor.

“I… su-surrender...” she moaned. I looked away before someone ended her suffering.

There was another set of double doors at the end of the hallway, which had also been perforated by the assault earlier. It was dark beyond…

“Hold it right there!” yet another mare cried out from behind the doors. “I-I give up! Don't shoot or I-I'll kill Red Eye's guards!”

“Doesn't sound like surrendering to me,” Lita quipped. “Serge?”

He frowned. “Anyone have anymore stun grenades?” Nobody did. “Great. We may have no choice but to storm it.”

The urge to stay quiet was strong, but I couldn't ignore the compulsion to offer the obvious solution. “I-if she surrendered, just let her?”

Everyone shot me an incredulous look. Isaac groaned. Serge stared a hole through the door. “Worth a try. Whoever you are, drop your weapons, strip down and come out!”

Another mare yelled, “She's bluffing! She's unarmed! Help us!” That sounded like the one screaming for help earlier, just before I shot the stallion.

“Shut up!” the first mare screamed in a shrill voice. “I'm coming out, don't shoot!”

I didn't hear any guns dropping or anyone stripping, but the doors eventually creaked open. A gray unicorn mare with a long and straggly black mane peeked out. Everyone kept their rifles trained on her as she fully emerged. “Wh-where's Rib? And Rusty?”

“Dead. Come out and lay down,” Serge instructed. “Is anyone else inside?”

Her face contorted into a grim frown at the news, and she stretched out into a prone position. “H-he told her this was a bad idea… she wouldn't listen...”

“Answer the question,” Serge insisted.

Someone inside the room answered for her, “It's just us, help!”

The unicorn looked away from the dead pony with the SMG and whimpered, “It-it's just Red Eye's guards… you killed everyone else...”

Lita leered over her. “You know you'll be next once you get back to Filly. Maybe you should've shot Ri-”

Serge glared at her. “Can it, Lita.”

I can't say I was surprised to hear that, but until Lita said it I was telling myself that the ponies we brought back were just going to be put back to work. This mare didn't seem like she masterminded this nonsense… nor did Twisted Fate. Didn't matter, did it? You rebel, you die.

Guess standing up to Serge earlier meant nothing, and I guess I didn't make a difference in Fate's life after all.

Serge sighed. “Great. How do we know the ponies inside are really Red Eye's soldiers? Could be a trap.”

“It's not,” gray mare whimpered.

“I'll check.” Everyone again gave me a look. Much more surprised this time. I didn't even realize I'd volunteered myself for a few seconds, but I couldn't back out afterward… Dammit. I was upset, but not suicidal. “...if they're injured I'll need to check them anyway.”

Serge pointed at Lita. “Watch her. Isaac and Amalia, go with him. Leigh, with me.” He took up position at the outside door and Leigh did the same on the other side.

Isaac gestured for me to take the lead. Sure thing…

I didn't really try to be stealthy or pretend I knew what I was doing. I just walked right in. The darkness took a few seconds to adjust to, but sure enough my night vision kicked in and I saw that the mare outside was telling the truth. The room was empty of slaves, but three holding cells set into the walls contained a single pony in armor each.

“Finally!” A mare inside the one directly ahead rushed up to and propped herself against the bars. “Get us out! She was going to try some spell on us! Why didn't you shoot her!?”

Someone flipped the lights on and I held a claw up to shield my eyes. “She surrendered. It's over.”

“She'll be executed,” Amalia added helpfully. “Are you injured?”

Isaac pounded at the controls to the cells and the bars slid away. The mare fell out onto her belly and jumped up. “I'm fine, but the others are unconscious. I don't know what they did to them. Where's Buckshot? They shot him and dragged him out to the operating room.”

I was already on my way to check on the two unresponsive mares and left it to Amalia to answer that question. I didn't want to deal with it. The stricken ponies in front of me needed my attention anyway…

Amalia was to the point. “He's dead.”

“Fuck that bitch! Give me my gun back and I'll kill her now!”

The two disagreed for a bit more while I dragged the unconscious ponies out and started digging through my medical kit. They didn't seem to be hurt, so it must have been a sleep or stun spell. Something I could deal with, hopefully, if I could find my smelling salts…

The trip back to the surface was weighed down with a morose feeling of finality. The stable raid was over. We met back up with fifth squad, who encountered nobody else in the lower levels of the stable. All of the slaves were accounted for. Most were dead. Three of the four guards that had been trapped inside were alive and, more or less, well. The stable was secure and we were all alive. Leigh would be fine.

Mission accomplished, I guessed.

Walking was hard. I wished there was room to fly, but really, I'd have probably been even worse at that if I tried. My entire body felt numb and my stomach flopped. The two ponies I'd killed kept flashing before my eyes. I hadn't had time to really see them or register whatever expressions they wore before I ended their lives, but that didn't stop my mind from conjuring up the worst depictions of terror imaginable.

If I thought I could get away with another screw up, I'd have probably puked on the way back up. Isaac probably would have snapped my neck. My cheek still throbbed if I thought about the punch he landed on me after I fucked up and got Leigh shot. Best not to tempt him…

But, worse than thinking about the ponies that had died, I had to listen to the two that were currently on death row. Twisted Fate, and as I'd come to learn was her name by now, Diskette, had been murmuring to each other almost since the moment they had been reunited.

“I found something in the computers… the inhabitants of the stable figured out some kind of spell to make a mare pregnant without needing a stallion. The stable had nothing but mares in it, I think… they got desperate,” Diskette said.

“So… Rib… what, she thought she could sell that to Red Eye for our freedom?”

“I think so. I… I told her that it wouldn't work.” Diskette sniffled. “When they sent the guards in after us… she captured them. Killed one. Thought she'd use the spell on the rest to see what would happen. If it worked, she thought Red Eye would take it and let her go. Rusty told her she was nuts, so she locked him up with one of the terminals.”

Fate took a while to answer. “After he won in the Pit last time, I thought he'd make it out of this city.”

The mopey darkness swimming around in my head parted as a jolt of lightning filled me. Wait. Rusty. The Pit? Rusty Thresher? I pictured the pony again just before I shot him half a dozen times…

...I'd killed Rusty Thresher. The Grim Scythe raider… the one that slaughtered Glitter Dust like an animal.

Everything felt hollow again. I couldn't decide if I felt vindicated or even worse for killing a pony I sort of knew.

Holy shit…

“...don't know why I thought any of us would get out of the city,” Fate said, defeated.

“...me neither...” Diskette echoed.

When we finally returned to the comparatively blinding light of the surface, our “prisoners” got quiet. The two guards we left outside rushed up to greet us, but shot each other confused glances as the slaves emerged too.

Serge set to explaining what happened. Some of the guards hugged each other. Some swore revenge for the death of Buckshot. I couldn't really pay attention. Everything was so distant and unimportant…

That is, until my squad took to the air and started flapping away, presumably back toward base.

I lifted off too and tried to get into formation with tired and floppy wings.

And the whole way back, I kept imagining I could hear two distinct cracks of rebellious slaves being executed.

Level Up - Level 8!

Living Anatomy - You deal an extra 10% damage to organic, non mutated targets. You can also tell the health of a target with a glance.