Trapped.

They had us, the very same way the Enclave had trapped the survivors of Trotwynd here seven years ago.

The irony of the situation was not lost on me.

As I rifled through the service tags hanging from the monument, saw the names of ponies who died down here…I felt a part of my heart harden. I saw the mother of a mare I grew up with, her story of the “lost parent” achingly similar to my own - I’ll probably never see her again, but I had the answer she’d been searching for. I saw the name of one of Dad’s drinking buddies - “Uncle” Thunderbolt wasn’t related to us, but he’d always gone out of his way to be friendly towards me, perhaps because he never had any foals of his own. He’d felt like family in his own way.

Flipping through the names that were, in effect, the only true list of the dead down here...every name had a story. Most were names I didn’t recognize, but every one of them carried a painful story and a brutal end. Every name I passed as I searched was another kick to the gut. Every name that wasn’t his left my mind further in doubt.

Before I even reached the end, I came to a realization.

I realized how much I would fight, how much I would sacrifice to avoid my own name being added to that Skies forsaken list; to not be forgotten down here.

I would see this place drowned in blood once again before I let them take us.

Crafter Odds

“What’s all that about?” I asked in a hushed voice as Tailwind ushered me up the stairs. I’d only had a chance to glance at the monument the previous inhabitants had left, but if it was enough to make Snap drop to her haunches and stare at it like that…

“Crafter,” She replied evenly (which, for her, was pretty much dead serious), “We’ve talked a bit about how our kind - the Grand Pegasus Enclave, that is - attacked this place in the past, right?”

I frowned. The topic had come up, but it seemed like a touchy subject so I’d mostly left it alone. Besides, that was all in the past, right?

She was waiting for a reply though. “Um, it came up a couple times,” I replied hesitantly, “But I don’t see what that has to do with us getting out of here…”

She gave off a tired sigh. “Crafter, Snap’s father was probably a part of that operation. He never returned.” She reached into the collar of her barding, grasping a utilitarian-looking necklace with a cloud-shaped disk attached to it. It had a series of indentations cut into it, as if the two halves were meant to separate if needed. “Look familiar?”

On it was written her name, blood type, “GPE”, and a letter followed by a series of seemingly random numbers.

I finally put two and two together.

The tags hanging off of that monument…they belonged to ponies - pegasi, that is - that fought here. That means…

“She’s looking for his, is what's happening there?” I asked. “To see if he died here?”

“Yeah,” She replied with downcast eyes. “A lot of why she joined up was to find out what happened to him.” She paused, glancing around, as if looking for something else to talk about.

The room we’d found at the top of the stairs reminded me more than anything of my own accomodation back in the stable, except that there was more area in general, in addition to a lavish terminal set up against the far wall and a space big enough that the Stable’s council (if they had one, I had to remind myself) might have met to discuss…Stable things.

I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to reminisce.

“So isn’t it a good thing? She’ll finally get her answer, won’t she?” I asked, not really seeing what was causing Tailwind’s discomfort with the topic.

“Well, that’s kind of the problem, not that I’d say as much to her.” She replied, “I don’t know if I’m more worried about her finding her father’s tags there…or of her not finding them.” Looking up, she met my eyes. “We all need her to lead us out of this, and I have absolutely no idea how she’d handle coming all this way…and not finding them.”

Leaving things at that, she turned to the terminal, booting it up. With her skills, she had it unlocked in moments. The screen flickered green, opening up to a “Welcome, Overmare Fresh Start” message before flicking to a series of menus. Paging through them faster than I could track, Tailwind began her hunt in earnest.

Sitting on my haunches behind her, I watched on in quiet admiration. She wasn’t just trained, nor was she merely “good” at what she did - when she really set her mind to something, it was something else entirely. While her partner exuded an infectious cockiness, Tailwind had more of a quiet drive that I was really seeing for the first time.

It made me self conscious about just sitting there as she worked, so I leaned in to try and see if I could make any sort of sense of what she was paging through.

At one point I saw her briefly bring up the very last piece of inter-Stable correspondence - a Stable-wide email congratulating the inhabitants on reaching the end of their time in the Stable, with their real journey about to begin on the surface. The date tagged to the email was nearly one hundred and fifty years ago.

While I was certainly interested, she quickly dismissed the fancily decorated digital greeting card.

A few more windows opened and closed, with Tailwind letting out a soft huff of irritation before her mouth curled into a smile. “Bingo,” she said victoriously as she very deliberately tapped one last key. A three dimensional map of the Stable sprung to life before my eyes. Glancing back, she gave me a triumphant smirk before commenting, “See anything you recognize? Anything that’ll help?”

I gave it a long look. It actually looked shockingly similar to layouts I’d grown quite used to using - among other things, it was absolutely perfect when you had to hunt down electrical connections and piping! Much…no, most of it was quite similar. Just like what I’d already seen of the entrance, it was like somepony had taken the same set of basic pieces of building, and assembled them mostly the same.

They had the same sort of gallery, atrium, identical passages…the same maze-like housing districts that wouldn’t really help us in the long run - tactics aren’t exactly my thing, but even I could figure out we didn’t want to get stuck in that sort of area.

It occurred to me that my Stable most certainly did not have anything like a “hold out point” or an alternate exit of any sort - unless they didn’t give us the full schematics to work with, which I kind of doubted. Not that they’d withhold information (they would, and they had), but rather that I had been just about everywhere in the Stable to fix something or another.

At any rate, it certainly proved easier to identify differences than to try and reason out similarities. A few caught my eye right away - little things mostly, but there was one passageway near the bottom was different enough to be conspicuous. “Uh, Tail, could you zoom in on this bit?” I indicated with a hoof.

She obliged easily, zooming and rotating the digital map until the corridor in question was filling the screen, as well as some that had clipped outside the edge of the visible area. It was massive. It almost wouldn’t have shown up at all from a top-down view, but from the side the corridor I’d singled out led to what was unmistakably an elevator, and a massive one at that! In my Stable, there had been a single elevator in the gallery, merely big enough for four or five ponies, depending on how friendly they were - this one could easily hold five times that number, or more!

“That’s it!” I cried, completely forgetting the circumstances of our situation for one glorious moment.

Then I remembered we were in mortal peril.

Tailwind glanced back at me, a smile on her lips but a skeptical expression on her face.

“The…the elevator, there!” I stated, pushing forwards and indicating with a forehoof.

She turned back to the terminal, typing out a few quick commands. The elevator separated itself from the schematic and began rotating in the three dimensional view, with descriptive text appearing beside it. Tailwind gave a soft “hum” of appreciation before commenting brightly, “Says here this is an emergency exit in case of a cave-in or avalanche at the main entrance.” She turned around and threw her hooves around me, pulling me tight to her chest.

I gave out a startled “Eep!” that was quickly silenced by her shoulder. I meant to say something, but…well, her mane just smelled so nice I kind of forgot what it was and just accepted the hug. Before I knew it, my hooves were around her, too, pulling her tight against me.

It took me a few moments before I realized what I was doing. Stupid me, especially with her special somepony not ten meters from us…I released the hug, backing away to give us both some space for a moment.

She was just happy, but I didn’t want to do anything that could be misconstrued. Especially not when her other half was the mare in charge of keeping us all alive.

Not to mention particularly proficient at…ah…killing people.

Tailwind gave me an amused look, but didn’t comment in particular on her actions.

Probably for the best I figured, so I moved right along to brush over the awkwardness. “So now we know where we’re headed. That sort of thing would have an on-site interface, this terminal probably just has information on it. That’s the way most things were in my Stable, anyways.”

Tail turned back to the monitor for a moment, tapping a few quick keys. “Yeah, seems that way. Still, best not to leave this sort of info for them, just in case.” She logged out, then booted up the same backdoor program as before. I was confused, then I saw her rapidly type in multiple wrong passwords all in a row. The terminal flashed, and a message popped up indicating that it was locked until serviced by a “registered user.”

That would do it, wouldn’t it?

Tailwind smiled happily, clearly pleased with herself. “Well then, shall we?”

“We shall.” I replied, letting her lead the way back down the stairs.

Back towards…oh. Right.

We returned just in time to see Snap finish storing the whole bunch of service tags in one of her saddlebags. I wondered if the jingling of all those thin metal disks would be a problem for stealth stuff, but decided against commenting.

Snap Roll looked up at us - well, at Tailwind, really - and commented with an air of someone…lost, if I were to put a word to it. “He’s not here.”

Tail stepped down, wordlessly wrapping her partner in a hug. I let a faint smile cross my features. I knew the feeling, the comfort Snap must be feeling right now…the promise that things would be okay.

The two of them shared a few words, too quietly for me to hear, but they seemed to carry an air of reassurance. Afterwards, Snap nodded, and they parted.

When they did, Snap was our leader again.

“Find anything useful in there?” She asked, all business.

“Just the way out of this underground deathtrap,” Tail replied easily. “Crafter found an emergency elevator to the top of the mountain in the schematics.”

“Did he, now?” Snap replied with a smile, looking up at me approvingly.

Behind her, Tail flashed me a wink.

“It was-” I started, intending to give credit to its proper owner…but I caught myself when Tail just shook her head, gesturing for me to go on. “I mean, uh, yeah, I found it in the schematics. It’s at the bottom of the gallery, furthest corner from where we’re standing.”

“Alright Crafter,” Snap replied, a plan coming to life behind those violet eyes of hers; “You’ll be our navigator, while Tail and I will clear our route there. We need to see what sort of shape that elevator’s in, but we also need to make sure there aren’t any surprises left in this Stable. The last thing we need is some squatter with a grudge taking pot shots at us from behind.”

Seemed to make sense. I nodded, commenting, “Well, uh, it’s that way.”

Despite the situation, Tailwind gave off a little chuckle. Snap shook her head back and forth, but I noticed a smile on her face.

And you know, sometimes that’s enough. Even if it did seem like a perfectly reasonable thing to say at the time.

Without another word, Snap slipped into “tactical mode,” and Tailwind followed suit. In all honesty, it’s tough to describe it as anything other than a switch they can flip at will. One second she’ll think I’m funny, or crack jokes or stuff like that, and the next, her body posture changes. I’d hesitate to use the phrase “tenses up,” because it’s quite the opposite - more like her movements actually become more fluid and instinctive, kind of like I’d seen those wolves move…that one time.

Tailwind, by comparison, moves a lot like she does normally, not the same drastic change as Snap…but the normal, random sort of mannerisms that she normally affects disappear entirely, and the look in those green eyes of hers loses any hint of her normal humour.

Watching them makes me realize how far I have to go, or wonder if that’s the sort of thing I’ll ever “catch up to,” or if that’s really a goal I want to set for myself in the first place. For now, it was enough to get me to focus on trying to be of use to them. If I could manage that, to not slow them down…perhaps that would be enough.

They prowled down the corridor towards the gallery, weapons up and eyes constantly scanning, moving very much like a single entity, covering each other’s blind spots perfectly.

We moved onto the balcony level of the gallery and the Stable truly opened up around us. Just a couple weeks ago, an area much like it had seemed like the biggest open space to me. It still had a similar effect on me, now more of a learned habit than any real sense of awe. There were only two floors, the balcony we stood on and the bottom floor some four meters below us, probably the same sort of common area I was familiar with. Along the sides were various rooms, including a few offices and the security room, placed where it could potentially block access to the front entrance, or between invaders and the rest of the Stable.

I’d never thought of it in those terms before, but it seemed relatively natural to me now. It was only common sense, right?

Snap took all that in with a glance over the short, flimsy metal railing, motioning to Tail which room we were heading to first. She didn’t need any input from me, so I kept quiet and tried to keep a sense of where we needed to go in my head, all the while keeping an eye on my EFS - no red bars so far, just the cool blue pips of the two mares.

In turn, and without fanfare, they quickly but effectively cleared room after room. They were quick, quiet, and scanned their weapon barrels across every possible place to hide in each room before declaring it “Clear,” and forming back up outside, where I’d keep watch, and our advance would continue.

Within a couple busy minutes, we reached the ground floor.

“The elevator should be through that corridor,” I pointed out after quietly catching Snap’s attention, finally feeling relevant to our mission.

“Roger,” Snap replied as she zeroed in.

We crossed the gallery, and reached the passageway in question. It branched out just like every other hallway for about four meters from the gallery, then turned ninety degrees - If I’ve managed to internalize any of Snap’s sort of thinking, I’d say it forced an attacker to round the corner before they were able to see any of the room beyond. Smart? Coincidental? Who knows for sure.

Anyways, Snap and Tail treated it just like every other room they’d cleared, stacking up beside the corner. Tailwind reached up and tapped Snap’s shoulder, and as one they stepped out into the open - Snap dropping to a crouch and facing her rifle down the path, Tailwind above her, energy rifle scanning the same arcs, fully prepared to fire over her pair’s head if needed.

I was practically taking notes. They didn’t even have to talk about this stuff, it was just engrained, muscle memory for both of them.

So caught up was I in watching them do their thing I almost missed them step off around the corner, evidently not finding anything worth shooting at. Rounding the corner just behind them, I saw what they had a few seconds before.

The passage branched to the right after about ten meters. Ten heavily scarred meters. Seriously, it seemed like a minor war had been fought in this passageway in particular. I hadn’t taken too much notice earlier, but thinking back there were indicators. Shot out bits of flooring, bullet scars in some of the walls…the odd indistinct stain on the ground.

But nothing like this.

The walls were all but destroyed by some sort of heavier ordinance, and the emergency backup lighting had mostly failed throughout the hallway, resuming once again at the far end of the room. It took my brain a second to register it all. Despite that, all of the debris, the bodies, the explosive shrapnel that must have been there had been cleaned up in the years since. It was…surreal, to me. It was the cleanest but most brutal hallway I’d ever seen.

Almost as an afterthought, there at the end of this hallway of death lied the object of our search - the hollow outcropping that could hold an elevator, with a gently lit terminal (even if it was spiderwebbed with cracks around a melted chunk of screen) set off to the left.

Snap and Tail had already reached another ninety degree corner right where it opened up at the end of the hallway, leading to the right - back towards the entrance, if my internal sense of direction was still accurate. “Clear!” Snap called, and her and Tail immediately relaxed, followed by Snap letting out an inarticulate “Whoop!” of joy.

The route they’d checked was maybe ten meters long, with a maintenance shaft entrance set against the far wall - I knew from experience that it would take an awfully small pony to fit into those. Back in the Stable, Haywire had always…well, been the one to go into those to fix things.

Momentarily distracted as I was, I completely missed Snap’s hoof headed towards my face when I looked up. Instinctively, I brought my forehoof up to defend myself, confused at finding myself suddenly under attack!

Her hoof bounced off the side of my leg harmlessly, and I looked up to see what was going on.

She had me fixed with her violet glare. “I mean, that works too I guess, but have you never hoof bumped before? Let’s try that again.”

She retracted her hoof, and for all the world looked like she was going to slug me if I didn’t do something. So I extended my own, trying to head her off before she made contact with my body.

Her hoof tapped mine, frog-to-frog. It wasn’t gentle, but it wasn’t exactly a punch, either. It felt…kinda good, I guess. In a comradely way.

Turning to walk back towards the elevator, she spoke up, back in her usual persona. “You just saved our asses, Crafter - You can celebrate at least a little! With this thing we’ve got an out that doesn’t involve slavery and death, if they’re feeling kind.”

She walked up to the terminal, Tailwind and myself falling in behind her.

The elevator recess was industrial-style - essentially an open bay that quite clearly did not currently house the elevator itself. It had a series of braces set against the floor level, a few feet down - it looked like once an elevator was resting on them, it would probably end up level with the Stable flooring we were standing on.

Black and yellow hazard stripes denoted the area just outside where the elevator would come to rest, presumably warning of the crush hazard for anyone silly enough to be under the elevator as it was descending.

As Snap approached the terminal, I could make out a pretty clear “Call elevator” button. It was big, green, and illuminated, and it stood out right in the center of the console, beneath the cracked screen.

“Care to do the honours?” Snap asked, stepping aside once she’d had her look at it.

Nodding, I stepped forwards. It seemed like an honour, to be the one to save us. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, all in all.

Flashing her a grin, I held out my hoof and slammed it down on the button, perhaps with just a bit more force than was needed.

It felt good to celebrate, just a little.

The problem became immediately apparent.

Well, I mean, nothing happened.

Reaching back, more delicately this time, I very deliberately pushed the button. It produced the same mechanical “click” it had the first time, and nothing else.

I pushed it again, just to be sure.

Turning to Snap, I commented, “I haven’t fixed one of these before.”

She looked me right in the eyes, all humour gone from her expression; “Well, there’s a first time for everything, right?”

I was hesitant, but she had a point…and I was distinctly the most qualified to sort the situation out.

“I should be able to have it up and running in an hour or two, I think,” I concluded finally. I didn’t know exactly what the problem was, but it didn’t seem like the system was fundamentally broken - something had probably gotten damaged during the fight, and nobody had deemed to spare the time to fix it when the Stable was functionally abandoned.

“You’ve got maybe twenty minutes,” Snap stated.

I gulped.

“Tailwind, stay here and help him out,” She continued, “Whatever he needs. I’ll-”

She was cut off by a fizzle of static coming from the radio stored in one of the pouches on her barding, and the voice of Ebb coming across the line. ≪Commander, you read?≫

Wasn’t Fade carrying the other radio...?

“Go ahead,” Snap replied, pressing a switch to talk back.

≪We’ve…got a problem with Fade.≫

At that, Snap took off at a run, calling back over her shoulder, “I don’t care what you have to do! Get that thing operational!” Then she was around the corner, and presumably already taking off to fly up to the balcony.

I shared a look with Tailwind, who shrugged. “Well, it’s a start,” She commented.

Giving off a soft sigh, I gestured for her to come over. “I’m going to need you to run a diagnostic program through the terminal, while I take a look at some of the insides of this…”

She threw me a jaunty salute and piped up, “Yes, sir!”

Fade

The entrance was crowded.

Of course it was. You couldn’t fit so many Steel Rangers, Trotwynd refugees and us into a room like the entrance to a Stable and have it feel lofty.

Survivors were still filtering past. Villagers still able to walk did so, even as Ranger medics dragged an unconscious, armoured form between them, deeper into the stable. Occasionally, members of the rearguard filtered past, healthy ponies, but low on ammo and hope alike. Some stocked up on ammunition from crates piled in corners. A few, Rangers all, headed back topside, to hold the line a few minutes more.

There was blood on the floor. The injured had left it as they variously proceeded further into the bowels of the earth, as if the Stable itself was in the process of swallowing them whole. It dripped, it pooled, it sluiced into the grating near the entrance, congealing amongst ancient, arcane wiring. Hooves picked it up and trailed it further into the Stable, a wake of gore following what was left of the town we’d condemned to death.

“Fade!”

The voice snapped my gaze back to Paladin Cheesequake, visibly agitated and standing just outside the intermittent flow of ponies. No, I should say the flow of ponies, no matter their hurry, parted around him. He had that kind of “aura,” I suppose.

The fact that he wasn’t wearing his helmet and the fresh, bloody injury across his face probably helped. I guess they never did manage to save that eye of his.

“Yes?”

“I said,” he growled, “We should never have done it. We shouldn’t have fucked with what we didn’t understand, and this is what came of it!”

“What we did is in the past,” The heavily wrapped form of Chess replied, his deadly calm voice cutting into the conversation like winter wind. His gasmask hung from his neck and his furs were stained with the blood of his son. “We have to do what we can to ensure some of these ponies live to see morning. Incriminations can come then, if at all.”

I nodded in agreement. “On that note, I’ll start laying some surprises. Should be an interesting irony for winged rats to have to deal with landmines.” I set about the task before anyone had a chance to respond. I knew we had to dissuade them from heading down the service corridor behind the control room, though at its narrowest, I suppose no pony in power armour could manage to fit anyways.

Cheesequake nodded, but the voice that replied wasn’t his.

“Fade?”

I blinked, and found myself staring into the violet eyes of miss Snap Roll. It briefly occurred to me that I’d said something she would probably consider incredibly offensive. No matter, she had it coming after what her race put me through.

“As I was saying,” Snap continued, glancing around to Bernard and Ebb. “We’ve found an elevator, looks like it was once an escape route should the main entrance suffer a cave in. Tailwind and Crafter are working on getting it operational.”

“Ahh, you found it.” I replied, “Getting it to work would be something of a feat. Last I recall, we did quite the number on it.”

She seemed to be having a bit of a time, the way she clenched her teeth and gave me a look fierce enough to chill a soul.

The joke’s on her, I sold mine for eternal fortune long ago. If only I could find it, now…

Through gritted teeth, she continued, “Anyways, Bernard, this won’t be a long-gun fight. Find your way to them, down the stairs and through the gallery. Help them out however you can.”

The stalwart earth pony glanced around, grimacing, but ultimately nodded, and began hobbling his way down the hallway.

And then there were three of us…to hold an entrance that thrice that number hadn’t managed.

Odds of survival were not good.

I realized the flow of people had stopped. All that remained in the entrance were the four of us, plus another four Rangers and a pair of wastelanders - weapons pointed at the night.

I glanced at the entrance. There should have been two more Rangers out there. I knew, because I’d counted them before I’d entered, and only six of the rearguard had returned since then.

The quiet, winter-wrapped earth pony in the corner pointed a forehoof out into the dark. She-

Ebb spoke up, the same words She had said seven years ago.

“They’re coming.”

Snap Roll

It started with the popping hiss of smoke grenades.

Smoke billowed, cloying, choking. Some of it white, some orange, some green, all blending into a blinding cloud that drifted slowly from beyond what we could see of the approach. Following the natural flow of air into the Stable, it was drawn straight towards us, and we soon found ourselves breathing the foul smell of chemically produced clouds.

“Cover!” Ebb screamed, her voice sounding raw from breathing the fumes.

I braced my shoulder further against the panel I was using for cover. It would have to be enough. Beside me, Ebb did the same, covering her mouth with a barding-wrapped foreleg as her light machine gun levitated behind the very same piece of old world technology. The way I figured, it had survived round one, so we were probably good, right?

Last I’d seen him, Fade was using the control room for cover from the forewarned volley of frag grenades.

In the relative quiet of the smoke grenades burning, a part of me wanted to believe I heard the sound of grenades landing inside the entrance.

Then I didn’t hear anything at all.

The world became a flash of heat, light and a concussive force I felt with my insides. It left my ears ringing, but I saw Ebb get to her hooves, brace her machine gun and begin firing into the smoke. I saw her yelling, the words incomprehensible, but their meaning clear as day. I could feel the concussion of her bullets as she laid down suppressing fire.

It was time to do what I can do.

I leapt into the air, flapping my wings til I managed to grab hold of one of the pipes running underneath the ceiling. I had no idea what its purpose was, but it was steel, and solid enough for my purposes.

I’d grown up on stories of pegasus wingpower bending nature to our will. I’d trained, drilling my body to peak efficiency for years. I’d stood out, I’d excelled despite my own tendencies and my family’s history, and gotten promoted to squad command. None of it would be worth a damn if I let myself die down there, in some shitty underground cage!

Grabbing hold of that pipe like a skies damned lifeline, I flapped as hard as I could, away, the thrust of my wingbeats going back towards the entrance. I felt the strain in my legs, holding myself in place against my own locomotion.

At first, it seemed to be futile, but as I saw the first back-eddies begin to form in the smoke, I grit my teeth and beat my wings faster, harder, at maximum extension, pushing as much air as my frame physically could.

It produced results.

Smoke parted, reversing course as the natural air currents were disrupted. Air was now being forced out of the Stable, back into the faces of the ponies Ebb was entirely certain were advancing on our position.

The looks on their faces when they emerged, choking and vulnerable, from the smoke cloud was almost worth it as my wings burned with overexertion and my lungs drew in air contaminated with the lingering stench of smoke.

These first groups were wearing a hodgepodge of barding, seemingly whatever was available and sufficiently warm, rather than the more militant-looking uniforms those like Ebb had worn. They were formed up in fireteams, and sent in two teams at a time. The first pony - the first two to emerge from the smoke - carried a heavy shield mounted to a battle saddle-like mount that distributed the weight across their body. The second carried a close range weapon clutched in their teeth or levitated beside them, and followed hot on the hooves of the first. The tactic was as brutal as it was effective. The shield-ponies enabled those that followed them to flood into the smoke-filled enclosure, filling the area with bodies and confusion, blocking lines of fire and swamping the defenders in meat.

The problem was when the defenders had clear lines of fire.

Ebb’s bursts went from speculative to killing, the flashing muzzle strobes illuminating the gunner beneath me as she took full advantage of the momentary respite from the smoke. At first her rounds had no effect, but after rounds began pinging from the front of shields she had a chance to correct. She stitched rounds downwards, hitting the first shieldpony in his hoof, causing him to stumble and fall - his shield swinging to the side as he lost balance. The remainder of her burst stuttered through his torso before continuing into his fireteam partner. She barely had a chance to look surprised before she was perforated with a dozen or more small caliber rounds, ripping right through her barding and shredding the mare.

No time for remorse or second thoughts, Ebb swapped targets to the second team. The shieldpony must have seen his compatriot fall, and dropped to a knee, planting his shield in the snow just outside the entryway, his partner snugging up behind him and spraying the interior with submachine gun rounds.

The intent was to keep our heads down, but with them bottlenecked just at the edge of the smoke screen, his muzzle flash also served to highlight his position. Fade took advantage of that by leaning out of cover and placing a hurricane of single shots into the immobile pair. I saw their combined silhouette fall in the fog.

Seconds had passed, and four ponies lay dead or injured in the entryway, but still they pressed on. The next group was heartbeats behind the first, shadows moving in the smoke until the coalesced into another pair of shields forcing their way through the cloying, magical mist.

After the success of the first salvo, Ebb did the same with the second, winging a shieldbearer and managing to catch his partner with the brunt of the second killing burst. This time they were close enough for me to see blood spray against the churned up snow, already dyed orange and green from the smoke.

Despite our efforts, they were pushing forwards.

As the second team crossed the threshold bare meters from us, the chatter of Ebb’s machine gun abruptly cut out. I felt this more than anything else, as the sensory overload of grenades followed by heavy gunfire meant I was in a state of auditory overload, I couldn’t even hear the ringing in my ears over the sheer amount of noise in the enclosed space of the entryway.

Fade must have noticed it too, as he pushed off of the wall, rifle clutched in one talon. As the remaining shieldpony sped past him, he stepped into the space the pony had only just vacated, poleaxing his fireteam partner with a burst of fire. He continued the motion, a fluid innovation amidst the chaotic battle as he dug his talons into the throat of the shieldpony from behind.

He must have squeezed, as the buck’s eyes bulged before he was bodily hauled sideways. Not a moment too soon, as rounds from further outside out little bunker found their place in the shieldpony’s torso on their way to Fade. I saw a few nicks, spattering drops of griffon blood on the cold steel grating of the entryway, but he hardly seemed to notice as he continued his pivot of the body until the shield was pointed back towards the entryway and he was kneeling behind it, firing into the gloom as rounds began to spang off of his impromptu cover.

In the seconds he bought, Ebb cleared the misfired casing, firing a short burst off to Fade’s right.

Getting the hint, the griffon let off one last burst before falling back to the control room to reload. He also ducked down, presumably to set some sort of nasty surprise.

Ebb let rip, trading fire with our unseen assailants. Her rate of fire wasn’t what it was when she had visible targets, but it would keep heads down. Despite the continued fire, I was starting to be able to hear again, even though it was dominated by gunfire and frantic ricochets on the steel around us.

It was time. They’d start to adapt, find some way to put us on our toes. Besides, we were expending too much ammunition for how much time was being bought. If we maintained this rate, Ebb would run out and we’d be swamped.

I cut my wingspeed to a holding pattern, merely keeping the smoke at bay rather than pushing it back. It gave me a second to free a forehoof to wave at Fade. Catching his gaze, I yelled “Pull back!” as I beckoned him back with the same hoof.

He caught on, making a sprint backwards, past Ebb as he clapped a hand on her shoulder as he passed. I couldn’t hear, but if his training was anything like ours, he would have said “One more,” telling her she was still our hoof on the ground for the moment.

As soon as he passed her by, I cut my wings to my side and let go of the pipe. Immediately, smoke began to press back into the entrance. We had seconds, but that was all we needed if we did this right.

I dropped to Ebb’s side, catching myself on my hooves in a braced firing stance. I bit down on my trigger bit, sending a burst of rounds into the fog of war before clapping her on the shoulder. “Last one!” I shouted, just about in her ear. She needed to hear me, and I moved as soon as I saw a nod from her, before she put her head back down to put another burst downrange.

Turning, I galloped further into the Stable. I caught a glimpse of Fade having taken cover in the cutout stairway leading to the overmare’s office. That left-

Damn it. Damn it all!

I hadn’t thought about it, but in hindsight it was just about perfect. I skidded to a stop beside the monument to my race’s sins, the empty Ranger helmet staring down accusingly. I put my shoulder against the monument, with its names etched in an inches thick granite slab. I pushed. It wasn’t like I had to carry it. No, it had probably been placed by multiple armoured Rangers, or a series of unicorns carrying it. I just had to shift it. And shift it did, moving to the side before tipping, its fall as inevitable as it was impossible to stop. It fell, smashing the perfect finish and denting the Stabletec plates, obliterating carefully chiseled names as it butted up against the steel pole set into the floor. I set my shoulder against the solid, unmoving granite slab and drew a breath into my lungs.

“Move now!”

I shouted loud, not a suggestion or request, but an order, and issued as such - with force behind it. Even over her own suppressive fire, Ebb heard me. Without a moment’s hesitation, she turned and ran, her weapon levitating beside her as she passed by me with a telekinetic slap on my shoulder and the words “One more!” on her lips. With Fade and I where we were, her next position would be the corner before the gallery itself. Fade took up the slack, firing suppressive into the once again encroaching smoke.

The enemy wasted no time.

As soon as they saw the fire slacken and its pitch change, they advanced. Once again, a group of shields pushed forwards. This time, with smoke obscuring their advance, they were free to spill into the room and take up positions of cover that we’d only just abandoned.

One pair split into the control room, followed moments later by an explosion of smoke and fire, devastating in the close quarters of the small room. The rest pushed towards the direct route into the Stable, channeling their aggression towards us.

As vague shapes in the smoke took up firing positions on Fade and myself, I felt the first impacts hit the granite surface of the monument. As the griffon leaned out to reply in turn, I took a steadying breath then rolled sideways, adding my firepower to his.

Crafter Odds

I was neck deep in circuitry when they started shooting.

Tailwind was at the terminal running continuous diagnostics, while I was in the elevator well, checking circuit boards and connections. I’d discovered a surprising affinity for, well…elevators over the last few minutes, though my actual knowledge base on the topic thus far was rather limited.

What I had figured out was that this elevator in particular used a series of magnets set into the right- and left-side walls to impel the elevator up or down, rather than a pulley system. The system itself included inherent failsafes should power fail - if no power could reach the magnets on either side of the elevator car, the magnets would revert to an “on” state, and lock the elevator in place.

As near as I could tell, that was the current issue.

We hadn’t had any contact with Snap, though I guess that wasn’t exactly surprising - we knew the enemy were on the way, and it wasn’t like they would simply wait us out either. Still, it came as a surprise when we first heard gunfire from the direction of the entrance. It was dampened by all the turns and walls of the Stable, but once it started, it didn’t stop. It was a virtually constant barrage that left us counting the seconds in our heads.

If they were our bullets, it meant we were running out of what I knew quite well to be a relatively limited supply…and if they were enemy bullets, it meant we were slowly losing the fight.

Either way, every second mattered.

“Try it again!” I called out, my light spell illuminating the electrical terminal I’d been working on. Somepony had managed to hit just the right switchboard with a spark explosion or something, because most of the wiring was fried. I’d spent the last several minutes improvising a workaround to bypass the terminal altogether.

“Roger!” Tailwind’s reply came back.

I didn’t see, or even hear her push the button, but I immediately felt the effects, as a distinctive hum filled the air, along with a tangible, bass-ey vibration that resonated in my bones. It was working!

I was positively ecstatic.

“That did it!” I cried.

Crawling out from where the elevator would soon come to rest, I was just in time to see Bernard round the corner, hobbling our way. “You two okay? Snap sent me to help any way I could,” he declared. He seemed…mildly defensive, but I guess that made sense. The two fights we’d gotten in today simply hadn’t been the sort his skillset could contribute to, and I could understand that sort of frustration.

“We’re just about good to go here,” I replied, “The elevator’s on its way, all we’ve gotta do is wait.”

Tailwind looked over at me, a smile positively beaming on her face.

It felt pretty good, like I’d really accomplished something to help out our group. We were getting out of here after all.

That’s when an ear piercing shriek of tortured metal reached our ears, coming from the elevator shaft behind us.

The elevator had ground to a halt.

Towards the entrance, the sound of gunfire was getting closer by the minute.

Snap Roll

They had a heavy machine gun.

We’d managed a momentary stalemate as they’d flooded the entryway only to find us fully prepared to keep lead going downrange. We traded fire for what felt like hours, but according to my TFD’s chronometer was less than two minutes.

Calling out to Fade, I ordered him to pull back. He let off at a sprint after a brief parting burst, and that’s when they set up. Through the vague shapes of the smoke, I saw something large moving around. Having the benefit of hindsight to think on it, I suspect it was a two pony team lugging the gun, and they set it up against the opposite side of the terminal Ebb had used for cover.

The next thing I knew, instead of chipping away at my cover, rounds were chewing it to pieces.

I didn’t have time to prep, suppress, or do much other than pounce straight into the air, lighting off with wings that practically touched the sides of the corridor as I flapped to propel myself straight backwards, like a long, drawn out backflip.

A heartbeat had passed between the moment I left the monument and the burst of rounds completely demolishing the long-standing record of the fallen, priceless pieces of marble shattered and strewn across the hallway.

Rounds stitched the walls, trying to chase me. I could feel the disturbed air currents as the rounds flashed past. With that sort of caliber, all they’d need to do is hit and I’d be out of the fight.

Thankfully their gun wasn’t particularly high rate of fire - more of a steady chug-chug-chug sort of cadence. In other words, it was conceivable to move faster than the gunners could track, instead of flying through a hallway filled with lead-based death.

There was no room for fancy maneuvers. I flew as hard as I could, and kicked off from the left-side wall as soon as I emerged onto the balcony level, sending my body into the open air of the gallery itself.

The maneuver had gotten me out of that situation, but it had cost me precious situational awareness. I corrected my flight pattern, bringing myself about until I was hovering just out of sight of the doorway, as I quickly tried to figure out where our group had ended up.

Fade had taken cover in the doorway to the Stable’s security detachment, and was laying down covering fire for Ebb to move back towards us. Gone were the single shots from before, now he already had a small carpet of brass beginning to form beneath his feet.

He called out to Ebb, “Pāriet, mazais!” and beckoned with his free hand.

I couldn’t see from my position, but it seemed like she either heard him, or decided on her own that it was time to pull back.

She was a few meters from the transition to the gallery’s balcony when the heavy MG started up again.

Maybe they were good. Maybe they missed what they were actually aiming for…hell, maybe they just got lucky.

At any rate, whatever the cause, the stuttering chug of machine gun fire tore pieces out of the doorway around Fade before I saw a splash of blood and heard a griffonic roar of pain as he was thrown back into the doorway.

Ebb had been running in his direction, miraculously intact, but saw the griffon - and her source of covering fire - fall with that burst. She made a split second decision that was enough to have me convinced that I’m a terrible influence on those around me.

Turning towards the gallery and its four-meter drop to the floor she leapt, kicking off the safety rail for good measure.

Locking eyes with me, I saw a terrifying combination of trust and resignation on Ebb’s features as she flew towards me with hooves outstretched.

I did the only thing I could, realistically. I practically didn’t have to move, but I extended my forehooves, rotated so her weight wouldn’t be hitting me straight out of the air, and let physics take its course.

She hit, hard enough to punch the air from my lungs. She locked her hooves around my neck just as I wrapped my own around her back. Her momentum caused us both to begin a counter-clockwise spin. I flapped hard. I wasn’t going to prevent our arrival on the bottom floor, but I could damn well try to slow it enough not to cause injury.

Not having much sense of space with the aqua eyes of a frantic unicorn filling most of my field of view, I braced myself as much as I could before yelling, “Go limp!”

I trusted her to figure out what I meant, but that’s all the time I had for warning.

We touched down, landing in a loose pile of bodies. I managed to roll the landing and avoid the worst of it, but Ebb’s body skidded further, coming to a halt a few meters away.

“Looks easier when you do it,” Ebb groaned from her position on the floor.

Well, she was good enough to bitch, so I took that as a good sign - I had bigger things to worry about. I kicked off and took flight again. They’d seen that! There’s no way they didn’t know most of our guns were down for the moment.

I flew low, barely off the ground and parallel to the balcony, until I was almost at the point where the hallway exited onto the balcony itself. I flared up, climbing vertical for the few scant meters I needed. Then, I pulled back hard, inverted, and flapped to reverse course back across the axis of the balcony.

As I’d suspected, there were a good four of them sprinting towards where Fade had fallen, all other considerations cast aside for the moment. If they could take him out, we’d lose a huge chunk of our combat potential.

Right as I stopped flapping, I flared my right wing while holding the left tight to my body. The air resistance was enough to decouple my bearing from the trajectory my body was headed on. The action sent me inverted, sideways, across the breadth of the balcony.

As soon as I started to turn, I simply bit down on the trigger bit and trusted my execution to hit my targets; there was no way for me to correct for something as pedestrian as aim right then.

Like it was happening to someone else, I felt and heard and saw it all at once. The kick of the rifle at my side. The once-still air, disturbed by my insane maneuvering through it. The blood on the Stable’s walls and floor.

The shocked looks on the Red Eye troopers’ faces as a manic pegasus did an aerial backflip, sideways, while spraying a hurricane of low-caliber rounds along their line.

I saw rounds make contact and heard cries of pain, but before I had a chance to process any of what I’d seen, my maneuver had already carried me past, the recoil of firing accelerating my spin until I was facing “backwards.” I knew the wall was coming even if I couldn’t see it. I also knew I wasn’t going fast enough to splatter myself against it - I hadn’t gotten that much speed in such a short distance.

Stretching out my hind legs, I braced myself once again for impact.

It came, just as promised.

I absorbed the impact, feeling the strain in my hinds as they absorbed in a way my body wasn’t normally supposed to, crouching down until I was “standing” against wall just beneath the balcony, my butt pressed right up against it and my knees pushed up under me.

The instant my momentum was completely arrested, I was off, kicking away from the wall and flapping my wings again. I made a swift loop around the gallery, rotated until I was right-side-up again, and flapped straight across the arc of fire that had been established down the balcony.

As I zeroed in on the door to the security room, I noted dispassionately that the line of bullet holes had stitched across their line right at knee height, leaving two of the assault group writhing in pain, clutching at horrible looking leg injuries.

Not enough!

At the last second, I snapped my wings to my sides, letting my momentum carry me through the bloodstained threshold of the security room. Either I managed to catch the MG team off-guard, or they weren’t entirely heartless enough to open fire with injured friendlies in the way.

Preoccupied as I was with getting out of the danger zone, I wasn’t truly thinking of what I might find in the security room. In the couple seconds I’d had to parse the information, I’d figured I’d end up having to fight the pair who’d made their way into the room, and was fully prepared for combat when I entered.

I wasn’t prepared for…Fade.

The first trooper to enter hadn’t stood a chance. His corpse was just inside the door, with the hilt and about half a hoof’s length of Fade’s sword jutting from his collar bone.

Fade himself was in the process of tackling the second trooper into the far wall when I entered the room.

He stood there, mostly hunched over the poor bastard as he stabbed both sets of talons into the trooper’s belly. I could see the raw meat of his left bicep flexing with strain as Fade let out a feline roar of anger and pulled.

With a scream of equal parts horror and pain, the pony…came apart.

Blood sprayed the dimly lit room as Fade whipped part of the corpse in my direction. Blood splashed my face, my mane, my coat and barding. I could feel it in my wings, could taste the bitter copper taste of it on my tongue.

I retched, coughing and spitting out blood as I looked away. Even for someone like me, that was…too much.

Letting my guard down for a second, I missed Fade lunging from the far side of the room.

I certainly wasn’t expecting his talons to wrap around my neck.

Fade grabbed me, hard enough to restrict airflow, and lifted, his momentum forcing me backwards until I was pinned against the wall. My hooves left the floor and I was raised up to stare straight into his cold magenta eyes, the irises narrowed to tiny pricks. The whole maneuver seemed effortless on his part. I kicked, I flapped and hammered on his arm, but it was no use. His talons tightened, and I felt blood - my blood, this time - trickle down my neck.

He reached back with his bad arm, tearing his sword from the corpse it was embedded in and levelled it with my eye.

Blood dripped from the blade as neither of us moved for a long moment.

The radio in my barding crackled.

≪There are more on the way!≫ Ebb’s distorted voice carried across the still air between Fade and myself.

I saw the change come over him. Fade’s eyes defocused, and his irises widened from the thin points they’d contracted to, and his beak opened in confusion. He lowered his injured arm and released the talons around my throat.

With nothing holding me up, I fell hard on my rump, shaken by what had just happened and coughing as air returned to my lungs. My neck stung from the set of claw marks Fade had left.

On the other side of the wall, gunfire had resumed. Over the rattle of Ebb’s lighter rounds hitting the armoured wall behind us, I could hear a couple louder reports. It sounded like Bernard had joined up with the unicorn. The fire quickly died down, but it was clear that we were on borrowed time.

Fade had recoiled, and was staring at the hand he’d wrapped around my throat - at my blood. His sword clattered nervelessly to the ground as he relaxed his injured arm, hanging it at his side.

He opened his beak, “Snap, I-”

I preempted him, shoving our last healing potion into his bloody grip. “I know,” I coughed, still getting my breath back, “-or at least, I get it. We’ll talk later, but right now we don’t have time for you to not be okay.”

Biting the stopper off with his beak, he drained the potion in two swift gulps. The magic quickly went to work. The bleeding stopped, and before our eyes muscle knitted back together, new tissue connecting where none had before. Within a couple seconds, the magic had finished, leaving a hairless, mottled pink and red area. The potion hadn’t completely healed him, and there were still areas of exposed muscle, where skin had yet to fully form. He looked like he was in the latter stages of recovering from a burn injury, all told.

“Hold still,” I commanded, and for once he had no quip in reply. Tightly, but not so tight as to restrict circulation, I wrapped the wound in one of our remaining magical dressings, tying a neat knot when I finished. I didn’t want to give him Med-x, not when I had no idea how it would interact with whatever was going on inside his head.

He’d just have to deal with it.

As he collected his discarded gear and checked the corpses for equipment, I quickly poked my head around the corner, just enough to get a sense of what was out there.

The next push had stymied at the threshold of the gallery, another body had joined the two from earlier clutching at injuries and groaning in pain.

I ducked back as the ponies stacked up against the wall caught sight of me and started shooting at the doorway.

Fade had finished in the meantime, his sword back in its sheath and his rifle in his arms. He’d also picked up a shotgun, some ammo, and he handed me a small medical kit. I quickly sorted through it, and it happily contained a single full healing potion, a few more bandages and some minor supplies - tape, gauze, tweezers and scissors.

I stowed the whole thing in my medical pouch. I’d sort that out later, if there was a later.

“Fade, you’re going first,” I instructed, “As soon as they’re suppressed, head for the elevator. We’ll set up a final line of defence there.”

He simply nodded, settling into something of a sprinter’s stance, ready to spring into action.

Pushing the talk switch on my radio, I spoke into it, “Ebb, covering fire, on your mark.”

She acknowledged with lead, peppering the gallery entrance.

I leaned out of cover enough to give my rifle an angle, biting down on the trigger and sweeping side to side, just above the bodies of the wounded. The recoil rattled my body, but was reasonably controllable as I watched my TFD’s ammunition counter tick down in the corner of my vision.

Soon as I started to shoot, Fade was off, vaulting the railing by the time I’d dropped to thirty rounds left.

There were hits - in particular the unlucky bastard at the front of the group stacked up in the corridor - but at some point the ponies behind him simply held up his corpse. From that point, most of my rounds that did hit simply minced dead meat.

The counter ticked relentlessly, as brass ricocheted off the wall and joined the pile at my feet.

20.

10.

Click, as the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

I sprinted the two steps to the ledge and leapt into the open. One of the wounded had a pistol held in a weak magical field before him, lining up a shot, but the crack of Bernard’s rifle put him down for good, the field disappearing harmlessly and the weapon clattering to the floor.

Fade had already met up with Ebb and Bernard. As I headed down towards the elevator, I had to acknowledge that the fight had reached its final, desperate stage.

I hoped Crafter was having a better time of things than we were.

Crafter Odds

“You need me to what?” Tailwind replied incredulously.

I glanced around sheepishly. “I need you to fly me up to the elevator,” I stated a little louder than I just had. “I think one of the, ah, magnets must be damaged, and the elevator got hung up on it.”

“And you need to go up there-” She indicated with a wing up…yeah, way up there, where the elevator had come to a halt, “-to fix it?”

I nodded. That was about the sum of it.

“Oh, for the love of…” She seemed pretty against it, but in the end, she looked up, having made her decision. “Drop your saddlebags and rifle…I guess you’ll need your tools?”

I nodded again, “I think so, yeah.”

“Then drop everything else in the corner, and thank the skies you’re pretty light for a stallion!” As she spoke, she seemed to be doing some quick wing stretches.

Moving to obey, I carefully placed my saddlebags down, then the rifle on top. Removing the old reinforced duster, I folded that and put it beside the rest. That pretty much left me with my toolbelt and barding, so I turned back to Tailwind.

She glanced at me sidelong, narrowing her eyes. “You…anticipate needing the sword while you’re up there?” She asked, incredulous.

Oh yeah, that!

I’d almost forgotten.

Without ceremony, I unbuckled the belt that held it on and placed the weapon beside the rest. It had been there so long it felt like I’d simply gotten attached to it.

Ready to go, I stepped up to the open edge of the elevator landing and looked up. It sure was a long way up there, wasn’t it…

Tailwind came up behind me and I heard the beat of wings. A moment later, I felt her loop her forelegs under mine, grasping me around my barrel. “I’ve still got a bad feeling about this,” she griped, but nonetheless, she started flapping harder. I felt her hooves pinch against my front, then felt my hooves slowly leave the ground.

We were rising!

I took a quick look at the magnets set against the walls, seeing what they were supposed to look like.

Behind me, I could hear Tailwind’s laboured breathing as she strained to lift us both into the air. Each beat of her wings seemed like an effort. I wanted to make things easier for her, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how. If I shifted around, it might just cause her to drop me by accident, or throw off her balance.

So I just hung there, trusting her to get me where I needed to go.

Higher and higher we climbed, as the platform dwindled below us, our way lit by simple orange emergency lights set into the walls every floor or so. Based on that, we passed more than six floors before we finally reached the elevator itself.

The problem was pretty clear when I got there. A rocket of some sort had been fired into the elevator shaft. It had hit the wall, shattering the magnet there and forcing part of the large device towards the elevator well. When the elevator itself had descended, it had hit what remained of the magnet, and was currently jammed against it.

Seriously? How much fighting could they possibly have managed this deep into the Stable?

“Bring me right up to the elevator, please,” I asked, “I’ve got a safety harness on the belt, I should be able to latch on and get out of your hooves.”

Tailwind let out a nonverbal grunt, and we rose higher.

Grasping my tether harness, I picked a spot on the damaged side - a reinforcement beam was positioned just right to wrap around, and I did so as soon as we were close enough. “Okay, lower me slowly,” I commented.

She did, and gradually the harness took my weight, until she was hovering beside me, and I was, well…hanging there.

Tailwind took a moment to catch her breath, and wiped her brow with a forehoof. Must’ve been difficult...

“Whew,” She commented, “Need anything else? Sorry, but I ain’t bringing Bernard up here too.”

Shimming my way over to the damaged panel, I cast my light spell on the underside of the elevator. I was trying to figure out a way to sort this out, and as comforting as her presence was, I didn’t expect there would be much for her to do up there. “No, I think I’m good,” I replied, “So long as I don’t look down things’ll be fine.”

She nodded, smirking slightly despite the situation.

“What I need from you, er, I mean, if you would…” I stumbled, “Is if you could go back down and tell me if anything changes on the terminal’s readout while I’m working.”

“Can do, boss. I’ll try not to leave you hanging.” She winked, then cut her wings to her sides, dropping and opening her wings just before reaching ground level.

Of course following her with my eyes led directly to me looking down. It ah…well, it’s quite a ways, isn’t it?

I tried not to think about what would happen if my harness failed, reminding myself that Snap and the others were risking their lives to buy us the time we needed.

With that in mind, I set to task. I shimmied as close to the wall (and the damaged panel) as I could, moving the light spell closer to give me a clear view of the damage.

The rocket or whatever had hit had cut the panel roughly in half, and the elevator’s descent had snagged everything right up against the elevator car itself. I wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed like the whole assembly was under a degree of stress from the speed at which the elevator had been descending. I pulled out a ratchet and started removing what bolts I could. Luckily, it seemed that the panels themselves were modular, and able to be removed individually. Each bolt I removed, I placed carefully in a pouch on my tool belt - who knew when heavy structural bolts might come in handy?

It was reasonably fast work, but every second felt like forever. The work was also comparatively quiet aside from the ratcheting. I could hear the gunfire getting closer and closer.

I had to stop a couple times to wipe sweat out of my eyes.

Before too long, I had removed all but what seemed to be the very last bolt holding the bottom half of the panel pressed against the elevator. Try as I might, I couldn’t get enough weight behind either leaning my weight on the ratchet, or pressing down with my magic to try and start the bolt moving. It must have been seized pretty good.

I focused on a spell I hadn’t used in a while. Framing the bolt in my mind, concentrated on its outside, using magic to apply a coat of liquid penetrant. I gave it as long as I dared to let it work its way into the teeth of the bolt, before once again yarding on it with the ratchet. The stupid thing didn’t budge an inch. I could feel it though, the feeling that I just needed a little bit more.

It was time for desperate measures.

Pulling out my trusty wrench, I weighed it in my magic as I steadied myself against the elevator and the wall. I didn’t want to slip and miss my chance, or have to get Tailwind to retrieve a simple ratchet.

With careful aim, I put all my magical might behind using the wrench like a hammer to jar the bolt free. Simultaneously, I leaned hard on the ratchet, using my body weight to put tension against the bolt.

Wham!

I felt the concussion through my physical connection to the ratchet. It was only the tiniest bit, but I felt the ratchet turn, perhaps only a couple degrees or so, but the bolt was beginning to turn. Prepping again, I swung the wrench a second time.

Wham!

The ratchet moved a bit more. I felt confidence rising. One more hit and it should start turning freely!

Wham!

Several things happened all at once. The bolt, long since fixed in place, and placed under immense stress from the weight of the elevator pressing sidelong against it, sheared. No longer held in place by the bolts, the magnetic panel slammed back against the wall, inexorably pressed back into place by the mass of the elevator. Finally, the elevator - still answering the call of the terminal down below - resumed its descent with another shriek of tortured metal, as the impetus of the elevator finally overcame the resistance of the wall panel.

The sudden shock of movement immediately caused the elevator to shear the ratchet off of the wall, the now useless tool falling all the way to the bottom. I kept hold of my wrench, but the shock caused me to lose my grip on the elevator itself. For a moment, I felt bowel loosening terror as my body fell free, only to be abruptly arrested by my harness connecting me to the elevator frame.

Well, on the whole I figured things were working out. The elevator was moving again! Unfortunately, I had to figure out how to get out from under it before I was crushed.

Tailwind’s head poked out into the shaft, trying to see what had happened, a worried expression on her face.

I waved, trying to show that things were going mostly according to plan. She seemed relieved, and it brought a smile to my face.

Then I saw the red bar, not far to the side of Tailwind’s blue one. I thought of the vents that her and Snap had cleared earlier.

“Tail, behind you!” I screamed.

Her head disappeared back around the corner. The flash of her beam rifle and the sound of gunshots filled the small (and getting smaller) space of the elevator shaft, as the elevator continued its relentless descent.

Struggling with my connection to the elevator, I could only conclude that I was in a bind. If I disconnected the harness entirely, all that would happen is that I’d fall - I didn’t have the sort of timing or dexterity to somehow swing myself out of the way right as the elevator touched down, nor did I feel like breaking my legs before being crushed by an elevator.

I felt…a sense of peace, I think, wash over me. I’d gotten this thing working, and I’d managed to warn Tailwind of an assailant. Maybe that would be enough, you know? It felt like I’d accomplished something, at least. That maybe I’d finally managed to be of use to the ponies who had saved me, even a little bit.

I closed my eyes.

I expected to think of Spring in my final moments, to be honest. Of how I’d failed her, of how I’d never said anything back when our lives were normal. But as hard as I tried in those seconds, I couldn’t even bring her face to mind. Maybe even Haywire, my best friend for years, probably the pony who I would say I was closest to in my time beneath the ground.

The only thing I could think of was-

“Let go, Crafter!”

Tailwind’s voice broke me out of my reverie, snapping my eyes open as I glanced down. There she was, hovering upside down in the elevator shaft, the elevator and myself coming closer and closer to crushing her against the elevator platform!

I couldn’t believe she’d managed to take out that red bar so fast! It was surreal.

But there was no time. She had to go, or we’d both...

“Go!” I cried, waving at her with my hooves, “It’s fine, you need to-”

“You idiot!” She cried, “Cut your harness! I’ll catch you!”

I blinked. She could do that?

Drawing my utility knife with my magic, I drew it across the safety harness tying me to the elevator. My weight was enough to compromise it, and with barely a thought for how bad an idea that was, I was falling, back-first, towards the platform with an elevator right behind me.

Just as I thought for sure I’d feel my spine snapping against the floor, or one of the cradles the elevator would rest on, instead I felt hooves catch me. With a beat of Tailwind’s wings, both of us were shunted back into the room as the elevator came to a rest in the space we had just occupied.

The fact that I was alive crashed into me all of a sudden. I flipped over, realizing my full weight was now pressing down on Tailwind. She had a bit of a grimace on her face, and I could imagine we’d skidded along the ground a bit before coming to a halt. I offered her a hoof up.

She took it, and as she came up, her vivid green eyes locked with mine and I felt her lips on my cheek.

Pulling away with a smile on her face, she commented, “Nice work with the elevator!”

Had she just-

Not one to wait around,Tailwind was already in motion. I caught my rifle as she tossed it to me, along with my duster and sword.

“Now we’ve just gotta live to use it!”

Fade

It was a path I’d walked before.

I was hesitant to act, ever since I’d nearly killed Snap...but as we went deeper into the facility, the (memories? Ghosts?) were more vivid with every step. I knew not everything I was seeing was currently happening, but simply knowing did nothing to dispel the (hallucinations?).

The Enclave had pushed hard, forcing their way into the gallery in the manner their race is most known for. From the gallery, they attempted to spread into the surrounding areas - the living spaces, engineering, food production, the reactor. They had expected a fast victory, to crush the defenders and use the mobility afforded them in the gallery to their advantage.

It would prove to be their undoing.

If one were to wax poetic, it was very much the wartime mindsets of the two equine forces that dictated the battle. The Enclave had wished for a lightning victory, while the Steel Rangers had prepared a defense in depth for their unwanted guests.

The counterattack had caught the Enclave off guard.

Instead of consolidating the defense, Ranger detachments were sent under their own commands to each of the corners of the Stable. The Enclave lost the initiative when every route out of the gallery came under attack from those Ranger and allied wastelander forces inside the Stable. They were forced back into the gallery, when their commander ordered a retreat into one of the far tunnels.

I stood once again in that tunnel, simultaneously seeing the carnage occurring and its ultimate aftermath. On one side of the bend I saw my current comrades in arms - Bernard, Ebb and Snap; while on the other, the all-too-convincing shapes of Enclave power armour laid down a vicious pattern of suppressing fire coming from the side passageway.

Cheesequake shouldered his way into a firing position, setting his hooves against the Stable floor and opened up with dual grenade machine guns, eviscerating the point-pony and forcing the rest back behind the corner. He fired until the walls of the Stable shook and rubble cascaded into the corridor. He stopped, the rattle of massive brass casings falling to the ground around him, and waved us forwards.

We took advantage of his opening, my companion and I, the familiarity of it felt so natural as we charged into the gap with the few remaining abled bodied ponies - two Rangers and a clawfull of wastelanders. We steeled ourselves for the last dance of this harrowing ordeal.

Violence exploded the instant we rounded the corner.

Our best chance was to close the gap with them, get right up in their faces and turn the fight into a brawl - it would neutralize much of the advantage of their weaponry and mobility. So we sprinted headlong towards them, firing as we forced our way through their storm of return fire.

One of the rangers fell, his head a molten ruin. No one stopped - we couldn’t, and he was gone anyways. A moment later and we were in them, then the true brutality of melee was joined.

There was no coordination, no sort of squaring off with an opponent, but rather a swirling melee made all the more mad by the insane maneuverability of our foes.

I caught a scorpion-like stinger tail and held it away from myself as I fired point blank into the base of its owner’s wing, where the armour was thin. The pony fell with a grunt, of frustration and pain, even auto-injected med-x not able to stop massive trauma from putting her down.

Beside me, one of the wastelanders wasn’t so lucky - he died with a gurgling cry as his opponent’s razor sharp tail spike found its place in his neck.

The offender didn’t have time to celebrate, as my enshrouded friend was already upon him, Her multiple cloaks obscured movement as they billowed even in the dank Stable air. It took remarkable skill for an earth pony to wield a weapon like the griffon warpick, and I’ve never seen a pony even attempt to wield it like She did. Clutching it with both forehooves, She brought the point down in a vicious arc that stabbed deep into the pegasus’ torso. It was a griffon weapon, after all, and in its natural habitat. The carnage it wreaked was tremendous.

We found ourselves through their defensive line, seeing the very last of the cowards make a retreat into the elevator shaft, less than a clawful of them left. Bastards; they must have gotten the door open somehow!

I fired, as much on instinct as anything.

Or, I remembered firing, anyways. In my mind’s eye, I…recalled, firing. This time I forced the urge down, catching a glimpse of Tailwind and Crafter covering our retreat, very much surprised at my pointing a weapon in their direction. I wasn’t going to make a mistake, like I had previously, but nonetheless, I found my consciousness wavering back to the memory even as I forced myself forwards.

The bullets continued, regardless of my restraint in the now. It caught one of the bastards in the wing, but he was quickly grabbed by his comrades and hoisted into the air, disappearing up into the shaft.

The very last one, a spry one with a vivid scarlet and white streaked mane, locked eyes with me, a curse on his lips as he punched the elevator button. The solid weight of the platform rose cover their retreat, as he flew off into the abyss above.

The other Ranger that had come in with us sprinted for the elevator shaft. I called for her to stop - something didn’t feel right.

She ignored me, firing a rocket up at the retreating car. A heartbeat later, the timed explosive the Enclave had left went off. The Ranger jerked, twitched, then fell and lay very still on the elevator platform. The stench of cooked meat assailed our nostrils, pungent even over the noxious smell of ozone, cordite and blood.

I blinked, and reality reasserted itself, for the moment at least.

The smell lingered, and I suspected it had never truly gone away - but maybe that was just my mind playing tricks on me.

Regardless, the elevator was now resting on its intended spot, with Crafter and Tailwind beckoning us onwards.

Those were easy enough instructions to follow. I turned to pass the word and saw Ebb, Bernard and Snap Roll run past me - the latter had her energy pistol out, clutched between her teeth as she ran for the exit.

I followed suit, finding myself at the back of the pack.

The ghost of Chess appeared beside me, his apparition materializing as if from thin air, just as surprising now as it had been then - I ducked, the natural response to something being where it shouldn’t.

A burst of gunfire sailed over my head.

The thought occurred to me that Chess might have just saved my life, seven years later.

It had come from the right, so I turned and replied with rounds of my own, forcing my assailant to take cover behind a corpse already in the hallway. It seemed they had found some ponies small enough to fit through the maintenance tunnel after all.

There was no time to dawdle. Everyone else was already onboard the elevator, so with a flourish, I turned and gave the exterior terminal a decisive burst, shattering the already damaged screen and destroying the electronics behind it.

Then I stepped into the elevator, the clatter of hooves in the corridor behind us causing me to turn as Tailwind hammered the “ascend” button.

In front of me stood the ghostly spectres of my comrades, but it was Her that I focused on, that shade from seven years ago drawing forth feelings of a loss at once so profound that it seemed impossible that I’d ever forgotten…yet so vague that I just couldn’t seem to remember.

I left them there, along with all the other fucking memories, buried where I hoped I’d never have to return to them.

Snap Roll

I collapsed onto my back on the cold, beautiful steel of the elevator. It felt like I finally had a chance to catch my breath and get my bearings on what was happening.

“Tailwind,” I asked, one detail of our escape concerning me, “Any chance they can just fix the call button to bring us right back down?”

“Nope!” Came her tired, but enthusiastic reply, “I re-coded the bottom terminal while Crafter was fixing the elevator - even before Fade shot it, that terminal was locked out of the system.”

We collectively let out a variety of noises of relief, and proceeded to take a moment to decompress.

Fade sat alone, slowly loading fresh rounds from his bandolier into emptied magazines. I saw him let out a breath after the first couple rounds had been refilled, pause, then take a good look at his talons. They were shaking lightly and blood soaked, just like the grip of his rifle and portions of his barding. He set the weapon down and began to wash the blood from his hands with some water from his canteen and a rag.

Ebb had gotten through the fight without any major injuries, most likely just some bruises from the assisted landing. She lowered the light machine gun, letting it rest on the floor of the elevator for the time being. Five rounds dangled precariously from the feed pawls, the very last of our belted ammo.

Tailwind and Crafter were talking quietly. It seemed the elevator repair wasn’t without perils of its own, but they’d both come through in a big way for us all.

Lastly, Bernard sat alone. My orders had kept him from the worst of the fighting, but the look on his face told a different story - we’d missed a chance to pick up any sort of info on our quarry; The Serpent, and Bernard’s daughter Rosemary. We had one last shot with the lead on Iron Junction, and if that didn’t pan out our quest might just come to an end.

I tried to distract myself from those thoughts, instead focusing on sorting out post-battle administration.

Aside from the small sounds of relief, sorting out kit and the like, the elevator was quiet. There wasn’t even any sort of mechanical noise aside from a low hum signalling that the elevator was moving - the visual indicator of the emergency lights was reassuring as we passed them one by one on our way to the top.

Still on my back, I spoke up, “I want to know about any injuries I haven’t already treated by the time we get to the top. Get someone else to look you over, and don’t tough it out - tell me. Additionally, I want everyone to report where you’re at for ammo before we bed down for the night.” I opened my eyes and glanced around. “Everybody got that?”

A chorus of tired sounding affirmatives greeted my ears.

Good.

Forcing myself to my hooves, I checked myself over and belatedly realized I was still slowly bleeding from the cuts of Fade’s talons. I sighed. They weren’t especially deep, it just hadn’t even been five minutes since I’d gotten them.

A very long five minutes.

Tailwind must have noticed, because she came over with a look of concern in her eyes. She took a bandage from my medical pouch and delicately started unrolling it. “What happened out there?” She asked at length.

“Just some shrapnel,” I lied, avoiding her gaze. “Some grenade fragments almost got lucky.”

She didn’t believe me. I could tell, but…she didn’t ask any further. She just went about delicately swabbing away the worst of the blood before wrapping the healing bandage around my neck, snipping it off once she’d managed a sufficient wrap.

After that, Tailwind collated the ammo count for me on a piece of paper, which I placed in one of my pouches. I’d take a look at it later, once we got settled in. In all, the trip up was long and quiet. It only took maybe ten minutes, but it felt like a lifetime, compared to the last hour or so.

As we got closer, I didn’t need to tell anyone - there was a palpable anxiety as to what we might find up there, and by the time we could see the end of the line approaching, everyone had their weapons out and at the ready.

With the same gentle electrical noises, the elevator reached the top of the shaft at long last.

The room was built like an observatory as much as it was an evacuation point. At most, the room measured about ten meters square, with windows along the far side, a series of empty lockers on the right, and a heavy door - not quite Stable door-grade, but heavy enough to stop just about any scavenger that managed to make it this far up the mountain. Beyond the thick glass windows, we had a breathtaking view of the valley beneath, though even then, only the suggestion of the furthest mountains could be seen in the dark.

That wasn’t what held our collective gaze, however.

The room was illuminated by a single orange emergency light, still shining after all these years. Its light illuminated the long frozen corpse of an Enclave trooper.

I carefully made my way to its side. It was so out of place, so…I just didn’t know what to think. Carefully checking for traps, I found none - only that his armour had long since burnt out its power source, presumably left running long after its owner had perished. Without the heavy spark cell to operate it, the armour was so much frozen junk.

The owner himself was frozen where he’d died, largely preserved these long seven years. He had an unassuming off-white coat and blonde mane, and the expression he died in seemed…well, if I were to put words to it, it seemed like “resignation” is what I’d pick. Not terror, not pain…he simply accepted that his life was over, I guess. It was pretty evident why - his right wing was shot right through, hanging on by scraps of skin and cartilage. He’d been seen to by someone with medical experience - a tourniquet had been applied at the base of the wing, but with no medical support to follow up, it was a futile effort. A small pool of blood had frozen around him.

I snaked out a connection from my TFD to his visor port. It wouldn’t power the armour, but it would potentially be enough to access any logs he’d left before he died.

As soon as power returned, his armour’s speakers immediately began to playback the audio files recorded on it.

“Mission abort,” the voice of the long dead trooper came through the speakers. Despite the distortion, his voice sounded painfully young. “-acting OIC Sergeant Havoc called it; all the officers are dead. Only four of us made it up here, myself included. Private Stinger managed to get us into an access lift, and we fried the workings with a power cell bundle as we escaped. Fucking Rangers won’t get us up here.” He let out an audible sigh, “Skies above know I won’t be flying any time soon, though...

“Unit log two, I guess,” playback continued, moving seamlessly to the second file. “This is Corporal Sky Skimmer. This will be my final entry.” He laughed, a single bitter noise, interrupted by a fit of coughing. “It’s funny, always thought it would be cool to say that, and now that I actually am, it just sounds dumb.” He paused a few moments. Something that sounded like movement came over the speakers, but it was indistinct. The voice returned, “Skies above its fucking cold here, kind of regret sticking around this shit hole now, hey? But a broken wing and no medical supplies except this tourniquet and some Med-x kinda forced that issue. Well, this is Skimmer, signing off.”

There was a pregnant silence in the emergency shelter, broken only by the dull howling of the wind outside the windows.

The recording picked up one last time, “Well, so much for final entry. Freezing takes too fucking long and talking into this thing gives me some piece of mind I guess. I’ve started to get delirious and I guess I’m just too damn stubborn to end it myself.

“What the hell am I even waiting for? Sergeant Havoc to come swooping back? No, I know damn well I’m dead up here. I hope the others manage to find somewhere to hide out. There might be some place that’ll take them in or something…ahh, who am I kidding. Doesn’t matter.”

Dad...he was alive?

The recording paused again, before another sigh filtered through the speakers. “Still, would you look at that? Celestia’s rising over the mountains, just for me.” He coughed, a vicious, wet noise that sounded like death itself. “I guess you could call it a view worth dying for. I suppose it's as fitting an end as any, down here…”

Author's Notes:

Thanks to everyone on the team! Belmor, Shady, Kylie and Doel. It's been a long time coming, but we've reached the point at which we've fully left behind every last bit of the RP that Frozen Skies originated with. Not to worry, the multi-perspectives in-chapter are not going to be the new norm - In part this is a trial run for critical future chapters, for when paralogue-like segments are needed, but too short or not self-contained enough for chapters of their own

Big thanks for being featured in the discord group Post Apocalyptic Emporium's Book Club! It's a huge honour. To those of you coming from the book club, welcome aboard, I appreciate yall sticking with it this long - to those of you catching up otherwise, if yall want to talk about the story with other readers and vote on future stories, the club could always use more activity. PM me for an invite if you need one.