The sun took its damn time going down, but at least we had air moving around us. That made a difference. At least, it made a difference for those of us not wearing armour. Sand passed by the window in a blur, and from behind I could see the tracks being left by us, we wouldn’t be hard to track… Then again, we were the hunters.

I was in the lead vehicle, our behemoth belching unburnt fuel in a plume coming from its exhaust pipe. Inside were eight ponies, five of us wearing armour, sitting in the back of the half track. The Steel hanging above us kept the confines of the vehicle sweltering, the ventilation windows were opened and a little fan was buzzing away inside the vehicle, aimed at the unarmoured ponies. Us knights were cooled by our armour. The drivers? Not so much.

Behind us were two more of these vehicles, one with a thirty millimeter cannon mounted in a turret above it, and the other, a tanker in the rear, filled to the brim with diesel.

I looked to my left (it was against official policy, but all of our helmets were sitting in our laps or the benches beside us). Ironsight was sitting with her back pushing against the steel of the wall. In her hooves were a set of orders, terminal printed, fresh paper too!

“How was the boat ride back?” I said before letting out a yawn. Long rides always put me to sleep.

She stayed as she was, eyes glued to the page, reading glasses perched on the back of her muzzle. “Quieter,” Ironsight said.

“It’s funny,” I said quietly.

“What’s funny, Icepick?” She said with a huff, knowing that she would be hooked by that line. In other words, it wasn’t the first time.

“You didn’t even ask about the two weeks I was gone?”

“Knight, if you want to write a report, make sure to double space it.” She flipped the page of the document with the edge of her hoof.

“Normal ponies ask about those kinds of things,” I said to her scrunched face. “Ravioli, he asked me about why I was gone. Just like AV; tartarus, your brother asked about you! You didn’t even want to know if I ran into him.”

I crossed my forelegs in front of me.

“Icepick, you act irresponsibly, and leave me to pick up the pieces! Not all of us have just enough leeway with command to do the things you do. Not all of us make an effort to give our higher ups a hard time. And I personally try to leave my feelings out of my assignments.” She said to a quiet cabin, the only noise coming from the engine. Everypony in the cabin, excluding us were looking away. It didn’t matter. This was between myself and her. In other words, it wasn’t the first time. Ironsight the angry mare had returned. The muscles in her neck were corded and I’m sure the rest of her looked like a snake about to strike-

“I was going to say that your brother misses you, he’d like you to write him, or ‘get some time, and head over’.” Her face turned neutral, she had mixed feeling about her brother. She’d told me that I was basically him in mare form. I had never figured out whether that was a good thing or not. “Oh and almost forgot!” I looked at her hunched over form, just as encased in armour as mine. It didn’t matter, we were rangers. I scooched over a little closer to her before opening my forelegs and shifting my weight to my hinds. She was giving me a look I knew well. And as I surprise hugged the mare she let out a yelp of surprise as her papers hit the sand dusted floor.

“Blame your brother,” I said before disengaging the startled mare. The tension was broken by now, and the ponies in the cabin laughed at us. And the idea of siblings, knowing one of your breeders was rare, knowing both of your breeders was practically unheard of, and Iron was the only pony I knew that knew her sibling.

I pulled away before she said anything more.

“I always do,” she said flatly. “So, I heard that you pleaded your case to Quesadilla.” She continued on, she wasn’t as angry now. I knew her well enough to defuse her.

“Yeah, she didn’t want to overstep the decision of the elder,” I said to her with smile on my muzzle and a glare at her eyes.

“If it was my decision I’d have you out in the badlands, fixing up antennas, locating machinery, sitting at a desk. Simple, mechanical, service for temperamental mare like you,” she said bluntly, “Then again, knowing you, you’d launch a crusade to let the miners have holidays off. And you know how many they have.”

“That’s your problem right there, you just dismiss things like that, things that aren’t already part of the master plan. For all we know, a dozen days a year off might actually boost productivity.”

“If it was a good idea we would have already implemented it. Icepick, we have the best body of knowledge of anypony in history, a millennia of Equestria's time in the sun to use and preserve.” She locked eyes with every other ranger in the tail end of the carriage in rapid succession. “To use, to preserve.” This was her moment of victory, she felt proud about that statement. I imagined that becoming a motto, plastered across a training manual and memorized by young rangers.

“I’ll drink to it. We’re rangers, after all,” I yelled after a moment of silence. The other four laughed, and Ironsight shook her head while a smile cracked across her muzzle. My smile was forced; I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Well, if you’re buying, Knight.”

“I know a guy, or three if you let me borrow one of these…” I said to her. I was the hookup. Nobody else knew where the stills were out in the desert.

“You could fill out the paperwork for one of the smaller utility vehicles.” She said with a subtle but condescending smile crossing her muzzle. The knight third-class across from us chuckled at that, imagining me in one of them.

“I dunno, I got an image to uphold,” I said.

“What a mural of wasteful theatrics,” she quipped.

“Well, if you read the codex, there is a doctrine called called shock and awe.”

That got a laugh out of everyone.

“If only you could obey orders, then you’d be an example to follow.”

She said in a lowered tone. Then I’d be a ranger. Then I would live up to my purpose.

We came to where our intelligence told us the insurgents would be traveling through, a dry riverbed with a gentle slope on one side and a steeper slope with rocks embedded in the walls. It was approaching midday, so we had at most two hours to get things ready. To the north there was a butte about half a mile down the rough road.

They dropped us off near the ridge, we put our helmets on our heads. To someone who didn’t know what we were, we’d look like pony shaped robots, stronger, faster, not affected by heat or the weight on our backs. The sand coloured camouflage was broken by darker spots and lighter areas. A baker’s dozen military machines setting up an ambush for an enemy that wasn’t prepared for us, that couldn’t handle us when they knew about us, yet they fought on anyway.

As another explosives specialist and I worked some detonation charges into the rockier side of the slope, I focused on the work. Bore a hole here, shape the putty, shove it in, and work the detonator into the surface. Doing the thing that they got their cutie mark doing helps a pony forget their troubles for a little while, most of the time.

I watched the rest of us set themselves behind a series of rocks on the opposite slope. They’d be boxed in. Our plan.

There were thirty of them walking in each others tracks.The Arabians were wearing loose black robes and they carried a number of empty looking bags. We were to the west of them, in what was to them just a section of riverbed like any other. They didn’t expect the explosive charges to detonate behind them. The boulders and debris rocketed across their backside. We stepped out from behind our positions. I had my machine gun sighted on a number of the armed Arabians as we advanced at them slowly and methodically as one a knight fired up a loudspeaker integrated into their armour.

She yelled at them, I could make out the word for surrender and drop.

I could see most of them tense up, they reminded me of the stallions in the restaurant, compared to us they were wound up like steel cable. All I did was let out a breath as we all waited.

The stallions took turns looking around – they were all stallions – slowly realizing just how fucked they were. The air was crystal clear and as dry as a bone, their cracked lips and sweat soaked barding glistened in the sunlight. A stallion standing near the front of their group gave a shout at our megaphone mare. The Arabians stared at him like he had pissed on a foal. Something else caught my attention, the point stallion for the Arabians had just stomped a hoof on the ground and shouted.

“Fuck,” I said softly into my helmet. I hadn’t pressed the switch to transmit.

Our big fucking trucks had just started up, my head turned to face where they were hidden, the first truck had pushed into the road its engine revving just before the driver shifted gears. Whatever quiet we had trotted into was broken by the noise of exploding diesel. It caused a stir in them. That point stallion turned to them, there were a few hurried words exchanged. All of them seemed to aim their weapons towards us in unison. They had drilled. It was a near simultaneous exchange of fire. Our grenade launchers and machine guns tore up the land around them, riddling groups of them with holes and shrapnel. But as soon as it began we realized this wasn’t going to be bloodless for us. A burst of magical energy smacked into one of the other ponies in the group. It bore into the armours chest, and another ponies rifle bullet was able to penetrate the poor stallions breast plate.

Hiding themselves on the ground, running for a small gulley and using the few rapid fire weapons they had they were able to keep us on our hooves. All the while these Arabians get lucky with high caliber rifle rounds, hitting seals and joints, taking a couple of us to the ground. We actually pulled back to the ridge, exchanging fire with them. When we had some concealment I turned to the nearest pony. Her paladin insignia staring me in the face. I flipped my radio on while looking at her.

“Who the fuck has these kinds of weapons!?” I yelled before moving my body out of cover to fire a burst at an exposed insurgent. He seemed to collapse as a round or two tore into his chest.

“Non-photonic energy weapons were developed and deployed in the Saddle Arabian Desert, according to records,” Ironsight said before sending a three round fusilade of forty mic mics in their general direction. She pulled herself back behind cover just as a battle rifle round struck her breast plate. The behemoth with the cannon was almost in engagement range. Just as I realized this, the rock right to the left of us exploded into pebbles. My heart pumped and I felt that same fear that I had in the restaurant. Or the when Agave had been in trouble.

We weren’t safe.

“They have rifle grenades,” Ironsight said through the radio just as I threw myself into a gallop towards the rocks we had set behind them. My body wasn’t aimed at them, I was just trying to get in the right position to end this. A stallion or two tried to pepper me with magical energy but they couldn’t aim worth a damn. And after an eternity of blood pounding in my skull I had gotten behind the avalanche of stone. At that moment the brass boom of cannon shells being hurled into their positions from their right flank registered in my ears. They had to be on the verge…

Bolting up the pile and jumping onto their side was a risk, but, as they were now caught on all sides by angry rangers. The energy buck saw me and was pulling the gun towards me. I fired a burst. The ammunition tore into him. He was dead as soon as his legs buckled. They were down to almost none. I aimed and sighted with my lips curled into a sneer. These fuckers had hurt us, could have killed us. So I paid them back with interest. I must have shut the radio off soon after. I don’t remember Ironsight telling the rest of them to hold their fire.

I lost myself in that moment. The barrel of my gun was red hot, close to melting under the sheer number of bullets that traveled down it, on their way to end some Insurgents life.

The thing that broke me of that was a scream. “Stop!” He said from behind the body of a pony I had just gunned down. “I surrender!” The arabian was slight of frame even as he cowered behind the corpse. His equestrian was better than any Arabian I had met before.

“Kick your gun away!” I yelled hoarsely. My throat was cracked. The rest of my body felt like steel cable pulled taut by adrenaline and fury.

He pulled himself up from the body, he was a small stallion. My shoulders would have met his eyes. “I don’t have one.” He yelled before slowly moving his forelegs up one at a time to show his lack of a battle saddle.

“Icepick, what the fuck was that?” I heard the voice of Iron from the side of me.

“Well, grab that fuckers handkerchief and tie and bite an end of it, walk out towards those ponies slowly with the end of it dangling towards the ground.” The stallion gave me a look of disgust before doing as I asked. Ironsight has decided that watching this strange buck get that makeshift white flag together was more important than berating me for finishing the fight.

When I heard her speaking in her command voice I realized that my radio was off. With a click I heard the tail end of her orders.

“-And we captured a prisoner. He speaks equestrian, treat him well and have him prepared for interrogation by me. Everypony else clean this place up grab all the weapons and ammunition, anything useable add that to the behemoths, everything else we’ll burn with the bodies. Now get to it.” She finished addressing them before turning to face me. I met her leveled gaze.

“That was nigh suicidal Icepick,” she barked at me. But, it sounded like she was farther away. My ears were ringing after that. It was a miracle that I heard his cries in between the thundering of my gun.

“No, it was the thing that needed to be done. They scarred us. Scarred you. They sure as tartarus scarred me. Fucking terrified us.” I let my eyes drift the field. Holes in the limestone road and our rocky concealment testified to the amount of fire exchanged.

“I-” She tried to speak but I cut her off.

“But, unlike the rest of you, I knew we just needed to corner them like the rats they are. We’re Rangers. Shock and awe is our fucking shtick. Yet these fuckers had us in shock. I saw that and ran at them showed them what a ranger does. What we’re trained from birth to do. To fight and if necessary die. Say what you will about these goat fuckers, but they fight harder than we do and die all the damned time!” I let out a breath before looking her in the eyes. “I knew I could have died. I’m ready to die for the Rangers. Are the rest of us ready to do the same or are they too spoiled in their armour, and too fucking confident that they can’t be touched?” I pointed a hoof at the body of the stallion with the magical energy weapon. “I have no idea where they’re getting those from but as long as they have them, well, we have to be comfortable with rangers around us dying.”

She turned to face me before stepping closer. “Icepick, I lied earlier. I read about the events in Ramsgard. The bombing. That restaurant. Luna damnit, I know what you saw. I know we lost fifty rangers. But you charging right in front of them or to the side, that was you losing control. Brave or not, that wasn’t the thing I ordered. We move together. That’s what rangers do, not getting behind them and blowing through them while exposing yourself to your allies guns. Icepick, you lost it just as much as we did. We stood back waiting for the big gun. You stampeded at them like a crazy mare!” There was a movement in her neck, she wanted me to agree so badly.

“It worked. Now if you want to write me up for another psyche evaluation or demotion do it later, we have a weird stallion to pick at.” I turned toward the Behemoths.

Ironsight said nothing and followed from behind.

“All I know is where we were next supposed to go!” The captured stallion said to us. Ironsight, A knight stallion and I were watching him wilt under our gazes. And a kick to the side or three. He wallowed on the ground with what was probably a broken rib after I had gotten him with a weak forekick.

“Then fucking tell us!” I yelled at him. “Do it or you’re useless to us!” I said before pulling a service pistol from my reserve holster. I chambered a round with a quick motion of my foreleg. My helmet had been off since the first kick. I had wanted to see him my eyes. I wasn’t a fucking robot. Robots can’t feel anger. Robots can’t feel pain. Robots don’t want to make somebody shit themselves in terror.

“Just continue down this road for another hundred kilometers, then you should be able to see the top of an extractor–” he said, speaking quickly. Trying to save his own skin most likely. I wasn’t feeling very charitable. These fuckers, and I knew in my heart it was more than him, had given these ponies guns. And the fuckers in Ramsgard. The idea that the same raiders that had been terrorizing villages left and right had been given guns by these fucks, it made my head spin? What were they willing to do to make life harder for us?

“That’s alright, you can tell us on the way. You’re coming with us, and in the lead vehicle so if there’s an ambush you’ll be just about the first to die.” I said to him right after dropping my pistol back in its chest holster.

I walked over to the stallion. “You can also tell me where you learned to speak like that? Huh, want some alone time with me?” I said with a lilt.

He just looked terrified in response. I spat into the dirt beside his face. Then I spun around and walked off towards the lead behemoth. From behind me I could hear the stallion pickup the Arabian and load him onto the back of another ranger. He was going to get a look from the medic pony- after all the injured rangers. When I reached the behemoth I sat on my rump and rifled through my right saddlebag lazily. I found what I was looking for, a pack of stress relief. It had only been a few minutes since the end of the fighting. If I was in luck… I shoved the end of it against the side of the barrel of my gun. After a few seconds it lit. I put the filtered side of it against my mouth. My lungs pulled heavily on it, I needed it after that.

He had broken like a twig. He wasn’t fighter, he reminded me of a lot of the rangers. Sheltered. This battle had to have been a wakeup call for this unit. I hoped. The stallion who had taken the shot in the chest wasn’t going to make it. The shot had cracked her sternum, and with that broken any potion was probably going to regrow it wrong, and that would kill her. Probably. Medicine was weird. The medic pony might just try it anyway if the only other option was to let her die of internal hemorrhaging. I let the smoke rest in my lungs for a moment. Healing ponies was harder than hurting them, killing them. Sometimes we were hypocrites. Sometimes we screwed over the Arabians. But, in the end we were bringing them better lives, and these ponies were causing more deaths to the regular Arabian than they were to us. I didn’t understand.

The smoke drifted out of my mouth. I saw Ironsight make her way over to me. She always had a speed to her, the briskness that comes from grasping her own purpose. I took another drag.

“You know that that’s bad for your health right?” Ironsight asked me as she stood in the middle of my vision.

“Always giving me shit for the things I enjoy and patting me on the back about things that I don’t. Never change,” I said before patting the spot next to me. She gave me a questioning look. I patted the sand harder with the forehoof.

“And you’re always asking me to do things I don’t want to do. Please change.” She said with a chuckle as she sat down beside me.

“So, do you think he’s the real deal?” I asked her suddenly. I looked at the thin nub of cigarette I had left, a second or two from burning my lips, and grabbed it by a foreleg. I flicked it off towards the setting sun. A memento to remember us by.

“I have never heard an Arabian who speaks equestrian like that, like they learned it from birth. First language. If that’s possible.”

“So an outside group? Equestrian speaking Arabians that just happen to have a lot of armament? Why now? We’ve been here for a century? If this stallion isn’t just an aberration.” Her voice cast doubt on my theory. But, it was the only thing that seemed to make sense. Some asshole Arabians hiding away, waiting for some moment to fuck with us.

“Well, we were sent out here to arrest arms shipments. And I was given a fair amount of discretion in how to deal with this problem,” she said.

“We have the fuel,” I said with a quick glance at the diesel behemoth parked behind us.

“You’re a bad influence on me. At least my brother knows how to gain rank.”

I gave her a wounded look.

“Look, I tried to be a perfect ranger once. And you know how that ended. What I do now is try to do what’s the best for us, even when the ponies in charge don’t know what benefits us.”

“That’s not your role, the chain of command is there for a reason, Ice,” she said dismissively.

“We tell the Arabians what’s best for them because we know things that they don’t. It’s not that different than me doing what needs to be done, if I know things that the elder doesn’t.”

“So, running after those bandits, you knew more than me?” She asked pointedly, before going for one of my cigarettes. It took her a bit longer for her to light the cigarette off of my hot barrel.

“You’ve never really spent time around natives. I have. You don’t really know how their minds work. You saw those bandits as a minor threat to the amount of grain moving down river that you could report. So not really worth the time. The villagers, they saw them as an end to theirs. It’s all a matter of perspective. It took me a couple rangers and a few days to solve an existential problem to them. Don’t you see?”

Her eyes shifted towards the setting sun. “Yes, I agree about the villages. That’s why I let you go. I don’t know what you see me as, but I have for a long time seen you as a manifestation of my conscience. So, I let you get away with things. Ever since the time–” I cut her off. This pony had been using me to ease her own fucking conscience?

“What the fuck, you’ve been letting me go off and get my ass chewed out doing the things you’re too much of a coward to do?!” I yelled at her. This was new. Somehow this was worse, at least if she didn’t agree, she’d have a reason not to act.

“Icepick, I do what I need to do to rise up in the ranks, and so does Reflex. Someday soon, ponies like us will be in charge, and we’ll be that much stronger; more steel being made, more rangers and maybe even some new arcanotech. Then we’ll be able to help these ponies out more thoroughly.” She said with a huff. Like I was the unreasonable one.

“Always pushing the day that we do what we’ve promised forward,” I said.

“Tell that to me after we’ve crushed these new Arabians that you so fervently believe in,” she said with a smirk.

“Yeah,” I said. At least now I knew we agreed more than I thought we did.

“Well, I have to file a report. See you on the first behemoth.” She looked happier, like she had gotten a secret off of her chest. I resented her a little less now. Maybe we just had different ways of getting what we wanted. Maybe.

It was food for thought at a time where I was anything but starving.

The place our prisoner had pointed out was larger than any of us expected. It was several large buildings, surrounded by large open pit mines that had been largely filled in by drifts of sand, and excavators that were either rusted but still up or rusted and collapsed. We stopped our vehicles on the edge of the place, in a cleared area beside what looked like the administrative section. We stepped out, and decided to sweep the place, since it was night. After that we would meet rendezvous back here and plan an ambush.

The initial EFS scan was clear. We decided to break up into smaller groups than usual to speed things up.

I had three other ponies under my command. An apprentice named Glaive, a mare with two assault rifles modified to be fed from an ammunition belt at her sides and an initiate, Lathe, who had been given his armour for this mission.

“We’ve been given the building in the bottom of that pit,” I said to mygroup. I unlocked the bolt on my machine gun and armed my missiles. It was time to root any of these fuckers out and shut this operation down. If the stallion was lying through his teeth, well…

It was the furthest building from the vehicles and nearly the closest to the sand pits.

The building we had been sent to look through was nothing more than a mess hall with a kitchen and small staff quarters attached. Our EFS was clear other than the blips of our fellow rangers. So, we took our time, looking through the shelves of expired food, and the like. While we were searching, I spied a terminal sitting under a desk in the living quarters.

When I dusted the thing off I realized that this terminal would probably work. There was no magical event near here. After a brief search, I found it had a reserve battery slot.

“Hey, Lathe, do you remember seeing a spark battery in that kitchen?” I yelled into the wider building.

“Yes, Knight. Let me bring it to you,” he said curtly. Good buck. I heard a crash and a bang before he brought it to me.

Just as he made his way into the room, we heard Glaive say something to us.

“Knight, there is a fallout shelter built into the stock room, steel door. Looks like a bulkhead off of a pre-war ship.”

“Alright, you and Lathe try popping it open. Just try not to break the door or your armour okay, that mostly means you, Lathe…” I said with a shake of my head. This place having a fallout shelter was pretty odd. No-one would waste a balefire bomb here. Only one bomb was detonated at the end of the war and that was to the south. Well, there was a weapon dropped on a small resort town far to the north of us. But, that was across either hundreds of miles of ocean or a similar amount of empty desert.

That was one of those things we only knew about through records and written reports hoofed down to us from old timers decades ago. Still, it’s kinda curious that the zebras would bomb a random coastal city with no military value.

Eh, Zebras were fucking irrational monsters. Willing to turn Equestria to ash. And themselves by doing it.

After a few minutes of frustration I got the corroded battery terminals to connect. Powered on, the terminals apple green glow greeted me. It had no security on it so I found a pony’s log on it. I read the last entry.

Things have pretty much spiraled out of hand, after we lost contact with corporate over the ham we’ve basically just sat here. The last fuel shipment didn’t arrive in all the chaos, and well, it’s getting colder in the day and it’s nearly polar at night. I never expected to freeze to death in the desert… But that’s looking more and more likely every day. All the Arabians left as soon as they saw the clouds travelling over the horizon. Maybe I should have joined them, least they get to die with their families.

I don’t know how long the extra food and water is gonna last us, that fallout shelter had a lot, but well, there are forty ponies left…

I shivered. Usually, there weren’t records of the… end left around.

I heard a quick call from one of the other groups. Their building was clear. Now, I could have said that myself awhile back, but I was curious about this terminal, and Lathe and Glaive were poking and prodding that door. I scrolled to an earlier entry, it even looked uncorrupted.

I gotta give these Arabians credit, they dug out a lot of tunnels by hoof. Big ones. Could probably hide all of us in them. Not that we’re gonna be digging through the dirt by hoof ourselves. Nah, an open pit mine makes a whole lick more sense. Still all those tunnels gotta be useful for something, storage rooms or… What was it that the boss told us to get ready? Fallout shelters. I wonder why we’d need a fallout shelter all the way in Saddle Arabia?

Well, if we just stick some good doors on the tunnel entrances and put some food and battery lights in there, it should be good enough for the boss and corporate.

Oh fuck, gotta go put out another grease fire. These Arabians don’t know how to fry shit.

Oh shit. This could be bad. My thoughts shifted as I heard a gun go off from down the hallway. “To all rangers, they’re in the walls and tunnels.” I spoke just as the trap swung shut. I made back to where Lathe was, the door was open and Glaive was on the ground her head collapsed inward from a rifle shot to her eye slot. My lips curled as I fired a suppressive shot into the corridor. On the left side of the storage room Lathe was keeping his weapons aimed at the entrance. I sprinted over to the other side of the door.

From the radio I heard the call to retreat back towards the vehicles. I knew what I had to do, just like I had early that day.

I rooted through my bags while Lathe looked at me with terror. “They were lucky, now go take these.” I threw him a set of breaching explosives and a remote detonator. “And set them at the entrance of this room, both sides of the door. Wait two minutes and blow them alright?” I said to him as I closed my bags and made damn sure my ammunition belts were going to feed correctly.

I switched my head lamp on, and toggled the automatic light amplification off. I wasn’t making that mistake again.

“What are you going to do, Knight?” He said with fear and confusion playing through his voice.

“The unexpected,” I said to him before I stepped into doorway and fired another burst. The tracers lit up the length of the passage, which wasn’t long. Another thirty feet it branched ran into a perpendicular tunnel. I waited for the rifle pony to pop around the corner. One, Two, Three- and I shredded half his body with my shots.

Then, then I ran forward. Trying to make it to that corner. Trying to save the others.

I continued forward catching some of the Arabians unaware. Others not so much.

Them putting most of their forces near the front made sense. Rushing rangers in close quarters made a lot more sense than attempting it in the open. We weren’t exactly used to close quarters combat. They weren’t.

And as I heard a low rumble following a loud detonation from the tunnel behind me. I knew that I had prevented a pincer movement.

I was the lone pony in a large room that had empty barrels of potable water and other supplies, along with skeleton covered floors. I poked around the barrels hoping to find a hiding Arabian. After the first three Arabians in those initial tunnels the place had seemed deserted. Only bones and some tracks left in the dust floors. The rock was thick enough to stop our radio transmissions. I hoped that all the rangers made it out, and killed the asshole that had led us here.

This was a good plan on the Arabians part, wait until the occupier thinks that they’re safe by hiding in tunnels that were shielded by EFS. Then attack the units closest to the escape vehicles first. It reminded me-

No, that wasn’t likely. And if I saw him I would kill him. I’d just smash his head and his balls into paste.

In the corner at the edge of my vision I saw movement in one of the adjoining hallways. I turned my body to face them. I stopped in my tracks as when I saw their sprinting from across the room, I might have hit them, probably a fifty-fifty chance if I had fired. But I didn’t. I could see a burnt orange coat on this pony. Weird for an Arabian I thought to myself, but then I saw the horn. My mind froze. I had seen this stallion before. Kind of.

But, by then he had ran past. When I sprinted up to the passage he was already in one of two passages. Of course there was a fucking fork. Whatever, maybe he was a fucking hallucination…

I thought before making my way up one of the forks. These had to run into the surface again, eventually.

I could tell this room was a big one from the echoing my hoof steps created at the entrance. Like all the others it was pitch black. And a ranger head lamp only extended so far. I had a bad feeling about it as I entered. My head was on a swivel.

Then they dropped the flares. Two bright fucking flares ended up right in front of me. After a second of adjustment I realized there were two stallions rushing towards me. Both wearing some pretty nice kit, pre-war ballistic plating and helmets. I turned to face one of them. My gun was pointed at his face. He stopped and just before I turned his face into chunks, I heard a yell. I turned my head on impulse. Standing at the end of the room was a large Insurgent with a very big gun aimed at me.

“Knight, don’t,” He said in a pleading voice. I pulled the trigger before jumping sideways. The first stallion had his face cave in. Before I could aim at the bigger stallion he had fixed his gun on me. Both of us had firearms aimed at the other. And his looked big enough to be a problem. In my peripheral vision the other stallion was now standing with an odd looking rifle aimed at my head. Shit.

“You know that there’s probably about a fifty fifty shot that the bullets from that thing your lackey has will just slide right off of my steel? And if you decide to go for it I’ll make sure you end up like your friend over there.” I said to him. He had spoken in Equestrian, he’d understand.

“So, by your unbiased reckoning, it’s a coin flip that you could kill me and survive his retribution. What would you suggest, Icepick? Take the both of us prisoner? Have us promise to be good little natives and walk along the desert to a holding cell to be tortured by ponies that want nothing more than complete domination of every member of my race?” He finished his rhetorical flourish by laughing.

“Tegarni, I couldn’t recognize you under all those dirty rags. No, I’d let your companion go and take you. Wait here for a larger force. Standard protocol.” I said to him. On an unrelated note, power armour helmets are great for helping you bluff.

“Phug yoo!” The other stallion said with the rifle’s trigger group in his mouth.

“Silt has a wife and three foals. He wants them to live in a world that isn’t dominated by whorish tin cans. He won’t be bought.” Tegarni responded with a chuckle.

“Alright, I’m curious, why do you and him speak differently than the rest of the Arabians?” I said, trying to distract him or make him slip up and give me some valuable information. It’d help to salvage something if he bit bullets.

“That’s an interesting question,” He said before unfocusing his eyes slightly.

“I try.”

“It’s unlikely that he’s one of yours, then. Perhaps the others were correct in that he was truly what he said he was. No, he didn’t feel ignorant.” Tegarni said to himself with a shake of his head. He had a habit of speaking his thoughts aloud when he was thinking deeply.

“What are you talking about?” Tegarni was confusing.

“The orange unicorn, whore.” The buck behind me said with a snort.

“With a brown mane and blue eyes? Speaks funny?” I asked Tegarni. whose muzzle opened up to examine my helmeted face.

“So, you know this stallion?” He asked with anxiousness written across his muzzle. “That’s an acceptable answer for now, when we break you once more you’ll tell us the truth…” His words changed his muzzle. A sly grin broke it up, his white teeth showing through.

As I started to speak I heard a gunshot from behind me and no impact on the back of my helmet. My head turned to face the stallion behind me; he was dying from a bullet through the throat. The stallion passed out before he hit the ground.

Another shot rang out and I saw the bullet hit the wall behind Tegarni from the edge of my eye slit. My head turned as quickly as it could towards the source of the shots with the rest of my body rotating to… From the doorway the unicorn from before was aiming an equestrian battle rifle at Tegarni, I pointed my gun at him but by then he had pulled the trigger…

Nothing. No click. The primer didn’t go off. I turned my head just enough to catch Tegarni flying around the corner, getting away for the second time. My anger spiralled out of control as I took aim at the stallion. He moved to aim the barrel at me. I looked at his eyes.

He was the stallion I had seen in the mirror. He looked older, though. I didn’t remember seeing scars on his muzzle when I had had those dreams. I aimed the barrel away from him. His gun’s barrel stayed away from my body. A second after that, right as I was about to speak, the gun went off. He dropped it to the ground. Of course the asshole would be saved by a goddess damned hangfire.

“Apologies, I would have warned you, but the situation was fraught,” he said, almost apologetically. His voice was the final thing. He sounded exactly like the stallion from the dreams. As I stood there dumbstruck, he pursed his lips. I shook my head and spoke.

“You let him get away, why didn’t you shoot at him first?” When he heard my voice his eyes opened just a bit wider. He seemed surprised.

“It was a decision made in a fraction of a second, surely you understand? You looked as though you needed the help, gratitude would be appreciated.” The stallion said before lifting the gun the stallion behind me had. He levitated it towards him, he folded the stock quickly before taking the sling on the dropped rifle and clipping it on the other gun. Without missing a beat he opened the other gun’s magazine up before pulling the ammunition out. Was he counting the ammunition in the magazine?

“Thanks!” I said indignantly. Now, I wasn’t going to have much to show for this, left behind in unfamiliar territory. Maybe, going off on my own wasn’t my best plan of action. “What the fuck is your name and why are you here?”

“I could ask the same of you. However, you asked first. Permittivity, I was with these Arabians on a routine scavenging expedition. They just happened to spot your lot coming over the horizon. This was for them a happy accident. It also provided a chance for me to escape their custody. So, in it was also something of a happy accident for me as well.”

I could feel my eye twitch as he spoke casually about this shit show. I didn’t know how many rangers had died here, but in my gut I knew it was way too many. All the while this stallion had simply walked over to the dead stallion’s corpse and was picking through his belongings. I turned to watch the stallion pull the intact armour off of the stallion’s body. It was Equestrian marine combat armour, most of a complete set. This Arabian had some decent kit. Not that it stopped the bullet through the throat, but still.

“Why would they take a prisoner out of their base?” I asked him.

“I wasn’t a prisoner per se, I was more of a curiosity that they wanted to keep an eye on.” He continued stripping the armour off of the body staring down at it. “They don’t meet many ponies from the grasslands. So, they asked me how I got there and told me that they would help me find my way back home.” He snorted. “After I answered some questions. Eventually they realized I wasn’t going to tell them anything worthwhile, so here I am after volunteering to help them strip copper wire.” Permittivity shot me an sardonic look before gesturing at his flank. A reel of uncovered copper wire flanked by twin lightning bolts caught my eye.

“So you know where their base is at?” I said impatiently. Permittivity had dropped his saddlebag on the ground and was putting on the dead stallions armour. Greaves, breastplate, shoulder pauldrons and spine protector. The armour was about the same as the stuff worn by the Ramsgard security ponies.

“If you know where this place is then, yes. I could could give you its position in relation to this mine. Though I wonder how you hope to use it in your current position.” He gestured at the mostly empty room. The room lit entirely by the pulsing light of the flare and my head light. The bodies lying where we had shot them with pools of blood spreading over the chalky ground gave the room a horrible feeling.

“I’ll take the information and get it to Ramsgard.” I said to him.

“You know that he’ll be patrolling the desert for you if you try to get back the way you came? This force wasn’t even supposed to fight, most of the ponies were just the regular natives that the elites send out to dig up scrap materials for. Tegarni just gave them some grenades or rifles or what have you and sent them out to fight you lot.” He seemed angry for a moment as he said that last part.

“So why were you trying to kill him?” I asked, basically conceding the point that a direct approach to Ramsgard or my outpost would end with me dead, and an indirect one would probably have me die of dehydration.

“I may not have understood the dynamics of this new found relationship, but I believe I should get some commiserate answers out of you. Namely, what is your name and why are you alone?” He asked me in between stuffing ammunition and anything else that caught his eye in the saddlebags he wore.

“I-I, fine. I’m Knight Icepick of the Ramsgard Rangers. And I’m alone because I sent the pony that was left with me off to escape, I thought that I could blunt their attack by attacking them where they weren’t expecting it. Running into that waste of sperm was pure chance.” I had kept my eyes on his. He looked surprised again when I said my name. “Back to my questions, you haven’t earned an equal relationship yet. How many of them are left?” The unicorn just chuckled at the crack.

“Yet it seems I have the information you need? Isn’t that true?”

“True enough, but it’s in your own best interest to tell me. I don’t want to get violent with you, but I need to get that information back. So tell me-”

“All that survived left an hour before, Tegarni and his body guards stayed behind to kill the ranger that had stayed behind to kill them. I’d wager that the two of us are the last ponies in this place. Though I’d also wager that when Tegarni makes it back he’ll likely grab the garrison force and reclaim this place… And put our heads on pikes. They’re fond of that. Well... he is.” He said with a shake of his head.

“So, about how long do we have before they get here?” This stallion knew how to drag on with his words. I looked at him again. He liked his own voice.

“If he marches by night and uses stimulants to avoid sleeping himself, most likely before the sun rises tomorrow morning.” He said before looking at me once again. Permittivity’s face softened for a second like he wanted to ask a personally question before he returned to his energetic smugness. “So, the question truly is, do you think we should risk going south towards your compatriots or head off in another direction.”

“They’d probably guess that I’d head south with you. And they could catch up with us, especially if they have vehicles.” My eyes shifted towards the floor. Of course they’d find us if we went south. The rest of the rangers would too far away for my radio to reach them either. My mind was dwelling on this as he spoke up again.

“I do remember something one of the Arabians said while I was inside the facility. It was a snippet of conversation about some transmissions coming from the north-east.”

He finished speaking and continued looking at my eye slit.

“That’s fucking weird, we’ve never heard any radio transmission from up north.” I let the words drop out of my mouth. He seemed to stand taller when I said that.

“You do know that high frequency radio communication does not reflect off of the ionosphere?” He was an annoying buck.

“No, I didn’t. All I knew was that radios have a certain range,” I said to him. He snickered a little under his breath. I wanted to slug him. In the throat. Dream stallion or not, he was an ass.

“Well, that’s true, in certain contexts. In this instance though, we have an opportunity. You have a radio receiver in your armour, correct?”

“You really do like asking questions you know the answer to.” I responded with a huff. He smiled at me. The movement in his face made the scar above his muzzle stand out. Annoying or not, Big name had been in a fight. Or three.

“Isn’t that self-evident?” He said quickly, before speaking again. “So, in principle all that we need to do is triangulate the signal to determine its direction in relation to us. Between this computation machine that the Arabians gifted me,” he lifted a foreleg to show me a good condition… Not-pipbuck. It had a similar size but it wasn’t a pipbuck, different screen and buttons. “And with your exoskeleton’s radio receiver we should be able to determine the position of the broadcaster in short order.”

“Well, assuming this station is a thing, they probably run it on a regular clock schedule. And it’s getting late.” I laughed at him. The brainy stallions that love explaining things to you are the worst.

“Then we should begin.” Permittivity said to me simply. He liked laughing at me, and he didn’t like being laughed at. Self-absorbed prick.

Author's Notes:

I apologize for the formatting.
Technology isn't my strong suit. So, if you would like there will be a link on the blog post for this chapter.