Soon enough, Commander Thunder and his team showed up, along with a few of their wounded. Of the fifteen Sentinels he’d taken, three were limping and bandaged, one had to be carried in on a stretcher, and another who I first thought was just badly wounded they set aside and draped a blanket over. Adding in Zip’s injury to her foreleg as well as the unicorn from Buck squadron who suffered burnout left seven wounded of the twenty-five Sentinels we started with. Not bad, considering what we were up against—I think I heard somepony mention there were about eighty Crimson in the Fort altogether—but not exactly good, either, when you only have fifty soldiers in total to fight with. Still, if seizing the Fort was as important of an accomplishment as Rampart had made it out to be, then the Sentinels should’ve been able to start actively recruiting from the west of the valley again. Every soldier would make a difference in the fights to come.

While the Sentinels worked on downloading the content of the stolen computers with the help of some of the freed techies, Gauge and I had retreated to the walls of the Fort just to get away from everything. Neither of us were really computer savvy, anyway; we’d just be getting in the way otherwise, and some of the other foalnapped ponies from Blackwash had shown the Sentinels where some more slaves were being kept, so we didn’t have anything to do.

So instead, we found a gun tower that didn’t have any bodies or fires in it and sat down, staring out at the countryside in silence. I guess after everything that’d happened, neither of us really knew where to start. I had so many experiences since leaving the mountain, and I was sure Gauge did as well, but we didn’t want to talk about those. They were just painful memories, still-bleeding wounds in our minds, too much suffering in so short a time. The only one of us who didn’t seem affected was SCaR. Gauge had found him after digging through the Crimson’s storage, and had reactivated the little drone with some tinkering. Now SCaR just puttered around the gun tower in a series of endless loops, giving us something to watch as we sat in awkward silence.

Still, the silence wasn’t going to last forever. I caught Gauge trying to sneak peeks at the brand in my flank, and I could see the thoughts running through his mind. “They never touched me,” I said, shifting slightly so he could see it better. “I didn’t give them the chance.”

I could actually see the sigh of relief Gauge released. “That’s… that’s good,” he said, managing to dig up a sad little smile to put on his lips. “When we didn’t see you at the Fort, I feared the worst. We all knew Carrion wanted you.”

For some reason, that made me laugh. “I hope I didn’t disappoint him,” I said, smiling for some stupid reason. Maybe it was just because my escape had slightly inconvenienced the bastard that butchered my hometown. “Was he pissed?”

I guess my smile was infectious or something, because Gauge returned it and casually shook his head. “He kept poking around the mares while they were separating us. You should have seen the look on his face.” Then his smile died in an instant, and he murmured, “He took three others with him instead. We could hear them screaming as he raped them.”

Well wasn’t that a downer. Swallowing hard, I looked right at the zebra. “Who?”

I think Gauge knew what I was thinking, because he waved his hoof at me. “Don’t worry about it, Ember. They’re—”

“Tell me.”

Gauge’s shoulders sagged as he gave in. “Meadow Lark, Copper Coil, and Dahlia. They’re still in the Fort somewhere.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “This isn’t your fault, Em.”

It might not have been my fault, but that didn’t make me feel any less awful about it. Had I been here, would Carrion have raped them? Or just me? Was I worth more than those three other mares? Meadow Lark was only fifteen winters. Copper Coil and Nova were friends. Dahlia lived two shacks down from me. Was it right that they suffered in my place?

No. Fuck no it wasn’t. There was nothing I could do to make it up to them over what happened. But I could apologize and let them cry on me. Hit me if they really wanted to, too. I owed that much to them, at least.

SCaR began to beep in the ensuing silence, and the robot’s usually blue lights turned red. Gauge and I both jumped, and the zebra turned his attention to the distant hilltops. “What?” I asked, looking first at him, then in the direction he was looking. “What is it?”

“Shh!” Gauge hissed, holding out a hoof. “Don’t you hear that?”

I frowned, straining as best as I could, and pointing my ears in that direction. Unfortunately, my ears were still ringing from all the shooting earlier (tinnitus, yay), so I could hear fuck all. After a few seconds, however, I didn’t need to, because a metallic shape darted into view from behind a ridge a few miles away. It looked like a triangle suspended from a ring, and it was moving fast.

Gauge and I both knew exactly what it was.

“Ringbird…” I whispered, stories of how those things had wiped the floor with the Sentinels and kicked them out of the valley storming back to me. I should have figured that the Crimson weren’t going to let go of this base so easily. It’d be here in a minute, and unless Thunder had deployed some scouts on overwatch, it’d catch them all by surprise.

I dashed forward and grabbed the dual heavy machine guns in my hooves and pulled back on the bolts with my magic. Sighting in on the machine with the holographic crosshairs above the twin guns, I pressed the triggers and flattened my ears against my head as the weapons thumped in my hooves, rattling my teeth in my skull.

“What are you doing?!” I heard Gauge screaming between my bursts of fire. “You’re not going to kill that thing with those!”

“Wasn’t planning on it!” I screamed back. “But this is faster than finding Thunder and rallying the Sentinels! They’ll hear this and know something’s coming!”

I watched the tracers leaving the guns fizzle and strike the ground somewhere underneath the approaching ringbird, so I adjusted my fire and tried again. This time, my accuracy was on point, but I immediately encountered another problem; like the Sentinels, the ringbirds apparently had some sort of deflector shielding installed, because my tracers began ricocheting wildly in different directions before even hitting the thing. Damn it, Equestria, did you really have to make all your shit impossible to kill?!

Apparently, I made it mad. I saw two flashes of light erupt from either side of its triangular body, turning into jets of smoke streaking right toward the bunker me and Gauge were in.

The only way I could’ve been more fucked was if I turned around and presented my asshole to it.

I heard Gauge scream my name, then a heavy weight tackle me from behind. The momentum carried us forward and through the opening in the gun tower, straight into the open air on the other side. My stomach did a backflip as I flailed my limbs and realized there wasn’t any ground below me, and I began to plummet. I would’ve screamed on the way down, but Gauge’s tackle had knocked the breath from my lungs, so it was more of like a choked wheeze or something.

I felt my eardrums pop as the two rockets the ringbird launched flew into the bunker where we’d been standing just moments before and detonated. Scalding heat seared my back as plumes of fire exploded out of the window, casting everything in a bright orange and yellow light that momentarily blinded me to the rapidly approaching ground below. When I could finally see again, I just had just enough time to see the slanted wall of the Fort filling my vision before we hit it.

Something cracked inside of my chest, and all I could focus on was the pain and vertigo that followed. When I finally got hold of my senses, I found myself lying on my back, on the ground below the smoking tower, with decent portions of my mane and tail on fire. Seriously, at this rate I wasn’t going to have any orange or yellow hair left in another week. Thankfully, me and fire get along pretty nicely, so all I had to do was cast a simple spell to make myself not flammable, and the flames went away on their own.

Gauge groaned at my side, and I turned to find him starting to stand up. He quickly swatted away the little fires in his hair and shook some of the ash off of his striped coat. He’d suffered some bad flash burns in splotches along his back, and I knew from experience that he’d be feeling those in an hour or two once his nerves finally realized just what’d happened to them. Still, he was tougher than me, and didn’t seem nearly as fazed by our fall as I was. Then again, he did kinda sorta use me to break his fall, and so I was the one with a broken rib.

Then we heard gunfire. Lots of it. From just outside the walls, we could see the ringbird hovering over the Fort, spewing pegasi into the vicinity. Reinforcements had arrived, and they brought some heavy machinery with them. I couldn’t help the feeling that we were completely, utterly fucked, and that the Sentinels had gambled everything on this mission and lost horribly.

"We have to get out of here,” Gauge said, grabbing me by the mane and hauling me to my hooves. “Before they come looking for us.”

It certainly seemed like the logical thing to do. What could the Sentinels do against one of these things? I saw a few antimatter rockets fired from one of the heavy soldiers streak towards the ringbird, only to be blown up in midair by some sort of point defense the gunship had. Some pegasus Sentinels had taken wing to try to fight off the reinforcements before they could get into good cover, but the gunship kept them suppressed and wouldn’t give them a chance to do any real damage. I could imagine that whatever Sentinels that could were retreating inside of the buildings in the compound, desperate to get away from the hailstorm of lead being thrown at them. But that thing had rockets, and I doubt the buildings could survive an onslaught of those. For all intents and purposes, the battle seemed lost.

I understood now just how the Sentinels could be losing so badly despite seemingly having superior technology.

Then I saw an orange mare dancing through the gunfire, energized wings glowing through the smoke and ash and gun ports on her shoulders flashing as she did her best to fight off the counterattack.

It wasn’t even a decision anymore. Leave now, and everything was lost. Everypony would die, and there’d be no hope of rescuing Nova and stopping whatever it was that the Crimson were planning. If I stayed, maybe, just maybe, I could be the difference.

And fuck it. If I died, it’d be better than living with the shame of letting everypony I knew die or be sold into slavery.

“Where are you going?!” Gauge shouted at me as I set my hooves in a line and galloped toward the open gate of the Fort.

“We have to stop this thing or we’ll never save Nova!” I cried back. That was a bad idea, as my broken rib helpfully reminded me, and I stumbled and nearly fell back to the ground as the pain caught me unawares. Gauge galloped to my side and supported me while I did my best to catch my breath without screaming. Using his support, I finished my limping charge into the Fort, where we sat down behind some crates and debris for cover. “Fucking fuck damn it,” I groaned, clutching my chest now that we had some cover.

Gauge’s eyes widened, and he immediately hovered over me while SCaR literally hovered over the both of us. “You’re hurt?” he asked, searching me for any obvious wounds. “Damn it, Ember, you can’t do this if you can hardly move!”

“Fuck you, I’ll do it anyway,” I wheezed through a crooked grin. I did my best to wave him off with my hooves, but it wasn’t until the massive brown body of Sig landed between us that he actually backed away. “Hey, Sig. Hope you guys got my warning in time.”

The griffon was covered in ash, and his armor was scored with scorch marks from a close encounter with one of the gunship’s rockets. Despite that, he seemed unharmed, just a little singed. He quickly ducked down behind the crates next to me and gave me a concerned look. “We did. I’m glad I was able to spot you so quickly.” He tapped the side of his helmet. “Hawk eyes and all that. You need to get inside, now.”

“What about the gunship?” Gauge asked, cautiously peering around the corner of our cover. I couldn’t see what he was looking at, but I heard the chatter of the cannons on that thing and saw him wince before hiding with us again. “That thing has rockets, it’ll blow us up even if we do get inside. And the pegasi…”

“We’re not worried about them; we can swat them out of the sky easily. The problem is the gunship won’t give us the chance.” He glanced upwards, to where Zip was still evading gunfire and slicing through pegasi with her laser wings. “I need to be up there with my wingmare. You two stay down. Thunder’s raiding the armory to see if there’s a railgun in there. With that damn point defense, it’s about the only thing that’ll drop it.” Without another word, the griffon spread his wings and propelled himself into the air, his armor raining shells as his machine guns ripped through a Crimson pegasus in a short burst of lead.

“They’re not going to find a railgun,” Gauge said, watching the aerial dance of death above us.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“You’d be amazed what those bastards talk about when they think you’re not listening,” he replied. “Carrion always figured that the Sentinels would try to retake the Fort one day, so he made sure there wasn’t anything left here that they could use against one of his gunships. He was planning on doubling the garrison here and stationing a ringbird here full time, but you guys attacked sooner than he expected. He was still sorting the spoils he’d taken from his last raid: us.”

The pain in my chest had subsided to a throbbing ache, so I carefully sat up and peered over the crates. Apart from the air battle, most of the Sentinels had already vanished into the buildings, leaving the unarmed prisoners outside in their mad dash for cover. Still, some of the pegasi had broken off from the skies to free their comrades in arms as best they could, though some Sentinels in the buildings were taking shots at them whenever they got too close. Even if they weren’t armed, there were still plenty of weapons lying around the battleground, and the Sentinels wouldn’t be able to deal with the gunship and that many troops rejoining the fight.

We needed to drop the ringbird, fast, but we didn’t have anything that could do it. I’d even lost my SM45 in the gun tower when the ringbird nearly killed us, so I was unarmed as well. How I wished I knew some fire magic to help out. Assuming I survived today with my freedom intact, I was going to go devour as many pyromancy spellbooks as I possibly could.

But watching the ringbird hover there, motionless as its guns tried to pick off the Sentinels flying around it and its rockets pounded the buildings below, I suddenly came up with an idea that just might be stupid enough to work.

“Hey, Gauge,” I said, trying to assemble the details in my head. “How hard would it be to topple that radio tower?”

Gauge poked his head out from behind cover and frowned as he looked at it. “How it hasn’t fallen over yet is beyond me. The cables aren’t spaced evenly, and breaking just one would be enough to send it toppling over.” His eyes widened as he realized what I was getting at. “I hope your friends won’t be too upset if we start breaking things.”

“If it swats that damn ringbird out of the sky, then I think they’ll forgive us.”

“Right.” The zebra went back to analyzing my insane plan, and nodded. “It can work. We just need it to stay still until the tower hits it.”

“It doesn’t look like it can move very fast while it’s shooting,” I said, watching the thing lazily glide above the Fort as its cannons blazed. “And there’s lots of things to shoot at.”

Gauge nodded. “Then let’s hope your friends can get it to shoot while it’s in the right spot. If we break that cable,” he said, pointing about two hundred or so yards to our left, “the tower will fall toward the river.”

“And then we’re heroes,” I said, smirking a bit. Grunting, I stared down the path to the cable and tried to steel myself against the pain coming. At least my broken rib was too far down to bother my lungs, otherwise it would’ve been impossible to run. “Ready?”

SCaR helpfully whistled and lowered itself until it was hovering only a foot off the ground.

“As I’ll ever be,” Gauge said. “If this works…”

I would’ve asked ‘what’s the worst that could happen’ if the list of everything that could go wrong and all the ways we could die doing this wasn’t so fucking long.

The moment the ringbird faced away from us, we broke out into a gallop across the open ground. My chest burned and I relied on Gauge’s shoulder to keep moving, but I refused to give in to the pain and kept pushing. The first fifty or so yards passed without any mishap, and I could hear the blood roaring in my ears as I struggled to push myself. Maybe we could get through this after all.

That’s when SCaR blared an alarm and bullets began dancing around us, biting the dirt as a pegasus or two spotted our mad dash. Their automatics were horridly inaccurate at range, but they spit out so many bullets that sheer probability said we were going to get shot up sooner rather than later. “Em!” Gauge shouted, moving his head in the direction of a large pile of scrap metal and patches lying on the ground, and I grasped his meaning easily enough. Horn bursting to life, I seized a large panel of thick steel and hefted it over the two of us, providing us with some sort of mobile cover. And not a moment too soon, either; as soon as I had the thing in place, I heard it rattle as bullets pinged off of it.

Still, telekinesis doesn’t make things weightless, and galloping across an open field while being shot at and while it felt like my bones were trying to claw their way out of my chest meant trying to keep the heavy piece of steel over us was exhausting work. We managed to cover only another fifty yards before I pointed towards a nearby building and we dashed to it, jumping inside the open door before I lost my grip on our cover. As soon as we were inside, I spread my legs, and mustering all the magic I could, I flung the steel patch like an enormous discus at our pursuers. It didn’t carry a lot of force or go very far, but we were being pursued so closely that it didn’t really matter. With startled squawks, the pegasi pursuing us dispersed to avoid getting clobbered by the thing, though I did hear one brief cry of pain that left me smugly satisfied before SCaR darted inside and Gauge slammed the door shut.

Of course, my satisfaction disappeared real quick when I felt the heat of a wing laser hovering an inch from my throat.

Thankfully, Commander Thunder recognized me before he could finish slicing my head off, though with all the headache I’d given him today, I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had continued anyway. Frowning, he lowered his wing, and the other Sentinels with him likewise relaxed. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “You’re still alive? I’m impressed. We saw the ringbird blow up the watchtower you two were in.” He gave me a respectful nod, adding, “Much as it pains me to admit it, your warning saved a lot of lives. Most of us were already mobilizing or in cover when the ringbird came.”

We flinched when another explosion rocked the Fort—well, okay, I flinched, but the Sentinels didn’t even seem to notice. SCaR buzzed when a chunk of debris from the ceiling whacked one of its thrusters, and Gauge gently patted the drone like he was trying to soothe it. Scowling, Thunder kicked an ammo crate, knocking it over and sending loose bullets scattering across the floor of the building. “I’m trying to coordinate my teams, but the Crimson’s reinforcements are making organizing an effective defense difficult. Our best bet is a rocket swarm to overwhelm the gunship’s point defenses, but there are only seven assault troopers, and that was before the gunship arrived. And launching a rocket swarm is going to expose my ponies to its fire. The fliers can dodge those cannons all day, but an earth pony will get cut down the moment they’re spotted if they’re not moving.” He motioned to the several smashed open crates around him. “I was hoping there would be a railgun to shut it down, but the Crimson cleaned house when they took over.”

“Well…” I said, grinning at Gauge. “I did have an idea that might help us.”

Thunder’s eyes narrowed. “And?”

“I was thinking we could drop the radio tower on it,” I said. “It’s leaning and I don’t think it works anyway, right?”

Thunder shook his head. “We were never able to get the radio tower working again, but we didn’t need it. The Fort was connected to the Bastion by underground cables, and we had our own radios that were powerful enough to communicate back and forth.” He paused, obviously thinking over my plan, and determining whether or not it had a chance to succeed. “You would need to get the ringbird to hold still while you dropped a tower on it. It can’t change velocity when it’s using its point defense, though. Its computers aren’t powerful enough to generate a firing solution while it’s maneuvering and turning.” I could see the pieces falling into place, and he nodded. “A smaller rocket swarm would keep it in place. If we’re not actually trying to kill it with the swarm, then that will expose less of my soldiers to its fire. But first we have to draw its attention. Where are you going to drop the tower on it?”

Gauge cleared his throat and stepped forward. “There’s a cable about a hundred yards from here that’s exposed. If we cut it, the tower is leaning enough that it’ll fall across the middle of the river.”

Thunder shook his head. “That’s not accurate enough, but I think I see a solution.” His holographic visor flickered as he did some things with his thoughts, and then he spoke again. “Sergeants Zip, Lightning Wing, Freefall, this is Commander Thunder Dash. Rally your wings at the radio tower. We’re going to cut the lines and drop it on the gunship. Prepare to give it the push it needs to land on target. Sergeants Hammer Hoof, Dozer, and Foundry, draw the bird over the river, but keep out of its fire as best you can. When I give the signal, you’re to shower it with rockets to keep it in place. Keep the barrage going for as long as you can, but don’t worry about effectiveness or exposing yourself to air attack. We’re only abusing a flaw in its point defense, not killing it outright.”

He turned to me and slid a metal box over. Inside were a dozen little metal discs about two hooves across. “Set demo charges on the cable and blow them after the other two go down. I can’t guarantee that you’ll stay out of fire, but the two of you should be able to move unnoticed once the rest of us draw them away. Do you understand?”

I couldn’t help but salute and grab the box in my magic. “Sir, yes sir!”

Hey, I was enjoying playing soldier. In spite of how fucking awful things seemed to be going right now, that the Sentinels had not only accepted my plan but were helping me act on it felt great. Don’t blame me for finding something to get excited about.

“Sentinels, ready yourselves!” Thunder shouted, slamming his hoof against the ground. “We’re splitting into two teams. I’m attacking the eastern cable, sergeant Ironbark will take the other. We move once the ringbird is distracted.”

My ears twitched in the ensuing silence, straining to pick up muffled noise through the shut door. Soon enough, however, we heard the chatter of numerous Sentinel machine guns and the explosions of rockets detonating, and Thunder opened the door. “They’re engaging the ringbird, move, move, move!”

The Sentinels obeyed his command, wasting no time in pouring out the door and striking off in the direction of their objectives, filling the skies with bullets and suppressing fire to keep the Crimson pegasi away. Once they were all out, Thunder turned to us and nodded. “Best of luck. We’re counting on you two.” Then in a flurry of feathers, he was gone, leaving Gauge and I in the armory by ourselves.

We waited a few seconds for the Sentinels to draw fire away from the armory before moving toward the door. Gauge inhaled and let out a sharp breath, like he couldn’t believe he was doing this. “Ready?” he asked me, pausing by the doorframe when he saw me nosing through some crates. “Em?”

I found what I was looking for in the armory and levitated it over: a burst fire Bronco BR12A assault rifle. It wasn’t the BR11 marksmare rifle I was used to, and it definitely didn’t say Fortitude on it, but it’d do nicely. Plus the range was a significant improvement over my lost SM45. I quickly loaded the rifle with a fresh mag and stuck four more in my saddlebag for the time being and powered on the sights. Numbers flashed on the holo-sight telling me the range to whatever I was pointing at, plus the number of shots left in the magazine. Definitely an improvement over my submachine gun that just went ‘ding’ whenever it was empty. Grinning from ear to ear, I trotted over to Gauge with my new prize held proudly in the air. “I’m fucking ready.”

SCaR wolf whistled in response, and Gauge slapped the drone, which retorted with an angry whirring noise.

I poked my head out of the doorway, checking the skies to make sure we weren’t being watched, then kind of ran in some combination of limping and galloping as my ribs would let me. Gauge stuck close by my side, again providing me the support I needed to actually move at a decent pace, and we took off toward the cables, hugging the buildings to stay out of sight. SCaR led the way from above, beckoning to us when the coast was clear and guiding our movements. Up above us, the ringbird stalked some Sentinels on the ground, moving closer to the river, and stopping in place every so often to pluck an antimatter rocket out of the sky. By the radio tower, I could see the glint of Sentinel armor as they wheeled about in midair, doing their best to dodge incoming fire and cut down the Crimson trying to get to them. There was so much chaos everywhere that Gauge and I managed to make it to the support cable unnoticed.

Well, almost unnoticed. I heard SCaR cry in alarm right as we reached the cable and looked overhead to see two Crimson that had broken off from the fight pointing at us. Tossing the box of demo charges on the ground (which, in hindsight, probably isn’t the safest way to handle explosives), I found a column holding up the Fort’s wall to hide behind. “Place the charges!” I rasped to Gauge as I sighted in on the first pegasus. Then I fired.

It was electrifying. The weapon chattered with a crisp bark, spitting out three bullets in a single pull of the trigger. Recoil dampeners built into the rifle kept it from straying off my target as it fired, and the receiver ejected the spent shells safely toward the ground on my right so they wouldn’t ricochet off anything near me. The numbers in the sights clicked down from thirty to twenty-seven, and the middle bullet let off the bright glow of a tracer round before whizzing past the wings of the pegasus I was aiming at.

Sure, I missed, but the point is that the BR12A is a sexy gun. SCaR had good taste at least.

Plus, even though I missed, I’d successfully gotten the attention of both pegasi away from Gauge and his drone while they planted the charges. I fired two more bursts at the pegasi to no avail, then darted across the open ground until I had the shadow of another building to hide under. A round grazed the tip of my ear, making me wince in pain, but once I was under cover they couldn’t hit me from directly above any more. They’d have to come down to my level to fight me, which is exactly what I wanted.

Thankfully, they were more than happy to oblige, although they decided to be really stars-damned annoying about it and land on either side of me. I was able to jump back into a nook in the wall for cover as they both fired at me, and bullets slammed into steel struts on both my left and right, spraying me with hot little flakes of lead as their rounds shattered. Using my telekinesis, I poked the barrel of my rifle out to my left and fired two bursts before flipping the thing over and shooting two bursts to the right, getting them both to duck back in cover. Then I made my move.

Even as I finished the second burst to the right I was galloping out of cover and charging the pegasus on my left. He barely had time to poke his head out from behind the shot-up crate he’d hidden behind before I was on him, firing wildly as I closed the distance. The first burst missed and the second burst hit the dirt right next to him, but the third was on target, stopping him quite literally dead in his tracks before he could fire back at me. My rifle let out a mechanical squawk as I took that pegasus’ cover, and a simple button press ejected the spring-loaded magazine so I could slide a fresh box in. The whole process didn’t even take a second, and the weapon itself greedily bit down on the magazine and loaded the first bullet without even a thought on my end. Stars, this thing was amazing.

I whirled around my cover only to see that my second adversary was waiting for me. Almost as soon as my orange and yellow mane appeared he was firing, and I instinctively flinched back and hit the dirt before I caught any bullets with my face. The bandit stopped firing as soon as I disappeared, which told me he was smart enough to conserve ammo, which meant he was smart enough to plan. If I hunkered down behind cover for too long, he was likely going to take wing and hit me where I wouldn’t see him coming, or get some reinforcements from his friends in the sky. I needed to kill him before either of those happened.

Well, it’d worked well before, I guessed it was time for the encore.

I had three crates in front of me to use, so I tested them with my magic. Not too heavy, and sturdy enough to block a few bullets. I smirked and made sure my rifle was ready. Time to have some fun.

My orange glow wrapped around the first crate and flung it full force at the pegasus’ cover. It collided with it like a bowling ball, knocking over the metal standing cover he’d been using to hide behind, forcing him to take wing. The second crate I tossed at him directly but a little off to the right, trying to force him away from the buildings, and he dodged just as I hoped, flying off to my left. Using the last crate to shield myself and steady my rifle, I fired several tight bursts at him in anticipation of his moves.

I think I startled Gauge when the body landed right behind him with a wet crunch.

I trotted over to him in time to see him grimace and gingerly step around the body, averting his eyes from the missing half of the stallion’s skull. He chucked a little aluminum box with a red button on it to me, and I caught it in my magic. “Charges are set. We just have to wait for the others to do their thing.”

I nodded, then eyed the charges we were standing next to. “Yeah, let’s get out of here before we blow these things up.”

“No, I thought we’d want to be standing next to the twelve fusion explosives I just slapped onto a cable ten feet behind us,” he retorted, rolling his eyes. “SCaR was feeling a bit chilly.”

I frowned and held the detonator between the two of us. “I could light our asses up right now, you know.”

Gauge just smirked and trotted past me. “I’ve led a good life, don’t know about you.”

We found a spot on the wall to sit and simply wait for the signal. It took all of my willpower to not chew on my hooves, and I kept scanning the sky for signs of my friends. Thankfully, Sig was the only griffon in the air, so he wasn’t too hard to find, but Zip was a little more difficult. I would think I’d caught a glimpse of her, but then she’d disappear back into the melee and I’d lose her again. Meanwhile, the ringbird had come to a stop on the opposite side of the tower, where a slow but steady trickle of rockets seemed to keep it anchored in place. I did notice that it apparently could still use its guns while it was stuck fending off missiles. I just hoped it wasn’t getting any kills.

My thoughts were interrupted by a concussive boom shaking the Fort from somewhere off to the left, and I saw the first cable on the tower snap and fly upwards as it released its tension. Almost immediately afterwards, the cable on the right did the same, and I think I saw the whipping cable slice an unlucky pegasus in half. That had to hurt.

“Now!” Gauge shouted, slapping me in the shoulder. Without any more hesitation, I pressed the button on the detonator, and promptly lost hearing as the demo charges exploded.

The concussive force from the explosion was enough to knock Gauge and I backwards and send SCaR spinning wildly out of control, even though we were at least a hundred feet away, and the blast sent shrapnel flying everywhere. I ducked as a length of steel embedded itself in the steel walls right next to me, and flinched as the heat of the explosion made the ends of my mane and tail curl up. Still, that was the last support, and with nothing to hold it, the leaning tower groaned as it buckled and bent under its own weight. The rusty monstrosity lumbered toward the river, and I saw the Sentinels fly away from it after giving it a push in the right direction.

The ringbird underneath wasn’t lucky. Locked in place from the continual barrage of rockets, it couldn’t move out of the way as the tower fell downwards. The ring that gave it lift shattered in two as the tower struck it, and a hundred little rotor blades came spewing out of it in all directions as it broke. Now helpless underneath the tower, the cannons on the ringbird fired wildly into the air as it was swatted down, ending with an enormous fireball of an explosion somewhere behind the buildings where I couldn’t see it. Acrid black smoke rose into the air, and the chatter of detonating ammunition punctured the night, until finally, finally, all was quiet again.

I jumped into the air and cheered. Never mind my broken rib; we’d just taken down a fucking ringbird. The Fort was securely in Sentinel hooves. If I was Carrion, I’d be hesitant to launch another counterattack after the first one ended with the destruction of one of his few, precious gunships. The battle was over.

Two sets of wings fluttered down by my side, and I saw Zip and Sig standing on the wall next to us. Zip was panting and panting from her nonstop flying, her mane drenched in sweat and grime, but she was grinning. Leaning over, she slapped me on the shoulder. “We did it! We’re alive! Take that, you bastards!”

Seeing that spark of excitement in her eyes, that cheerful grin on her muzzle, the fluttering of her sooty eyelashes, I couldn’t help myself. I threw my bags on the ground and launched myself at her, going straight for the muzzle. We rolled across the ground before I ended up on top of her, muzzle to muzzle, my lips firmly planted against hers, humming in joy and ecstasy. She gasped in surprise, but she didn’t stop my tongue from finding hers. I felt her legs tighten around my flanks as she found something to grip onto, and she ran her good hoof through my mane, pulling me closer.

I heard Sig and Gauge chuckling and jabbing me with some joke or something, but I didn’t care. Fuck everything that’d happened today. It couldn’t touch me now. This was my moment, and I was going to enjoy it for as long as I could.

After we broke for breath, it was Zip who pulled me back down again for round two.

Today was fucking awesome.