The children rapidly comply, falling in line and trotting happily behind the ultra shiny pegasus.

Handy watches them march by for a while and near the end of the procession he says, “Nettlekiss might have a problem with it. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Gearing continues on, head held high, as he leads them down the stairs. “I’ll take care of it. I can work enough to make it worthwhile.” He continues on a bit further and says as he reaches the top of the stairs, “Now, children, the bad ponies are down here. But, don’t worry, they can’t hurt you anymore… Just try not to step in any of them. You don’t want that on you.”

The children dutifully follow, with Apple Armor looking around with a scowl at anything and everything and just waiting to see something he doesn’t like. The children all pause on the stairwell. He looks around at them, and they all take in the sight of the battlefield in front of the door of the stable. They cringe and walk carefully around the various bodies, trying carefully not to step on any of them as they make their way to the stable’s main door.

Apple Amour’s head whips around. “You said you killed them all. Where’s Bradoak?”

Gearing looks over his shoulder at Apple Armor and says flatly, “I did kill them all…” He trots over and points down at the pile of goop that represents where Bradoak had a meltdown of his own. “Here he is…” He looks down at the pile and snorts in disgust. “Or what’s left of him, anyway.”

One of the older colts asks, as he cringes looking at one of the buck’s corpses, noticing the bloody matted splotches all over the pelt and the foam coming out of its mouth and nose, “Just… what did you do… to them…?”

Gearing shakes and stands up straight as he looks the children over. They all stare back at him with a mixture of fear and confusion, but with just a hint of hope. “I killed them. Of course. They deserved no less for what they’d done to you.” He shakes his head then strikes his pose again, with his wings unfurled straight up, and says, “I’d do the same to any who tried to hurt little foals.”

This goes a long way to winning the admiration of the children as they trot the rest of the way down the stairs and continue on to the doorway to the stable. Gearing zips over to the stable door, and sees Swift coming out with a scowl on her face.

Swift looks behind all of them and yells, “Handy, would you shut up for a moment?”

Gearing shakes his head and looks back at Handy. And, at this moment, he realizes that Handy had continued his fussing the whole way down here, and he’d just entirely tuned him out.

Swift looks the children over and asks with a warm smile, “And who do we have here?”

Gearing waves a hoof over all of them. “The Gunners had them enslaved with bomb collars. I rescued them from that, and we gave them something to eat… But, I was hoping that we might have some more to spare and was planning on talking with Nettlekiss about letting them stay.”

“Our resources are tight as it is, Gearing, for the umpteenth time!” Handy continues. “We can’t make any promises that-“

Swift says rather loudly, cutting off Handy, “Well then!” She looks them all over and gives them a smile. “Come along. To the medical bay with you. My, you’re all just filthy! Let’s get you seen.”

“But,” Handy says.

“-and then we’ll get some food in your tummies…” Swift continues, ignoring Handy.

“We can’t-“ Handy tries.

Swift uses a forehoof and starts herding the children inside. “Come along. Come along. We need to get this door shut.” She looks at Gearing. “Don’t worry about Nettlekiss. I’ll deal with her.” Then turns around and heads inside leading the way deeper into the stable. Nahlah patters by and raises both front paws in shrug as she grins at Handy before continuing inside, with the violet unicorn riding on her back.

The violet filly holds on as she lays out and nuzzles into Nahlah’s back. “Sooo fluffffffyyy.”

“Horseapples,” Handy complains with a stamp of his hoof.

Gearing turns and grins at Handy, not saying anything.

Handy eyeballs him for a few moments then says as his ears lay back, “You conniving son of a bitch! You were planning that from the get go, weren’t you? You knew. Just knew that the moment she saw those kids she wouldn’t be able to say ‘no’!” He flops down on his rear and folds his forehooves. “It’s not fair to play on a woman’s motherly instincts like that.”

Gearing just shrugs, then turns his back on the stable as he says, “Actually I really was going to talk with Nettlekiss about it. I’m sure she’d let them stay.”

Handy tilts his head. “Oh, really, smart guy? Just how are you so sure about that? Netltekiss hates stallions.”

Gearing sits down and puts a hoof on his chest as he closes his eyes. “I can be quite persuasive when the time calls for it.”

“You have nothing.” Handy rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t be able to convince her to do squat.”

Gearing stands up and starts walking towards Handy. “Oh, I’m sure I could… you see… I’m the only one that can ensure her foal’s long term survival… If nothing else, I don’t need any resources that the foal might.” He shrugs and waves a hoof. “And, I was going to put it to her this way… Either she lets them stay, or I leave with them… She can either let her foal be one of seventeen that I’m protecting… or I leave to keep the other sixteen safe… sixteen foals verses one… it’s straight math.”

Handy rolls his eyes. “You’re not that important, Gearing. You’re overestimating your value.”

Gearing continues walking by, but leans towards him as he says, “She has information you don’t … being connected to that mainframe means she knows the value of my credentials…” He straightens up and continues to look over the stable. “There’s no need to bluff… when you’re holding a royal flush.”

Handy shakes his head. “One of these days that ego is going to come back and bite you in your metallic ass.”

Gearing spins around and holds his right hoof high in the air as he fans out his wings. “But! Tis not this day!”

Handy slaps a hoof over his eyes, then looks around at the bodies cluttering up the entryway. “Well. Come on, Gearing. Help me bury these bodies.”

Gearing looks them over and asks, “What’s the point in that? Couldn’t we just toss them out? Garbage disposal?”

Handy looks at him and narrows his eyes. “They were still ponies… We may have needed to kill them, but we can at least respect the dead… If nothing else…” He turns back towards the bodies. “It lets us keep true to ourselves just that much more. That we aren’t like them. That we’re better than them.”

“No,” Gearing says flatly. Handy stares daggers at him, but his eyes go wide as Gearing points towards the stable. “The children prove we are better than them. We just want them to have happy lives. To have full bellies… These are pieces of trash that just see them as objects to be used, abused, and sold!” He kicks one of the earth pony buck’s corpse with a powerful buck, sending the head flying off as the tissues had already been badly damaged. Gearing snorts a few more times. “These weren’t ponies. They were monsters. Don’t compare me to them. Don’t you even dare try.”

Handy puts his forehooves up in the air and says in resignation, “Fine. I’ll do it myself.” He gets up and starts over towards the top of the stairs.

“No you won’t,” Gearing replies. Handy looks back at him, but can’t help smiling when Gearing continues, “I said I’d help the stable. And prove I’m useful. I won’t do this for them… but…” Gearing smiles lightly. “I’ll do it for you… and help lighten your burden… Go get us some shovels and I’ll start getting these bodies upstairs.”

Handy turns around and heads back to the stable but stops at the door as Gearing calls out to him. He turns to look at Gearing, and notices that Gearing’s normally over bravado-ed attitude has substantially dampened, literally according to the light.

“There’s a foal in the cage… She- she didn’t make it.” He looks up at Handy and says flatly, “She gets to be put in the ground first. Before I can help with them… She deserves her own spot… away from them. I feel like I owe her that much.”

Handy nods and heads inside as he yells back, “Okay. I can respect that.” By the time Handy has made it back topside, Gearing has already cleared a good portion of a deep hole with his bare hooves. His hooves, unlike most of Equestria’s denizens, are practically mini excavators, made from hardened metal with a nice recess in the center that makes them great for scooping. Handy can’t help but snicker as he looks at Gearing’s rear end high in the air as he’s scooping and throwing dirt with his forehooves back and between his hind legs like some rabbit digging a burrow.

Handy spits out the pair of shovels and asks, “Do you even need these?”

Gearing turns around and looks at them, then up at Handy and smiles. He holds up his hooves and shows how rocks have managed to wedge themselves between the hoof. “I can dig pretty well with these, but rocks get stuck in there and it’s such a bitch. I’d rather use a shovel.” He grabs one by Handy’s hooves and starts finishing up the hole. He pauses long enough to wave with a forehoof a distance away. “I already marked a spot for those Gunners. Start digging over there and I’ll be right with you as soon as I get her in the ground.”

Handy nods solemnly, grabs the shovel, and trots off as indicated. He finds a giant piece of rebar sticking out of the ground, and some hoof marks in the ground around it laying out a general area to dig. It’d be a mass grave. There’s no individual plots for these individuals, but it’s better than leaving them out in the open to rot. Handy looks around and notices that, from most angles, this area is out of view. The mostly collapsed building right next to it, with a pile of bricks that lead up to the edge of the predetermined boundary takes up one side, another pile of debris and boulders takes up another, and a wrecked vehicle of some kind takes up an angle that almost blocks the other two directions on a compass star. And, more importantly, apparently, there’s no direct line of sight to the service station, and Gearing, and thus the freshly dug grave is not only further away, but out of sight as well.

Even in death, she’ll never have to see them again.

Handy lets Gearing go about his business, while he gets to his own task at hoof, and jams the shovel’s blade into the rocky soil.

Gearing looks at Handy, who is panting and breathing heavily as he scoops the last of the dirt onto the large mound where the bodies had been placed. Gearing points at a spot under the shade and says, “Either sit down over there, or go back inside. I don’t need you collapsing on me out of exhaustion.”

Handy looks at him, and does neither. Instead flopping down in place as he focuses on his breathing and stares daggers at Gearing. He asks in between pants, “How. Is it. Possible. You’re. Still. Going?”

Gearing looks at him and grins. “I told you. Don’t underestimate me… My endurance can’t be beat.”

Handy uses his shovel to prop himself up. “Gotta. Sleep. Sometime.”

Gearing shakes his head. Then starts walking around and stomping on the mound. At first, Handy is appalled. Gearing’s literally walking over their grave. But, before he can say anything, mainly because of his current lack of breath, he notices that Gearing is, in fact, compacting the dirt down to the ground. He watches, with amazement, how the metallic pegasus just tramples the dirt into obedience and makes it nearly flat, but not quite, even after many repeated passes of leveling out the ground.

As Handy watches, Gearing grabs a set of debris, in a bundle, then walks over the grave backwards, sweeping his head, and the bundle, side to side as it disrupts the soil. He follows it up with a scattering of other debris, and dead grass, and twigs, and random bits of metal. Then in a move that actually brings Handy back to his hooves with indignation, Gearing starts bucking stacks of bricks off the piles and down further, partially covering the grave even further.

“The fuck are you doing that for!?” Handy manages to bark out clearly.

Gearing jumps from the pile of bricks, catches some wind, and lands near Handy. “Covering up the graves… I know you might not like the idea… but if someone comes looking for a dozen missing ponies, and happens to come across a dozen fresh graves… It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Then we’ll have a much bigger problem.” He throws his head back towards the partially camouflaged graveyard. “They’re buried. That’s more than we owed them, and far more than they deserved… We’re not risking the lives of the foals just to be nice to a pile of pony refuse.”

Handy shakes his head and says softly, “They were still ponies… How can you just be so calm about it?”

Gearing looks at Handy and continues on, “If you focus too much on a single battle, you’ll lose sight of the war.” He stops just long enough to point his hoof at the mass grave. “Don’t lose sight of your children, worrying about those who would have killed them.”

Handy doesn’t like the oversimplification, and again is gaining suspicions of the mechanical wonder walking among them. It wouldn’t be the first bot to have gone rogue. Hell, most bots in the wasteland seem to have lost their damn mind. Assuming they had one in the first place. He shakes his head and resolves to talk with Swift about the situation more. This is still really unsettling for him, and he doesn’t like it being brushed off so easily.

Life shouldn’t be so easily dismissed. And what would this mechanical ‘pegasus’ know about life? His compassion for the dead filly had made Handy temporarily forget that Gearing’s not organic. Had made him think of Gearing as another pony long enough to be concerned for him overworking himself. This cold disregard for the dead had snapped him out of that illusion.

Handy trots over, rather grumpily, with the pair of shovels in his mouth. A bell ringing catches his ear and he comes back around the corner of the station and notices the wagons. He’d been so caught up in everything, he’d forgotten about checking them for supplies. He walks over, and to the side, noticing the brahmin attached to the front. He continues along the side, taking note of all the bags and crates stuffed in the floor section where the driver would normally sit. A couple pieces of equipment catches his eye, and he decides it’d be a much better idea to get this off the road and inside before trying to sort through everything.

He grabs the reins of the brahmin, and leads them to turn around. It takes him a few moments to realize they aren’t moving, because they are tied to a metal pole. He facehooves, undoes the rope, and finds them mercifully easy to guide as they follow along as he directs them into the stable, taking a ramp that he activates for cargo delivery.

Gearing stays outside for some time, using a variety of tools and carving on a large rock that he’s found. After finally finishing his drawings, he uses a metal sheet as a sled and drags it over to the grave of the filly he’d buried. He spins the rock around, and sets it up, turning it so the writing faced him and where she rested in the soil.

He pulls out a cloth, and gives the rock a quick wipe down, which seems to make the etching pop out further.

A pair of small angelic looking ponies with halos fly on each side at the top, with the sun in the center.

Below it is the filly’s name, gleaned from Apple Armor, and a small obituary. One that Handy, like seemingly many things Gearing has decided on, hated from the moment he saw it. But, he would never be able to understand. The desire for freedom above all else.

Gearing tests the rock, and makes sure it’s steady, before sitting down in front of it in silence for a while. He lays out a small teddy bear that he’d scavenged, and rests a faux flower of unknown lineage between the stuffed animal’s arms. He rests a hoof on the top of the grave marker and says with a sigh, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there. I’m sorry that no one was there for you when you needed them most. But, I’m here now. And your friends are safe. And I’ll do what I can to make sure that they stay that way… So… rest little one…”

He turns and heads back into the station. On the way he finds the tracks of the wagon leading to where the wagon had been sitting, and notices the wagon had been turned around and taken into the station. Out on the road, the tracks are much harder to follow. He takes in a deep breath, and lets it out in a sigh, before grabbing some scraps and going out to remove the trail. He starts from the station, and goes backwards out into the road, and destroyed the tracks where they mingled with many others. Then, he hopped over to where the wagon had been, and gave the same treatment for a distance to the road, and further down.

It’s not a perfect job by any means, but is far better than the ‘Hey, come on inside!’ beacon that Handy apparently left for anyone looking for a group of missing mercenaries to find.

After he’s downstairs he notices that all of the supplies they had scavenged from the mercs was gone, including the blasting materials they had brought down. And, above all, he notices the stable door. The massive hunk of metal designed to withstand a near direct hit from a balefire bomb blast. It’s paint declaring Stable 68 slightly faded, and chipping in places, in all of it’s glory and intimidating presence. He can see all of it.

Because it’s closed.

Gearing sits there looking at it for a few moments. Many things run through his head. He chuckles. Then he actually laughs.

“Well,” Gearing says to himself, “at least they threw me out this way, instead of shooting me the second I turned my back… I suppose I should be grateful for that…” He looks up at the door, following the edges of the seam where the irregular shaped door slides into place. He raises a hoof against his brow in salute. “Well, 68… at least you’re taking care of the foals. I’m okay with this trade. It’s been a pleasure.” He breaks the salute and turns around to leave.

“Hey, dumbass stallion, you going to come in here, or you want to fuck around out there talking to yourself a bit more?” the annoyed voice of Nettlekiss comes out of the speakers around the door.

Gearing spins around with his jaw on the floor. “Wha?”

“You promised to fix this place up, and take care of my foal. Instead you’ve been running around making a mess of my entrance, and filling up what space I have with a bunch of bottomless pit brats!”

Gearing walks back up to the door. “Sooo you’re letting me back in?”

“Well, yeah, it’s kind of hard to fix the stable from the outside… stupid stallion.” At that, the lights kick on, and the automatic welcome message plays as the door begins to open. “Attention stable residents. The stable door is now opening. Please remain clear of the door until it has come to a complete stop.”

He feels himself choke up as he’s walking forward, and the door opens, and he’s welcomed, and feels welcome, genuinely, by the end of the message. “Welcome, to Stable 68. Safety underground.”

He hops over the still moving gangplank and enters the stable. The entrance has been converted to a defensive structure, with a variety of items used to make impromptu barricades. Thick metal desks seem to be the go to as they are overturned and surrounded with a variety of boxes and general debris.

Gearing’s head swivels side to side as he asks, “Where’s everyone else?”

Sarge, the only one there, standing at the exact end of the catwalk material replies, “I was ordered to stand here and await your return. You took your damn time, you zebra loving muckraker!”

Gearing starts passing him, but strikes a pose as he lifts his head slightly and grins while looking at Sarge sideways. “Of course. There was a lot of pony shaped muck to be raked, and I wanted to make sure it was good, dead, and buried.”

Sarge starts laughing. Loudly. “Quit trying to get on my good side, ya zebra lover.”

Gearing heads to medical, following the tag location on his pipbuck to find Handy. He’s stopped outside the door as Handy is exiting and the two stare at each other for a few moments. Handy nods back behind him as he says, “Nettlekiss agreed they can stay, as long as they don’t cause any problems and we can support it…”

Gearing strikes his pose then points both forehooves at Handy. “Gotcha!”

Handy rolls his eyes then runs a hoof through his mane. “Yeah, but this place has a loooong way to go before we can even think about that…”

Gearing folds his hooves and raises an eyebrow. “Hey. Earth pony… get the rocks out of your head and start giving me some tasks… start off low risk if you really want, but the more you give me at once the more I can get done.”

Handy looks at his pipbuck, then taps out some commands and sends a list to Gearing. “Here, you try to do something with these.”

Gearing looks at it, and asks as his eyes come across the most critical on the list, “The reactor? That’s in the lower levels, aint it?”

Handy looks at it and groans. “Yeah. You’re right. Forget it for now and do-“

Gearing waves a hoof. “Nope. Sounds like a great place to start. I just need someone to watch my back so nothing sneaks up on me while down there.”

Handy tilts his head. “We don’t know what’s down there, Gearing. There’s far worse things in the wasteland than just assholes with guns.”

Gearing beckons with his hooves. “Well. Lay it on me.”

Handy slaps a hoof over his eyes and sighs. “I don’t have time for everything, but, we’ve already run into radroaches in the stable. Damn things can get in anywhere it seems. We’re hoping it’s not because there’s a hole in the structure somewhere. That would mean a lot of much bigger problems coming in… Then, since this is a stable, and we haven’t found nearly enough bodies yet, there’s the possibility of ghouls.”

Gearing raises a hoof classroom style. “Mr. Hooves! What’s a ‘Ghoul’?”

Handy takes in a deep breath. “They’re like you, hard to explain. Generally, at least as DJ Pon3 says, they’re just like everypony else… except they look awful with skin falling off and everything… A product of way too much radiation exposure.”

Gearing waves a hoof. “That’s not really much of a problem for me…”

“Mmmhmm, sure… but the ghouls might be,” Handy reminds.

“So, what, just shoot them?”

Handy waves both of his hooves. “No! I mean, yes. I mean… look. Feral ghouls are cannibalistic monsters, they’ll attack and try to eat you. Shoot those… but the other ghouls… Don’t do anything unless they do something to you first. They are good people… or might be… despite how they look.”

Gearing tilts his head. “So if I try to talk to them and all they do is hiss and slobber and try to eat my brain, kill, otherwise let them go about their business?”

Handy snickers. “Sounds about as good as any description… don’t worry… you’ll know the difference when you see them. It’s hard to describe… but you’ll know.”

Gearing has his reservations, so he decides he’ll stick to some of his old training for rules of engagement. “So, about the extra pair of eyes?” Gearing asks.

Handy looks over at Sarge and says, “Sarge, you go with Gearing and keep him safe. I’m transferring temporary combat access to Gearing. Don’t attack anything unless Gearing tells you too, or it attacks you first.”

Sarge looks at him and says in an impressively mocking tone, “Yeess ssirrr.”

Gearing nods ahead, then leads the way, with Sarge following closely. He has to go through some locked doors, that the stable unlocks for him with Sarge’s requests, before they turn down a ramp and go into a door to the reactor level.

The reactor area is dark, dank, and in serious need of help. Just looking around he can see hours of work racking up, but, first, he needs to make sure the area’s safe before he gets started. Don’t need to get into the middle of something delicate and have to stop because some zompony is trying to have fillet of Gearing.

He looks at Sarge and motions towards the center of the room, where several pieces of equipment surround an open area. “Make sure the area’s secure, we’ll draw them out and take them together as a team. But, if I say retreat, we fall back and lock the doors behind us.”

Sarge nods and laughs as he rears up and raises his forehooves high in the air. “Oh yeaaaahhh! Sweet fulfillment! Come and get me you muckrakers!!!” Sarge begins blaring an air raid sounding siren, and magnifying his voice to be an ear splitting volume as he bolts to the center of the room. “I’m right here, you zebra loving maggots!” A moment later he zips around and looks off into the darkness at his side. “Yes! Yes! Come and get me! Time to squish!”

Gearing slinks through the shadows at the side, being careful as he advances. He can’t help but smirk at Sarge. He’s playing by the rules, but found a way to bypass them. A loophole. He’s annoying them into attacking him, thus triggering his self defense combat parameters. Smart.

Gearing is a little perplexed by what he sees come out of the shadows, in a small horde at that. Praying mantises. He remembers them from when he was a kid. But none quite this big. About the size of his foreleg cannon, if not bigger. And those claws are like razor blades. They jump and attack Sarge, slashing into metal all over, actually puncturing the armor plating in some places. Gearing is actually more worried about these bugs than all of those Gunners combined. Just look what they’re doing to the protectapony!

But, he’s no protectapony, and a hell of a lot smarter than this one, for sure.

Gearing zips out of the shadows, just quick and far enough to get the end of his stun rod to the back of one of the nymphs attacking Sarge, then hitting the button for only a moment. The giant puff of smoke and the creature falling over the moment the electricity kisses them let’s Gearing know that they don’t have a particularly strong fortitude, but numbers are a problem. He practically swims through the darkness, popping out at opportune times to attack when others won’t notice him. By the time they are done killing the first six, Gearing’s feeling pretty good about their odds. Then things got really shitty, really quickly as either Sarge’s targeting had taken a hit, or a nymph had gotten ridiculously lucky in dodging.

Either way, Sarge’s stray energy shot struck a piece of equipment, and various alarms start going off. The radiation alarm being the most problematic as warnings spew out of the various consoles about the impending danger. He has to abandon Sarge to fight the remaining nymphs alone as he examines the damage. Quickly looking back and forth, Gearing makes a snap decision, and jumps back into the fray long enough to put down the last two nymphs. Though the reactor needs his attention, the robot was losing, and starting to look rather rough, regardless of how much it was cackling in pure delight.

After the last bug is crushed under hoof, Gearing begins repairs on the console. A junction had fried, causing a miniature explosion, and a collection of wires were left disconnected and sparking their distaste of the change of events. He opens up a panel on another console and cannibalizes parts to make the quick fix.

A few moments later, Handy comes running into the area wearing a hazmat suit, and looks around at the room. He yells as loud as he possibly can, “Report!”

Gearing looks at Handy, closes the panel, and the alarm for the radiation leak ceases a moment later. He stares at Handy and grins. “Everything’s well in hoof.”

Handy looks around then yells out, “Sarge! Shut that noise off! Now!” Sarge grudgingly obliges then Handy walks over to look at the console and asks, “What happened though?”

Gearing points at the bugs. “We came in here to get some work done, and ended up fighting those things… One of Sarge’s beam weapons missed and hit this console. I’ve fixed it, for now, but we’re going to need some spare parts in case something like this happens again in the future… What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Handy looks around, opens the panel, takes a peak in, then looks at Gearing as he asks, “You did this? In the short time that it took me to get my suit on and get down here, you got it fixed?”

Gearing shrugs. “Killed a couple of the bugs in that timeframe too… yeah.”

Handy closes the panel then looks at him dumbfounded. “How?!”

Gearing puffs up and straightens his wings at an angle, “Because I’m a Glorious Bastard!”

Handy looks over at Sarge. “Is he lying?”

Sarge shakes his head, throwing out sparks. “Negative. The zebra lover assisted me in glorious combat with the bugs and they went squish! Baaahahahha! He stole a couple of my kills out from under my hoof, the bastard, then made the repairs to the console. Radiation leak stopped.”

“There really shouldn’t have been a leak from that hit.” Gearings adds, “My guess is there’s other problems, serious problems, that need to be fixed, but we should be good for a little while.”

Handy shakes his head then looks at Sarge. “Sarge, how are you?”

Sarge rocks back and forth with his forehoofs in the air. “I am glorious! I got to exercise my combat inhibitor, and squish the zebra loving maggots! Yes! Baahahahah!”

Handy looks at him for a moment, with the deep gashes and wires hanging from his chassis. “Sarge, report on your operational efficiency, now.”

Sarge laughs again. “Baahhahaha! I am operating at a glorious 32 percent efficiency!” A wire swings, and hits another area, sending out a spark and making Sarge shiver. “31 percent efficiency! Bahahahah! Squish more bugs!”

Handy slaps a hoof over his eyes and says, “Sarge. Combat maneuvers over. Report to maintenance immediately for repairs.”

Sarge turns and starts heading back up. “Yes! Good idea! Reload, repair, then reap the zebra lovers!”

Gearing starts heading in the same direction as he comments, “I’m going to find another area to work on while he’s getting fixed. I was right. I at least need someone watching my flank while working. Oh,” He pauses midstep as the thought crosses his mind, “Can you tell him to not use projectile weaponry inside unless he’s ordered to? His stray shot did far more damage than these bugs did.” He checks his pipbuck before he continues walking and adds, “Radiation levels aren’t bad, I stopped it in time. But, I’ll come back later to clean it up. Seal the area so no one gets contaminated.”

Handy trots after him as he grumbles. He doesn’t particularly like being told what to do. Even if what’s being said makes a lot of sense. Can’t anypony just ask him for once?

Footnote: Primary Node query timed out. Attempting secondary. . .

Secondary Node Not Responding. . .

Alerting local intranet for assistance, please stand by. . .

Thanks to everyone that's been helping with the story, from giving me ideas and thoughts to actually taking the time to give it a a peek and help me fix typos and other editing issues. More eyes DEFINITELY help, and your help is truly appreciated!

-Quillsy