I don’t know how long I sat in that office down the hall, sitting in the remains of an old and tattered chair. I do know that I was chain smoking like there was no tomorrow, and the moment I smoked a cigarette down to the butt, I tossed it aside and lit a new one. I’d gotten a whole ton of cigarettes while I was at Hole, and I already had a small pile of four sitting on the table next to me.

How had things gone so wrong? We were so close to the foundry, practically right on top of it, and then a tolan attacked us and Nova lost her wing. I still had some of her blood on my hooves, dried onto my coat. I’d left the bloody knife that I used to slice her wing off in the table, buried up to the hilt in the rotted wood. When I closed my eyes, I could see that awful, terrible mix of agony, fear, and betrayal in her eyes as I started cutting off a piece of her soul.

I dreaded having to face her when she woke up. I didn’t think I could look her in the eyes and tell her what I’d done.

Cigarette number five finally burnt out, and I tossed it onto the pile. I considered going for number six, but my throat was really fucking dry, and I’d left my canteen back in the room with Gauge and Nova. Plus, I had a little bit of a coughing fit, and when I finally finished with that, I wasn’t really in the mood for any more smokes. And my breath smelled really bad, bad enough that I noticed it. It was probably time to stop, even though one more hit of nicotine would be really great with how fucking stressed out I was.

But I put the box away, even though I wasn’t ready to go back to Gauge and Nova yet. I decided that maybe I could kill time and put off the inevitable by just exploring a bit. Maybe I’d find something useful in here, like another gun. There were a few small pistols in one of the bags that Gauge carried if need be, but I really wanted another rifle of some kind. If I happened to run into bandits with any kind of armor, I’d need something powerful enough to punch through it.

I really wish I had Sentinel armor right now. Those deflectors, laser blades, and six machine guns would be so fucking useful.

I pulled apart the desk in this little office, searching for anything of value. There were a lot of rotted papers and just general moldy trash, but I did find a sealed bottle of wildfire whiskey. I wasn’t interested in drinking any of that myself, but it’d probably be worth a lot of bullets to somepony, so I figured I’d hang onto it. Though I did have to imagine just how good whiskey that’s been aging for nearly two hundred winters would taste. It’s supposed to get better with age, right? Stars if I know, I hate alcohol.

I did find the remains of a manifest and a letter etched into some kind of flexible glass. I’d seen glass like that a few times before at the Bastion; usually important or sensitive messages were printed out onto it, and you could simply shatter the glass to destroy the message. I wondered why ponies didn’t just use paper though if any unicorn could burn it with a thought. I mean, Warped Glass had told me that almost all unicorns before the Silence knew how to make a basic flame, so wouldn’t that be more convenient?

But I wasn’t going to complain all that much, though. At least it meant that little slices of the past survived for me to read. Setting the manifest down and wiping some dust off of the glass, I started to read:

Mr. Billet,

I am writing to inform you that as per the orders of Her High Majesty Twilight Sparkle, your request for additional funding for the core mining of Mountain 831 has been approved. We will be moving fifty million bits into your company’s account for use on this project. In addition, Her High Majesty has insisted that you accept a further fifteen million bits to aid her generals in a matter of high importance to the Synarchy. You will be receiving a discreet shipment from the EOF Fluttershy in four days. We expect you to have a warehouse cleared for this shipment.

As a last reminder, the Synarchy is at war, and we need as much high quality steel as you can provide for us. The construction of warships is no small matter, and our navy is taxed enough as it is defending our country. Though your Auris foundry is small, it is incredibly important to us, as it is beyond the attacks and sabotages of the Enemy. As such, Her High Majesty has demanded that you increase the production of your foundry by 35% over the next month. The Fluttershy will be delivering griffons captured at the front to help boost production. As per standard protocol, they have already been declawed, blunted, and clipped, and should pose little threat in your foundry so long as a watchful eye is kept over them.

Remember, the Enemy is everywhere, and even though the location of Auris is a closely guarded state secret, there may be those who sympathize with the Enemy and may turn their treasonous thoughts into action. Ensure that all messages are approved by the appointed censor before they are cleared to leave the planet, and keep any news and discussion of the situation back on Equus only to your board. In fact, you and your company would be better off ignoring the situation entirely and focusing only on your duties.

We Survive Together,

Straight Margins

Secretary of Wartime Production

I put the glass down and frowned. It at least confirmed a few of my suspicions—Equestria was at war when the Silence happened, and they apparently had no qualms about using slave labor—but the rest was new to me. Auris’ location was a state secret? If nobody else knew that there was a colony on this planet and something bad happened to the Synarchy, it would at least explain in part why nopony (or nobody) had ever come and found us. And now I really wanted to know what that code had to say and why we were getting a probe now after so long. Maybe somepony was trying to find us again?

I pulled over the manifest and started to skim through it, though I doubted that I’d find any information about the special delivery the other letter mentioned. And I was right: the manifest was pretty boring stuff. Most of it had to deal with shipment numbers and how many thousands of tons of steel the foundry produced each day, week, month, and year. It looked like they were turning ore from Hole into steel as fast as they were mining it, and there was an obvious uptick in numbers between two months. I guess that was when they got their funding and griffon slaves to boost production numbers. I even did a little math and figured out that they’d increased their production by about forty percent, so they were pushing themselves even harder than what Equestria asked of them. I just wished that there was more to tell me about the situation back on Equus. Whatever was going on, Straight Margins made it sound like they were already straining their industry. Too bad that there weren’t any newspapers or anything here to read and get a glimpse into what life was like way back when.

And then I heard Nova wailing from the conference room. The cries of heart-rending sadness and despair made me slouch further into my chair. I really didn’t want to go over there… but she was my best friend. What kind of monster would I be if I wasn’t there for her? I’d be worse than the fucking tolan that did this to her in the first place.

I picked up my cigarette box and my knife and slowly hobbled back to the conference room. Nova’s anguished cries had stopped, but I could still hear her sobbing and sniffling. I lingered at the door for a few moments before I finally managed to muster up the courage to go inside.

She’d gotten off of the table and was instead curled up on the floor, her remaining wing wrapped tightly around her chest as she cried and rocked back and forth. Gauge was practically lying on her like a blanket, trying to hold his marefriend as close as he possibly could. There were even tears in his eyes, and he wiped them away a bit when he saw me enter. Nova didn’t react; she was too lost in her own little hell to notice me, at least at first.

I had no idea what to say. I didn’t even know what I could say. ‘Hey, I’m sorry I cut your wing off?’ I’m sure that would’ve gone over perfectly. Instead, I just walked to her side and sat down next to her, trying to nuzzle her and comfort her. But to my surprise, she flinched away from my touch, and she shot me this awful look of betrayal. “Why did you cut off my wing?!” she screamed at me, and I could feel the pain in every single one of her words. “How could you?! How could you?!”

I felt tears forming in my eyes. “Nova, I-I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry!” I pleaded. “But the tolan had your wing and if we didn’t do something fast it would’ve dragged you off with the door and it would’ve killed you and I didn’t have any other choice and I’m sorry!” I sniffled a bit and rubbed my hooves together, just completely unsure of what to do with them if Nova wouldn’t let me touch her. “I can’t imagine what it’s like but it was the only way to save your life.”

“Then you should have let me die!” she cried back. “Anything is better than being a one-winged freak! Anything!” She held the feathers of her wing up to her face and started rubbing them across her muzzle, I guess to try and comfort herself with the feeling. I saw the stump on her right shoulder twitch a bit beneath the bandaging and I immediately looked away in shame. “Why did you have to ruin my life?!”

I opened my mouth to reply, but I didn’t have any words. There simply wasn’t anything I could say to that. Thankfully, Gauge caught my eye, and he just slowly shook his head. I nodded in understanding. Maybe once Nova had some time to accept it, then I could properly forgive her for what I’d done.

But I didn’t keep thinking about that, though, because I heard something fall over outside, along with the staggering of hooves. Stepping away from Nova and Gauge, I stood up and slowly moved towards the door. “Who’s there?” I asked, carefully watching the doorway. “We’re armed, and I will shoot!” Even as I said it, I was rifling through Gauge’s bags for those spare pistols.

Then I heard some kind of hissing, choking noise, and the hoofsteps outside accelerated. In a split second, some… thing darted around the doorway. It looked like a pony, or at least enough that I’d probably mistake it for one at a distance. But it looked more like a corpse than anything. Its skin and coat had mostly fallen off, revealing rotting muscle that twitched and spasmed with each step. Its face was covered in this sort of crusty, puffy brown stuff, so much so that I couldn’t even see its eyes. A lot of teeth were missing from its bloody jaws, holding a tongue pockmarked with rot. And it let out some kind of wailing moan, like it was in agony as it lunged toward me.

I had no idea what the fuck this thing was apart from nauseatingly disturbing, but I wasn’t going to let it get close to me if I could help it. I hadn’t managed to dig out one of the pistols (where the fuck did Gauge keep these things?!) so I just grabbed both of his bags in my magic and swung them at the pony-thing’s head. I put as much force into the blow as I could muster, but I didn’t think I’d hit it that hard; a big chunk of its head came flying off, revealing bone and rotting meat on the pony’s cheek. But apart from throwing the thing off balance, I didn’t manage to hurt it, as best as I could tell. It only continued to wail, and then it threw itself at me.

It hit me in the chest, and we both fell over backwards onto the conference table. By now, Nova was screaming in fear and Gauge was standing up to come over and help me. Meanwhile, I just tried to keep the thing from biting me with its furiously snapping jaws. Sticky black drool dripped onto my chest from its lips, and its limbs continued to spasm and twitch as it tried to hold me down. Summoning my magic, I grabbed onto its muzzle and tried to push it away, further and harder each passing second, until suddenly there was a crack somewhere in its neck and its body went limp. Apart from its head, that is, which continued to try and bite me.

I shoved it back some more, and Gauge started dragging its body off of me. “SCaR! Torch it!” he shouted, and the little sentry drone beeped and angrily whirred as it flew over to us. I managed to slide out from underneath it, and Gauge stepped away as it laid limp on the table, save for its snapping jaws. A second later, the drone flew over its head, lowered its thrusters, and suddenly propelled upward in a small plume of fire that seared off most of the flesh on the thing’s skull. Only then did it finally stop biting and snapping, even though I swore I could still see the corner of its jaw twitching with what little muscle it had left.

“What the fuck was that thing?!” I shouted, finally finding the pistols in Gauge’s bags and drawing both of them. “Some kind of fucking zombie fucking thing?!”

“It looks like it may have once been a pony,” Gauge said. He warily moved around the table, keeping an eye on it in case it suddenly sprung to life again. “Its flesh is all rotting off and there’s this crusty brown stuff in the open sores. It kind of looks like some sort of mold or fungus.”

I remembered that it’d drooled on me, and I quickly wiped that off of my chest; I didn’t want anything to do with this sort of spooky nasty shit. I certainly didn’t want to end up like the thing lying on the table. “Great,” I said, sitting down against the wall. “Not only is there a tolan somewhere outside trying to eat us all, now there’s a mushroom that turns corpses into zombies. How much you want to bet there are more of them in this place?”

“I’d imagine there’s more, yeah,” Gauge said. “Whoever that was, he must’ve died sometime recently, I’d imagine. His body was still in good shape, all things considered.”

“If he even died in the first place,” I muttered. “Didn’t you hear him wailing? He sounded like he was in pain.”

Gauge closed his eyes and shuddered. “I’d like to imagine that they’re just walking corpses, not living ponies controlled by a fungus.”

“You and me both,” I agreed. “At any rate, at least he can rest now. I hope. Actually, you might want to look away.” As soon as I said that, I put one of the pistols next to the zombie thing’s head and fired, spraying the opposite wall with all sorts of brown and red shit. It looked like somepony vomited on the table and wall, and I quickly looked away, otherwise I’d be puking too.

Both Gauge and Nova flattened their ears at the sudden sound, though Nova was still in a daze, hugging her remaining wing and rocking back and forth.. After checking to make sure his marefriend was alright (or at least as alright as she could be, all things considered), Gauge walked over to me. “We should barricade this room and just wait for Ace in the morning. We can use the catwalk outside to watch for her when it’s finally daytime out.”

That’d certainly be the smart thing to do, and after all the shit we’d been through tonight, I wasn’t opposed to it. Though if there was a horde of zombies in the foundry, the last place I’d want to be is trapped in a corner with no way out. Besides, after spending all day in a hole in the ground, I was going to go stir crazy if I had to pass the night in another small room.

Eventually, I sighed and dug out all the spare mags I could find for the pistols. “You two stay here and barricade the door after I leave. I’m going to take a look around. Maybe take SCaR with me just for another set of eyes.”

Gauge groaned and put a hoof to his forehead. “Come on, Em. Are you really gonna do this now? We need you here in case something happens, not wandering this deathtrap by yourself!”

“I think it’d be better if I gave Nova a little space,” I said, dropping my voice a little bit lower as I did so. “And I can’t possibly bear sitting around all day again. You’ll be fine.”

Then my ears twitched at a familiar sound further down the hall. It wasn’t another fungus zombie, thank the stars, but gunshots. And where there were gunshots, there were other ponies. Both Gauge and I flinched, and we shot each other nervous glances. Other ponies? Here of all places? Who the fuck would be in an abandoned foundry in the middle of the night?

I looked at Gauge and nodded. “I have to check it out,” I said. “If those are bad ponies, RPR even, then we need to know now, not when they stumble across us.” Turning to SCaR, I tweaked his antenna with a little magic. “Come on, little guy, let’s take a look.”

SCaR warbled and buzzed as he puttered over to me. I stepped out of the doorway and put my hoof on the handle. “Barricade the door as best you can and sit tight. I’ll probably be gone for a while, at least until I know that everything’s safe. I’ll knock twice when I’m back.”

“Right,” Gauge said, though I could pretty easily tell he was a little ticked off with me. “And if you don’t come back?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not gonna happen. I’ll be back by daylight at the latest, I swear.” And with one final nod, I started to swing the door shut. “Keep her safe.”

Then I closed it and drew my two pistols. SCaR followed along, the lens on its camera adjusting as it took a good look around. “Well, how about it?” I asked him. “Let’s go take a look. Just beep and squawk a bunch if you see any more of those spooky zombie things.”

SCaR made some kind of mechanical chatter and began to drift down the hall. Shrugging, I started to follow him since he seemed to know where he was going. We were at least going in the direction of the gunshots, which was a start. I just hoped that the ponies shooting the guns were friendly.

The whole thing was an eerie experience. I’d never wandered around a completely deserted and abandoned pre-Silence building before. We’d used all the buildings left behind in Blackwash, and the Bastion, the valley fort, and Celestia Dam were all inhabited. But here, there was nothing. The ceiling was collapsing in places, leaving piles of rubble on the floor, upon which grew tufts of pink grass and other plants. Spider rats, dirt crawlers, and all sorts of vermin scurried around on a disturbing number of legs, and occasionally there’d be gaps in the floor leading down to the lower levels. But I didn’t see any zombies, though I could hear them inside of closed rooms I walked by. I doubted they knew how to work doors, so I just left them shut and tried to quietly scurry on by.

I finally made it to another one of those big foremare’s offices that looked over the foundry floor below. Though the roof of this building was mostly intact, making it difficult to see much in the darkness, I could see some torches thrown in the far corner. They cast flickering shadows of equine figures on the nearby walls, illuminating a group of four as they tried to fend off several of those zombie pony things galloping at them out of the darkness. The flashes of their weapons occasionally lit up the surrounding area a little more, and the gunshots echoed off of several large melting pots still hooked up to their ancient machinery, scattered around the foundry floor.

I tossed a few mags on the table right by the big window overlooking the floor and readied myself. “SCaR, I need a light,” I said to the drone, and after a quick whistle, it flew out through the broken glass and began to shine a spotlight down on the floor. All of a sudden, I could see ten, maybe fifteen of those things in various states of decay galloping, stumbling, even crawling toward the party of four in the corner. The ponies in the back hesitated for a second at the sudden bright light in the foundry, but with the zombies pressing them, they rapidly picked the pace back up.

I pointed my two pistols down and began shooting at the things on the floor. The pistols were nowhere near as accurate as my battle rifle was and definitely lacked its stopping power, though I don’t think the latter would have mattered too much for these things. Still, damaging their bodies slowed them down, and it looked like two of the survivors down there had rifles that let them fire accurate bursts at range. Maybe with my help, they’d stand a better chance.

Then SCaR started blaring an alarm, and I looked to my left at the door leading downstairs to hear a few sets of hooves shambling up it. I pointed my pistols at the doorway only a few seconds before three zombies suddenly burst into the room. I aimed for their heads as best as I could, though they were awfully hard to hit with their weird lunging gait, but I blew one’s skull to pieces after a few shots. Gritting my teeth, I dropped my pistols and readied a fireball, then launched it at the two still standing. The flames engulfed them, and the fungus protruding from their skulls began to smoke and pop in the heat.

Of course, I hadn’t considered that they’d still keep charging me despite that. My eyes went wide as the first flaming pony torch thing continued its approach, hissing and snapping as its body burnt all around it. I just had enough time to squeeze off my fireproof spell from my days back in the forge before it collided with me and sent me backwards into a desk. I heard the vertebrae in my spine crack, though it slammed me into it so hard that it was nowhere near as pleasant as it might otherwise have been, and I gasped from the sudden shot to my lower back. I held my hooves against its chest even as it burned apart around me, just keeping its snapping jaws away from my face. For a second, I felt like I was having déjà vu to just a few minutes ago, except with a lot more fire.

Eventually, the fire burnt out whatever corrupted part of its brain made it into a zombie, and I dropped the corpse on the ground. The other one wasn’t too far away, lying in the middle of the room. At least that one burned to death quickly enough; I don’t know what I would’ve been able to do if I had two of them trying to rip me to pieces. Grabbing my pistols again, I ran back to the broken window, but the gunfire had slowed down considerably. Now there were only three survivors in the corner, while one lay in a pool of its own blood, the shredded corpse of one of those zombies lying on top of it. And in front of the three still standing, a sizable pile of rotting corpses were stacked, most of them with their heads blown to pieces, and a few still twitching.

One of the survivors with a rifle gunned down the last charging zombie, and then all was quiet again. SCaR buzzed and swept its spotlight all across the floor, trying to look behind the machinery and in the corners of the building, but none of us saw anything. Finally, sighing, I swapped mags, dropping the used ones back in my bags for reloading later, and began to go down the steps.

I kept my pistols ready until I got to the bottom, just in case, and even then I only lowered them so I wasn’t pointing them at the other three as I approached. I had to step over a few bodies on the floor before I made it over to them, and when I got close, I realized that they weren’t even ponies. They were zebras, and basically the first I’d seen outside of Blackwash and maybe a couple in Hole. I got as close as the edge of the brightest part of their torchlight and waved at them. “Hey, you guys alright?”

The one closest to me quickly looked me up and down. “Alive,” she said, though in a slight accent that gave her voice a sort of flowing melody. “Thank you for the help, stranger. That light your little robot gave off was incredibly helpful to see what we were shooting at.”

“Just trying to help,” I said, smiling a little bit to try to mask my initial apprehension. The zebra mare and her two companions were looking me over, sizing me up, probably trying to figure out if I was trustworthy or not. I did the same, looking first at the mare and then at her two friends. She and a shorter stallion looked almost identical in their facial markings and striping, so I figured they were brother and sister, while the last zebra was bigger than Gauge, with broader shoulders, a stronger jawline, and a small but noticeable twist to his muzzle, like somepony had clamped it in a vice and given it a spin. Two more dead zebras were lying on the ground around them, both with throats ripped open; I guess they hadn’t been able to hold off the zombies without some casualties.

They were also very well equipped, though none of their gear matched. The mare had a bullpup rifle that I didn’t even know how she could use without shoulder mounts or magic, several magazines for it hanging off of her shoulders like pauldrons, and what looked like eighth-inch steel plates wrapped around a half-inch of wood as some sort of makeshift armor, cut and shaped to closely fit her frame. She’d even painted beautiful designs on her armor, and I could tell that it was all made with a craftsmareship that only a true smith could appreciate. As for her companions, her brother didn’t wear any armor at all but had what looked like an AS-4 automatic shotgun resting in the crook of a foreleg and two bandoliers of shotgun shells (one of which was mostly empty) across his chest, while the big zebra had two BR12As in shoulder mounts and old Equestrian assault armor covering his body. I think he even had some grenades tucked just over his left shoulder.

After what felt like an endless few seconds, the mare smiled and held her hoof out to me. “Mawari.”

I took her hoof and shook it. “Ember. The little drone’s SCaR.” I chuckled a bit as SCaR warbled and flew forward a bit to get a closer look (or maybe a better reading or some shit) of Mawari and her companions.

“Cute,” Mawari said. Then she looked over her shoulder at her companions. “This is my baby brother, Denawa, and our cousin, Rankan. We’re from the Ruin Runners, though I guess today we’re wailer hunters.”

“Is that what these things are?” I asked, poking the nearby corpse of one with my magic. “Just what the fuck are they, even?”

“Walking corpses.” She walked forward a bit and rolled one onto its back and pointed to its open wounds. “There’s a fungus that does this. If the spores get in your bloodstream, they go to your brain, where they begin to grow. You enter a coma within a week, and a day later the fungus makes you walk again. It controls your body until you’re no longer able to move, at which point it finds a nice corner to tuck you away in and finish its meal.” She shook her head. “It’s a very unfortunate way to go, but you can only become infected if one bites you. The spores are harmless if inhaled or ingested; thank the ancestors for that.”

I shivered and tried to shake the sensation out of me. “Well that’s… pleasant. Are you… still alive like that? Does it at least kill you first?”

Mawari grimaced and shook her head. “Why else do you think they wail like that? Nozebra knows for certain, but there are always stories claiming that the wailers have spoken before, though it’s impossible to make sense of. Your body and brain may not be your own anymore, but there might be a piece of you trapped inside.”

“That’s fucking horrifying,” I said, staring at the corpse at our hooves. “And I thought getting eaten alive by a tolan would be about the worst way to go.”

“Maybe not, but I’d still take these things over a tolan any day,” Denawa said from behind us. Then, narrowing his eyes, he took a few steps over to me. “Say, were you the one who pissed that thing off outside? We were going through one of the warehouses when we heard it come stomping onto the compound. It woke up all the wailers, and now they’re all looking for another meal, trying to spread their spores. We’ve been running for our lives ever since. Lost a number of good zebras.” His eyes drifted over to the two dead zebras nearby, and he slowly shook his head.

“I’m really sorry about that,” I said, hanging my head a little. “We were trying to get to the foundry and we stumbled across a tolan on the way. I didn’t even notice it until I was right on top of it. Thank the stars we were able to get inside before it ate us.”

“Us?” Mawari asked. “You have friends here?”

I hesitated, not entirely sure that I could trust them; Auris was a shitty place and there were ponies (or zebras) who’d stab you in the back if they thought they could get away with it. “SCaR and me,” I said, nodding to the drone. “He’s like a dog, except he can fly and has a taser probe and really isn’t like a dog at all.”

SCaR buzzed at me and floated back a little bit. I don’t think he liked the dog comment.

Mawari thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Alright. More important question is, what are you doing out here?” She eyed my sling and the bandaged wound on my shoulder. “You look like you’ve had your fair share of trouble.”

“I was supposed to meet somepony here,” I responded. “She wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. You guys haven’t seen a beige pegasus with a black mane hanging over half her face like a curtain, right?”

“Not here. Then again, we have been running for our lives for the past half hour.” Marawi sighed and shook her head. “Thanks again for your help.”

“Pssh, don’t worry about it. I’m a trigger happy nutjob who just likes to shoot at things,” I said, grinning. Marawi chuckled and Denawa rolled his eyes, while Rankan might as well have been a statue. I fussed with my mane with some magic, then realized I was still holding my pistols. Using my saddlebags as makeshift holsters, I sat down (on a spot that wasn’t drenched in blood) and let out a deep breath. “So, what were you all doing here? Before the tolan and the wailers and all that shit.”

I noticed Denawa clear his throat and shoot his sister a look right as she opened her mouth to say something. Mawari frowned at him and turned back to me. “We’re Ruin Runners, remember? Exploring the remains of the old world is what we do. An old place like this has lots of steel and machine parts that people will pay a lot of bullets for… but that’s not why we’re here.”

My ears perked a little and I looked up at her. “Oh? Then why’s that? I don’t feel like you guys went wailer hunting for fun.”

Denawa groaned and shook his head, turning away from the two of us—I guess he didn’t trust me, or just didn’t want his sister talking about why they were here. But she was definitely the leader of their little group, and she apparently trusted me enough to talk. It made me feel a little bit bad about keeping my friends a secret from them. “Rumor has it that this place wasn’t just a foundry,” she said. “The warehouses out here don’t just hold steel. Equestria was really paranoid, so they hid weapons and supply caches everywhere in case they needed to repel an attack at a moment’s notice, or their depots were destroyed, or whatever. A lot of times, they used other buildings and companies to hide their weapons for them.”

“And you think one’s here?” I remembered the message I’d read on the glass tablet back in one of the offices upstairs. Looks like they did get their delivery after all. “What do you think’s inside?”

Mawari shrugged. “Don’t know, but we think we found it. Warehouse 4F, at the far end of the compound. There’s another secure room inside of it that we couldn’t get to. It’s locked up really tight; none of our blast charges could get through the door, and the walls are reinforced. We need to find some way to open the door if we want to get at what’s inside.” Smirking, she added, “Whatever’s inside, though, is going to make us very rich.”

“Tell the whole fucking planet about it, why don’t you?” Denawa grumbled.

Mawari rolled her eyes and gave her brother a shove on the shoulder. “What, you really think this mare’s going to stab us in the back after helping us out? Even if she tried, she’s no match for Rankan.”

Me and the big zebra made eye contact. I sheepishly smiled and backed down a bit, and the most he responded was flaring his nostrils a bit. Yeah, that was something I hoped I could avoid fighting, in all honesty.

“So why tell her about it in the first place?” Denawa asked. “Now she’ll want a share.”

“And she can have a share, because we need her,” Mawari said, and my ears perked a bit.

I put my good hoof over my chest. “Me? What do you need me for?”

“Your drone,” Mawari said. That caught SCaR’s attention, and he kinda buzzed as he floated back over to us from where he’d been scanning some machinery. “There’s an old interface on the warehouse that might fit a drone’s probe. It might be able to get us through the door.”

I looked at SCaR and frowned. “I don’t know. SCaR’s a sentry bot, not a hacker. His name literally means ‘Surveillance, Combat, and Reconnaissance,’ not ‘door opener’.”

Mawari thought for a moment. “Actually, I have an idea. There’s lots of old bots lying around the foundry. Maybe if we can find one in working condition, your drone can download its memory and get the codes to get through the door.”

“Assuming those old drones even have the codes,” Denawa muttered.

“It’s worth a shot. We don’t really have any other options unless we want to tear this whole place apart for an access code. And with a tolan out there, we don’t have the time to go searching all the buildings before it corners us in one.”

“Won’t it just… I don’t know, get bored and go away?” I asked her.

Mawari shook her head. “No. Once a tolan sniffs out a meal, it doesn’t give up until it gets it. They’re incredibly single-minded, and if it chased you here, then it won’t stop until it snaps you up—and us along with you.” Sighing, she shook her head. “It’s probably smelled our scent by now, so it knows we’re here too. If only it would kill some of the wailers for us, but I guess they smell too much like death for it to be interested.”

Denawa grunted and checked the magazine for his shotgun. “Doesn’t mean it won’t step on them if they get in its way. Think we can kite them all behind us and just let the tolan do its thing?”

“We’d be better off just dealing with the few wailers we find and not attracting the tolan’s attention,” Mawari said.

“But what about the tolan?” I looked between the three of them and frowned. “You don’t look like you have anything that can hurt it. Suppose that we do open this warehouse, how are you even going to get away with all your loot without the tolan catching you? Those things are fast.”

“Maybe we’ll find something in the warehouse that’ll help us kill it,” Mawari said. “Like a railgun. They might have thick armor, but even they can’t survive a railgun.” After casting a quick glance at her companions, she stepped forward to me and held out a hoof. “So, are you in?”

I took it and used it to stand up. “We’re trapped in a foundry full of horrible mind-controlled zombies, and there’s the literal incarnation of sharp and pointy death outside stalking us.” After a moment, I grinned at her. “Fuck yeah, I’m in.”