There was no mistaking the noise we heard and yet the empty air in front of us wasn’t betraying any secrets. And yet, what in the fuck else could it possibly be other than what we were looking for?

"Did the air just clang?" I gasped without meaning to, moving forward cautiously while at the same time Firefly reeled back, cursing up a storm in my name.

"Ah dunno, Garand!” He growled in pain while holding his head. “Why don't ya try headbuttin' th' fucker 'n find out!"

Once I had scooted up to where his face had introduced us to this discovery, I slowly reached an arm out followed closely by the mare. Within several inches my talons spread flat across the invisible something in front of us with a light scraping sound of metal on metal. Athena followed this up with a quick jab of her armored hoof and we all started slightly as another loud clang rang out from the nothingness. This level of concealment was unusual for Equestrian shit but then again, it wasn’t an average bunker we were looking for.

"Gotta be our door..." She mumbled to my left, glancing my way at the same time I did hers. "Any ideas? Never come across something like this before...M.O.W kinda hides their shit in the open so this is a new one to me."

"Hold on...I'm thinkin'..." I replied, wracking my brain for a possible aide to our situation before the thought of better vision prompted me to reach for my helmet dangling off the side of my armor.

The hermetic seal hissed shut around my neck as I directed my thoughts through the PipBuck menu, speaking aloud to myself as I cycled through the vision filters available to me. "No...no...no...no...aha! Put yours on and put on AS filters, you'll see it clear as day."

With the world now displayed in a vivid palate of colors under the Arcane Signature filter, the construct we had come all this way to find was finally in view. Colossal fifteen or twenty foot steel doors commanded the area in front of us, their shape clear as day although giving off a misty blue glow that stood apart from the landscape around us. A quick peek around the edge closest to me suggested the concrete housing around it was squared off; more than likely just the foyer for lack of a better term.

"Oh, so now yew two can see it an' not th' guy who smacked his fuckin' nose into it? Common..." Firefly groaned with a grumble of annoyance, grabbing for his own helmet and fumbling it onto his head.

"Oh...right..." The mare replied off to my left. "Forgot the Mrk. Is are pretty barebones. Just precision optics and low-lights right?"

"Yup, and ah simpler version of tha' fancy friend-er-foe compass thang. Nothin' like wha' yew two are workin' wit' but it works great fer sniper work against mah usual targets."

"Not missing much...just a big steel lookin' door.” She sighed with a hint of boredom before speaking in my direction. “I think I see the terminal for it over here to the left!"

"Yeah, I see it.” I replied, wasting no time and memorizing where the terminal was on the wall. “I've got the bigger, better PipBuck so lemme handle it. Shouldn't be too hard."

A moment later and my armor had popped open for me to slip out of allowing me to move in on where my mental snapshot dictated. When my bare talons finally made contact with the stiff plastic keys of a terminal I breathed a silent sigh of relief that I hadn’t wasted even a second on foolishly pawing around for it in front of them. With my hands oriented around the general area of the keyboard, I held my PipBuck up to it and waited for the faint beep that would hopefully recognize me as a friendly. Another sigh of relief later and I was faced with a visible screen and keyboard rather than the angry retort of automated defenses.

"Annnd...there!" I declared proudly after entering a few simple commands; the invisible gates to my right sliding apart like a seam breaking in the fabric of reality. In truth, I had to blink more than once to connect the dots between this optical illusion and what I had told the computer to do.

"Sweet fuck tha' there's ah trip..." Firefly groaned, shaking his head and stuffing his hooves in his eyes.

As I expected, what lay behind the doors was nothing more than a large, empty concrete box. The ceiling and walls were dotted with slowly spinning fans while the center of the room was commanded by a large, rectangular freight elevator. In the far right corner lay another, smaller elevator most likely meant for those not hauling enormous loads of freight. Or driving it for that matter. The size of the main lift itself was more than large and intimidating enough to handle the weight of a few Greifenländer vehicles loaded down with crew, troops and ammunition. All that being said however, it was empty, quiet and completely devoid of any light that wasn’t being filtered in from the world outside. Although I knew I was going to have to hop right back out of it, I still climbed back into my armor all the same. Better the hassle than leaving it behind, especially right at the literal front door of the place we were trying to keep safely hidden.

"Well...ah empty house be ah good house in mah book." Firefly said with satisfaction, looking around the room with a weapon casually drawn. "Quiet can be ah damned good thang sometimes, 'specially in cases like this here."

"Can't say I disagree..."She responded with a distracted glance around of her own. "What you think? Head down to the top floor and work our way through the sublevels past that or hit the bottom and go up?"

"That's assuming the thing still works of course…" I sighed back in reply, popping out of my armor again so I could make some moves on the next terminal. "No clue about anything to do with this base, so for all we know it's even more of a relic than most places."

The lift itself was seamless with the concrete floor around it and its metal edge was brightly painted with cautionary yellow while various warnings and other markings littered the ground around us. In the far right corner of the lift was a solitary steel pillar on which was attached another terminal, this one even closer to the ground than the last forcing me to awkwardly crouch in an attempt to access the controls. The joystick designed for a hoof was uncomfortable to manipulate in my talons but even the slightest bump to it brought the screen to life. It wasn’t much but at least we knew the screen had power and the controls were responsive for it. At least we had a place to start.

"Bingo! Just a second...lemme see if I can find the lights..." I mumbled aloud, my voice echoing off the walls around us as I got myself oriented on the keyboard.

"This place is weirdly intact for a military relic.” The mare muttered from somewhere behind me as she poked around with her headlamp on. “Especially for one so close to the Badlands..."

I put off responding to her immediately in favor of tackling the terminal and the information it was presenting me to chew through. It was far from my first bunker cracking but this one was pretty different from those that came before. This place was well hidden for pony crap, came with an official enough name and was home to some kind of mythical ‘Prototype’ the Elder was willing to overstep his bounds to achieve. A Platoon of his finest and some of his few precious Falke? Even he wasn’t brazen enough to waste so much resources if he didn’t think the reward was on the same scale as the T-60s. Something worth potentially losing his Eldership over by leaving his Chapter far behind and punching through the Gap breaking a tense decade of peace.

‘!!!WARNING!!! EMERGENCY POWER ONLY! UNEXPECTED LOSS OF MAIN POWER HAS OCCURRED. Code Black Protocol Is In Effect. Would you like to activate Auxiliary Power?’

‘Hm…’ I thought with a hint of grim amusement. ‘Yeah, whatever ya wanna call the Great War buddy…’

With a simple click of the word ‘Yes’ the large warning screen vanished, replaced instead by a very simplistic readout that listed out some basic functions. The joystick was at once both sticky and imprecise, more than likely a result of my lack of a hoof that could comfortably fit into the custom depression designed for a pony. While I fought against the controls flicking between and around all the menu options except the one I wanted, I let loose with a muttered stream of curses. I hated pony tech. And I wanted the Gods of the homeland to fuckin’ hear that fact. While the two of them likely thought I was hard at work hacking the mainframe like some sort of expert, here I was fighting against shitty design and ergonomics. If I had a Groschen for every time the cursor drifted past its mark, I would easily have earned enough to cast a shiny new shortsword for myself. After what felt like a decade, the highlighted cursor hovered over Lighting and Power and I finally had the chance to flick on the light switch as it were.

"Well damn, you're right!” I replied with a nod of approval once my eyes had readjusted to the new lighting, the rather pristine condition of the infrastructure now far easier to see. “Place looks almost brand spanking new!"

The concrete walls were structurally sound and only featured minor weathering and cracking while the metalwork of the lift and heavy equipment bore only little patches of budding rust. Having spent several months hopping from one bunker to the next, cracking open what I could for both the Order and my own use, I had never seen such a pristine example in the wild like this. If the base or facility hadn’t been stripped down to the concrete already, they were some variation of old and crappy; crumbling concrete, rusty exposed rebar and overall just an extreme feeling of age and decay throughout. Lights and power were always a gamble to find operational let alone usable for things like MagLock doors, terminals and environmental controls. More often than not I was forced to stay within steel just to make use of its air filtration system against black mold that found its way into many a derelict place. Of course, this was only the entranceway and it was anyone's guess as to the state of the thing further in. However…if this area closest to the outside elements was looking this good…

"Gimme a few guys..." I grunted again as I hunched back down to take another swing at the terminal. "Probably need to manually unlock the elevators since the hello message said something about an unexpected power loss. Had to switch to auxiliary power which should hold more than enough juice for us to look around for awhile."

"Oh? Wonder what happened to the power then. Place seems pretty well preserved so I'd be surprised if it was something to do with bad wiring or something related to lack of maintenance." She replied to the room at large since the echoes allowed any to listen in to even a whisper.

I grinned as I glanced over some of the information in the Lights and Power menu. "Who knows? All that matters is there's more than enough juice to keep the lights on for a couple years in here as far as I can tell. With the main CFRs offline, the backup generators were put into emergency-power mode so only the most important shit got power and even that was as minimal as possible. Plenty leftover for normal operations although, there might be some tertiary systems and shit that probably won't be touchable until we can get main power back online. Not like that's a big loss, tertiaries are one of those 'can live without' sorta things."

"Ya mean, 'if' we get it back online." Firefly mumbled, sounding distracted with something else unrelated. "Don' jump th' gun on anythin' over fifty years old...NER know tha' one better than anypony."

"Eh, I prefer to think optimistically. Besides, I'm getting the feeling this place has a lot to hide. It's unusually large and well preserved. That just doesn't happen by accident out here, not in this day and age." She replied, their voices growing more distant as I fiddled with the joystick to bring back the main menu.

The terminal was far from informative and seemed to only have rudimentary systems’ access. I knew why and yet it still impacted my ability to glean anything interesting from the limited information available. In the end though, a freight elevator didn’t really need to do or know much more than how to go up and down to a selected destination. Thankfully we had access to the lights so all we needed next was a path forward. As before, the finicky controls only added unnecessary time to something that would normally take me a minute or two at most. All the same…it gave me some time now that I could rely on a bit of autopilot to see me through the terminal commands. I trusted my talons and brain to do what I needed to while my mind took a moment to sit and think over everything that had been going on.

What was I ultimately to make of Athena? It came as a bit of a surprise to me just how intensely that question had burned in the back of my mind over the last couple hours. Ever since our fight had come to such a sudden stop, I was forced to accept the reality that I wasn’t the only old world relic wandering around the Wasteland. Not only that…but I actually knew the tough lil’ bitch. Once upon a time at least. The memories were more hazy than I wanted to admit to her face but there was no denying she was ringing all sorts of mental bells for me. It wasn’t like we had even interacted that much back then anyway, but all the same I couldn’t say that I didn’t vaguely remember her. Ponies came in so many looks and colors that it became hard to distinguish them apart after a while. Her colors were a tad more unique than most, grey with a lime green mane and tail highlighted with curling trails of baby blue and capped off with vibrantly violet eyes. Definitely not a bad looker by any means, even as far as ponies went for the most part. Those pastel dumbasses came in every shade and flavor of the color wheel making it hard to make particular names and faces stand out. As to how I felt about her specifically back in the day? I truly couldn’t remember anymore, even if I sat down and tried. Even back then I had to admit to myself that as stupid as they were, the Equines didn't tend to promote idiots to their top Corps. NadPads or not, a Desert Ranger Veteran clad in the Mrk. IV slinging around an AMR was not just some random soldier.

That all being said, my impressions of her now were…all over the fucking place to say the least. She had taken a legitimate shot at me, regardless of the fact that she had missed, but she had also kicked my ass good and hard in fair combat. As she had clearly explained, it wasn’t out of any personal vendetta (obvious since she hadn’t gone entirely through with it) but because she was mixed up in some crazy ass web of Syndicate madness. She had been after me because Killer Queen had essentially blackmailed her into doing it, for lack of a better term. We had duked it out for over ten minutes and, in all that time, not once did I notice nor experience a dirty tactic in her arsenal. No dirt thrown in the eyes, no use of her horn and magic, not even a cheap shot at the balls. Hell, even her aiming specifically for the shoulder she had managed to yank the fuck around wasn’t even all that dishonorable in the end. I was still taken aback at just how easy she had made dislocating a joint seem, with all the grace and speed of a goddamned Crimson Dragon. The canyon wall had been a hard boundary for our fight just as the gorge was on the opposite side; something I had only barely acknowledged as important to keep in mind. And yet, here she went and used it as a fancy ass way of popping my arm from its socket! Much as it fuckin’ hurt, she had used an honest (if annoying as hell) tactic to try and incapacitate me for what she needed. As for all the ‘cheap’ shots to that shoulder after I had reset it…well, she had every right to take advantage of an opening she had made herself. Had the fight gone how I wanted it to and she was the one with a broken whatever, I totally would have aimed extra hard for that sore spot too for maximum effect.

And then of course there was her ferocity… Every attack was thrown at me with the same level of intensity as the first and the bitch had never let up once. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t gotten in a few hits of my own on her, but if our fight had been overseen by a referee…I would have most certainly ended up the loser. Rarely had I seen an Equestrian so at home using all four of their limbs in combat like she had and yet I simply had to wonder if her training had come from a Zeeb, if even in part. Or at the very least she was heavily influenced by their more…flamboyant style of fighting. It had been absolutely thrilling to finally face a genuinely tough opponent again after…hell, who knew how long. In the end though, she was a fine warrior. Perhaps not up to par with a proud and strong Gryphonness from the Greifenländer, but then again…neither was I anymore. Certainly if there were any truths revealed to me by our fight, it was the fact that I was lagging behind and I needed to be better. I had to be better. It wasn’t because she was a pony and especially not because she was female but rather, I had grown soft. I had allowed myself to grow soft, helped along in no small part because the bulk of the Order’s enemies had already been taken care of.

“Ay, Garand! Yew gettin' close 'er wha'?"

The sound of my name from all the chatter they were bantering back and forth startled me off the rails of my train of thought. Instead of responding directly however, I allowed my actions to speak for me as a loud klaxon alarm sounded off overhead and orange hazard lights began spinning in the corners. After a moment of lights and noise, the lift shuddered under us as the squeal of metal on metal rang out around us and we began to descend into the earth. The elevator we were standing on was only the beginning of this place as it only went down one floor, acting as the entrance hall of sorts to what was referred to as General Maintenance Garage A. Past that…the best I was able to parse from the limited systems’ access I had was there was a second freight elevator somewhere that went down nine whole goddamn floors underground. With the front gate directed to shut and re-cloak, all we had left ahead of us was to crack this golden nut wide open. We had a couple hours to wander and I wanted to make the most of it.

"Ah thought we was gonna use th' otha elevator!" Firefly called out loudly while I hopped back into my Power Armor. "Where we even goin' anyhow?"

"Well since you two were jabbering on about whatever, I decided to get this party started and send us down to Sublevel-1.” I replied with a shrug and a nod downwards. “This elevator only goes down one floor so we'll have to find the one that reaches all the way down to Sublevel-9."

"Nine?!" Athena exclaimed in surprise, seemingly as impressed as I was at the size of this place. "I was expecting like...three! Or like maybe five at an absolute most but...nine fucking floors?? What the hell is this place hiding?"

In a moment the way ahead was clear and rising into view showing just another large, empty concrete room similar to the one we had just left barring some new details. First and foremost of course was the presence of another large sliding steel security gate directly ahead of us that, while narrower than the lift, would still allow a full-sized Falke or bigger cleanly through. Apart from the boring grey of unpainted concrete, there was an abundance of scaffolding erected along the far walls and flanking the security gate with boxes of spooled wiring, light fixtures and spare tools strewn around everywhere. Cables and work lights hung around everywhere while stationary construction lamps stood over the various works offering clean white light where the facility lighting had yet to be installed. Yet again there wasn’t a ton to parse from so little information to work with but the presence of tools and materials for construction so close to the surface was at least notable. Whether it was a sign of further unfinished-ness as we went deeper or just a sign of finishing touches…it was too early to tell. The only thing for sure was…

"Ah...great. Another fucking computer..." I sighed, popping the back of my Power Armor open once again to climb back out. "Thank fuck I have that fucker General Olive's access codes stored...otherwise we'd have a hell of a longer time playing IT with all this shit. I have a feeling it isn't our last locked door in this place..."

"General...Olive?" She asked hesitantly with a strong hint of venom behind the way she said his name. "How...how in the fuck did you get his codes?"

"Easy. I took them once General Prickly Pear died of old age in the Stable.” I replied with a smirk in her direction. “He took charge of the Front after Olive was assassinated and thus inherited his old command codes. Took the codes off of every officer who died in there...I've got over twenty to choose from ranging from Captain all the way up to Four-Stars."

"In other words, you have an easy-in into any military property you want?" She huffed with a hint of a frown that could’ve been taken as jealousy, something I was happy to hear from her.

Given the tone of her voice, I couldn’t help but laugh back proudly, "Damn fucking straight! Helped keep me topped off on .30 Carbine rounds while I was still nearby Manehatten. Didn't have much time to find a better gun after my damn launcher fell apart and the ammo was in decent supply up there so I just snagged it and rolled with it.”

I gave her a brief moment to comment while I took a breath and when she didn’t, I continued, “Worked well enough against anyone not in genuine armor and I had my revolver and shotgun on standby so I couldn't complain. Problem was, could only find the ammo in old bunkers like this and most have already been long ago plundered for every damn thing they were worth over the years. Damn scavvers..."

"Might be hard to get into Ministry of War places though.” She hummed in reply, her voice thoughtful and curious. “I know that some things were strictly off limits to all but their own elite employees. Ministry anything really would be a tough nut to crack, even on a good day."

"Yeah..." I grunted, grinning as the door began to open while more alarms and lights went off from around the bulky doorframe. "But it's more than enough for this place! Common', let's get to poking around!"

I barely took a step back towards my armor before our ears were assaulted with the hollow clatter of dozens of skeletons all flopping and scattering to the floor at once. I had been expecting corpses at any moment given the size and implied importance of the facility but I had to admit, what I witnessed was definitely on the more unusual side. My armor hissed shut around me the moment I settled back into place and I spared myself a half moment to look over the remains of the poor saps that had met their demise underground. Nearly all of them wore some kind of uniform and a fair few of those I could easily spot hailed from either the Ministry of War or the Ministry of Arcane Science. Engineers, Airborne Corps, General Army personnel…even a few tan uniforms belonging to the mare’s precious Desert Ranger Corps were amongst the corpses. Whatever killed them had long since passed it seemed as there wasn’t so much as a twitch from my Charm necklace and so, I wasn’t all too worried.

"Goddamn, look at all of 'em! Looks like half the base is in here!" I chuckled, moving forward once more.

Back in steel, I took it upon myself to start clearing us a path and since there was no love lost on these no-name bones, I started crushing and smashing my way through. I was sure the two of them would be probably a bit pissed at how I went about it all, but I didn’t bring myself to care. We had a pristine goldmine all to ourselves and we weren’t gonna waste time on the bones of people none of us had any connection to. And even if we did, what did it matter? We had a mission to protect or otherwise keep the Prototype out of the SR’s hooves and these remains were only getting in our way. The cavernous hall itself was flanked on either side down its length by a series of what could only be guessed were repair or maintenance bays. Though identifying markings on the walls were sparse, there were still plenty of signs from the long recesses with built-in tables, the presence of foundations for vehicle lifts and partially completed AutoMechanist machines installed in the ceilings above each bay. Bodies were strewn about everywhere you looked, piled on top of the other in a flowing wave of dusky white bone and stuffed into every nook and cranny around. The culprit behind their demise was no more clear than before but it had absolutely gutted this place of its staff roster.

"Yo, fatass! You seeing all these M.O.A.S coats everywhere?"

I heard the beep in my ear a moment before she started throwing insults over the airwaves, but it was still uncool to use an emergency military frequency just to talk shit.

"Hey, if you wanna play ball pit with a bunch of skulls then by all means call me that again, mare." I replied with a sigh, giving a huddled mass of three skeletons all wrapped around each other a hearty kick which shattered it like glass.

"Yeah, yeah.” She grunted back with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Whatever, look, do you see all the lab coats around here? I've never seen so many in one place...ever. Never saw a ton of those eggheads before the War to begin with."

"Yeah? Well their skulls crunch just the same as everyone else here. Funny ain't it?” A point I accentuated by caving in the skull, horn and all, of some long-dead Unicorn. “Look, I dunno what they're all doing here so don't bother askin'. We know as much as each other so don't ask dumb questions."

"Wasn't asking a dumb question..." She sighed long and hard in my ears, sounding completely fed-up with my shit, much to my chagrin. "All I'm saying is this place is getting more interesting the deeper we go."

"Agreed. Let's save the idea and hypothesis making till we have something better to go on. Then we might have a place to start building a working theory, alright? Alright."

When she didn’t respond for another ten seconds, the emergency line automatically muted itself leaving me once again alone with my thoughts as we made our way through the bones. Much as I didn’t need it pointed out to me, I was glad she had noticed the unusual presence of so many Arcane Science lackeys. It was a small detail admittedly but it was a decent example of how cued-in she was to her surroundings, even if they were well over two-hundred years old. Another point of interest was the fact there were a total of fifty of these repair bays lining the hall, twenty-five per side, and the remaining ten or so were actually complete. Large numbers confirming my own internal headcount were painted on the spaces between bays while black and yellow caution and red instructional markings dotted the floors. The last two even had fully installed AutoMechanists dangling from the ceiling with its dozen Mr. Helper-esque robotic arms dangling down; each tool for cutting, welding, riveting, ratcheting, lifting, moving…all the basic necessities required for working on any Gryphon produced vehicle. The ocean of death thinned the closer to the far end of the hall we got which was naturally blocked shut by yet another locked steel gate. I was starting to get really tired of having to constantly pop back in and out of my armor.

"I know the drill..." I groaned with a bit of frustration, parking next to the waiting terminal and getting to work on the short-as-fuck terminal station. "Gods fuck how short you ponies are...I miss the Greifenländer sometimes..."

"Yeah, well...shrink or something? What do you want me to do about it?" She retorted with an amused snort and a shrug.

"Sit and spin, princess..." I grunted back her direction, the door command functions almost wrote memory now as I punched the button and they started to peel themselves open.

"You wish..." Came her snarky reply as she and Firefly brushed past only for her to stop and exclaim, "Oh...my...GODS!!"

"Th' fuck ya...now wha' in tarnation is tha'?" Firefly’s response echoed alongside hers while I hurried to cram my ass back into my armor and see whatever the hell it was they were gawking over.

"Fuck you two, I wanted to...go...first..."

I…wasn’t entirely sure what it was I was looking at. The room itself was far larger and roomier than the entranceway coming in from the service road and was capped off by an equally large and circular ceiling. Sitting in the middle of this room however was a canvas tarp covered…something. Well over a hundred-feet in length, nearly the same lengthwise (although concentrated more or less in the center), and standing a little over twelve or so feet tall with smooth, rounded corners and no noticeable corners. Like a computer frantically scanning its database, my mind scrambled through memories in an effort to possibly find a name for this thing. Problem was…it was too goddamned big compared to anything the Gryphons had produced during the Pre-War years and I would eat my own tail if it were something Equestrian-made. They were decent, even starting their own mechanized R&D division to produce some competing vehicles for the War effort but…this seemed above their league. Hell, it felt even a bit out of my own people’s league and we were amongst the first to start making this sorta shit. The mare on the other hoof…she seemed to be on the verge of exploding in delight and she rushed forward, grappling onto the tarps with her magic and flinging them off wildly.

"Whoa, hold up mare.” I called out to her with a hint of hesitation given my unfamiliarity with the object. “We don't even know what the fuck it is yet!"

"But I do!!!" She exclaimed back, continuing to scramble madly, almost frantically, at the canvas tarps covering her prize.

After a moment or two of us silently standing there unsure what to do, Firefly gave a hearty shrug and added his horn to the effort. Eventually I gave into my own curiosity and chipped in too, moving to the large rounded portion in front of us to start unwrapping. Before long I was gazing back at my own face, my reflection tinted in pale gold as I realized I was looking at the windshield of…something. As more and more canvas fell away, it occurred to me that we were looking at some sort of cockpit as more gold-tinted windows and an armored hull came into view. It was starting to come together in my mind; a long, relatively cylindrical shape following down the multiple windows to a smooth, rounded nose at the end. The desert tri-tone camo pattern painted onto the portions of thick armored plating I could easily spot was more than enough to tell me she was military through and through. Only question was…what the hell was it exactly?

"Wha' in th' hell is tha'?" Firefly gaped, looking at his reflection like I had with a look of wonder. "Some sorta attack buggy 'er somethin'? Fancy as hell, Ah'll give it tha'."

"Yeah, I got nothin' on this one." I admitted with little reluctance given just how impressed I was so far with the thing. "Ain't anything I've ever seen before...looks way too advanced. Which...means this might just be that 'Prototype' they mentioned in the message. Since you seem to be the resident expert, mind telling us just what the hell this thing is?"

"It's called a Vertibird! These babies were just...goddamnit where do I even start with these fucking legends?" She exclaimed with such giddiness I could have mistaken her for an excitable teen. All the same though, her giddiness did little to help elaborate on the crux of my actual question. A name was a start but…

"How about the name and what it means?" I sighed in reply, once again hopping back out of my armor for a better look.

"Heh...well, guess it doesn't mean a whole lot on its own…” She laughed sheepishly before continuing, “But, these were officially called Utility Flying Machines and were made for hauling troops and cargo long distances incredibly quickly. No need for wing power like anything before, just absurd engineering using big old fan things they called...rudders? Fuck, no. Rotors!"

"Troops 'n cargo?" Firefly asked. "Wit' ah machine? Tha's a new one..."

I shook my head and sighed, "Yeah, still not ringing a bell. When did these start being deployed?"

"Uh...only like...six or seven months before the Great War? Why, you never got to work with one of these at all?"

"Hell no!" I retorted immediately, more resentment coming out in my voice than I expected. "Got pulled back South in early March of that year since the King was concerned about the pyrrhic stalemate going on down there. He wanted to help shore up the Southern Front since you ponies weren't. Your capital is not even four-hundred miles North of the Badlands…if the defense failed there, there wouldn't be much keeping the Empire from knocking Equestria outta the War. And, not for nothing, you guys did a damn good job at skirting away a good chunk of the enemy force from attacking the Greifenländer directly. Didn't see anything like this at all the whole damn time I was stuck down there and believe me, I would remember something like this. Where the hell have you seen one then? If you were infected in Maripony that would put you rather close to the Southern Front so how did you interact with one enough to know as much as you do about 'em?"

She gave a sigh of her own and raised her hooves sheepishly saying, "Look, what lead to me ending up in Maripony is complicated and too long a story to try and sum up in a few sentences so I can get back to geeking the fuck out. They were first deployed in the Zulu Campaign around like March or so and I just so happened to end up on Olive's shitlist around May. Since you had the liberty of going wherever your King sent you and not some nutbag, I was redeployed there last second as a way to break up my Squad and separate us. Me, our shotgunner and our Griffin heavy were all sent over to the Empire and the rest, including my fiancé, remained in the South being a Designated Marksmare and machine-gunner."

"So...you worked with these things I take it?" I replied, cocking an eyebrow and looking between her and the golden windscreen beside her.

"Yup. Much as Olive seemed to loathe me you just can't ignore credentials, especially when you were now under the command of another, more competent General. Soon as we landed in Stormgŭll just outside the Empire, General Steel Hide assigned Penny, Buck and I along with our Engineer whizz Dark Blaze to the still brand-new Mechanized Airborne Division. These things would have room for ten soldiers in full kit plus two pilots and could get you in and out of a warzone faster than any Pegasus can fly. Well...except the Minister of Awesome of course. They also came with as much armor as a Greifenländer war machine but with the added ability to fly like a dancer. I'm telling you, these things were fucking amazing to work with...even learned to fly one around late August or so. Well...sorta."

"Tha' so?" Firefly commented while tugging off yet another tarp and looking at his reflection. "How'd ya do tha'? From wha' Ah've heard about ya, yew were ah heavy sniper wit' yer bigass rifle 'n no wings."

"You've every right to be a bit skeptical seeing as your species has wings but I'll have to assume you've never interacted with a Greifenländer vehicle before." She responded with a hesitant smile even though I wasn’t in need of any convincing. "These machines are designed to be as universal as possible no matter the operator and make all ponies, and birds, equal. It's a design philosophy replicated in these things and then some. I fell in love with these things from the first second I saw them on the tarmac..."

"I'll be the first to admit I have a fear of heights but there's a weird sense of safety being in one of these things and I went out of my way to volunteer for any sortie with them that I could. Admittedly...it was a coping mechanism but it was a good one that worked. I liked to hang out with Blaze and learn about them bit by bit while he was working on them back at base and had his help as a Flight Engineer on many operations. What really did it was an...unfortunate error that led to me having to make an emergency exfil when our primary pilots were killed during a mission. After that, they designated me as a backup pilot and tossed in some formal training in case I ever needed to pull a stunt like that again in a pinch. They primarily had me working with my rifle still, given that was still my specialty, but towards the end of my time there I had at least fifty-hours spent in the pilot's chair. Yeah, I know. A paltry amount and nothing to brag about but it still makes me the expert here out of the three of us."

While I was more or less listening to her, I wasn’t all too interested in the fine print behind her experience at the moment. I had been away from the homeland for quite some time during my time with the Plague Birds which lent itself well to keeping me out of the loop. With how my kind almost manically had to continually improve on existing designs, we also had just as many talented talons hard at work on the next best thing. The art of mechanization alone was a burgeoning field that had been advancing at a blinding speed back in the day but this…this wasn’t one of ours. At least…not that I was ever made aware of.

"Uh-huh… Well...neat shit but...why didn't we ever see this one?” I replied. “This place is not far from the Badlands and we sure as hell could have used something like this. If you were using them in...what, May? That leaves five entire months until the bombs dropped and we didn't even hear a peep about this thing."

"Now it's my turn to say don't ask dumb questions." She retorted with a smirk. "I don't have any more of an idea than you do, as I was too concerned about keeping me and my Squad alive in the most inhospitable battlefront of the War. Thank you very much. Let's explore some more before we start making up explanations, alright?"

And with that she turned back around and set back to work tearing the…‘Vertibird’ free from its mothballed state. Firefly was already working hard with her by the time I sighed and decided to lend a hand in peeling it clean. Soon enough our efforts paid off as the entire front end was exposed showing off the collection of twelve squared or triangular windows which formed the windshield and offered a little over 180-degrees of view to those inside. The armored fuselage was somewhat in the shape of a squat oval which continued for quite a ways, tapering at the opposite end with two portions jutting out in the rough shape of an squashed down H. Just below the windshield, the rounded nose of the thing was mounted with a large cannon of some sorts and what looked to be a highly advanced camera array. However, Firefly and the mare alike both seemed oblivious to them in light of so much more canvas to be removed and the possibility of even more tasty finds as we went along. Even my own curious excitement was enough to allow me to ignore any finer details on the nose array until the rest was on full display.

More windows came to light as we worked our way down the craft. Lining the veritable neck of the beast were a set of matching long, rectangular windows followed by a rather peculiar outcropping of sorts in the hull. Coming to a somewhat triangular point and surrounded with windows above, before and below were a pair of…pods, for lack of a better term. They only jutted out a few feet from the rest of the body but seemed big enough for a single, pony-sized occupant to sit and have a clear view on the port and starboard sides. That and…these two came with their own guns and camera mounts like the front did, albeit a bit smaller. Hugging the underside of the chassis pointing outwards were a pair of small ball-mounts absolutely lined with camera lenses while directly underneath each lay a beefy tri-barreled minigun; each barrel a bore size that could only belong to a .50-cal. There was so much left to see and even still the wheels were spinning in my head at just how much of an asset we had denied the Order.

By default the most obvious place to address next were the enormous rounded portions jutting out perpendicular to the main body of the craft at the mid-ship mark. With time, the first side revealed a massive multi-prop fan of sorts built into a cylindrical armored housing. As the armored ring met near the fuselage it was attached to what appeared to be a pivoting joint to a wing-like pylon which connected it to the main body. When I Firefly’s magic pulled away the tarps from off of where they connected it clicked in my head immediately how the craft was to be operated. Without having to even see the other side I could assume it was a carbon copy of what I was already looking at and that left me free to speculate. With two enormous fans capable of independently altering their own pitch and angle, the only explanation was that it flew using them. Quite nimbly at that if the mental image of their capabilities held any water. Of course, with the grand reveal of one amazing oddity came yet another directly beneath it once the wrappings came free in due course as we made our way down.

Jutting from the fuselage only a couple of feet below the avionics wing assembly was another, smaller wing of sorts. Fastened to the underside running parallel to the fuselage were a set of three tubes; two long and narrow that were a bit smaller than the diameter of my fist and a third large…pod of sorts. While the pair of black metal tubes were capped off with some plastic or rubber piece preventing me from taking a peek inside, the pod thing was much more forthcoming. Poking out of a pair of nineteen roughly three-inch wide tubes inside the pod were a collection of what could only be rocket warheads. It was hard to mistake the customary bright yellow paint capped with a red fuse that had become synonymous with any High-Explosive munition during the War and even long after it. Following that revelation over to their lengthy neighbors, I could only assume they too were some sort of tube-launched missile of some sort. It was debatable as to the actual efficacy of the cluster of small rockets against anything other than infantry or soft targets out in the open but…the bigger tubes had me thinking. Given the enemy this was surely set to square up against, it would stand to reason they would give something with this kind of height advantage a means to take down Zebrican heavy armor; namely, the Rhynox and Oliphant combat robots, Feral Dragons and, Gods forbid, imported Moskowponi armored technology from before their laughable demise.

My mind wandered as we worked and while more canvas was torn away to show off the goods, my thoughts continued to mull over the implications of our find. Only glimpses of a main hatch, further windows on the main cabin and the slender tail assembly passed by my notice as I thought. First of all was the obvious: she was absolutely massive. It no longer mattered that I wasn’t in on this little secret back in the day when thrown against the backdrop of our current day and predicament. In the blink of an eye we had opened the door on the single greatest piece of military tech I had ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on, let alone getting hands-on experience with it. Large caliber cannons and rocket-propelled munitions littered its hull and even from the outside it looked like it could more than hold a Fireteam or two. If anything…I was just too stunned by it all to even speak a word of these thoughts aloud as I might have otherwise done. Elder Grigori was going to travel well over a thousand miles, past the Gap of Canterlot and its NER patrols, and all the way to somewhere in the bumfuck middle of nowhere desert…just to have his prize taken by the guy he wanted dead above all else. Gods…sometimes there was just no way of getting out of a maniacally happy shiver down the spine thinking about just how pissed he was going to be.

Within a few more minutes of hard work and some skillful telekinesis on their part, we had successfully extracted the gigantic, beautiful machine. As familiar with Gryphon tech as I’d like to think I was, this…Vertibird was defying any and all calls of familiarity. It made logical sense to think that Gryphon Schmiedemeister were behind its construction and design but there was a certain…mechanical-ness about Gryphon tech that was missing here. Well, less missing as it was more…unfamiliar, more ‘modern’ for lack of a better term. Everything was sleek with rounded corners and modest exterior welding and bolts while Gryphons tended to favor a more industrial look. While it would be understandable if this were a modern-day craft as the Gods only knew what my people had come up with over the last 200 years…this wasn’t brand new. New in the sense of never having ever been touched perhaps but it had still been two centuries since it had been left behind and forgotten. Our work done, we communally gathered back at the nose of the craft to admire our handiwork and continue to gawk at the visual spectacle we had discovered.

"Holyyyy Celestia tha' there's ah biiig ass gun!" Firefly whistled, nodding me over to inspect the nose cannon from earlier. "Ah ain't neva seen one this damned huge!"

"Goddamn… I haven't seen one of you in a hot fuckin' minute..." I breathed while enjoying a happy shiver of nostalgia.

"Yeah, being a bird I'd expect ya to have seen one of these before." She laughed, earning a tired sigh out of me for her trouble. "Only saw these on those medium tank things and the big Sky Freighters that used to long-haul goods and materiel between the Continents for us."

"Same here..." I replied, holding up a clenched fist for comparison to the cluster of three, inch-wide barrels. "Bit too big, heavy and expensive for something like Anti-Air work so they made plans to adopt the M197-A, the 20mm Vulpes version. Never saw the new Falke IV ultra-mediums or the Adler I heavies since they never reached the South in time for me to enjoy them but I had heard about them in a dispatch from High Command. Saw plenty of burnt-out IVs around Manehatten and the Eastern Front though...but any that could be salvaged had already been taken by the High Elder and the Salt Lick City SR Chapter since...you know, security and enforcement. Gotta protect the heartland and head leader and all that jazz."

After I finished speaking we all fell into silence once again, held locked in place by the rapture only a mighty machine of war can inspire. I could clearly see myself in the golden reflection cast back by the windscreen and I couldn’t hide the glee on my face if I tried. Eventually our trance was broken by the mare scurrying off towards the right-facing cabin door which had the crest of the Equestrian Armed Forces painted on under the large window. At once both a familiar and a half-forgotten symbol of a gold and silver kite shield, set with a Yin-Yang of the Sun and Moon intersecting at a cross of black, which divided up the shield into four corners; two smaller upper sections and two larger lower ones. Occupying the two larger portions were a clockwork hoofprint and sword, the Pre-War sigil of the Steel Rangers Corps while flanking it to its right, a broad spear enwreathed on either side by a pair of Pegusi wings. Sitting above them, crammed into the small upper corners of the shield, was a stylized Dragon wielding an Anti-Machine Rifle and a simple horseshoe set with a Private’s chevron in the center. The Desert Ranger Corps and the General Army Corps… They were just as fundamental and necessary to the EAF as the Steel Rangers and Airborne and yet even here they got the shit end of the stick. It was no secret to anyone that the Steel and Desert Rangers never got along during the whole duration of the War but it was amusing to be reminded of it in such a visual manner.

As the mare reached out to unlatch the door, her PipBuck gave off an unusual chirping sound followed by the cabin door sliding open of its own accord. At the same time, the floor immediately beneath the door hinged downwards revealing a wide, hidden stepladder that extended out and to the floor. Further beyond I could spy the main cabin which featured a wall of seats and overhead stowage bins lining the length of the hull from the door back towards the tail on our left. To our right the rather spacious cabin was abruptly interrupted by a wall sporting some more inward facing seating and an open bulkhead door set in a pathway in the center. Spacious as it was though, even a quick glance was enough to show I would have a tough time stuffing myself inside while she and Firefly could freely explore it to their hearts’ content. This observation came with another question attached though: if I, an admittedly short Gryphon, was gonna have a hard time getting inside then it only furthered my suspicions that this wasn’t one of ours. We would undoubtedly gladly take credit for it had we known about this little beauty but…that evidently never was the case.

"Damn, that's nifty!" She squealed with unbridled glee as the stepladder extended while the sound sent unexpectedly vibrant shivers down my spine.

Taking a chance to casually walk around the awkwardness, I glanced around her as she climbed aboard and replied, "Jeeeeeez look at all that space! Looks a little short in there so I think Imma stay out here where I can stand up straight. Besides...couldn't fit up that corridor if I wanted to, just a bit too skinny to fit through. This thing was built with ponies and Griffins in mind, not Gryphons. Huh...don't remember anyone saying anything about them working on something like this."

"You sure?” She asked, sounding a little surprised. “Lotta neat shit on these, especially something that's like 50% bigger than the ones I'm familiar with. This model is completely new so there's a fuckload to dive into on this thing!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty damn sure I don't wanna get a neck cramp from seeing the most boring part of this thing's insides.” I responded with a bit of a laugh, “Besides, somebody's gotta start searching the rest of the base. Still plenty of places to check out and shit to break into before we set up the ambush and ain't no time like the present!"

She shrugged looking a little disappointed, but only a little. "Eh, your loss! You coming, Firefly?"

"Eh heh..." He laughed nervously. "Ah...don' think so, Crete. 'Fraid Ah'll break somethin' 'er bump into some buttons 'er another. 'Sides....ain't ah fan of enclosed places if ya get wha' Ah mean."

"So I'm to investigate this thing by my lonesome? Damn...ah well! You boys enjoy your door-to-door bullshit and lemme know if you find anything interesting. I'll do the same with this big beauty and see what sorta secrets she holds. This one is extra special and is just begging to be poked and prodded for answers!"

I rolled my eyes and nodded towards the passenger elevator in the corner after getting Firefly’s attention. "You're a fuckin' nerd, ya know that? Check in every fifteen-minutes, see ya mare."

Next Chapter: Chapter 11: A Bunker Without Equal Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes