As soon as the elevator doors slid shut and our destination set for Sublevel-1, I felt myself sighing in deep relief. At last I could return to the company of someone less…complicatedly annoying and just…feminine. She was pushing so many of my buttons all over the place for your average mare and, I had to admit, it wasn’t something I was exactly used to putting up with. Everyone annoyed me to one level or another at the end of the day but…goddamnit did she somehow make it feel more personal than anyone in recent memory. It wasn’t even like she was being flirtatious or charming, quite the opposite even. No, there was something else going on inside that head of hers that was messing with me. Some kinda of trick or...maybe some kind of pony magic I wasn't familiar with. Unfortunately, my enjoyment in our respite from Athena was something that Firefly immediately caught onto.

“Yew doin’ good?” He asked with a light chuckle. “Lookin’ ah bit flustered there, Garand.”

“Yeah, just…yeah.” I sighed in response, not even attempting to try and put up a façade. “She’s just…ugh.”

“Oh? Wha’s this here? Ah know she tried tah put ah hole through ya n’ everythin’ but…Ah bet on mah hat tha’ she ain’t gunna try tah kill yew again anytime soon.”

“Well…sure, but…” I mumbled, almost to myself. “No…this isn’t about that. She just…irks me is all. I feel like…I dunno, just weird about it all.”

“Weird? Weird how, big fella? If yer talkin’ about how she looks tha’ damned fine n’ dandy after two-hunnit somethin’ years? Absolutely pardner, Ah could talk ah bit about tha’ there topic, but Ah dunno if tha’s wha’ yer after. Unless ya are?”

“I’ve…no fucking clue…” I mumbled in response, the flash of her gorgeous violet eyes like amethysts flashing in my mind, followed by the lovely curve of her ass in that armor.

“Hoooooo boy!” He chuckled with a soft whistle of approval to himself. “Hey, ain’t gonna judge yew fer thinkin’ she’s ah looker. Damned fine mare as Ah ever seen, kicked more ass n’ seen more shit than Ah ever will. Ah think she's perfect fer ya!”

To my handy rescue came the soft ding of the elevator door as it opened promptly upon our first stop; a spacious semicircular atrium of sorts with a Maglocked set of double doors at the opposite side from us, and a broad stairway leading down somewhere out of sight. In a nice, if gaudy, change from the barebones military industrial look of upstairs, the space seemed mostly completed and came furnished with an assortment of items. Overhead hung a large crystal chandelier which provided an abundance of light to the polished marble floor below which sported a massive mosaic of the full crest of the Equestrian Armed Forces, including its four main branches. Interspaced every six-feet or so along the curved portion of the wall were a number of recessed alcoves with comfortable looking booth tables formed from one long, continuous bench which encircled most of the length of the atrium. At the same time, a dead, meter-wide band of what I assumed to be something akin to a news ticker spanned the upper rim of the wall in one solid loop around the room. Tucked away in armored housings were over a dozen security cameras of which, only half or so displayed a visible red light indicating they were active. Large, round panels of steel in the ceiling were undoubtedly the undersides of some heavy-duty auto-turrets designed to shred any and all unwelcome guests. To our credit though, we had entered using one of the highest credentials a pony in the Army could get, and the head of the entire Southern Front at that. We had barely seen anything of the complex and already, it had beaten out at least half of the bunkers I had previously cracked open in size and complexity alone. With the atrium at roughly the same dimensions of a small indoor gymnasium, a good few personnel were no doubt expected to be running and maintaining the base at any one time.

“Place looks comfy enough. Wha’ yew reckon this place tah be?” He asked once we had stepped out and gotten a bit more of a look around.

“Well, an atrium for one. Lots of space for sitting and even some table space around here, so I guess it’s also like a…waiting room or…dining room of some kind?” I replied, lifting a leg as I glanced under me at the ancient mosaic. “Not a lot to see here so I don’t got much to spitball back at you. What do you think, stairs first or should we try those Maglocks at the other end there?”

“Hmm…tough one. How ‘bout them doors? Always somethin’ juicy tah be found behind big, fancy locked doors!”

“Doors it is then! Come on, let’s go crack these suckers open.”

We crossed the last of the atrium without incident and in approaching the doors, a hidden panel in the wall to either side of the frame slid away to reveal independent terminals with all the appropriate docking ports. Given I had needed to do so four times already, I was more than ready to tackle the next of what was sure to be many more; the cord to my PipBuck clicking satisfyingly into place as I pulled up the credentials of General Olive. The same error messages I had seen on the previous terminals were to be found here as well, although once I had plugged in the data cable the doors began to hiss open of their own accord without any other inputs on my part. Beyond the Maglocks lay a narrow steel hallway with a grate-like floor lit along the corners in soft blue, while spinning emergency lights sat dormant on the walls astride a pair of sealed hatches midway down. At the other end of the ten-or-so foot corridor lay another large Maglock door painted with cautionary red stripes and the words, ‘OPERATIONS: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’. Some ways ahead of it, the ceiling presented the undersides of a further two large auto-turrets resting idly on standby forming a chokepoint of defense.

“Hmm…worth a quick look I guess, but…I’m not sure how much there’ll be to see aside from a lotta computers, data servers and chairs. If it’s anything like what I’ve come across before in other bunkers, it’s just gonna be a boring place to look around unless you’re there to scrap for electronics. That and…this place is on emergency power so I doubt there’s going to be much that’s operational in there at the moment.”

“Won’t know ‘till we try it, no? Let’s see wha’s behind our first door already.”

The second door was the exact same as the first, with a pair of terminals on either side of the white enameled door and a pair of security cameras which gazed down on us with seeming disinterest as no alarms went off. Merely having General Olive’s credentials pulled up on my PipBuck seemed entirely sufficient enough to override the lockdown on individual doors and this one was no different. Within a moment of plugging myself into the access port, our second barrier slid open vertically bringing into view a spacious and very bizarre hexagonal room with a high domed roof. I wasn’t sure which part drew my eye first in the rather dimly lit space: the large hi-tech conference table in the center of the room or the dozens of glass boxes built out of the walls. Surprisingly, the enormous, oval-shaped table commanded the bulk of the ground floor which was otherwise mostly devoid of the usual lines of terminal stations and barely comfy seating; the only computer stations around being tucked into the corners of the room. Instead, once I had moved closer, I discovered that each of the odd glass boxes dotting the walls were in fact individual office-like cubicles; eight per available wall with thirty-two in total. Rather than placing all their work stations down below like other bunkers I had seen, each operator was housed in their own glass box which housed a control station that nearly encircled the small chair sat within. Access to these stations was seemingly provided via four passageways found along the base of each wall; a wide spiral stairway at the far end leading up and two hatches on either side granting entry to the two cubicles located on the ground floor. Across from where we entered lay yet another Maglocked door, this one labeled as, ‘EXECUTIVE OFFICES: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT’. Above it was a broad television screen that spanned the entire length of the wall, though was disappointingly dark and silent like most other machines we could see. One could only guess the kind of information it could display or really what secretes any of the many computers around me contained somewhere in their circuits.

“Well…isn’t this a new one?” I commented to myself while he and I continued our little stroll. “Never seen an ops center that looked like this before, that’s for damned sure.”

“Yew think they actually made ponies work in these here things?” He remarked after peering into one of the cubicles for himself. “Ain’t no leg-room in there but th’ damned space tah get out th’ door!”

“I’m sure they would’ve but there’s still plenty of signs this place wasn’t entirely ready for full-time use all over. Lotta leg-room out here though! Looks like they wanted to keep the ground floor clear of distractions I guess, just…never seen a design like this before.”

“Yeah…is damned strange…common, looks like yew was right abou’ there bein’ nuthin’ tah look at worth our time in here.”

“Oh? Ready to go that soon?” I asked in a bit of surprise as I myself felt a little intrigued at what lay inside the executive offices. “But you’re the one who wanted to see where that corridor led!”

“Yeah, Ah just wanted tah see fer mahself wha’ was behind it. Now we know, we can move along tah th’ next place. Ain’t nuthin’ here we need tah be worryin’ over right now, not when we got a buncha Steel Rangers on their way here. Let’s check out th’ downstairs we saw back in tha’ there atrium o’ yers.”

“Just because I pointed out the obvious doesn’t make shit mine…” I sighed in response, following along behind him as we made our way back through the narrow passageway to the aforementioned atrium.

His only response was a hearty chuckle and soon we were busy with making the uncomfortably awkward descent down the pony-sized stairway in the center of the room. Well, uncomfortable for me at least, Firefly made his way down with absolute ease but made sure to share another chuckle at my expense as I set my talons and paws down tentatively. The task was made easier by leaving my Power Armor behind near the door to operations but still, I was miserable for those long twenty seconds. At the bottom of the hell stairs was yet another long, somewhat narrow hallway leading away some hundred-feet till it formed a T-junction at the far end. Lining either side were plain, unadorned doorways save for a single number stenciled to the right of each door, ascending from one all the way to the number twenty. As none of the doors were seemingly locked, a quick peek inside revealed a room full of quadruple-stacked bunks, the spaces between them filled with personal lockers and a large, simple table with chairs in the center of the room. Each bed was tidily made and every locker stood open and empty, waiting for something to occupy it, though not a single bunk looked like they had ever been slept in or really even claimed at all. After peeking into several of these rooms only to see a carbon-copy of the first, we both decided to assume that all twenty of these barracks were identical to one another and we could move on without checking any more.

“Ah counted forty bunks per. Forty times twenty…”

“Eight-hundred, give or take if any of the ones we didn’t check have any kind of variation in the number of bunks.” I finished for him. “A whole goddamn Battalion of soldiers…if that’s who these were meant for. For all we know, this is the only lodging in this place and everyone involved was supposed to suck it up and rack up together like in basic.”

“Fuckin’ wild…” He whistled in response, numbers nineteen and twenty passing by us as we reached the T at the end of the hall. “Uhh…how yew wanna handle this?”

“Eh, fuck it. You go one way and I’ll take the other. Meet back up here if either path goes on for too long and we risk getting lost or you run into something you can’t open.”

He nodded and, after a moment of silent decision-making, took the path leading left which bent away at a sharp right angle keeping everything beyond out of sight. Left with the only remaining path, I took to the right side and was immediately met with a very standard set of double doors with a hoof-latch and everything. Pulling them open, I immediately felt a faint shiver across my back as my eyes adjusted to the sudden absence of light in the massive room beyond; the only light provided by what the doorway allowed inside. It only took a moment for the feeling and the bulk of the darkness to wear off and my relief only doubled upon seeing rows and rows of low tables sporting benches. The more I looked, the more signs of a cafeteria I noticed around the room, from the buffet-style bar with empty steam tables behind glass awnings at the far end to the stacks of plastic trays sitting atop rolling carts in the corners. Once I located a large set of light switches on the wall and restored full visibility to the room, all doubts were put to rest as I was indeed standing inside a mostly-finished canteen. Most fixtures were only the lights themselves with no outer paneling to cover up the electrical works normally hidden with the rest of the ceiling. Alongside that, the walls were painted a basic beige color but were otherwise mostly devoid of any other sort of color or decoration. That is, aside from one long stripe of red in the floor with arrows indicating the flow of traffic during chow time from the rows of tables and along the length of the serving area. On another glance I noticed a half-painted stencil of the words ‘DIRTY DIS-’ above a recessed trough to the left of the steam tables, which seemed to feed used dishware to the back of the kitchens using a small conveyor belt. All that besides, there was yet to be a single corpse outside of the maintenance tunnel one floor up which was…interesting.

A quick glance behind the steam tables only showed an empty, industrial-sized kitchen with the whole shebang as far as culinary utensils and equipment was concerned. Ovens, deep fryers, stove tops, prep stations and over a dozen other things I didn't know the name for occupied the space behind the counter. It was unclear just how many soldiers were supposed to inhabit the base, but the level of infrastructure so far was indicating a thousand personnel at the very least. Though the kitchen was interesting enough on its own, I wasn’t particularly hungry so I felt no need to prod further into it than I already had. When I emerged, Firefly was already standing there waiting for me with a bored look on his face that kinda told the whole story. I had found a boring old cafeteria so I could only guess he found something equally or even more boring than I had. Personally, my money was on a bathroom or something along those lines given the proximity of twenty barracks fit to house an entire Battalion of hungry, unwashed grunts outta the General Army.

“Hope yer searchin’ found somethin’ more interestin’ than wha’ Ah found…” He grumbled with audible disappointment.

“Debatable, you first then.” I replied with a smirk of amusement.

“Humph…fuckin’ showers, lockers, n’ stalls fer days.” Came the bitter reply along with a roll of his milky blue eyes. “Ah mean, be th’ best damned place tah take ah shit ‘er a shower in th' whole damned Wasteland, but…still, was hopin’ fer an armory ‘er somethin’.”

“Called it!” I laughed with a slight pump of my fist in victory. “Thought you might have found somethin' just as boring as me, based off of how annoyed you looked standing there.”

“Oh, puttin’ bets on mah mental sanity now, eh? So wha’, it’s ah buncha boring ol’ toilets n' shit, it’s good tah know where we need tah go if we need tah…ya know, go! So wha’, yer sittin’ fancy on some amazing find? Or are ya just slow at seein’ if ah place ain’t worth th’ time o’ lookin’?”

“Nah, found the canteen though! Pretty big bitch though…I dunno, I get the feeling that there’s gotta be more than just that to feed everyone here. Even with a Battalion on-site, this is a big, expensive asset that could house more. I would if I were in charge at least…”

“Who said yew couldn’t be? Get it all up n’ runnin’ and who’s gonna stop ya from stampin’ yer name all over it?”

“Oh common, this is already way too much space for me by my lonesome.” I laughed in response, flashing him a warm smile. “We can split it fifty-fifty. I get half, you get half and everybody is fuckin’ dandy at the end of the day!”

“Yeahhh, wha’ ‘bout Athena though?” He asked with a critical tone and a cocked eyebrow to boot. “Don’t she get somethin’ fer not killin’ ya n’ sorta helpin’ wit’ th’ exploration shit?”

“Oh…right. Her…” I grunted with a sigh, reaching for my PipBuck to access the radio channel that was still linking us together and putting it on speaker. "Check in, what's it lookin' like in there, mare?"

"Clear of hostiles as far as I can tell. Why?" Came her cheeky reply within a moment or two, the tone of which only grated on my feathers more.

"Ha, ha...like there would even be hostiles inside something mothballed like that. Anything useful, smartass?"

"Well...only just got done checking out the main cabin which took some time to comb through. Anyways...I've found some Type-3 field packs fully loaded with gear, some hella good first-aid supplies and a really awesome built-in gun rack thing that recesses into the tail assembly. Sadly there's nothing on it but it's got a good five-feet of rifle space and room for ammo canisters. Also, I call dibs."

Firefly and I had just been discussing the whole concept of ownership and how it applied between us and the base… Of course he had to go and jinx our hefty finder’s claim by invoking her name like that and summoning it to her mind via osmosis or some other psy-op I was unaware of.

"Dibs? Dibs on what?” I asked in confused disbelief before it clicked. “The Vertibird?"

"Yep!” She replied with a grin that was audible over the radio. “I know the most about it, I found it first and I am the most qualified to get this thing running in this group. You said it yourself, you never got much experience with Greifenländer vehicles and specialized in Power Armor engineering."

"Well...yeah, but...you can't just claim 'dibs' on something Firefly and I technically knew about first, mare. This ain't a Gryphon machine, you said it yourself."

"No, it's not. It's 100% Hexagon with Griffin input probably. Besides, you can't even fit in the fucking cockpit fatass. How the fuck are you gonna get anywhere, let alone fly this thing? Gonna push it around on its wheels with your Power Armor?"

It hurt so goddamn much but…she was fucking right. I had even said as much to her myself with my own fat beak that I would barely be able to cram myself inside the thing. There wasn’t even a point in attempting to salvage some sort of claim to dibs over it.

"Alright, fuckin' take it then! But I've got dibs on everything else then."

"Hey! This place is more than big enough for the three of us to have an equal share here." She growled back, bringing up another fair point that could earn me more kudos against her taking in the Bounty. "I'll take a lesser portion of whatever else you find. How about this, if it has anything to do with my Corps, it's mine. With yours getting the lion's-share of the military budget, that should be a decent compromise I think. You can have the base too. Actually...hmmm...let's debate that one later. Since this thing can land in here, I have a use for this place as well so that muddies the water."

I tried for almost a minute to form any sort of counter proposal that would edge her out of more shit but, eventually I grunted out, "Yeah. Sure...that sounds fine."

"Awesome! Now, unless you've found anything super interesting yourself, I'd love to get back to what I was doing."

"Eh, nothing much..." I grumbled boredly while thinking over our mildly interesting finds. "Just the main command center, canteen, a bunch of barracks, and locker room. Some neat shit but with everything on emergency power...just not a whole lot to look at so far. We're finishing up our sweep of this level, headed down to Sublevel-2 in a minute or two. Garand, out."

“Just couldn’t say no tah her, eh?” Firefly chided with sarcastic glee once the channel was set back to standby. “Just gonna let her take tha’ damned fancy flyin’ thing without even ah fight?”

“Oh don’t you start with that shit… Look, you heard her yourself. I’d be stupid to even think about taking that thing as my own since I could barely get into the crew cabin at my size. It’s just…smart deal-making on the fly is all, nothing more to read into than that, alright?”

“Righ’...” He chuckled in reply, glancing back towards the path back to the stairway out. “Well, ain’t no use pokin’ more ‘round these parts. Let’s get back to th’ lift n' get ah lookin’ at th’ next floor.”

Given he had already riled me up somewhat, I only responded with a grunt and a nod before starting the journey the same way that we came. The road back up the awkwardly small stairs, across the atrium and into the elevator was a bit of a blur as my mind was…distracted to say the least. Enough so that Firefly had to push the button on the panel to send us down to Sublevel-2 and tap me on the bracer to get my attention back on the present. By the time I realized my lapse in concentration, it was too late for me to acknowledge it and save any sort of face. Instead, I just silently waited until the elevator once again provided a sufficient distraction from the moment with a ding of its little bell; in particular, a distraction from my embarrassing moment. The view it presented us once it opened was another sizable atrium of sorts, this one squared off and sporting an abundance of comfy sitting space and the first bits of living green we had seen so far. Raised grow beds of decorative brickwork containing colorful flowers, short shrubs and even some graceful ferns were placed amongst the padded benches, providing something natural to sit and relax around amongst so much government concrete. With such ample headspace, several trees had even been fit into the area in some particularly large planters, though to both our surprise, none of them were overgrown. In fact, each and every last leaf and petal was well-kept and in place as if the plant had been frozen in time at the peak of its respective bloom. Something arcane had been done to them, that was beyond obvious but…it still threw my head for another loop it wasn’t in the mood for. Pony magic could do some crazy shit if enough of ‘em threw their horned heads at the problem.

“Goddamn…” Firefly mumbled in awe, pausing tentatively to lean in and sniff a nearby tulip. “Wow! These ain’t fake! Th’ hell they do tah keep em like this fer two-hundred years?!”

“Wrong guy to ask, sorry.” I responded, my mind relaxing somewhat at the sight of real plantlife again. “It’s magic, all I can say on that front. Some sorta fancy spellwork neither of us is qualified to even read about, let alone cast. If I wanted to toss out another guess that is. It’s…a nice touch though, I have to admit. Been awhile since I’ve seen some real plants that weren’t desert or general Wasteland natives. Hell…how much you wanna bet that these are the only surviving members of their respective species? At least as they are now, unmutated.”

“Fuck…Ah ain’t thought o’ tha’...”

“Exactly. If I had less respect for this sort of installation and an eye on enriching myself, the seeds and live samples from these would probably catch the eye of some wealthy parties.”

“Yew wouldn’t!”

“Of course not!” I shot back, gently cupping a rose between my talons while still on the bush. “I wouldn’t harm relics like these for any kind of money! The natural world is a damned beautiful thing and as someone who was around before most shit went to hell, it’s nice to know there’s a small piece of it right down here still.”

“Good.” He snorted with a slight frown at the thought. “Beauty like this oughta be left where it be. Ah do agree wit’ ya though, it’s nice tah be around somethin’ green n' alive. Come on! There’s gotta be more tah this floor then ah lil’ walk n' sit through nature!”

Now that our eyes had finally been peeled away from the veritable little garden around us, we each began to notice new aspects of the space that we had been blind to earlier. The walls were painted with a mural from wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling of the great outdoors; or at least what used to be the great outdoors two centuries earlier, before Balefire ushered in an indiscriminate scorched-earth policy on most of the world. Rolling plains of emerald green grasslands with some rolling hills scattered about surrounded us at eye-level while above, a facsimile of the blue sky of old lightly brushed with clouds taunted me. I still lived with memories of a time when the skies above weren’t mostly full of clouds and the ones that did come about were under some sort of manual control from a pair of wings… Another large crystal chandelier with glittering baubles dangling below it hung from the ceiling which, itself, sported a highly stylized mural of the Sun that fittingly encircled the chandelier like a fiery halo. Air vents were cleverly hidden by further paint which, along with what felt like some kind of light artificial humidity, provided for an extremely comfortable atmosphere so far underground. Even the plant life around us came with tasteful mood lighting built off of or into their planters, adding on yet another layer of homely comfort I found surprisingly impactful. Further on, the unsurprising sight of yet another double-wide Maglock bulkhead sealed shut awaited us, accompanied a short ways on either side by two smaller hatches. In a nice twist of fate though, we didn’t even have to do anything this time as the largest door hissed wide open for us as we approached. However, even this little victory did little to cushion the blow of what the next room held in store for us.

Extending on for hundreds, maybe even a thousand-feet, the path ahead of us immediately transformed into a broad catwalk suspended over a room that was easily a couple hundred feet tall and several hundred wide on its own. On either side, wide rectangular pods with tinted exterior windows were stacked some ten units high and spanned the length of the colossal room; each row featuring its own separate catwalk system connected by short stairways every hundred-or-so feet. Facing inwards, each pod I could see had a visible door leading inside, alongside what appeared to be a mail receptacle, some faint names painted on the wall and some basic exterior lighting. Each rectangular pod was roughly the same dimensions as a typical Sky Freighter shipping container though far more homely in appearance, if still a bit on the bland side. If they were intended one-per individual, the small space inside each unit was rather spacious given the circumstances and, hopefully, comfy enough to live in long-term. There were surely those who would otherwise complain at such a lack of personal space to call one's own but, these were the same people who had likely not experienced extended periods without a shred of privacy. Even most officers had to rack up in bunkrooms alongside their units with private quarters such as these only reserved to the most ‘important’ officers on base. After another few moments we both started moving forward, straining our eyes to see just how far down this unorthodox housing sector went.

“Ah…Ah don’ have any words…” He stammered softly aloud, an awe I likewise shared.

“Tell me about it…” I replied with wide eyes and rapt attention to our surroundings. “There’s gotta be over two hundred of these things in here, easy. No idea what they could be, never seen things like this before. Each one of ‘em has a door and some kinda label on the wall next to them so…could be housing units of some sort? I don’t think they expected scientists from the Ministries to share bunk rooms like those barracks upstairs. Won’t know unless we crack one open but…just…holy shit…wow…”

The sheer scale of the enormous hall of concrete surrounding us seemed to repeatedly beat each of us over the head with the revelation of its mere existence. Vertigo wasn’t all too familiar to me as a Gryphon, even without having used my wings to properly fly since I was a fledgling, but…I had to take looks downwards in small doses. Once we had overcome some of the inherent wobbliness in our legs from the drop underneath us, we continued along the path till it branched off in a cross-intersection. From here, the two branching paths which led to the far walls met with a set of descending platforms connected from where we were to the bottom level via an relatively unenclosed lift. Each platform then connected with one of the levels of catwalks servicing the individual units, the abundance of support beams across the structure giving me some added peace of mind. Naturally, we tried the lift as it was already docked at the topmost floor and rode it down a single level just so we could prod into one of the units for a quick peek. The machine functioned silently on greased gears without a single hitch while it dropped us down one level to access the system of catwalks below.

“Just how many damned ponies this place need anyways?” He mumbled as we exited the lift and onto the catwalk. “Ah think two-hundred is too low…tha’ top walkway there went on for ages…”

“Hey, a spitball answer is a spitball. I agree, it definitely looks like a lot more than just a couple hundred but that’s beside the point right now. Now…let’s see here…”

We had rounded a corner and around the front of the closet unit we could reach. The entire structure was made of metal painted a boring light gray color that contrasted well enough with the name ‘Dr. Coronal Sunrise’ stenciled to the right of the sealed hatch in red. To the left of the doorway set with a small reinforced window was yet another small terminal with a space for a PipBuck to plug in for instant access as well as a slot beneath it for an access card. Creepily as all hell though…the door immediately popped open for us without so much as a single message on the screen or anything the second my plug clicked into the socket. The door opening was itself in no way creepy or spooky but rather, it was the mere idea that General Olive’s credentials had cracked open the personal home of a female member of staff with zero hesitation. I had always known him and heard of him referred to as a true old school scumbag, but this? This was something else... But, there was nothing to be done about it as soft recessed lighting automatically came on as we entered. Inside, the comfortable bare minimum for rest and relaxation were provided with a small bed, kitchenette, a tiny couch and a modest TV all crammed into the space. A second hatch remained closed at the back, but I was putting my caps on it leading to a similarly tiny private bathroom. Signs of actual habitation were finally on display as scattered notes and open books littered the unkempt bed, couch and what little counter space the unit provided. One of the rare portable mini-terminals used by scientists and medics alike sat dead on the corner of her bed, the SparkPacks fueling it having likely outlasted their own half-lives and died. An additional monitor with a deployable keyboard hung suspended above the narrow queen-sized bed, attached to an adjustable arm coming off of a mounting point in the ceiling. Interestingly, a pair of pristine Ministry of Arcane Science lab coats hung from a simple peg on the wall nearby some pristine potted plants set into recessed alcoves; the signs of a meal long since abandoned sat in the tiny sink against the wall by some compact cabinets. I had seen enough so far to assume beyond a doubt that the base was in at least partial operation before the Great War. As for how long and with how many ponies on site though…? I still needed more information to fit that piece into place.

“Yeesh…this Dr. lady is ah bit o’ ah slob ain’t she? It’s like mah old bunkmate back in Camp Barely in th’ NER heartlands…”

“Oh like either of us are any better when given some private space to kick back and not obey each and every rule we have to follow?”

“Touché… Still, tha’ fucker was always leavin’ shit around th’ barracks. Pissin’ in SparkleCola bottles n’ leavin’ ‘em in random places, chewed th’ livin’ hell outta tha’ rough ground coyote tobacco…boy am Ah glad Ah signed onto First Recon when they asked. Got meh far th' hell away from him...”

“I bet heh, knew some of those types back in the day myself. What happened to the shithead, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Hell naw, yer good tah ask. Don’t rightly know tah disappoint ya, Ah got nicked off tah train at th’ Hawk’s Nest before he got any deployment orders. Hawk’s Nest is our nickname fer First Recon’s Camp Longshot, wayyy up North in the Seaddle Mountains before ya ask ‘cause Ah already see ya wonderin’ after tha’.”

“Thank you for that.” I laughed in gratitude given I was relatively unversed in all things NER. “Well, if it’s any consolation, the motherfucker I knew was some jackass named Lieutenant…Berry? Fuck, I forget… Anyways, dumbass did a lot of the same shit as that guy you were talking about during my couple years spent getting ‘naturalized’ into the Equestrian Armed Forces from the Greifenländer. After making a total ass of himself for the entire time there, always making a big talk about how much ass he’s gonna kick down on the Southern Front… Motherfucker goes and gets himself blended by a goddamn Scorpio robot emerging from the earth not twenty-minutes into his first day fighting in the Badlands. Not a way anyone should go, but…goddamn does the memory give me a bit of a smile when it pokes its way into my head sometimes.”

“Ah…wha’ robot…?” He asked with complete confusion, something I definitely deserved.

“Old Zeeb magic-tech. They basically made bigass semi-mechanical beasts by building facsimiles of astrological symbols of theirs out of wood, metal and flawless gemstones. Then, using some sort of ritual to possess it with angry spirits, they'd create these freakish robotic looking things, in this case something similar to a scorpion. Think RadScorpions, but way faster and much scarier to face down. Fuckers could shoot bolts of magic at you out of a cannon in their tail that could literally blast your Soul outta your fucking body. Gods I’m glad they’re a relic of the past…lotta good shit was lost but they weren’t one of ‘em.”

“Sweet fuck…how th’ fuck did anypony survive down there wit’ freaks like them tah fight against? Tha’ sounds downright hellish…”

“Yeah…I try not to think about how I made it through it myself…”

After a few moments of awkward silence while standing in the empty apartment, Firefly cleared his throat and said, “Well, yew were right about these things at least. Looks like they shacked up a whole mess o’ ponies in this place. Ain’t much more tah see on this floor then probably, so why don’t we just move on tah th’ next one n' hope fer somethin’ more usable fer us?”

“Yeahhh…probably our best bet. No idea how long the mare’s gonna take exploring that Vertibird of hers, but none of us have time to waste on bullshit.”

“Tha’s wha’ Ah was sayin’!” He replied with a soft smirk before leading the way back out onto the catwalk overlooking a tremendous fall. “Woah fuck meh…fergot abou’ tha’ drop…”

“You’re good, just put your eyes on the lift thingy so we can get back to the main elevator. Getting close on the next check-in so let’s pick it up a lil’ bit.”

The return journey was quick and smooth thankfully enough, the lift functioning perfectly on quiet gears while my attention noticed the pathways were rubberized for traction and the railings were imbedded with small LED lights at regular intervals. Indeed, our trip back revealed other small, appreciable quality-of-life additions that increased my respect and admiration for the countless hooves that must have touched the blueprints during construction. There was still a mystery door at the far, far end of the uppermost walkway but, neither of us seemed to feel up to making the long trip to find out when the presence of so much housing limited what it could be. Showers and bathrooms, another canteen, recreation facilities, a place to work out and stay fit…all of the above even? It was a mystery we could solve some other time once the Order was prevented from accessing this magnificent place. Even amongst all the marvels we had seen and found so far during our little escapade, the weight of the impending Rangers making their way towards us was getting heavier by the minute. By the time we reached the sitting room with the elevator, I decided it was best to just take a moment to sit and get a quick bite to eat while I hailed Athena again. Once I had a can of potted meat peeled open and the tin lid tossed in one of the dozens of trash bins around the sitting lounge, I pulled up the radio feature in my PipBuck and steeled myself against her shit.

"Second check in, anything new?"

Her response was quicker than the first time as she answered, "Well...checked out one of the gunnery stations above those side-mounted .50s and they seem to be pretty advanced. Can't say for sure until I get main power up, but I wanna explore everything while everything's off so I don't trip any buttons or switches I haven't accounted for."

"Anything else?" I mumbled around a mouthful of canned meat.

"Well, believe me or not but there's four smaller cabins in the center and upper fuselage. First one I checked was a tiny ass college apartment sized kitchenette with fuckin' food for days and a working fridge. Even more interesting than that, I just found an onboard armory that looks packed with weapons. Well, as packed as this small space can get. Plenty of space for tools too, has the makings for a terrific little crafting area if you ask me. Probably what it was meant for but I've yet to check any of the cabinets or drawers in here."

"Fair enough I guess…” I replied with a sigh after bothering to swallow. “We just found a buncha living pod things for more important base personnel in a bigass room. Pretty nifty little things with beds and shit, if a bit cramped for space but…everything is with you ponies. Cool to look at, but nothing we can make use of right now. Anything interesting in that armory of yours you mentioned?"

"Uh...lemme check..." Came her own mumbled reply as she seemed to take a moment to look. "I'm seeing...some M16s, no shock there. M14s...G3s...oooh, a couple Barnette .50s and M-RADs! A lot of these smaller ones are hard to see clearly... They're all in cages and I don't wanna break them trying to get the locks open. This is a pretty slick little room lemme tell ya, would be a waste to just break shit...I can find someone to get these open properly. He's back up North but if I can get this thing flying, that won't be an issue."

"Take your word for it, mare. Anything else interesting?"

There was a much longer pause this time as she examined whatever else was captivating her interest up there. The outside of her new toy was a mechanical marvel and a beautiful piece of work at that. Gods only knew what else was stuffed inside those rooms I’d never dream of trying to stuff myself into.

"Huh...this looks like a Power Armor maintenance station!" She exclaimed finally after almost a minute of silence. "Damn thing is stuffed in a tiny closet thing with an area extension spell and a full workshop of tools. Looks big enough to service even Griffin Power Armors...one at a time of course but still, this is a lot to cram into this bitch..."

"Heh, that's what he said.” I replied with a snort of amusement before adding on, “You'll have to try and show me some of these tools when we meet back up. Might have shit in there I've been missing for months. Alright, cool beans...have fun, nerd."

And with that I put the channel back on stand-by mode and plopped the rest of the meat left in the can into my mouth before tossing my trash away. A little workbench, cages with weapons and a Power Armor repair station? This Vertibird was proving to be a well of happy surprises and in some ways, I envied her search over ours for two reasons. One was the near-instant gratification in her exploration as everything was close by and two, she didn’t have anywhere near as far to walk to get to what she wanted to poke around with. All the same, we had found some pretty neat shit of our own so far and though both floors had been busts as far as things that could help us against the SR, we had still found important bits of infrastructure that could come in handy once it was all over. That was, of course, assuming our problems were going to be solved and she managed to get the thing flying enough to use those nasty weapons it was packing.

“Common ya big dingus.” He chuckled after another moment of lapsing into conflicted thoughts. “Let’s get tah th’ next floor! Gotta have somethin’ worth talkin’ abou’ next time she calls.”

“I’m the one calling her, but…sure…” I grunted back, entering back into the elevator once the doors had opened wide enough.

“Eh, yer no fun.” He pouted while taking the opportunity to tap the button to the next floor. “Yew like her, Ah can tell.”

“Piss off, Firefly… She’s an annoying bitch more than anything else.”

“Sure, then why’d yer feathers ruffle up like when yew was holdin’ meh back in Junction 11? Don’ act like Ah didn’ see yew gettin’ all flustered over her shite-talk.”

“And I’ll stuff your ass again if I have to if it’ll get you to shut the fuck up about it, ya fuckin’ Glowstick.”

“Heh, heh…don’t forget tah pull mah tail n' nibble mah ears then, big guy!”

Another ding of the bell and another aggravating conversation cut graciously short for me and my waning sanity. A set of doors behind us opened this time, revealing a narrow hallway just wide enough for Firefly and I to walk side-by-side. Steel frames were visibly embedded in the concrete as extra reinforcement while the caged lighting was decidedly much more industrial than the previous floors. The thirty-foot passage ended with a sealed door which proved powerless to resist General Olive’s credentials asking it to open up. Once the seal was broken and the doors parted down the middle, we emerged from the wall of a sizable circular room with a slightly smaller round plate of metal in the center. Rising from two sides of this central plate were semicircular pillars marked up the insides by fine rows of hollow furloughs which didn’t make any sense until I lowered my gaze and recognized the rough circumference of the space. That as well as the set of large gear wheels partly poking through channels in the plate on either side and running along the cargo lift shaft before us. A shaft which led up to…

“So the Vertibird is alllll the way the fuck up there, huh?” I asked to no one in particular, gazing up the wide, circular shaft which rose up for three long stories. “Fuckin’ wild…”

“How do ya know tha’?” He asked in reply, drawing his rifle and shining a light upwards till the giant sealed door was vaguely in view. “Huh…ya know wha’? Ah see wha’ yew mean now…so tha’ means this thang is…?”

“Heavy cargo lift for what could only be some fuckin’ Gryphon vehicles!” I finished for him, a grin of glee hitting my face that I didn’t bother to mask. “What else could it be? That big maintenance tunnel thing leading into the hangar thing upstairs was only a halfway point for getting to the lift up to the front entrance area. This would be a perfect place to store more shit out of the way of all those maintenance bays and as long as the Vertibird was out of the way, they’d be able to haul whatever they needed up and outta here.”

“Hooooo boy…ain’t tha’ somethin’...” He whistled in amazement, the sound echoing around the chamber weirdly. “Huh…buncha doors along th’ wall. Whatcha think?”

My attention was so focused on the cargo elevator that I failed to notice the aforementioned doors he had brought up. At some fifteen-feet tall and twenty-odd wide, all eleven sliding steel doors came across as high-end garage doors, a sentiment that was proven correct after seeing the contents behind one which was only half-shut. Inside was a far wider repair bay than any of the ones we had seen in the maintenance hall, sporting a heavy overhead crane, several large robotic arms, towers of tool cabinets, and a deep, somewhat narrow pit in the center. No Kampfwagen sat waiting for me beyond the door, but the mere sight of such a well-stocked mechanics’ station was a welcome one for my Gryphon roots. There was enough space between the cargo lift in the center and the wall housing these large garages to allow for most vehicles I knew to comfortably turn and enter one of the available bays. Indeed, the lift itself also sported four small caged areas in the corners near the support pylons which seemed to be meant to protect personnel when the lift was in-transit. Each garage came with an access terminal built into the wall nearby while the lift itself came with two that I could see; one located within one of the safety cages on the lift itself and the other built into the outer face of one of the pylons. Dozens of lights were overhead, although only a rough third of them were actually giving off any light worth using. More security cameras marked the corners yet, like the lights, only a fraction of them seemed to actually show any signs of life. Yet more victims on the growing list of victims of a complex stuck running on emergency power for two-something centuries.

Directly across from the narrow entrance tunnel we came through lay a broad opening in the otherwise round room, the area beyond branching at a crossroads down seemingly three other paths. The most noticeable feature of the new space as we approached sat in the center of the crossroads, a smaller, rectangular lift with wide guide rails on either side rising up to a large steel-and-glass box built off the ceiling. The branches directly to the left and right of us were symmetrical to the last detail, possessing a wide, shallow trough down the center with multiple sets of robotic mechanist arms sat along either side. Given the breadth of the trough would comfortably accommodate any Kampfwagen I was familiar with, I made the assumption the many robotic assistants were meant for mass service overhauls of vehicles returning from the Southern Front. The ceiling here was vaulted quite high overhead, each branch coming with a massive overhead rail system mounting several industrial-sized crane lifts, undoubtedly to help move shit along the assembly line. Their far ends were occupied by several individual bays similar to the ones we had passed in the maintenance tunnel leading into the Vertibird’s hangar though, unlike the upstairs, these bays were all fully stocked on tools and supplies. More AutoMechanist rigs occupied these bays with their dozens of tool-bearing arms retracted and inactive against their central chassis with its large scanning eye. What caught me by surprise however, more than even the beautiful repair bays themselves, was the presence of actual color on the walls of each repair bay and even the AutoMechs themselves. In fact, all the walls here were painted a dark emerald green till about midway up the wall where it suddenly became an off-white color; plenty of caution statements, numbers, and letters were likewise painted on the walls and floor to give some basic idea as to what everything was. For once, we actually had some points of reference to act on which was a nice change of pace from earlier floors.

“Huh…so these are for things that’ll take longer than a week to repair…” I muttered aloud to Firefly while reading from a nearby diagram on the wall of a repair bay. “Looks like the rest here with the robot arms is meant for shit that’s between two-to-four days to patch up. Which…would make me guess that those bays we passed upstairs were going to be used for jobs that can be done in a day or less. Interesting…”

“Very interestin’!” He agreed with gusto while casting his gaze over the hundreds of tools on display with a look of satisfaction. “Never seen these freaky lookin’ AutoDocs hangin’ from th’ ceilin’ before. They meant fer fixin’ up tanks n' shit?”

“Yuppers, we were lucky to have a few of these back in Manehattan so I’ve even gotten to run a few in my time as a Steel Ranger Knight. You just upload a copy of the schematics to the main computer for whatever it is you need repaired, and the Virtual Intelligence unit will run scans and diagnostics to isolate the issue. From there, it’ll give the diagnostic report on the control terminal and suggest which repairs it can do to fix shit, and in what order. Just select what ya want it to do, set the program to run and let the machine work its magic. It can’t do everything of course, and there’s always going to be problems that someone with eyes needs to be around for, but overall it can take a lot of stress off any Engineers taking a crack at it. Really, it’s best suited for the finicky wiring, specialty nuts and bolts, and precision spot-welding more than anything, but still. One of those things you'd really miss if it suddenly went missing one day.”

“Ah bet th’ NER would love some of these things… They’ve got some of them ol’ Gryphon vehicles, but none be in tha’ good ah condition. Least, not as good as President Sandy woul' have ya believe through th' ol' propaganda machine. Somethin’ like this would prolly help ‘em along ah good long ways.”

“That’s not even mentioning owning the schematics for them.” I added onto his train of thought. “Couldn’t imagine trying to repair something like those without any sort of official manual to follow. Granted, of course, the damned thing wasn’t in Gryphon and was actually a translated copy.”

He replied with a nod and, once we had both seen our fill of the empty repair bay, we made our way back to the center and faced the last branch we had yet to explore as it featured a massive sealed bulkhead. Of course, this door proved no more a barrier as any of those previous and readily began to open after a few commands in the door controls and a quick connection with my PipBuck. The lighting, apparently entirely dead until we opened the door, came on one fixture at a time, slowly bringing into view a veritable victory parade’s worth of Kampfwagen. As to be expected, the tightly stacked rows of vehicles contained the usual assortment typically seen fielded amongst the Equestrian military; Sperlingskauz scout vehicles, Würger II half-tracks, Falke IIs and IIIs with their progressively larger barrels, and even several Falke IVs with their long-barreled 75mm high-velocity cannons. Each proud unit was parked nearly shoulder-to-shoulder in four long rows down the length of the final room, two down the center, the others against the walls, and just enough space to drive one between each row. With a quick sweep of the room with my eyes, I was rounding out my guess at around sixty-to-seventy units in total filling the space around me. The back end of the room formed a semicircular shape housing yet more individual bays, although these house some particularly large beauties I’d only ever read about in field reports from the campaign in the Zebralands, and declassified testing documents from the research bases back home.

“HOLY DAMN!” Firefly exclaimed in wonder as we got closer. “Never seen none of ‘em be so big!”

“Yeah…these must be Adler Is. It looks similar to how I’ve heard it described in those notes…” I replied, approaching the large vehicle with a bit of reverence.

The chassis of an average Falke medium-tank came in couple feet above the head of the average pony and, including the slightly squared turret, bumped the total height to just under nine-feet. These beasts were even taller and wider than that, towering a good two-or-three feet above me with wide, squared bodies and rounded turrets sporting one of the largest cannons I had ever seen. The 88mm had earned legendary status already for its previous tenure gunning down airborne incursions from the Empire so to fix it into a mobile platform like this was only prudent. Its distinctive squared muzzle brake with rounded corners was a dead giveaway however and it lorded over the vehicle which housed it with a commanding presence. Again though, even with the 88mm sticking out of the mantlet, the box-like shape of the body and the circular turret were both equally dead-giveaways. All eight Adler Is occupying the individual bays were painted in a vibrant and unmarred desert pattern while additional exterior stowage in the form of wire baskets and armored bins had been welded onto the chassis.

“These as big as they get…?” He asked quietly once he had taken a chance to take it all in. “This here’s fuckin’ massive, Garand. Like...Ah knew y'all built yer fuckers big but...this here's ah monster!”

“Oh trust me heh, I heard about a so-called Adler II colossus that had debuted back in the Greifenländer, but eh…none of em obviously made the trip across the Continental Sea to make a cameo here in Equestria. Though…if I’m being honest here, these are undoubtedly gonna be outta date if home hasn’t stopped innovating on everything like a compulsion. Gods…I can only guess what kinda advancements they’ve made with more recent designs that haven’t been around for two-hundred years.”

He nodded his head in appreciation, eyes wide with shock still from the revelation that something even bigger than this thing could possibly exist in the world. After a few more moments of silence, his brow furrowed somewhat and he opened his mouth to speak.

“Gettin’ tah be abou’ time tah call in tah Athena again.” He said, nodding towards my PipBuck. “Don’t be gettin’ all mushy on her now, big fella.”

“And you can promptly go fuck yourself if ya don’t mind. How about this 88 here? Ain’t much bigger than my dick so why don’t ya give it a fuckin’ go, eh?”

“Oh yew’d like tha’ too much, make th’ call already ya big baby.”

Rolling my eyes in his direction with as much vitriol as I could convey with a look, I pulled the radio channel back up and called out over the line just as I had previously. This time though…she didn’t respond, not even after three attempts to get her attention. Needless to say, I wasn't exactly a fan or enthused by this change in the status quo.

“What you think…?” I asked with just a hint of hesitation. “Bad sign or…?”

“Ah dunno…” He responded with a frown. “Maybe she’s busy wit’ somethin’ tha’ needs a lotta concentration n’ we’re just bein’ rude. Give her like…Ah dunno, five minutes? Try her again then n’ see wha’ happens.”

I paused a second to think it over before admitting to myself that his idea was probably the best course of action. Barring her having gotten the Vertibird working and somehow flying before taking off without us, there could be multiple reasons she wasn’t responding. Not the least of which being the hundreds of feet separating us and all the concrete filling most of that space in between that could be interfering with the signal.

“Alright…well, let’s go see if we can get that lift thing in the center back there working and check out that glass box thing up there.” I suggested once I had brought myself to concede his point. “Should be enough of a time-killer I think since we’re still down here.”

“Fair ‘nuff. Let’s go find out!”

With little to stop us we reached the central, rectangular lift in short order and I set about accessing one of the two terminals attached to the support pylons. Yet again my pilfered credentials came to our rescue as a mere few inputs redirected power from the vehicle cold storage in the back room and onto the lift; the massive bulkhead door sealing itself back shut as I did so. Massive steel latches likewise clunked off and away from restraining the platform in place, rising up into shallow recesses in the base of the guide rail pylons. Once they were fully retracted, a single klaxon note played from a speaker next to the terminals and a solitary plinth rose up from the corner, a lonely button emerging from its center glowing a friendly green. With nothing left for it, I jabbed my fist into it and immediately felt a shudder through my legs, followed by long peals from the klaxon alarm as the platform began to lift upwards. Halfway up the rails, the floor of the mysterious structure up above split down the middle in a hidden hatch, allowing for the lift to fit flush with the space now created for it. Inside, a sizable room was revealed that was part official office space and part engineering space; a typical desk station with terminals, cabinets and tables bogged down with papers on one side and a full-scale mechanists tool kit and accompanying heavy equipment on the other. The steel plated room lacked much in the way of personal character but sported massive, angled windows facing down towards each of the four main branches of the floor with maximum observation in all directions, including immediately below. Accompanying this peculiar vantage point were a set of four hatches which exited onto catwalks built along the center of each roof allowing someone, like say a Chief Engineer, to look down on the goings-on in the various work spaces down below. Like on the floor above, the safety railing lining its length was softly lit at regular intervals while the occasional terminal extended from a short pylon; equipment and job statuses along with emergency overrides likely possible from these computer stations.

Back inside the private…office, for lack of a better word, Firefly made himself comfortable in the high-backed office chair sat behind the basic metal desk absolutely laden down by papers, binders, and the orange plastic exteriors of some abandoned holotapes. Nearby filing cabinets stood with their drawers in varying states of opened and closed, file folders of blueprints and work orders poking out of the rows of documents within at random. A quick glance of the desk brought a name plate into view, knocked somewhat off to the side by all the clutter occupying the rest of the desk, but still quite legible.

“Huh…‘Chief Engineer Electrode Symphony, Mastersmith M.E’.” I read aloud from the brass placard riveted to the stand of red mahogany. “Masters in Engineering...so she was a full-on certified graduate from that old college thing run by the Engineers Corps back in the day. Interesting... Maybe she brought shit up here for final inspections or…something? That lift is definitely big enough for a single Kampfwagen to park on it, and she’s got a full top-notch set of equipment up here for this sorta work so that’s my best guess over here. What do you think?”

“Mmmff…Ah think she had ah good taste n’ chairs!” He replied with a satisfied grunt from where he lounged. “Ah dunno Garand, yer way more up fer all tha' mechanical bullshit than Ah am. We’re higher up now, why don’t ya give Athena another try, eh?”

I nodded in agreement and brought the channel back off of stand-by and called her name over dead air. When she yet again failed to respond, I’ll admit that I got a bit irritated. And it might have came out in how I responded next.

"Hey! Dumbass! You ignoring me or something now?"

"Huh...?"

Her voice finally answered the call and it sounded groggy as all hell.

"The fuck you been? Been trying to get your fuckin' attention for like ten minutes, mare. You fall asleep or something?"

"...Uhhh..."

"Oh for the love of...what, find a bunkroom of some sort I take it?” I asked, rolling my eyes in Firefly’s direction. “If the thing has a kitchenette but no place to sleep on a fucker that big, then I'd find a way to beat some past-tense Engineer asses."

"Mph...yeah, its got a bunkroom. Four of em plus clothing storage, a bench by the window and a small writing table in the corner. Nothing fancy but it's still kinda incredible."

"Bet ya a hundred caps the last one's gonna be a bathroom of some sort, I’m on a bit of a roll with that bet today.” I replied with a soft smirk given my streak with correct-enough guesses. “Either that or like...extra storage. If they could stuff all this shit into tight places everywhere else, then I'm expecting anything at this point."

"Well...lemme find out for sure but I'll take that bet. Wouldn't surprise me either at this point."

There was a pause as it sounded like she got to her hooves and started moving about wherever inside the Vertibird she happened to be at the time.

"Yep, it's a bathroom!" She whistled finally, the surprise in her voice even bigger than when she found the kitchenette. "A little cramped, but it's got a shitter and a pretty decent looking shower. Wonder how this thing does plumbing…?"

"Wonder why on your own time. Anything else interesting?"

"Nadda." She sighed in response. "Just got the cockpit left. Well, that and figuring out how to turn this sucker on. You?"

"Firefly and I found a nice big maintenance floor packed with a shitload of Kampfwagen! Most seem to have been mothballed into cold storage but they’re all in terrific condition and in numbers to boot. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to put them together and get them goin'. I hope..."

"Gotcha. Any clue as to when we should start heading out?"

"Uhh...not entirely sure to be honest.” I grunted, a bit irritated our happy bubble had to be popped by bringing that back up. “Caught sight of the party clear as day just a dozen-or-so miles from the Gap about a half-hour before you decided to take a shot at me. I'd guess we have until late this afternoon or early evening? Why? Think you might be able to get that behemoth up and flying?"

"Not sure yet..." She admitted herself, a bit of humility that was a little surprising to me. "Gotta see the cockpit for myself still, but as long as the controls are similar to the ones I'm used to, I should be able to get it up and running. As for flying...well, I'll have to see."

"Well...do what you can then." I grunted again in reply, not wanting to betray the fact I was starting to like the sound of her voice. "That 30mm would wipe the floor of most of them and make our lives a lot easier, especially if they're Dual Purpose rounds with a penetrator. Garand, out."

My reprieve was short-lived as Firefly yet again caught onto the battles going on under the surface. I truly wondered if he was just that insightful or…if I had started wearing some of my stupid heart out on my sleeve for people like him to see?

“Yew could stand tah be ah little nicer tah her, ya know?” He chided me with a soft scowl. “She’s been right rosy tah ya since y’all made up back there. Why give her th’ gruff n’ stoic treatment each n' every time?”

“Oh come off it, Glowstick.” I retorted, clenching my beak in even further irritation. “She’s a fuckin’ acquaintance at best. Sure, I met her a couple of times before now, but that was literally two-centuries ago. I’m sure enough shit has changed between then and now for that sorta relationship to be next to useless by now.”

“And yet, she stopped fightin’ ya th’ moment ya told her who ya really were and she told you th’ same on her end. Ah’ve seen tha’ mare drag corpses across th’ desert withou’ so much as blinkin’ an eye o’ regret 'bout th' sorry fucks she just shot down. If she’s turnin’ down tha’ kinda money fer yer sake…? She’s either gone nutters, or…she thinks keepin’ ya around is worth more than th’ payday. Fer one reason 'er 'nother.”

“Humph…like the Order was actually gonna cough up the caps if she went and tried that shit anyway…”

“Sure, n’ yet she ain’t done nothin’ tah ya since. Just sayin’, Garand. Tha’ ain’t th’ Athena Ah’ve come tah know n’ hear abou’ round these parts. Think abou' tha', would yew?”

“Humph…”

Next Chapter: Chapter 12: Explorations Put On Hold Estimated time remaining: 40 Minutes