Fallout Equestria: Clearer Skies

Chapter 3: The Legacy of Luna

I groaned as the sun hit my face, rolling over and swinging my leg at where my alarm clock would normally be, only to have my hoof collide with the floor.  I opened my eyes in surprise, suddenly remembering where I was.  All the memories of the past two days raged through my mind as I slammed my eyes back closed.

Don’t think about it!  I told myself, shoving them into a pit at the back of my mind.  I opened my eyes again and got up. “Mornin’ Scopes.” I said, pulling my barding and helmet on, and attaching my battle saddle.  I looked over at the black pegasus as she did the same, pulling her fedora on.

“Mornin’ Desert.” She replied. “I’m thinking that today we should explore this place a little, since it seems like we could be calling it home for a while.” She said.

“Great idea Scopes.” I said, realizing that we would, in fact, be calling the Needle home for a while. “And I think that we should start with finding the controls for the security system.  I would love to be able to open the front door without being electrocuted.”

Scopes nodded and trotted over to the reception desk.  I followed her and watched as she hacked into the terminal on it, pulling up a map file of the Luna Needle.  The building was staggering in both size and complexity.

“Where do we start?” I asked as Scopes copied the file into both our PipBucks.

“There.” Scopes replied, indicating a room labeled ‘Security’.

“Oh, of course.” I said.  The room was on the tenth floor, at the top of the atrium. “Let’s go.”

We flew up to the security station, landing in front of the door.  I bucked it open, sending the door crashing to the floor with a crash.  We stepped inside, almost falling from the enormous amount of empty bullet casings littering the floor.

“The hell?” I muttered as I looked around the room.  Bullet casings covered nearly every surface, and bullet holes covered the walls.  All but one of the terminals, which Scopes had already hacked into and disabled the door with, were shot to pieces, and several skeletons lay next to beat up machine guns.

“What happened here?” Scopes said.  She picked up one of the machine guns that still seemed mostly intact. “Hmmm, I wonder if we could mount these somewhere.” She said, looking over it.

I turned my attention to the bones that had been lying next to it.  What’s this?  I wondered, picking a plastic key-card out of the bones.  I looked over it, the front of it reading Cmdr. Silent Sway, NLR Head of Security.  Clearance level 10.  There was a picture of a black unicorn mare below the text.

“Hey Scopes, I think I found something.” I said, turning to her.  She had already opened up four machine guns and had started combining all their parts together to make one working model.

“What’s that?” She asked, staring at the card.

“It’s a card with level 10 security clearance or something.” I replied.

Scopes nodded. “Alright, help me with this stuff then.” She said, hefting the half-built machine gun onto her back.

I nodded and grabbed the other parts that were scattered on the table.  I stepped out into the hallway, noticing that the bullet holes and casings littered not just the security station, but this entire floor as well.  I followed Scopes back down to the atrium floor, giving her the parts. “I’m gonna go back up there, see if I can find anything.” I said.  Scopes nodded.

I flew back up to the tenth floor, looking at the staggering amount of spent ammunition strewn across the floor.  A piece of cloth caught my eye, sticking up from beneath a large machine gun.  I landed next to it, kicking shell casings out of the way, as I shoved the machine gun to the side.  The piece of cloth turned out to be a black flag, white letters spelling out NLR on it.  Oversetting them was a red wing-crest emblem and a blue star.