Fallout: Equestria Side Story

Starlight in the Wastes

Featuring; Zero Starlight

Chapter 1; Onwards and Downwards

When it comes to, say, building a new type of armor, I usually excel. The one intelligence based process that has never been my strong suite for me is creating thought out plans. Sure, I can plan out how to launch an assault on a base, but thinking on the fly limits how far ahead I can think. Which leads to why I find myself hurtling towards the dusty ground of the Equestrian Wastes, and to make things just even better, Celestia and Luna decided to toss in a fair helping of Alicorns in hot pursuit. I don't blame them, the Alicorns, not the goddesses, considering I had survived worse (Though I can't seem to recall any at the moment…), it seemed a necessary precaution. And why had I thought throwing myself out the window of one of the only still standing buildings that towered above the wastes, you ask? Well, remember that bit about the new armor? Yeah… I really should have found a more efficient fuel source for the P.A.S.S (That's Personal Aerial and Suborbital flight System) I had added to my newest revision of my R.I.G. Turns out that centuries old gasoline isn't quite efficient after years of sitting. So in recap, I'm speeding towards imminent death provided by good old Mother Earth, a few dozen nigh immortal hive-minded drones are in hot pursuit, and I'm out of gas. I think that about sums it up.

'Boy, this is gonna be fun.'

I did a fast systems check of my R.I.G. Surprise, surprise! No gas magically appeared. Thankfully, I happen to know of something that might power the P.A.S.S enough to keep me from reaching critical velocity. Pulling up the suit's inventory display, I quickly sifted through, and pulled a few small, orange and black rectangles out. Behind the aerodynamic helmet, I grinned. Plasma energy, fuel of the gods. Also highly volatile in this kind of maneuver, but I'd rather explode in electric blue flames than be reduced to a pile of broken bones. And I sure as hell wasn't letting anyone get their hooves on the suit. The wastes had enough problems without armored flying Alicorns to deal with. On the back of my heels, the heavy metal boots opened slightly, and I quickly dumped the blue sludge out of the plasma cartridges into the slots. With a whir, my suit flashed up a series of diagnostics, warning that dispensing live plasma into the fuel slots could result in serious injury, mutations, and even death, and proceeded to ask if I was completely sure I wanted to do this, and would I kindly stabilize my descent? The suit was already warming up the thrusters before the warning was halfway through. 'Ok, that's one problem hopefully fixed; now I just need to make sure that these girls aren't planning to vaporize me when I land…'

I opened the various flaps on my suit, flipping me over onto my back. I pulled a small cylinder from it's holster, and the tube quickly opened itself into a three tipped form of my pulse rifle. It could be a very futuristic version of the automatic machineguns that some raiders toted on their person, but featured the very useful addition of a grenade launcher built in. It even used the normal pulse rounds to lob one of the spheres of destruction. Quickly targeting the Alicorn using the triangular dot reticule, I let loose a short burst of rounds straight into the breast of the nearest Alicorn. The rounds tore through her (her? He? It? Considering they didn't have a consciousness of their own…), black flowers of blood blossoming from the Alicorn's back. As the Alicorn began to fall, I felt the boosters in my boots flare to life, slowing my fall. The RIG's HUD (Heads up Display) flashed warning messages, mostly commenting that if I did not fire my precision boosters I would still end up landing on the unforgiving ground, but I would land farther away from the building instead of marginally closer. I ignored them, I had more than enough time to take on the remaining two Alicorns and stabilize my descent. I hoped.

With the Pulse Rifle still spinning, throwing metal death through the air, I swung the muzzle and reticule to line up with the next Alicorn, one of the green, teleporting flavors. The pulse rounds wouldn't do anything to it's shield and instead I opted to see how well the magical shield would do when faced with a head on collision with a plasma round grenade. With a muffled pop, a small metal sphere flew from the barrel of the rifle, colliding with the green Alicorn's shield, splintering into multiple explosive shards that ripped holes through her wings. The Altimeter (Altitude Meter, if it wasn't already obvious) readout was now under 500 meters up. 'Cutting this one a tad close…' Turning the barrel over to the remaining Alicorn, one of the teleporting varieties, I pulled the trigger, preparing to activate the P.A.S.S as soon as it had bit the dust. I was rewarded with disappointment as the chamber click-click-clicked empty. 'Crap, not enough time to reload and level out…' I activated my precision boosters, white, red and blue flames bursting into life, and I felt the pressure as a few dozen G's were piled on top of me from the sudden deceleration. Cracking open the Pulse Rifle, I let the empty tube of rounds drop and pulled another tube of Pulse rounds, slapping it into it's empty clip holder, and snapped the gun shut again. Taking aim again, I let another burst of energy rip through the Alicorn, turning her chest and muzzle into Swiss cheese.

'Like taking candy from a filly…'

I landed on the cracked concrete that formed the landing pad of what had once been a highly advanced research lab, back before the balefire baked the lands to a crisp. I had converted the building to a veritable fortress, multiple turrets hanging from alcoves or watching from the guard towers at the four corners of the facility. I had replaced the blown out windows with a somewhat bulletproof Plexiglas, and had added multiple security checkpoints to get in and out. Very few were allowed past the expansive reception lobby, where businesses and homes had sprung into life and Arc Station had grown into one of the most respected safe havens in the wastes. We did not deal with raiders or slavers, and a strict three strikes policy saw to it that those who abused their privileges were politely escorted to the next closest safe haven.

With a small buzz of static, a video window floated up to me, the caller garbed in a tank top and pink blazer, tight black pants, and her hair just as pink as the blazer, with floppy rabbit ears twitching atop her head. Alice. "Yoo-hoo! Alice reporting!" She said, in her regular upbeat attitude. With a hiss, the panels of my helmet retracted, sliding into the collar of my suit, my black hair sticky with sweat, the white highlights (It's natural! I'm not kidding!) Turned grey with dust and dirt buildup. "Hey Alice. How're things? No riots, I hope?"

Alice giggled, before looking at me with a mock-hurt expression on her face. "Honestly! I wonder how Blackjack would feel if I told her that Zero Starlight was afraid she couldn't prevent a riot." I humored her, taking the bait. "Oh come on! You know I was just kidding around Alice! Don't tell Jack!" Alice grinned mischievously, "Oh your too easy to freak out Zero! You need to relax." I grinned at her as the roof elevator door unlocked and slid open with a whir, "I can relax when I'm dead or when the Wastes become less about death and more about peace and love, whichever comes first. I'm on my way down to the lab, I'll talk with you when I get their. Later." Alice said bye and I activated the lift with the holographic control panel. With a buzz of power, the lift began to slowly move down.

"Zero? Rooms 317 to 428 aren't getting a connection to the water purifier. Can you work your magic?" I sighed; waving to the nearby com screen Alice was calling from in the affirmative and pulled the access panel off the wall circuit panel. Carefully, I stuck my hand up and behind, fumbling around and watching the display, turning dials slowly. The triangle lit blue for a moment before turning back to grey. Turning the dials back slightly I pulled a few wires. With a hum, the control panel whirred to life. "Should be working now Alice!" The lights in the lab flickered once, twice, three times, and with a pitter patter of glass, the lights blew out. I sighed, "Alice? Can you get me a couple of replacement bulbs?" I waited a few moments, but Alice didn't respond. "Alice? I swear if you're kidding around again, I'm gonna dock your pay for a month!" Still no response. That's never a good sign. Alice is highly protective of her salary, especially making sure that she gets back loans down to the last cap. I turned to the com panel, only to find that the monitor had gone dark. 'Um… Rerouting the water purifier shouldn't have shut down the power grid… Did I pull to many wires? I don't think so…'

I walked calmly over to the electronic shop inset into one of the lab walls, activating it and pulling up the storage function. I retrieving my Plasma Cutter with it's flashlight accessory. The Plasma Cutter was a small handheld device created with the purpose to weld rivets using the Plasma energy I had used earlier. It was also very useful if you ever needed to slice through most materials like a hot knife through butter.

Flicking on my plasma cutter's flashlight, I opened the door out of the lab, and walked into the main science wing of Arc Station. The normally bustling hub of research and invention had been plunged into darkness, and the room was much too quite. So quite in fact, that when my com link crackled to life I nearly emptied a clip into the wall. Alice was at the control panel, and off screen I could hear shouts and gunfire. "Alice! What happened?" Alice looked at me grimly, "I don't really know Zero. As soon as you reconnected the water system the grid just crashed! Our scouts spotted a gang of raiders heading towards us, but the turrets got knocked offline as well. We're assuming that raiders set up some kind of EMP, not quite sure how they managed to find a still functioning one, or how they got one into arc station, but were a tad bit pinned down right now." She ducked as a shot pinged through the room. She swore before continuing, "We managed to get nearly everyone into the safe room, but a few were too close when the raiders blew in the doors." Now it was my turn to curse. 'How could this happen! All this work to make a safe place that everyone could trust, and in less time than it took to blink an eye it's all starting to fall apart!'

I turned my attention back to Alice, "Alice, get into the safe room and lock it down. I've got a plan. I'm in the Science Wing right now, so I should be able to use the maintenance vents to get over to engineering. From there I can re-activate the generator and that should bring the turrets back online." Alice smiled grimly, "Sounds like a plan kid. Keep in touch."