Ghost nodded, "Thank you." She replied before motioning to four of her soldiers, "Lead us to it then." She turned to the rest of the squad, "Help secure the town! Keep an eye out for anything suspicious!"
Raven and two other Guardians broke away from the main group to lead the Commandos to the medical tent while the others went to patrol the town. After traveling a short distance, the guardians soon found the small white tent they needed as Federation soldiers guarding the tent opened the doors up. Raven then looked at Ghost. "They are just inside here. I'm going to help the townsponies with rebuilding some of the damaged buildings while also welcoming anypony else that would arrive, more notability if more Guardians arrive, or even Lionheart or High Commander Fortune. It's a pleasure to meet you, I have a feeling we will meet again soon." Raven said with a small smile before her helmet appeared once more as she left to perform her duties.
Ghost nodded in thanks before leading her troops in, reactivating her visor and HUD display. Scanning the room, she noticed the dead griffon on the gurney with a trunk at the foot. Nodding to her soldiers, they surrounded the body, silencing any questions and protests from the medical staff before closing off the area with the curtain. The Commandos instantly got to work stripping the body of all items and removing all items from the chest, putting them on a table. The Commandos then surrounded the table, all interest lost in the body as they scanned the items. "Sergeant Major Steel Feather." Ghost read off the gryphon's dogtag, "Talon company commander, no doubt lead this raid." She stated before putting the dogtags down, then looked at the equipment. Then a soldier pointed out an unusual peice on the armor typically not found on slaver armor. Narrowing her eyes, she zoomed in her HUD at the peculiarity, "Mark Co tech..." She muttered before bringing up her Squad Sergeant PIN's database of Mark Co technology. It scanned for several moments before beeping, and a diagram flashed on her HUD of an object Mark Co apparently had in prototype and testing phase just before the Last Day. It looked like a capsule with a radar antenna sticking out of it, and as she read through the description, her eyes widened. It was essentially a Stealth Field Projection System, light years ahead of the stealth technology of Stealthbucks and well ahead that of Commando armor. The stated goal was to produce an variable area of effect that would last as long as the user would like that would silence noise, completely remove those inside from all forms of detection, from radar to infrared/thermal to sight to ultraviolet detections. If Red Eye actually had gotten ahold of the schematics...And he tried to finish developing it, he could send slaver parties ANYWHERE in the Wasteland without worry, the Commandos had done well making it hard for slavers to operate in large groups outside their main strongholds, meaning the slaves they captured almost always were one or two at a time unless they committed a lighting raid in a nearby area...But if Red Eye had this, and began widely distributing it to his slavers...nowhere in the Wasteland would be safe. After the overall failure of this raid, and if Red Eye indeed had this technology and could make it widespread, "He could starve the Wasteland by taking all the farmers....And no army is big enough to properly protect every farm...if they did, the towns would be vulnerable..." She whispered, "Finish searching for any other Mark Co equipment now!" She ordered before quickly sending an emergency report straight to the Soldier himself before grabbing the small black capsule on the armor in her mouth and ripped it off before running outside to frantically search for Raven
Raven and her small squad of Guardians were busy organizing the reconstruction of the town, despite it taking a very minimal amount of structural damage. Before taking her turn to patrol, she noticed Ghost frantically galloping towards her. Worried, she went over to her. “You must have found something. How bad is it?”
Ghost spat the small capsule on her hoof, wiping it off real good before showing it to Raven, "Very bad. Mark Co tech. Late model. Imagine, Stealthbuck capable of an area effect and removing all forms of detection, even noise." She said quickly. Biting the bottom of it, she pulled back her head and with it, a plunger type thing that released an antenna looking object at the other end. Twisting it slightly, her hoof suddenly disappeared along with a bit of her head before pulling her head out of the field, which was entirely spherical, moving her hoof around in example
Raven paused for a moment as she then sent an emergency report directly back to the Federation and Lionheart as she walked away from Ghost for a moment, speaking into a communications channel before returning back to her. "Red Eye has just awoken a sleeping giant." Raven replied before looking outwards into the town, speaking to her squad. "All Guardians mobilize at the town center immediately!" ------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile... Los Pegasus, Federation of Los Pegasus "What the hell do you mean, the council will not assist!!!?" Crimson yelled towards eleven other ponies, all of them members of the prestigious council, also known as the convention of twelve. To allow his citizens to have power while also not being corrupted by absolute power, eleven politicians were elected every 4 years from the twelve provinces that made up the Federation. Crimson himself was the permanent leader of Los Pegasus and the Federation, but the idea of a constitutional monarchy never proved popular enough, and that all of the princesses were believed to have been killed during the last day. If one of them was alive, Crimson would step down immediately and allow them to lead the Federation. "Crimson, we have not waged war for over sixty years! Now you want to wage a war against Red Eye and a force twenty times the size of the Steel Rangers?" "Do we have a choice?" Crimson said surprisingly calm. "I'm not going to stand by while Red Eye kills innocents, violates our own ponies and declares war against the Federation. If you knew the way that I feel about this, you would have agreed." "But we don't agree. Red Eye is not a direct threat to the Federation." "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR [Redacted] MIND?" Crimson yelled, his voice shaking the room slightly. "Riverprance has just been attacked by Red Eye, over a hundred dead. And you believe that this is not a 'Direct threat' to everything we hold dear? The Federation will burn! Women and children will be slaves! " "But Crimson, we need to be democratic about th-" Crimson then rose from his chair. "I only established the council twenty years ago to allow the citizens to have power within the government. With all this...deceit and blatant lies. You're convincing me that this was a bad idea." Crimson said before walking to the door. "You're all dismissed..."
(Too bad if Crimson truly disbanded it, it would likely lead to widespread dissent and accusations of being a dicatator, because once a democracy is out in place, ya know, people like to keep it) Ghost shook her head, "No. Don't, to attack Red Eye would be suicidal. I know you all are extrodinarily well trained, but urban combat is a hell of a thing, and Red Eye has an army in the tens of thousands, if not approaching a hundred thousand by now. He is well equipped, his soldiers are getting better training every day to go along with their exprience, even to devote troops to attack slaver positions around Equestria would only serve to invite Red Eye to commit more of these raids, or perhaps remove the basis of all civilization, agriculture. Red Eye's recently adopted message of Unity is powerful too. Even killing Red Eye and his second in command wouldn't solve anything, in fact, it would make the problem worse. We Commandos have spent our existence doing these things; recovering Mark Co tech, along contracts to protect the innocents of Equestria, and to fight Red Eye, and we know our enemy very well. From the Soldier's recent predictions, even a full on assault on Fillydelphia would not work, not even a combined Commando-Guardian force. The best way to fight Red Eye is to bleed and contain him. Stifle the supply of slaves so he has to rely on breeding more, which would lead to inbreeding. His "country" is unstable. We give it a decade or two before it collapses due to internal pressure. Trust us, we know Red Eye better than anyone. However, one thing is a must," Ghost presented the stealth field generator, "Technology like this must never get into the hooves of Red eye."
(Agreed. It would have not have been disbanded entirely, because if he did disband it, knowing that it would make the Federation a much weaker target, would have caused chaos and possibly civil-war. He’s just unhappy that the council rejected his idea.) Raven nodded as all of the Guardians soon arrived nearby her. Cracking her neck slightly, she her helmet was deactivated again as it collapsed so that Ghost could see her eyes again. “Bleed them dry by hitting their supply areas...that’s more of a long term objective at the moment. For now, how are we going to remove this technology from Red Eye? Is he manufacturing them somewhere?”
"Well, as far as our last intell reports suggests, the main thing Red Eye can produce currently is industrial level stuff, mainly low tech things such as construction materials, stamped weapons and armor, etc. As far as we know, our third in command, the Major, destroyed any possibility of hi-tech manufacturing about a year and a half ago. However, our latest data from inside the Wall of Fillydelphia is about 6 months old. It's getting much harder recently to sneak scouts in and get them safely back out. Hell, they've even begun using old Ministry of Morale balloons to counter our pegisi reconnaissance. So there is a possibility he somehow aquirred the means to produce tech like this. However, if I would have to guess..." ghost studied the field generator, "I would say this is true Mark Co, 230 year old technology, not a reproduced copy. It's too well made, not even Stable-Tec was able to have this quality of manufacturing. So, I'ld say, at the moment, we're safe. Red Eye probably found himself a cache of these hidden somewhere and he decided to use them on a trial run." Ghost blinked, "I think I know why he attacked this town. Of all the towns in the Wasteland. It really makes sense if you think about it; A; shows he has the capability of attacking anywhere in the Wasteland without any knowledge, it sets back a town whom provided for his sworn enemy, us, forces the Federation to send in troops in an unnecessary garrison force, tying down troops that could obviously be used to protect more strategic points..."
"The last thing the Federation needs right now is to be overstretched. Especially when there have been talks about expansion into the Baltimare Wasteland back in the council that Lionheart said that we are not ready as of yet. Red Eye want's a damn war with the Federation, and now has stealth technology that would almost make it impossible to detect them without the use of both of our armors, making smaller settlements such as a town like this nearly helpless." Raven sighed deeply. "And the worst part about this, if we attack, they'll likely make the situation worse by sending out more raids." One Guardian said in the back. "Either way, we can't make a damn bit of a difference." Some of the other Guardians agreed. "We might be safe for now...but how safe are we really?" Raven asked the soldiers in the back. "Command must be going nuts..."
Ghost paused before thinking of something, "Why don't you come with us? Looking at this, it doesn't look like something Red Eye made, it has the distinct quality of Mark Co manufacturing. It would be a lot lower quality. That means he must have simply found a cache of these, and it is unlikely he has the ability to manufacture them...yet... We need to track them down and get them out of his hooves as soon as possible. The more he has, the more he'ld be willing to give up to reverse engineering, which means he'll figure out how to make them quicker. We need to figure out where they are. However, I will say this, any and all Mark Co tech come across must be given to us, or we will have a major problem on our hooves, and we will be forced to recover that tech by any means necassary, we weren't called the "Standard Thieves" during the Great War for no reason."
All of the Guardians paused for a moment before all agreeing with the idea to travel with the Commandos. Guardians were already dangerous enough on their own, but if they were to travel with Commandos, the two groups would be essentially unstoppable. The Guardians seen no desire to take a piece of Mark.Co tech, seeing how they can do just fine without it. "It's a deal, we'll leave with you. Everything looks fine in the town now, so there is no need for our assistance now." Raven replied back. (Time-skip?)
(Sure) Raven soon found a lead to the collection of Mark.Co stealth techology, and were heading there as soon as possible. The technology was stored in a warehouse, but was all being transported back to Fillydelphia on an enormous transport convoy. The convoy was ridiculously well-guarded, with Red Eye having easily 2,000 soldier's protecting the precious cargo. If it were to make it back to Fillydelphia, it would make it nearly-impossible to retrieve them and would give Red Eye a disastrous advantage in the wasteland. The Commandos and Guardians Had to hit the convoy.
(Uhm, the convoy is literally protecting a box of advanced stealth field protection, why wouldn't they just activate the shield and slip across the Wasteland in a small convoy unseen and undetectable? And how would the Guardians find out so quick?)
(I just tried to make a plot point but failed signifigantly, having a massive case writers block at the moment. Worst of all, the school's internet was down essentially all day, so I'm sorry that I could not post or fix up the previous post, and I suppose that last post was weak.)
(Here, let me start, the main reason I asked you to was it was real late at my time) The Commandos stood in formation in the main square of the town, waiting for Guardians. It was highly likely that Red Eye had the tech inside Fillydelphia, and no doubt this was a field test, that would mean recovery would be much much harder, and may have to require assistance from the Commando's secondary enemy, the Steel Rangers. And likely no more than two could enter the Wall, large raids like what the Major pulled were now rendered impossible, even with a united Guardian-Commando force, after all, there's only 35 versus thousands and thousands of slavers. They had to come up with a plan...
Seeing how, according to the Commandos, that The Major destroyed the Mark.Co facilities after all of the tech was secure and an old train station and anything remotely close to it was leveled, it would have made escape nearly impossible now that Red Eye has grown much stronger, not to mention the very intimidating wall that protected the city, very similar to the one in Las Pegasus. The Guardians soon met with the Commandos, thinking about the possibility of something they dreaded, the assistance of the Steel Rangers. The last time the Steel Rangers thought they could face the Federation head-on, they were essentially reduced to the point of near-extinction from which they still have not recovered. That was sixty years ago. Because of that, the Federation hated the Steel Rangers and all they stood for, hiding away in bunkers securing technology while the wasteland above dies. If the Guardians and Commandos were to stand a chance in stopping Red Eye, they had no choice but to see the Rangers. Raven coughed before starting. "I don't like this idea, but if we are to stand a chance in taking this, we're going to need the Steel Rangers for assistance. And as you said before, all of your intelligence of Fillydelphia is at least six months old, so we might have no idea where they might be holding it. Not to mention, we don't have a lead on where in the city that it's kept." Raven then sighed, holding one of her cybernetic hooves to her face in thought. "My idea of a plan at the moment is finding out where they are keeping the stealth tech and learn as much as we can about it as possible, number of guards they have, weaponry, etc. Then we need to take account of what part of the day we hit them, our numbers and if the Steel Ranger's really could be trusted." She said before speaking to herself quietly. "Aerial support is a no-go, damn cannons would pick out us out the sky. Reinforcements would stretch us thin and are unnecessary, also need to account for the guards acting as snipers...."
Ghost shook her head, "A direct attack is a no go, even if it is a tactical strike. We'ld be mowed down before we crossed the moat around the Wall, which, mind you, is completely filled with radiation, we'll be dead in seconds if we went in there. We have to send in two soldiers at most in disguise to find out where the stealth field generators are and any schematics they have of them and destroy them. All the others will have to assemble a forward base close to the Wall where they can quickly help extract them. We'll need the Steel Rangers mainly for information."
Raven and the Guardians agreed in response. "Let us head out then, every second is important." (Time-skip)?)
