Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, until eventually there was a sound of footsteps approaching him. Turning around, he looked at Sergeant Gere with a blank expression.

The soldier tensed, habitually expecting dreadful news.

"...What? What's in there?"

Sunny lingered for a bit, then simply shook his head.

"Order the convoy to drive inside. You'll see soon enough."

Before too long, the column of battered vehicles drove past him, disappearing into the dark tunnel. Once they were all inside, Sunny glanced at the falling ash one last time, then walked into the darkness himself. The blast doors closed behind him with a reverberating hum, cutting off the bitter cold and the chilling wind of the polar night.

Just before the two plates of armored alloy touched, Master Jet's crow flew between them and landed on Sunny's shoulder. The bird glanced into the tunnel with curiosity, then stared at him and cawed a couple of times. For a change, those were simple caws, and not mangled words of the human language.

A pale smile appeared on Sunny's face.

"...Yeah. Good job."

With that, he walked down the tunnel, soon reaching the underground garage.

The convoy was parked in the empty corner of the vast chamber, and excited soldiers were already moving around the pristine military vehicles, evaluating their state. Someone else was busy opening alloy crates that were stacked along one of the walls, full of all kinds of supplies.

as soon as Sunny opened the gate using his command authority. The ventilation systems were also online,

and waited for Sergeant Gere to

"So? How is it?"

realize that he had never seen the dependable

of an entire division between battles, if there's no convenient opportunity to reach a fortified stronghold or if the supply lines are cut. There's enough here to support the deployment

a moment, and then pointed at the rows of

that this is far more than we need. There are different types of machines, too, from armored personnel carriers to assault

but they still packed a heavy punch. Samara's powerful rifle had been meant to serve as a light weapon for one of these formidable machines, but was later refitted to be used by the

soldiers were somewhat capable of facing Dormant Nightmare Creatures, but had troubles dealing with the Awakened ones, even with the help of exoskeleton

was just one

gave Sergeant Gere a dubious

have anyone capable of piloting

and awkwardly scratched the back of his

"Oh... no, not really."

a few moments, then smiled

need. We can even arm them all, if that is what you want to do. Those vehicles that we can drive are much faster than the civilian transports, too, have better armor, and can navigate more difficult terrain. Not to mention that there's more of them than we can possibly

now perching on one of the beams

people rest and give us time to get acquainted with all these shiny new toys. Make sure that everyone

out the logistics of settling in hundreds of refugees in an underground storage bunker that was not really meant to be used for such a purpose, and tiredly walked toward