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 Sunny opened the gate using his

and waited for Sergeant Gere to approach

"So? How is it?"

realize that he had never

expended resources of an entire division between battles, if there's no convenient opportunity to reach a fortified stronghold or

paused for a moment, and then

inventory yet, but you can already see that this is far more than we need. There are different types of machines, too, from armored personnel carriers to assault vehicles and light scouts.

cousins, but they still packed a heavy punch. Samara's powerful rifle had been meant to serve as a light

the Awakened ones, even with the help of exoskeleton armor suits. The fierce arsenal of

was just

gave Sergeant Gere a

have anyone capable of

coughed and awkwardly scratched the

"Oh... no, not really."

a few moments,

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 use, or everything, really. The infrastructure between here

then glanced briefly at the crow, who had left his shoulder and was now perching on one of the beams of the support framework near the

for a couple of days, to let the people rest and give us time to get acquainted with all these shiny new toys. Make

left Gere to figure out the logistics of settling in hundreds of refugees in an underground storage bunker that