Chapter 16

The night saw Daniels inside the weapons testing room, working on a small little 'project' that nobody needed to know about

The door opened and he heard footsteps, his HUD told him that Harvest was inside the room

"I thought I was the only one who came in here at night." Harvest quipped

"That princess isn't telling us something." Daniels said simply; hefting his creation, "I intend on finding out what that is."

What he held in his hand looked to be a standard pistol, the butt of the gun was a tad wider, to compensate for the alternate ammunition: knockout darts

Harvest looked at it, "We can't just go and waltz in, salsa maybe, but not waltz."

Daniels ignored the dance joke, "If she expects us to protect her country when she's incapable of it, then I'd like to know the details."

"Should I get the others?" his fellow ODST asked

"No, I'd prefer that they don't get involved." The squad leader looked around, "I had initially planned on going alone."

"We can take the Phantom, it'll be a quiet enough ride."

The pair walked up to the alien vessel, the scuffs and burns a testimony to what it had seen, Daniels floated up the Grav Lift

Harvest went to man the controls, Daniels checked the equipment locker to check if they had proper tools

"It won't be an hour, I'd say about fifteen minutes and we'll be there." Harvest said, "Then again I'm not the pilot."

Daniels settled in for a quick power nap, he'd need all the energy he could get

[…]

When he woke up he could see the moon had hidden itself behind an overcast sky, seemingly aware of the plan set in motion

"I can drop you in the courtyard" Harvest said, "From there I'll need to find a spot to park, you'll need to be ready for a bit of a drop."

Daniels got ready by the door, Harvest dropped it and Daniels dropped out

As he fell he spread his arms and legs out spread-eagle, in order to slow his descent into the courtyard

Daniels hit the ground in a couple of bushes, grunting slightly at the impact

'Thank god for this armor' Daniels thought to himself, 'That would have hurt like hell.'

But this was a vital part of the operation, he would have to make it inside the castle without getting caught. It wasn't like this was his first stealth operation, he just didn't have much scale for how dead he was if he got caught.

The lone ODST snuck through the bushes, a few guards passed by but didn't see him, they looked different to the normal royal guard; the most discerning features were their bat wings and sharp yellow eyes

Daniels had almost forgotten to turn off his external speakers, once they were off he would become an almost imperceptible shadow

By now he had managed to sneak in through an open window, now he needed to think of where he would search for the information he needed

'Where oh where, has the intel gone?' he thought to himself

[…]

Qualomee was asleep inside his new cabin, the bunk bed had been made for a human and wasn't fit for his height or weight, Morris had spliced a stronger metal to the wall to hang this from for him

At least the ponies were hospitable, they could sleep without worrying about suddenly getting attacked by the-

*BOOM*

His eyes instantly flicked open, it had sounded like something had landed on the roof of the ship

*BOOM BOOM BOOM*

There it was, like something forcing its way in. Without thinking about it he had already hopped to his feet and equipped a plasma rifle, ready to shoot whatever wasn't polite enough to knock

By now the Elite had exited the barracks, heading for the boarding bay

Once he got there he could see Young and Morris already had taken up defensive positions and set up barricades, they worked quickly

"Settle down and take some grenades." Morris said, "Something's coming in and we're gonna blow it apart."

It was evident that the massive boarding bay had been riddled with traps, but the enemy would have to disarm them or fight their way past them

The doors began to move apart, and then there was a maelstrom of bullets and…

Magic beams?

As Qualomee turned on his night vision he could see an invading force of several hundred ponies, all of them wearing bright golden armor

"That's Celestia's royal guard!" Morris shouted over the hail

"I don't care who they are!" Young answered, "They're attacking so give them hell!"

Qualomee remained silent, where was Harvest and the Leader?

[…]

Harvest began to pick something up on the ships radars, "We've got something going on back home."

"I don't assume it's another of Pinkie's parties?" Daniels quipped over the COMM

"I'm getting transmissions of some kind of invasion, I think our ship's under attack!" Harvest switched into combat mode

"The others can handle it, we need to focus on the main objective." Daniels said calmly

As for Daniels, he had entered the throne room. The princess would have to keep any and all information close by in the case of sudden assault

He scanned the room, before going around the back of the throne, a small and almost imperceptible button was there. He pressed it

A trapdoor opened beneath his feet, and the ODST dropped down into a slide like tunnel that dumped him out into what appeared to be a small stone room full of old papers and documents

"Jackpot" Daniels smiled slightly, he realized now was how he acted when he was behind enemy lines, which seemed oddly appropriate here

He then realized that all of his COMM communications had been cut, there must've been some sort of shield around the room

The ODST then began to go through the papers, before uncovering a small little glowing flat square

"Well hello there…" Daniels picked up the datapad, this was standard UNSC equipment, looked like something he'd expect to see on the Scavenger…

It dawned on him, the princess had stolen a datapad. But what for…?

He opened up the files and found a very official looking message, it appeared to be something from a high up UNSC general, general Higgins? Nobody he'd ever heard of before…

As he quickly skimmed down it said something along the lines of 'destroy' and 'kill' and it seemed to be talking about the natives of Equestria

Before he could reach the bottom he found that it cut off unexpectedly, Daniels felt his gut tighten

There was no General Higgins, there was Princess Celestia.

She was planning on using this to convict his squad of attempted genocide! That was what the invasion was! Princess Celestia was conducting a little 'search' of their ship, where she could claim she found this datapad

"If she thinks I'm going to take this lying down then there's another thing coming." Daniels said to himself, before turning around and leaving the room by a nearby stairwell

Once he had reached the top he found he was inside a small room, it was decorated with murals of humans and filled with old and dusty books

One look at these behemoths told him that they were storybooks, old legends and mythology. This shouldn't have mattered besides the fact that each book contained a picture of a human, upon closer inspection showed they wore armor

This armor looked about as techy as the suit that he wore, gold visor, it was kind of disturbing

After snapping several pictures Daniels continued until he found a window, he then called the Phantom

"We're moving out, our ship may have been compromised."