Chapter 6

Daniels and his squad moved back to Ponyville, the citizens panicking at the sight of a giant ship in the sky

"You never answered my question" Twilight was still following the ODSTs, "What do we do?"

"The Humans have to leave" Princess Celestia was in the library where the team met, "Perhaps the Covenant will leave us alone then."

"So that's it" Daniels crossed his arms, "Leave us out there to die? Who's to say the Covenant won't enslave your race?"

"I will not allow such." Celestia answered back sharply

"What chance would you even have?" Harvest asked

"They have a point Princess" Twilight said, "From what I've heard, the Covenant would obliterate Equestria."

"Besides the point" Young interjected, "We don't exactly have a ride out of here just yet."

There was another flash of purple in the sky

Daniels looked out the window, "Something's telling me they're not here to kill my squad."

"What is that Joseph?" Celestia questioned

"That's not just a cruiser" Daniels turned around, heart beating faster, "There's a whole Covenant fleet."

---

The elite minor rose from his deep freeze, shaking off its effects

"Come my brothers, we will take this world and recover the Artifact." the commander said over the loudspeaker

There was a chorus of cheers from the elites, who quickly suited up for battle. There would be unknown dangers of this planet, and they had to be prepared for anything, this elite was loading up the Phantom they'd take to the surface.

An elite walked up, "Qualomee, how goes the Phantom?"

"We are almost prepared, we have all needed weapons. We only require our pilot." Qualomee answered

(Yeah, that's his name.)

Qualomee and his brothers loaded up onto the dropship, which began it's descent to the surface

---

Daniels was barking orders to Harvest and Young, the citizens of Ponyville had panicked even more once the other ships arrived

Twilight and her friends had gathered the Elements on the Princess's orders. After that they had met in the library, to wait for any news

Daniels had grabbed his rifle, plenty of clips and some grenades. He held onto the sword as he felt it wasn't something he wanted to leave laying on the ground.

"Even though we know they're here" Harvest walked up, "How exactly are three of us going to take down a Covenant fleet?"

"Who said we'd win?" Daniels flicked the safety off his rifle

"I was afraid you were going to say that." Harvest sighed, "Well, send us out with a bang right?"

---

The rookie of the ODST squad on the ship was the only one not on ice, he was in charge of navigation while the rest of the team got some shut eye

His curiosity of the Delta squadron was raging ever since he had seen their apparent leader. Even more so since the Captain seemed so unwilling to help them

He pulled up the records of the Delta squadron on the computer, apparently they were a crack team of ODSTs who were rivals with his own team, the Alpha Team

The files read like this:

The Delta Squadron apparently has a sort of need to prove themselves against our hand chosen Alpha Team. As our team is highly skilled and both leaders are quite... conflicting, we have a volatile mix on this mission that you intend to send them on.

Mission Log: June 26th 2552, planet Reach

Jacob: "I told you, that I can easily sneak up and assassinate that elite without risk to anyone else!"

Alex: "And I'm telling you that my sniper will easily be able to pick that elite off!"

Joseph: "Calm down both of you! We're going to attract all of the Covenant in the nearest mile!"

Alex and Jacob ignore the Delta Rookie Joseph

Alex: "You know, you think sooo highly of yourselves, even though you're just volunteers!"

Jacob: "So what if you were hand picked? We're all fighting and dieing for the same reason!"

*Elite plunges energy sword into Jacob's back*

*Joseph fires assault rifle at elite*

Alex: "Ambush!"

File missing, please try again

the Rookie pressed a key, but it didn't show any new messages

The ship beeped, signaling that the ship would arrive at the planet any moment now

The rookie quickly went about setting the thaws for each of his teammates

---

The inhabitants of Ponyville quickly had themselves shut into their homes, lights out and as still as possible

Daniels was in an alley between Sugarcube Corner and one of the side buildings, relaying orders to his team and to Twilight, whom he lent a communicator

The sound of three Phantoms was unmistakable, as once Daniels had taken control of one for a mission, it didn't end well

"How many squads of Covenant do you think are going to be here?" Harvest asked

"I'm guessing at least twelve, depends if they jam packed those Phantoms" Young answered

"I'm not sure they expect us to be here" Daniels said, "They wouldn't need a whole fleet to wipe us out."

"They'll need more than that if I can help it" Daniels heard Harvest cock his gun

"Keep it together" Daniels warned, "They're dropping squads now."

The three covenant phantoms dropped off in a triangle around the town, not yet within its borders

"They're obviously looking for something" Daniels whispered, "Twilight, what's in the center of the triangle they've got?"

"Hard to tell" Twilight seemingly ruffled through some papers, "Could be town hall, could be anything at this point."

'I swear to god if it's the library they're going for...' Daniels didn't finish that thought

A few grunts were waddling through the town, not raising their guard in any way possible. Daniels smirked underneath his helmet

Before he could go out and kill the grunts a few elites followed up, and Daniels decided it was best to remain hidden, with the element of surprise on his side he could do quite a lot in this situation

'Remember the civilians' he could hear his old captain's warning, a distant memory, 'We're reckless, but we still do our job.'

That thought threw grenades out of the equation, they were simply too destructive for use in a civilian occupied town

There was the sound of a door opening, Daniels remained completely still, then there was the sound of plasma fire. And screaming.

---

Qualomee remained inside the phantom, watching the scanner for the Artifact, it was a bit boring but it suited the mission so he'd have to do it.

That was how it was for him, being one of the lowest he always had to do others dirty work. It didn't suit his honor nor did he find it fitting of an elite

The scanner pinged

Qualomee looked at a screen, there were strangely colored equines panicking and running around, being slaughtered by plasma

He may not have been a soldier on the field, but he could tell that they weren't fighting back

"What are they doing? These creatures seem like they don't want to fight."

Qualomee ran over to the weapons locker, he wasn't sure what he was planning but he knew that this slaughter had to stop

The scanner pinged again, and it showed some signals he didn't see for himself, but knew what they were

"Humans" Qualomee muttered, "Something else for me to deal with."

He jumped out the side

---

Daniels snuck up behind an elite, and snapped its neck

"These things really want this town" he whispered to himself, "What do they think they're going to find here?"

There was a discharge of plasma, Daniels wheeled to see Ponyville's residents being attacked

'So much for stealth' Daniels whipped out his assault rifle, "Going loud!"

Several grunts saw him and panicked, they must not have expected him. Another elite aimed his plasma rifle at Daniels, shouting a warning through the K-band

"Time to blow these suckers to hell!" Harvest said

"Watch out for the ponies, we don't want any casualties." Young pitched in

"Wasn't planning on it" Daniels gritted his teeth and fired

---

Twilight and her friends stayed inside the library, not one of them intending to go outside and risk getting killed

Twilight looked over the papers some more, with the Covenant's new locations she could tell what they were triangulating towards

It was the library

"Joseph" Twilight hit the COM, "We have a problem."