Chapter 8

Daniels had cleaned up most of the mess left in front of Twilight's library, while Harvest and Young had helped around town repairing buildings and such

The clock turned, and the sun began to set, marking the beginning of Pinkie's 'Thank you for not letting us get killed' party

Daniels had been asked not to bring his rifle, but he remained in his armor and still carried a sidearm just in case. He had ordered the others in his squad to do the same

The party was awkward at first but once the punch had been passed out the ponies seemed to relax, Daniels could easily tell that a large portion of the ponies were drunk

It went straight against regulation to drink on the job, and as long as that cruiser was in the sky the ODST squad considered themselves on the job

Daniels and Harvest were talking by the snacks, discussing their next move

"Why were they even going to the library anyway?" Harvest asked, "It isn't like that's the biggest source of knowledge on this rock."

"That's what's got me confused, they must have been after something specific." Daniels shrugged, "But as far as I can tell there wasn't anything that they'd be after at this point."

"Well let's think about their usual strategy" Harvest held his helmet tightly, "They usually look for artifacts that they have in their bogus religion."

"There must have been some object of power in the library, but what could that be?" Daniels scratched the back of his head

"I will wait until the leader of this rock arrives" Qualomee seemed to have faded into existence, "Then I shall explain what the plan was, I know exactly what they're here for."

Daniels was surprised the ponies were so calm with Qualomee here, drunk or not they had the right to be terrified

"That's a fair point" Daniels looked around, "Where's the princess?"

At that moment the doors opened wide, two quite tense looking guards had opened the doors, they looked at Qualomee but made no sudden movements

Celestia entered the room, walking straight up to Daniels

"I want you to explain"

"The Covenant showed up, and attacked" Daniels said, "We fought them and won, but they'll be back, anything else?"

"What were they after?"

"I believe I can explain that" Qualomee said, "I believe you know of the Artifact?"

"I think she'll need you to elaborate on that" Twilight said sheepishly

Daniels took note that all activity in the party had stopped, every one of the ponies were staring

"The Artifact of Ages" Qualomee said

Daniels was easily able to see Celestia tense up, "I have no idea what you're getting at."

Daniels motioned for Harvest and Young to guard the doors, to prevent anyone from leaving

"I think you do" Daniels said, "Because you wouldn't be so quick about if you didn't have at least the vaguest idea."

"Don't accuse me of anything"

"I'm accusing you of hiding something" Daniels said bluntly, "and I expect you to tell us what it is."

The mood in the room instantly turned tense, it was palpable

Nobody moved, nobody even seemed to breathe

There was a flash of purple, something Daniels recognized as a slip-space jump. He casually walked over to the window expecting to see more Covenant, instead he saw what appeared to be a salvage vessel

'Human engineering, no doubt.' Daniels thought

He exited the building to get a better look, as the ship didn't appear to be doing so well, crashing somewhere in the Everfree

"This is Alpha team captain Alex Johnson!" the transmission came through, "Something's attacked our engines! We're going to crash!"

Daniels swore under his breath, "Looks like we're going to rescue the rescue team, and the Alpha team of all people."

"What's the plan?" Harvest asked

"You're going to make sure nothing levels this town" Daniels said, "Young and I are going to move in and secure the crash site, use everything you can to keep this place living."

[…]

Real quick before they left Daniels and Young had grabbed their respective rifles, grenades and what little ammunition they had left

Qualomee had decided to stay and help Harvest, "I see no point in getting killed by your uninformed comrades."

Daniels and Young were ready and had almost began their trek into the forest before getting interrupted

It was Twilight and her friends, they told him to be careful and good luck and all that stuff, to which Daniels simply grunted in response

They weren't sure what it was they were fighting, but guns tended to be the things you used in those situations, Daniels had turned on his VISR to see in the dark forest

The motion of the trees signaled quite a bit of life, although nothing attacked and nothing was likely to, what with the manticore showing exactly why not to

The crash site was about one click east, and that would take some time to get through the thick underbrush, luckily they could handle anything that tried to get at them

Young had set a HUD marker for the two to follow, as it would get irritating to constantly check their maps, they weren't very accurate

[…]

It was only a ten minutes at a quick jog, they were getting within 50 meters when they were attacked by strange mushrooms in a swarm, the tentacles were what had Daniels firing in a heartbeat

Soon enough they were being attacked by larger beings that bore little resemblance to anything they knew about, these things were mutated and rotting, Daniels could tell that they were already dead

Young signaled Daniels out of his thoughts, and the pair continued as they drew nearer to the crash site

Once it was in view they could plainly see that whatever this parasite was, it wouldn't be getting at that ship very easily, it appeared that Alex had managed to get the emergency landing gear in the proper position

The lasers that were attached to the front were laying waste to at least hundreds of mutations, looking like a battle right in the middle of hell itself, with the horrid things attacking a new arrival

And they were going in

[…]

Harvest had set up a little nest of weaponry in the top of town hall, the Covenant was making a smaller second assault on the small town, with Qualomee on his side the only thing against him was lack of ammunition

Harvest was manning the machine gun turret, taking down elites, jackals and grunts alike

Qualomee had out a beam rifle, and was picking off the elites who lost their shields, as Harvest wasn't the one with range on his side

Then the turret ran out of ammo, Harvest switched to dual pistols, before long even that was out of ammo

He felt panic rising in his chest, and fought it back down, this was not the time for any rash decisions

Time slowed down as he turned to the left, and snapped up a sniper rifle

These were a weapon that he had never really gotten close to in his line of work, it was surprising on how he had never touched a certain weapon his entire naval career

Harvest wasn't the best with it, as his aim faltered, he missed several times. But then he took a deep breath, picturing the elites as moving targets from boot camp, scoring three headshots in a row

As he picked off more and more Qualomee went down to the entrance with his plasma rifle in hand, taking out the shields for Harvest to destroy

How come he had never used one of these before? He might have just found his secondary job