Halo: Royal Team

by RazgrizS57

Chapters

• Chapter 1: Last Transmission
• Chapter 2: Shooting Stars
• Chapter 3: Spade
• Chapter 4: Heart
• Chapter 5: Carbon
• Chapter 6: Shamrock
• Chapter 7: Preperations

Chapter 1: Last Transmission

November 5th, 2552

1830 hours

Stalwart-Class Light Frigate, UNSC Houston

Earth, Upper Thermosphere

“This is Captain Lance R. Adams of the UNSC Houston. Lambda Platoon, you better get your asses up here now! The Covenant is closing in fast and our support is heavily engaged!” The Captain shouted into the microphone again, trying to get his voice heard over the chaos that consumed the bridge. A low siren droned throughout the ship and several crew members leaned over their consoles, furiously typing at their keyboards. An aura of orange lights illuminated the bridge, a hum of low but urgent talk drowned out by the shrieking of the siren.

“Captain, Royal’s communications were disabled four minutes ago. However our radar shows they are making their way back home.” Communications Officer Halsey looked up from his console to the captain, a forlorn look in his eyes. For the situation at hand, and considering this was the best of circumstances, Adams looked in confusion at Halsey's face. The words the officer spoke conflicted with the expression he gave, as if he knew something the captain didn't.

“Lieutenant, reestablish communications with them ASAP!” The captain barked, Halsey's moment of fear subsided as he twisted back in his chair around the terminal that sat on his desk.

“We’re trying! The channel’s shot and we can hear them, but they can’t hear us.” Another officer shouted out from above the noise of the bridge.

“We’re also having difficulty communicating with the rest of the fleet!” Halsey suddenly spoke blankly, his words never registering with the ears of anyone.

“God Dammit! Where the fucking hell did they come from!?” Weapons Officer Franklin cried out, diverting everyone’s attention to either the radar or the windows, some hastily diverting their eyes back and forth. A task force of Covenant Cruisers appeared of the bow, ominously looming in front of them. The giant spacecraft outweighed the light frigate it not only size, but weapons and defenses. The ships were an ominous sign of certain death for the Houston. Two of the enormous vessels split off to port and went to close the gap between the Houston and the Earth. The other three diverted to the right except for a lone warship that stood in the path of the frigate, blocking off its means of escape.

“Fuck! They’re coming in for a broadside sweep!” The officer cried out again, returning to his console, “They’re coming in fast! ETA six minutes!”

“Fire up the MAC Cannon! Take aim at the nearest bastard and open fire!” Adams ordered, sending Franklin furiously typing at his console.

“Sir! We don’t have to go suicidal at this! Royal is closing in and we still have our slipspace drive intact!” Navigations Officer Higgs shouted over the others, not looking up from his console for an instant.

“What good will that do? We’re gambling on our reserve power already!” Another officer argued, but was swiftly taken down by another barrage of vocals from Higgs.

“God Dammit you idiot! We haven’t touched our reserves yet, and we’re running low on ammunition as it is! If we bug out of here, we might be able to tap into our reserves to get us back! And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be awkwardly floating in deep space with a small chance of survival then being confronted with certain death!” He motioned his hands in exaggeration at the looming Covenant forces that slowly grew near. A brief pulse of light emitted from the middle of the five ships, and a searing shot of plasma shot through space, progressively getting bigger and bigger as it got closer and closer. The Houston shook as the barrage of plasma impacted right off the front bow. The frigate responded with another shake as its MAC Cannon returned fire, the high-velocity round piercing through space and embedding itself in the enemy warship. The craft buckled, numerous explosions could be seen through the ship as a chain reaction of explosions rocked it out of alignment. An enormous explosion sent a large chunk of the cruiser breaking off the rest of the ship, falling to the Earth bellow in an enormous ball of fire. The rest of the ship soon followed, joining the chunk of itself as the two bodies entered the planet's atmosphere.

“Gotcha fucker!” The Weapons Officer cheered in self-satisfaction.

“Dammit, we lost the shields! Our hull is exposed!” Someone yelled out over the muse, returning the bridge to its previous state of disorder. “Get a maintenance team down there now!”

“Royal is on their way! ETA two minutes!”

“Sir, the Covenant is almost broadside! ETA two minutes and closing!”

“God damn this is going to be close,” Adams thought out loud to no one in particular. The commotion that had consumed the bridge died down as all eyes diverted to the captain. Pieces of paper slowly floated down to the floor, caught in the ship's artificial gravity. The only sound came from the low hum of the siren, and the flashing orange lights left pulsating shadows around the bridge. Captain Adams walked up and stood lament at the windows, watching as the Covenant warships were positioning themselves for a textbook hammer-and-anvil deathblow.

“Captain, the UNSC Sympathy has been lost. Our flank is completely exposed.” Officer Halsey deadpanned, adding a searing pain on top of the nervous concoction of events that stung everyone in the room. “Royal is approaching too,” he added, looking up to the Captain and awaiting orders.

“The Covenant will be able to open fire in sixty seconds.” Someone else spoke out, bringing time into the equation. Captain Adams turned around to address the crew that stood before him. He had served them proudly for seven years. A single tear started to form in the pit of his eye, but his stern and emotionless face still showed authority. He had to give a command, and he wasn’t going to like it. No one ever like it. When one thinks of UNSC craft, they think of prestigious ones such the Aegis Gate or the the Pillar of Autumn. The Houston wasn't particularly known for anything, after all it was just a support vessel. The crew was seasoned and just as capable as any other unit in the UNSC fleet, but the one time they're charged with important mission everything goes to hell.

“Prepare for a slipspace jump. We are getting the hell out of here and I don’t care where. After we get the necessary repairs done, we are turning around and going in for a swift counterattack on whatever alien bastards still linger within Earth’s orbit. Wait until I give the order for the jump though; we are leaving at the last possible second and giving Royal all the time we can until they can get into the jump stream. It is impeccable that we secure the package they fought so hard to secure, do you understand?” He finished with a salute to the entire bridge. Most of the crew was too in shock to respond, but the few that weren’t saluted back. Blanks stares were the only replies given.

“Thirty seconds.” A voice spoke out from the crowd. Adams returned to the window, watching the enemy ships get closer and closer.

“That is an order,” Captain Adams added, and with that the room erupted into a frenzy. Some returned to their consoles and others scrambled around the room, flicking switches and shouting commands. The low hum of the siren became a wailing screech, and the pulsating orange lights went into a not-so-reassuring shade of dark red. The captain turned at last and returned to his seat, placing his mouth near the intercom.

“Attention all crew members, this is your Captain speaking,” he announced, “We are preparing for an emergency slipspace jump in less than twenty seconds. I highly recommend you find something to hold on to, things are going to get bumpy. God be with us.”

“Turbines are charged, awaiting the order.” The Navigation Officer looked up to the Captain, not a single indication of fear in his face. Soldiers weren't supposed to show fear, but these men weren't soldiers. They were sailors. They were husbands. Sons. Daughters.

“Royal is closing. Ten. Nine. Eight…” Halsey spoke, a hint of worry in his voice that made the tension in the room so thick it wouldn't be a far cry to say it could literally be cut with a knife.

“The Covenant is closing. Seven. Six. Five…” Franklin said. Everyone knew this was going to be close.

“Four. Three. Two. One.”

\x\x\x\x\

From the bridge of the Covenant Frigate, the Brute captain smiled to himself in satisfaction. This would be an easy kill; the remaining four ships were almost broadside to the human frigate, and when they fire from both sides there would be no place for the enemy to escape. Afterwards they would soon land to reinforce the invasion of Earth. Perhaps glass one of the many cities. Maybe New York? There’s numerous inhabitants there, and it would be a fine trophy to wipe it off the face of the planet. That would have to wait though, since the fight was in another hemisphere. He barked to his subordinates as their warship came alongside the UNSC craft. He admired their technology, even though it was primitive and about to be destroyed. The Humans’ weaponry was almost specifically kinetic while the Covenant’s was but pure energy. In a comparison, the Humans would be victorious if they could pierce the energy shields. But the electrical discharge of a plasma cannon would cripple any living creature long enough for a fatal blow to follow suit. They just needed to be fast. And nothing is faster than pure energy.

The plasma cannons were fully charged, ready to blast the human craft into the next quadrant. He gave the order to fire, and the ship’s three torpedo launchers opened fire. It would take less than ten seconds before they would make contact with the hull of the enemy ship. The rest of his task force also opened fire, and the brilliant bolts of plasma shot their way through the vacuum of space.

But they never hit their intended target.

The UNSC Houston became wrapped in the familiar void of subspace. The white bubble encapsulated the ship before it disappeared in a slipspace jump. The whole thing was over in seconds, but the plasma torpedoes still missed. It was a major disappointment to the captain, the thought of a kill escaping so easily would be a burden on his shoulders. Perhaps it would have been better to open fire from the front when they first appeared on the battlefield. The enemy was already damaged, but they could have lost more ships if they charged head first. One Covenant vessel lost was enough, and they didn’t need any more.

Then everyone’s worst fears were realized. A screeching echo of sirens ran throughout the ship, and the unnerving violet warning lights hummed through the bridge. They were under fire. But from where? Everyone frantically ran from console to console trying to get a sense of exactly what was going on. The captain sat in his seat, chuckling to himself. His nervously laugh became more prominent, diverting the curious attention of some. Off to their right, one of the task force’s ships engulfed itself in flames, buckled, and broke in two. The other one tried an avoidance maneuver but it too met a similar fate, plasma traces lingered from where the death blow struck. He looked down to his console, and noticed the two ships had stopped broadcasting their signals. The vessel behind theirs soon blipped off the radar too. The captain casually brought his attention to one of the windows, and saw as a plasma torpedo embedded itself into his ship’s hull, watching as the friendly craft that fired it plummet to the planet below in a flaming wreck. Standard procedure was that the cruiser stayed its course, being the only survivor of the task force. Friendly fire sure is a bitch. However the Brute Captain ordered the ship to stop its course and provide aid to the destroyed ally that drifted behind it. The warning light that shook the ship stopped but for an instant before picking back up again. They were under fire again! But there were no hostile ships in the quadrant, so where could the enemy be coming from? It could have just been a false alarm, but the sirens still blared.

Something caught the captain’s eye, and he looked out through the windows to where the enemy craft once stood. Something was coming at them. A chunk of debris, most likely. But the ship’s energy shields still stood, and so would any piece of Covenant hardware. It had been engineered so that the shields that applied to any given piece of metal would stay there, and it was far too early for the energy to dissipate. He hoped it wasn’t an asteroid. Even a small one would be enough to cripple the ship. He ordered his frigate hard to the right, turning into the oncoming projectile. The object was slow, but it didn’t need to be as long as it hit.

The captain’s eyes widened as the object drew near. It was something he’d never seen before. He’d heard of them, but this would be his first and last sight of one. His soldiers were right, facing one of these on the battlefield would be a death wish, but how it got into space was beyond imagination.

The hardest part of an M808B Scorpion is the barrel; it needed to be in order to withstand the immense heat when it fired a projectile. But in this case, the barrel was the projectile, and a damn fine one at that. It was easily able to pierce the weakened shield of the Covenant vessel and punch through, obliterating the bridge. The sheer size of the tank was enough to send half of the chunk of metal off into space.

Another thing about a Scorpion is that its hull is hard to penetrate. It has to be in order to protect the delicate 90mm High-Explosive Armor Piercing (HEAP) shells contained inside. But a weakness to the Scorpion lies within those very shells. The tank has a high rate of fire, being able to shoot a round off every four seconds because of the easily accessible loader. The loading chamber of the tank is therefore prone to jamming with such a high rate of fire with enormously sized shells. It’s also prone to misfires. The shell casing had to be crafted in such a way that they could easily be fired, but not by accidents when handling. The Scorpion’s turret also had to be crafted in such a way that it was compact; so compact that the firing pin is the size of a hammerhead. A well placed enemy shot to the tank could easily knock it out of place and cause a misfire. A sudden impact could do the same.

This explains that when upon impact, the preloaded shell that was in the chamber of the barrel misfired. This is why crew members must clear the chamber before they could even leave the tank. However Lambda 01 forgot to do so in their rush, and the chambered round went off upon impact with the Covenant ship.

However that doesn’t explain the perfect freak chance of alignment. The chances of the shell making its way through the captain’s chair that sat right up an air vent, through several hundred meters of uninterrupted travel in the ducts, into the reactor room, and straight into one of the ship’s two antimatter reactors. Even though antimatter reactions are the only thing capable of making a slipspace jump possible, one would think they’d be better armored to keep the volatile substance inside safe. They usually are though, since several energy shields envelop the reactors, each layering of shielding capable of surviving a nuclear explosion point-blank.

However the shields were offline at the moment. Something about an overloaded circuit from a plasma torpedo making contact with the ship’s hull shields. This meant the thick casing that protected the one kilogram of antimatter contained inside was highly vulnerable to the HEAP shell that pierced it, causing the biggest no-no in physics: You do not cross antimatter with matter; which causes nothing but pure energy. Or in layman’s terms one enormous explosion. A single ounce of the stuff is capable or recreating the bomb that dropped on Nagasaki near the end of World War II, but five times bigger. And the reactor had one Kilogram of antimatter. And so did the one next to it. This meant two Kilograms, or 4.4 pounds, or 70.4 ounces of antimatter exploding in the most violent, freak, yet intelligently-designed explosion imaginable.

Quick history lesson in atomics: The first atomic bomb dropped; the one over Hiroshima, weighed in at a little over thirteen kilotons which resulted in the death of 90,000 people. The hydrogen bomb dropped over Bikini Atoll weighed in at fifteen megatons and the place has been irradiated since. The largest nuclear bomb dropped on Earth soil, the Tsar Bomba, weighed in at a staggering fifty megatons. The shockwave shattered windows well over six hundred miles away. The mushroom cloud alone was higher than eight times the height of Mt. Everest. To create the parachute that lowered its descent, the entire Soviet textile industry was disrupted. And even though the plane that carried it got a twenty minute head start after dropping it, it was still knocked out of the sky. One kilogram of antimatter is equal to roughly forty-two megatons, or four fifths of that of the Tsar Bomba.

And there are two kilograms of the stuff inside the dinky Covenant vessel; which is just over a kilometer in length. You imagine standing at the base of Krakatoa and having the enormous volcano erupt in your face. What was left of the task force and it was simply wiped off the face of the universe.

\x\x\x\x\

“First thing’s first. Where in God’s name are we?” Captain Adams spoke, staggering out of his seat as he tried to get a hand on the situation. The sirens the had been echoing a moment before stopped, adding to the unnerving setting the red lights made; still flashing and cast shadows around the bridge. Aside from those lights, the only other source of illumination came the various modules around the room. There was not any other source of light, possibly throughout the entire ship even.

“We are three parsecs away from Earth; somewhere in an uncharted part of the Milky Way.” The Navigations Officer said once more. The desperate maneuver got them out of hell, but right now they were AWOL. If they didn’t get back to the fight soon, there would be swift action from high command against them. The officer knew it. The captain knew it. Everyone knew it. Everyone thought they knew it. Everyone thought about it. Everyone thought about the punishment. Everyone thought if there would be punishment. Everyone thought. The bridge was silent once more.

“Status report?” Captain Adams asked, not to anyone in particular. "Any sort of information would be greatly appreciated," he mused. After an awkward silence the sound of a printer could be heard going off, buzzing as ink scratched itself onto paper. A crewmember ran across the bridge to the printer and gathered the single piece of parchment, staring at it intently. The center of attention drew itself upon him, and he read aloud;

“Status report: November 5th, 2552. 1838 hours. Life Support Systems: Online. Weapons Systems: Offline. Radar and Communications, outside and internal: Offline. Navigation Systems: Offline. Mk1 Shield Generator: Offline. Slipspace Drive: Offline. Engines: Offline. Main Reactor: Overheated and in emergency shutdown. Hull: Compromised at the bow. Backup Generators running at 40%, and we have only a few hours left of reserve fuel before they run dry. All available energy has been automatically diverted to maintain life support and other crucial services. All doors, vents, and hangars have been automatically shut and locked due to the hull breach at the bow."

"Sounds like God just told the UNSC Houston to go fuck itself," another crew member deadpanned, killing whatever positive morale that might have still lingered.

A solider appeared, but didn’t have anything to report. Rather, he was there to be there, in the presence of authority. He had jammed his sniper rifle into the door frame to wedge it to open, bending the barrel. Himself along with his squad scrambled into the room, dispersing among the crowd. After the brief struggle, one of the privates walked up and asked the one single question that ran through everyone’s minds.

“Where is Royal? Did they make it?” The stony silence shook everyone. Nobody seemed to know. The Communications Officer who sat uncomfortably in his chair looked back down to his console and typed furiously at his keyboard. He stopped and stared blankly at the screen, deciphering whatever message it contained before clearing his throat, and standing.

“Yes and no,” Halsey uttered, already under the anticipating glares of the entire bridge, which was filling with more and more crew members by the minute.

“They made it into the subspace bubble, but not to the ship," he added.

“Elaborate, Lieutenant. Please.” The captain nervously said, almost not wanting to say the words.

“They made it to the subspace bubble, but not to the ship,” Halsey repeated. “When we jumped into slipspace they were just on the inside of the event horizon and not within close proximity to the Houston. Henceforth, they were kicked out of the slipspace stream before we were. They could be anywhere between us and the Earth.” The room dropped to something even quieter then dead silence. Each man could only hear their own breathing, and those who held their breath could only hear the slight thump of their heartbeats, and those whose hearts skipped a beat could hear the cold sweat run down their faces. All eyes cautiously passed between the captain and Halsey. The red sirens stopped and the only form of illumination came from the computer screens scattered throughout the bridge. After a brief period of time, the fluorescent ceiling lights flickered to life and with them a newfound, although vague, hope.

“Main reactors are back online,” One man said, lost deep in the crowd of people who now flooded into the room. Repair teams, soldiers, pilots, janitors; everyone. Anyone who could have fit in the bridge was there, like a flock of birds returning to a single nest in search of their mother.

“I’ll be damned they’re working at only a sliver of their full capacity, but they work.” The man added.

“Don’t strain them!” A woman shouted from somewhere else. “Let them cool to safer levels! Only when the reserves run dry do we turn them back on.”

“Any reports on casualties? We need to get the medical bay online!”

“All onboard communications are scrambled. We’re in the dark.”

“Radar is still dead. I don’t know what the hell is around us.”

“One of the hangar doors is jammed opened! Get a crew out there to assess the damage to our hull!”

“I think there's a fire on deck three!”

“Is the Covenant around here? Where’s the nearest friendly star system?”

“ENOUGH!!” The captain’s voice bellowed, ending the shouting matches that were more annoying than the blaring sirens that were still ringing in his ears. He looked around to the crowd that continued to grow larger still. People squeezed through whatever gaps there were, occupying every square foot of floor space.

“Do your God damned jobs. Get this ship back into a stable condition, and we'll se where we go from there. Dismissed.”

“Loud and Clear!” One of the soldiers yelled in salute, before running out the door with the rest of his squad. The room erupted into a wild frenzy again as people stampeded out of the bridge, leaving only the original crew. More modules and screens came to life one by one, and even the air conditioning eventually kicked in.

“We’re going to need to conserve as much energy as possible. Whatever isn’t necessary I don’t want it used. Johnston, how are onboard sensors?”

The private sat back down at his console and typed in a quick command. “Life Support is stabilized. Communications are still shot, but I got a repair team working on that. For the most part, everything else is working at half capacity.”

“Um, Captain Adams? Permission to speak?” Halsey regained his composure and stood back up.

“Permission granted. What is it?”

“We recorded everything from Lambda Platoon up to the slipspace jump. I got the cockpit recordings on audio file right here, ready to play.” Halsey said bluntly. The clattering of keyboards stopped and the bridge was quiet once more. Adams swallowed hard. Whatever was recorded could be the last trace of Lambda.

“Maybe it’ll tell us where they are?” Someone asked with false hope. Those who knew the answer to that did everything they could not to shake their heads, denying the fact that Royal was likely lost in space.

“Play it.” Adams ordered, and Halsey sat back down.

\x\x\x\x\

>>Communications Recordings. November 5th 2552. Six minutes and fifteen seconds in length.

>>Lambda Platoon, callsign “Royal”.

>>Units: Lambda 01. Lambda 02. Lambda 03. Lambda 04.

>>Initializing. Standby.

>>Loading.

>>Loading.

>>Playing.

*static*

Lambda 02: This is Lambda 02, callsign Carbon reporting in. UNSC Houston, do you copy? Out copy.

Lambda 02: Repeat, UNSC Houston? Do you copy? Out copy.

Lambda 04: Carbon, do you not see what's going on up there? I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost their communications in that shitstorm.

Lambda 02: Regardless, full speed ahead. It’s impeccable we get the package onboard. Shamrock, how’s the package?

Lambda 01: It’s doing fine, thank you for asking. Calling in for a head count. Shamrock here reporting two KIA and three wounded, one critical.

Lambda 02: This is Carbon. We’re all here. One of ours is now deaf, but we’re still here. We left behind our Warthog though.

Lambda 03: This is Heart, reporting two KIA. Zero wounded. All supplies are accounted for. How about you Spade?

Lambda 04: Zero KIA but we got two wounded. They aren’t serious though. They'll live.

*static*

Lambda 03: Fuck! Phantoms on our six!

Lambda 02: Dammit, they don’t know when to give up! Shamrock, get ahead of us. Heart, escort him out of here. Spade you’re with me, protect Shamrock at all costs.

Lambda 04: Well, our lives would be a nice thing to keep.

Lambda 01: We’re under fire!

Lambda 02: Contact! Contact! Counting two bogeys closing fast, return fire!

Lambda 03: We’re entering the stratosphere. Come on Shamrock, I’ll get you home.

Lambda 01: Fuck! We've been hit!

Lambda 03: Nothing serious, it’s just a graze. Why don’t you guys cover our asses?

Lambda 02: Tango down. Bye-bye you dumb bastard.

Lambda 01: *static*

Lambda 04: We still got one following us. Return fire!

Lambda 02: Dammit that was a close!

Lambda 03: Come on Shamrock. Just play follow the leader.

Lambda 01: *static*

Lambda 03: How are you guys holding up back there?

Lambda 04: We’ve seen better days. Shamrock, what condition are you in?

Lambda 04: Repeat, Shamrock how is your condition, over.

Lambda 03: They aren’t talking. I think their communications are shot.

Lambda 04: That and they’re trailing smoke.

Lambda 02: Tango down, that’s two for two. Let’s bug out of here.

*static*

Lambda 03: Entering the upper mesosphere. Shamrock, can you hear us?

Lambda 04: Rock your bird Heart. See if they respond. We’re catching up.

Lambda 03: Yeah, they rocked theirs back. That pelican has seen better days.

Lambda 02: So has ours.

Lambda 04: So has the Houston. Look!

Lambda 02: Holy fuck. Where the blinding hell did those Covies come from?

Lambda 04: They’re not going to survive that. I mean, five of them? That’s just a little unfair.

Lambda 02: Scratch that. Four.

Lambda 03: Ha! Look at that baby burn!

Lambda 02: UNSC Houston, this is Lambda 02, callsign Carbon reporting in, do you copy? Out copy.

Lambda 04: Give up Carbon. They’re too deep in shit to talk back.

Lambda 03: I’ll say. The Covenant is going hammer-and-anvil on them. I say we bug out to the Sympathy.

Lambda 02: Can we even do that? We're assigned to the Houston.

Lambda 04: I’m in. Drastic times call for drastic measures. We need Shamrock alive.

Lambda 02: Fine. UNSC Sympathy, this is Lambda *static*

Lambda 04: *static*

Lambda 03: FUCKING DAMMIT!!

Lambda 02: We just lost the Sympathy.

Lambda 04: No way we’re returning to Earth either. The LZ is too hot and we’re running low on fuel.

Lambda 03: Yeah, we are too. Thrusters are giving it their all though.

Lambda 02: Yeah, ours too.

*static*

Lambda 03: Damn it all.

*static*

Lambda 03: We’re in the troposphere.

Lambda 04: Looks like the Houston’s preparing for a jump.

Lambda 02: Hopefully we’ll make it before then. ETA thirty seconds.

Lambda 03: Put on your diapers boys, this is going to be close.

Lambda 04: Already used mine. Got an extra?

Lambda 02: *laughter*

*static*

Lambda 04: How’s Shamrock holding up?

Lambda 03: They’re doing fine.

Lambda 02: Fuck no they’re not. They’re falling behind!

Lambda 03: Shamrock! Kick your tail into high gear!

Lambda 04: They’ve lost an engine.

Lambda 03: Dammit! Shamrock! Put your ass in overdrive now!

Lambda 02: Fuck that Scorpion is weighing them down!

Lambda 03: Jettison that tank Shamrock! Do you read me!?

Lambda 02: Shamrock, jettison your tank! You aren’t going to make it!

Lambda 03: Fuck it I’ll shoot that thing off them!

Lambda 02: Heart! Get your ass in gear and keep moving. Shamrock will make it.

Lambda 04: No they won't. None of us will.

Lambda 02: Covies have opened fire on the Houston!

Lambda 04: So this is how it ends. I imagined more girls and guns.

Lambda 02: That’s all you think about, isn’t it?

Lambda 03: Wait a minute! We’re within range to be inside slipspace bubble! We made it!

Lambda 02: Shamrock hasn’t!

Lambda 03: God dammit Shamrock speed the fuck up! You’ll be caught outside the slipspace bubble!

Lambda 02: This is going to be close.

Lambda 04: The Houston’s making the jump! We haven’t made it to the ship yet!

Lambda 02: Doesn’t matter!

Lambda 03: GOD FUCKING DAMMIT SHAMROCK!!

Lambda 02: BRACE!!

*static*

>>Transmission ended.

>>End playback.

>>Replay audio file: Y/N

\x\x\x\x\

The bridge was in the dark once more. The ceiling lights that graced their presence flickered out of existence. The orange warning lights returned to their job of casting shadows across the room. Captain Adams walked up to Halsey's terminal and scrutinized the screen, before it too went black. So did everyone else's. So did the orange warning lights, snuffed out oft their brief reintroduction.

"God Dammit." Johnston spoke to himself. He turned to address the uncomfortably shifting crew, "Permission to speak, Captain?"

"No time for formalities Private. What is it?"

"Our reserve fuel is gone. We must have an undetected leak somewhere. Our reserve energy supplies are gone, and Life Support has the only working generator on the ship. No telling when that will run out."

"Weren't the main reactors back online? Albeit they're at like 2% power, don't they still work?" A woman spoke out to the Private.

"Yes... I do believe so. But they are still critical. No telling when they'll be safe to operate. Captain, what do we do?" Everyone turned back to Adams who stood next to Halsey, his mind racing. Training had never taught him how to deal with this sort of situation. Not even the manuals described what to do.

There's an old saying: Experience isn't something you get until right after you needed it. And boy, did Adams need it.

Several minutes passed by, not a peep being said as the crew patiently waited for their commanding officer to come to. Captain Adams still stood, hunched over Halsey's console, staring into the black computer screen. He took a deep sigh, and absentmindedly hurled a coffee cup across the room, the ceramic mug shattering against a far wall. It was Halsey's coffee cup, but he didn't say anything. He could always get another. He knew that. After much more hesitation, Adams made another heavy sigh, and looked out the front window at the empty cosmos. Not a spec of any sort of heavenly body could be seen. Slowly but surely, a faint glimmer of a star flickered into existence, followed closely behind by another, and soon the universe came to life. They were still alive. They didn't know where they were, but they were alive.

"I want all available repair teams on those reactors." Adams spoke at last, much to the relief of everyone. "Get them stable as soon as possible, and then turn them on. We're going to fix this tin can with duct tape and rope until we can get into some sort of reliable condition. I want every room that can be converted to treat wounded to do so. Anyone with any sort of medical experience is now a nurse, regardless of rank or assignment. Quarantine all compromised portions of the ship until further notice."

"But sir," Franklin stood, nervous to speak, "Our communications are dead. How are we..."

"We're doing this Old-School, Franklin. Get the message across, all of you. Run through the ship and spread it around, make sure everyone hears it and return back to me. That is an order."

"Aye-aye, sir!" The room of twenty-two officers saluted, and burst out of the bridge through the freed door.

"Except you, Halsey. I need someone who knows what their doing up here."

"Aye, sir."

\x\x\x\x\

"Lieutenant, about Royal... how do you think they are?"

"I think they have it worse then we do."

"Pray they do not."

"Halsey? How far from Earth are we?"

"We were in subspace for a few minutes. Rough estimate is a few parsecs, why?"

"Couldn't we have pulled out sooner?"

"Sir, once the switch is pulled there's no turning back. You know that."

"Where's the nearest friendly star system?"

"Err... give me a second. I know we have a map somewhere. Here it is."

"Well?"

"Um, that would be Sol. Right where we came from."

"Where do you think Royal ended up?"

"Honestly? I haven't got the slightest clue. They're somewhere between us and Earth though."

"We need to recover the package."

"I know."

"I have an estimate of where the might be."

"Where?"

"About halfway between us and Earth, but the search field covers several trillion sqare miles."

"But it'd take months to even search a fraction of that."

"Once the slipspace drives are back online, we're searching for Royal."

"Their distress signals should be able to last years."

"We'll find them. We'll bring them home."

Chapter 2: Shooting Stars

April 12th, year 6 PH (Post-Harmony)

1:32 am

Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria

Princess Luna sat idly in the throne room, looking out the window to the stars above. Something was bothering her, but she couldn’t say what. The moon hovered in the night sky, reflecting sunlight off its surface onto the darkness that enveloped the hemisphere, slightly illuminating it. Even in the dead of night, well trained eyes could see things as if it were day. Numerous stars twinkled in her ever-flowing mane, and she nuzzled it out of her eyes to see the actual stars that glistened above. The night was her domain, and along with her sister the two Princesses ruled over Equestria for over a thousand years. Albeit it was only six years ago she returned to the throne alongside her sister. She had spent the previous thousand years in anger and depression, banished to the moon by her own blood. The thought of her corrupted form, Nightmare Moon, still lingered in the back of her mind but she learned to seal those memories away long ago. Perhaps Nightmare Moon was trying to return? No, that couldn’t be it. If anything Luna was known for however, it wasn’t self-control. However she is trustworthy, and has never broken a single promise in her long, tiresome existence. She promised Princess Celestia, all of Equestria, and the world that Nightmare Moon would never return, and she intended to do so. So if it wasn’t Nightmare Moon that was bothering her, what could it be? She was lost for answers, and this tended to annoy her. If anything, Luna had a knack for getting answers out of anypony. But she couldn’t get answers out of herself, especially ones she didn’t even know the question to. No, she knew the question. She didn’t have the answer. She was going to find the answer though. She’ll find it tonight.

“Going somewhere, little sister?” Celestia asked innocently from atop her throne. She rarely got any peace of quiet, and as the Princess of the sun she spent most of her time arguing politics during the day. This was partially because most ponies were only awake during the day, and partially because there was always some sort of political conflict going on with any of the neighboring countries. Most notably the Gryphon Kingdom to the north; the two countries were always in a fuss about something, whether it be the bordering badlands, the damming of the Pisa River, or immigration conflicts. Either way, the cases were usually mild and passed on with days if not hours, only to be replaced by another debate. However this week there had been an issue with the northwest neighbor Germaneigh. Some Equestrian ponies had mistakenly built a village on Germaneigh side of the Derbyshire River, and refused to leave even though they were not on Equestrian soil. Hopefully a compromise could be reached soon. The Germanes pushed for the village to be annexed and recognized as a Germaneigh town, or wiped off the map. Celestia had been urging for simple relocation if the Germanes helped build the townsfolk another village on Equestrian soil and they could have the one on theirs. But neither side liked the other’s ideas. The Princess could surely use a must needed nap, but unfortunately the two alicorns were unable to sleep. They never could anyway; one of the many consequences for being nearly immortal.

“Oh ‘Tia. I… I’ve been distracted lately. Something in the last hour has made me feel… wrong. I just don’t know what.” Luna sighed heavily, hanging her head. She brought her gaze back up to Celestia, getting a sympathetic nod from her sister. Celestia hopped from her pedestal and gracefully glided over to Luna and stood next to her as the two looked out the window into the night sky.

“I know what you’re feeling, dear sister.” Celestia nuzzled up to Luna, who after slight hesitation returned to comforting favor. “I have felt the same disturbance. Although my connection to the night has been weakened since you retook control of the moon, I still understand your feeling.”

“I’m… I’m going to the garden. Maybe the rooftop. Yeah, I should get a good vantage point of the night from on top of the castle.” Luna giggled to herself.

“The fresh air should help you, Woona.” Celestia joked, getting an irked glare from Luna.

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t be calling me that anymore! I’m grown up ‘Tia.”

“I’m just teasing you,” Celestia said with a happy grin, returning her gaze to the night. “I know that whatever it is you’ll figure it out. Your diligence never ceases to amaze me.”

Luna smiled at the thought. Getting a compliment from her sister wasn’t an easy task when she wanted one, but whenever she least expected it Celestia gave one to her right out the blue.

“…and it never ceases to amaze me,” Celestia teased, a hint of sarcasm in her tone. Luna rolled her eyes at the possible insult, and shrugged away from her sister. Her horn glowed with a faded blue, and her favorite pair of saddlebags materialized onto her back. The brown, aged fabric was tough and stood the test of time. The silver thread that copied her cutie mark into the buckle that sealed the canvas shut was hoof-stitched by her herself. Luna had never really been into sewing, but this was her crowning achievement. She opened the satchels to make sure they carried what she intended; a book on astronomical mythology, her sketchbook, several quills and vials of ink, some charcoal, and a couple snacks. With a nod of satisfaction she went out the double doors into the maze that was the castle, eventually to appear on top of the castle itself.

“Have fun!” Celestia called after her with a nervous smile.

\x\x\x\x\

Twilight Sparkle was awoken from her midnight slumber. Something brought the unicorn out of her sleep. Groggy, she peered out of her bedroom window, moonlight casting itself through the blinds and onto her bed. With a sigh, she used her magic to close the blinds, returning her loft and the rest of the Ponyville Library into darkness.

Fifteen minutes later she still couldn’t fall back to sleep. An urge to look into the night sky haunted her but she didn’t know why. Twilight cast a simple illumination spell to read the clock on the wall, and it was about quarter to two in the morning. She didn’t have insomnia, so why couldn’t she fall back to sleep? Silence echoed through the library, and even the rest of Ponyville. Shifting around in bed, she peered through the blinds of the window up to the moon. Something caught her eye, a small black glimmer offset by the dull whitish-gray of the moon. Her gaze fixated on it in curious fascination until it dawned on her exactly what this was.

A meteor shower! She squeaked at the thought of catching one before it began. The novice astronomer had never been able to see another body in space other than the few that have already been documented by the Canterlot Astronomy Department. And she would be the first to see this! Twilight’s Comet, maybe? Or was it even a comet? It had no ice tail, so that was a bit of disappointment. But still, the first pony to document a full meteor shower before it began!

A surge of adrenaline shot through the young mare’s system. She eagerly jumped out of her bed and grabbed a quill and empty book of one of the many shelves. She hurriedly ran up to the roof to her telescope. Twilight fully expected to track the asteroid’s trajectory and present it to Princess Celestia. Oh, how her mentor would be so proud!

Twilight tried her best to aim to telescope at the shooting star, but to no avail. It was hard enough to point it to a neighboring galaxy, but that still took several minutes at best. And she was trying to fixate it onto a moving target. After a few seconds she gave up, not wanting to waste any time at all. She lay down on the balcony and opened the book to a blank page, and readied the quill. Twilight immediately regretted not bringing a blanket, but it was too late for that. The undefined blur of the asteroid began to take enter the atmosphere, a steady streak of fire engulfing it and creating a trail of red that followed the meteor’s descent.

It’s not a shooting star anymore… Twilight thought to herself, her heart beating faster as she came to the abrupt conclusion. It’s a meteorite! The thought of an actual space rock falling to the planet below made her squeal with joy. She’d never seen any space rocks before, and the few that existed were treasured artifacts in museums. To actually be able watch the rock fall was a dream come true! She just had to make it to the crater at some point. Tonight? No, it’d have to wait. She’s not ready to go out in the dead of night, and she knew for sure that some of her friends would want to go with her.

Twilight jotted down the information she was gathering as the meteor fell. By what she could tell, it was considerably large; probably the three times the size of the Ponyville library. It was also traveling slower and slower thanks to the atmosphere, so she should easily be able to find where it crashed. Another thing is that its trajectory hinted it would crash in the Everfree Forest, so aside from the possibility of a few animals, there’d be no casualties. Also, the rock didn’t seem to be tumbling, rather it shot like a spear thrown the air, straight and true. And it was breaking apart! Multiple craters to examine! The thought made Twilight’s heart beat faster and she continued to scribble down quick calculations and other data she was gathering. The meteorite broke into four chunks, three the size Sugarcube Corner and another slightly less than half that size of the others. As it got closer to the planet’s surface, the fiery streak of the tails disappeared, two of them oddly to be replaced by smoke.

Makes sense, Twilight thought, After all, the high speeds would probably put out the fires, but then why only two of them? Why did the others have smoke? She knew nothing about the topic. There were a few books about space in the library, and she’d have to reread them later tonight. It’s not like she’d be sleeping anymore anyway.

The purple unicorn look up in bewilderment as two of the rocks changed trajectory. The smaller one and one of the larger rocks, the two that both trailed smoke, tumbled through the sky heading straight for the Everfree Forest. But the other two did an impossible midair turn, heading for the area near Canterlot. She watched as one of the rocks made another sharp turn, slowly descending into the Whitetail Woods. The other rock was higher than the other, somehow gaining altitude. It headed for Canterlot, disappearing into a cloud bank.

Her attention quickly changed to the other two, just in time to watch them crash into the forest. The smaller one continued to tumble like a baseball and fell to earth. The larger of the two impossibly nosed over and smashed into the ground at a near vertical angle, exploding into an enormous fireball. Twilight’s jaw unhinged and her mouth fell agape at the spectacle. A small light indicating a fire appeared over the crash site, but it was quickly snuffed out in a cloud of smoke, that too disappearing after a few seconds. However there was no indication of fire or smoke from the other meteorite, and Twilight got a rough estimate of where it landed before it disappeared into the trees. The two fell about a kilometer apart from each other. Shortly after the impact, the brief sound of a muffled explosion rocked the town of Ponyville followed by the shockwave, and it did little more than rustle the leaves of the Library.

Twilight looked back to the other two, and saw only one of the rocks as it defied physics and glided into the Whitetail Woods before crashing. She lost sight of the other one long ago, it still being hidden by the cloudbank. All she could assume now is that it too crashed, hopefully into the mountains behind Canterlot and not in the city itself. Twilight looked down at the book and realized she hadn’t documented anything since the meteorite broke apart, and her eyes widened in fright. She hastily wrote down everything she could before it escaped her memory.

\x\x\x\x\

Princess Luna sat on the highest point in Canterlot; the watchtower that overlooked the Dream Valley that ran its way between two mountain ranges. Inside the valley lay a basin or fertile soil, occupied by many farms and small villages. To the right stood the Everfree Forest, taking up the entire western side -a good third- of the valley. Out near the end was Fillydelphia, one of the newest and modernized cities in the kingdom. Luna looked down over the valley and to the tiny spec that was the farming village of Ponyville. The small town always brought a smile to her face; something about it just made her feel good inside. Luna brought her gaze back to the night sky, looking for whatever it was that caused her to feel doubt. Doubt about something she didn’t know anything of. She looked to the moon and smiled at the handiwork she was charged with. It was something. It was her pride and joy, and Ponykind couldn’t live without it. No pony, no creature could live without it. The world needed the moon. Whether or not it was appreciated, it was something. And she loved the moon. She knew every square meter of its surface; part of it doing with her thousand-year banishment and another part being that she simply loved the moon.

Luna’s keen sense of the moon made any disfiguration about it obvious to her, so she was shocked to see two oddly shaped objects fall through the moonlight, casting dark outlines that were as clear as… well, day. Luna smiled with glee.

It’s not something bad! She silently cheered to herself in a low hum of relief, This is great! A meteor shower! I haven’t seen one in so long! Luna opened her saddlebags and put away the book on mythology she had been reading and took out the sketchbook along with the bits of charcoal. She was going to try her luck at drawing it. The only documented shooting stars were drawn, but only by astronomers after they either saw it themselves or after the fact when they took eyewitness testimonies and those were almost always unreliable. Luna drew what she saw with her own eyes, getting the two rocks written down in fine detail. She needed to hurry though; after they passed out of the moonlight their silhouettes would disappear, and with them the hope of an accurate drawing. Luna finished what she had with satisfaction and looked up to see the rocks become engulfed with the all too familiar flame or atmospheric reentry.

“Oooooo…. It’s coming down! I can’t remember the last time a meteor hit!” Luna spoke to herself, the sound of her own words calming down the surge of adrenaline. It was all she could do to not go up and join the space rocks in its descent.

No time to switch to a quill. Luna frowned, letting out a moan and started writing down what the two rocks were doing with the piece of charcoal. She never looked down from the meteors, her gaze fixated upon them and her magic wrote with impeccable speed. Subconsciously, she was able to somehow avoid the sketch she drew with her writing, write straight on invisible lines, and even turn the page to keep writing. She documented everything, overenthusiastic with this find.

Oh I hope ‘Tia sees this. She’d love to tell her sister to join in to watch, but her mind was elsewhere, focused on more important things. Then she smiled as she watched the two rocks gently tap each other in their fiery descent, breaking off into four individual chunks. Luna happily squealed as she watched the rocks fall. She thought for a moment in worry about where the now four meteors would fall, but that feeling quickly left as she realized they’d fall in the Everfree Forest; safe from hurting anypony. Then something strange happened; the rocks fell out of the stratosphere, and as expected the fires were put out and replaced with cones of air as they split through the night.

But now Luna realized why she felt disturbed inside. Two of the rocks were trailing smoke. That’s impossible. Even if they were charred from the friction of the atmosphere, the least they’d do is break off the burnt chunks. And that rarely happened. Maybe the rocks had gases contained inside? And they were burning off? That was a logical conclusion, but what happened next defied everything she knew about meteorites. And Luna knew everything about meteorites.

The two smoking rocks continued their path into the Everfree Forest, but the other two made an impossible aerial maneuver, banking hard to the left and wrapping back around towards Whitetail Woods. Luna kept writing, already on her second new page. While one stabilized itself and slowed down, the other kept accelerating and turning, gaining altitude and into the cover of the clouds. Luna’s attention was immediately diverted to the other two rocks with a flash of light.

One of them blew up? No… not unless it was filled with something like methane. Why didn’t the other blow up? Luna watched the fireball that was one of the rocks get replaced with smoke, and the smoke quickly getting snuffed out. She had no idea where the other meteorite hit, but it couldn’t be that far off from the first one. Whatever fire that was made was brief and fortunately got put out on its own. Luna looked back to other two and saw the falling one continue falling, gliding into the Whitetail Woods before it too crashed. Luna frantically scanned the skies for signs of the other space rock, just in time for it to emerge out of the clouds. It arched over her, over Canterlot, and into the mountains behind. A few seconds passed, and the sound of an explosion hit her ears. The silence of the night amplified what would have otherwise been unnoticed. Luna looked back into the Everfree Forest, and saw nothing; there was no indication anything had fallen from the sky and hit there. She turned to the Whitetail Woods, and saw a single column of smoke rise above a small crater.

“I hope that’s not on fire,” Luna mumbled and got up, returning everything she had out into her saddlebags. The Princess of the Moon jumped down off the watchtower into the courtyard, and ran into the castle. She needed to organize her guards and head to the Whitetail Woods’ impact site before the fire spread. This had been an interesting night for sure.

\x\x\x\x\

High above the planet in the upper troposphere, four metallic objects drifted helplessly in space. Three of them were still intact, but only the front half of the fourth existed. Bodies, weapons, equipment, and assorted debris drifted out of its cargo bay creating a cloud of wreckage the hovered near the destroyed craft. Over the course of the next hour, these debris and the rest of the ships slowly succumbed to the planet’s gravity, increasing speed as they hurdled to the surface below. As the group cleared the mesosphere, two of the ships came to life in a roar that was outshined by the sound of atmospheric reentry. Fortunately, the ships had been specially designed to handle such a challenge, but one of them was crippled beyond repair; its protective coating doing nothing about the enormous hole in the back of the craft. As they left the stratosphere, the fiery contrail that accompanied them this far ceased, but two of them still bled smoke; the unresponsive craft and the destroyed one. The other two gained sentient control and, reluctantly, left their friends behind.

The two craft turned sharply to the left to avoid crashing into the swamp that would be their friends’ fate. They continued to steer in order to avoid crashing in a town below, and ahead a clearing appeared, distinguishing itself from the rest of the heavily forested area. One of the craft leveled out and slowed down, preparing itself for an emergency landing. The other ship had a malfunction in its system though, and continued to accelerate and turn, coming down and back up into the sky.

The fate of the two smoking ships was grim. The half-ship tumbled haphazardly out of the sky, falling end over end. The ship came into contact with a tree, splitting it like a toothpick, completely unaffected by the impact. The same happened to the next few trees until the craft hit the ground. A ball of twisted metal, it bounced off hard earth like it was made of rubber and rolled across the Everfree Forest's floor, ricocheting from tree to tree until it eventually came to a rest.

The other ship finally came to life, much to the relief of the beings that flew it. They tried to pull up, but unfortunately for them their ship was falling upside down, and nosed into the swampy lake below. Realizing the immediate danger, the craft spun around and pulled up again; jettisoning its missile-pods and the vehicles it carried in order to heighten its chances of survival. However, leveling out at only ten feet above the water did nothing. Its spilt contents hit the water with great speed, detonating the unused rockets. The ship shook from the sudden shockwave of twelve high explosive warheads going off at once, and nosedived into the water. The craft skipped along the surface like a stone, and then cartwheeled across the swamp. The craft almost broke in half from the tremendous g-forces it was straining, and when the ship came into contact with the shoreline it kicked back up into the air, spinning wildly as it came back down entangling itself within the forest canopy.

The controlled ship came in slowly and tried to perform an emergency landing. The underside of the ship made contact with the ground below before bouncing it back into the air. This happened two more times, and while the craft was losing speed the trees were still getting closer. Out of desperation to halt the craft, the pilot drove the ship into the ground, flipping it onto its back. It skidded across the flat land before smashing into the trees and coming to a stop.

The remaining ship pierced through a cloudbank and emerged high above the ground below, still unresponsive to controls inside. Upside down and still accelerating, the engines gave out and the ship fell out of the sky. However the craft was unstable, and it spun like a top in free fall. As the the craft came closer to the ground, it scrapped alongside the face of one of the many mountains. The ship buckled, bouncing off an enormous boulder and into the side of a cliff, consuming the craft in a ball of fire.

Chapter 3: Spade

November 5th, 2552

1822 hours

Private First-Class Vincent Jameson Dempsey

M12 Warthog FAV, Earth, South Africa

Vincent J. Dempsey drove the Warthog through the sandy deserts of South Africa, or at least what wasn’t turned to glass. That didn’t mean it wasn’t occupied by the Covenant. The sound of Warthog’s reliable engine blaring through the sandstorm was only suppressed by the sound of gale force winds or Private Roland as he opened fire from the M41 mounted on the back of the vehicle. The anti-aircraft gun did an unsurprisingly effective job at blasting away the Ghosts who were too stupid to pursue them.

“I think that’s the last of them!” Private Roland yelled over the sound of sand scrapping along metal.

“Hope you’re right Mitch!” Vincent called back to the gunner. The two marines had met in training when the first enlisted and became best friends since. All they had to do was trust in each other and they’d get through hell and back. And that’s exactly what the two were doing. Vincent looked over into the passenger seat and in between gusts of sand he could see Lt. Richards gripping his shoulder in agonizing pain, blood seeping through the gaps in his fingers.

“That was suicide what you did there Private,” The Lieutenant coughed, “Royal should have left me.”

“Heh, that’s what everyone was saying,” Vincent talked gently over the storm, just loud enough to be heard by Richards. “But we gotcha, didn’t we?”

“You two are getting promoted for sure…” Richards began, but was caught off by the deafening roar of the much anticipated sounds above. Cutting through the thickened brown of the sand the raced through the air, two fog lights rained down on the Warthog matching its speed and direction. A small crackle of the short-wave radio rang off in Vincent’s ear.

*crack* “Hey, you found him!” *crack*

“I’ll be damned Spade, you missed the show!”

*crack* “Really? Shoulda saved me something! Here, follow our lights and we’ll lead you out of this storm! Over and out!” *crack*

“Roger that! Over and out!”

\x\x\x\x\

The sandstorm behind them, the Warthog slammed on the brakes. The ominous wall of sand leaned over them like a skyscraper of books just waiting to topple. But it held, and did little more than fire small grains of dust at them in anger that they escaped its clutches. Spade came around and did the aerial equivalent of a power slide, stopping right above the men. Vincent and Mitch jumped out of the vehicle and went to help Richards out of the passenger seat. His shoulder was still bleeding, but as long as the Lieutenant held pressure it should stop any moment now. The Pelican above slowly descended, the bay doors opened and a happy yet pissed off Staff Sargent standing in the doorway.

“Ya stinkin’ bastards! Ya made it! I shoulda had ya demoted for goin’ against my orders, but I don’t think ya can derank a Private!” He boasted a menacing look of authority, yet his eyes were full of sympathy. “Nontheless ya did a good job. Hurry up and get in, we’re buggin’ out.”

The marines carried Richards into the Pelican that hovered just feet off the ground. With the help of their fellow soldiers, they got hoisted up as well. The loud clang of the electromagnetic clamps coming to life lifted the Warthog off the ground and attached it to the underside of the ship. The bay doors closed and Spade was off to rejoin the rest of the platoon, ascending into the atmosphere.

“Alright guys, all of you owe me a beer!” A marine cheered in satisfaction. Mumbles were heard throughout the rest of the ship as everyone tried to get their way out of the bet they placed.

“What’s going on?” Mitch asked.

“These dumbasses bet you wouldn’t make it back alive. I bet you would.” He said smugly, and with that the two soldiers gave scowls to the rest of the squad. “Let me see, eight minus you three and myself equals four. Man, I’m getting drunk tonight!”

“Sometimes we wonder if you’re always drunk.”

“Drunk on life, Lieutenant. Drunk. On. Life.”

“And that is why we don’t like you.”

“Enough of the bickerin’!” The Sarge yelled, getting muffled laughs from the squad and few sheepish side conversations in response. The crew chief stuck his head out of the cockpit for a brief moment to assess everything.

“Casualties?” He asked to everyone. A few soldiers glanced up from the commotion, but for the most part the squad paid him little attention.

“Two wounded, none serious. Zero KIA.” Richards looked up from his own wound to the crew chief who apologetically nodded and returned to the cockpit. A medic was treating his shoulder and even though he was told it wasn’t serious, something that rang in the back of his head denying that.

Vincent tightened himself the straps on his seat and looked around at the tired and worrisome faces. “It’s going to be a good day,” he whispered under his breath.

“I hate it when you say that,” Mitch joked. Right on cue, the Pelican took a sharp, angled left turn and began descending back to Earth. A voice echoed through the onboard speakers.

”This is your copilot speaking. We got bogies on our six and we are engaging. I highly recommend you strap yourselves in if you haven’t already, and I apologize in advance for the turbulence.”

The Pelican’s chin-mounted minigun erupted, sending intense vibrations throughout the ship. The bright yellow lights that previously illuminated the amidships bay turned a dark red. Everyone held onto something whether it is their seats, the guy next to them, their weapons, or themselves. No one liked the abrupt aerial maneuvers Spade was pulling off, nor did they like weightlessness of falling, nor the abrupt five-g vertical lift. Within seconds the ordeal was over, and feelings of the steady climb of the Pelican escaping the atmosphere softened everyone as they became progressively lighter. The further they got away from Earth, the lower the effect of gravity had on them. The red hue of the ceiling lights returned to their comforting yellow.

”This is your copilot again,” The speakers announced once more, ” Scratch two enemy Phantoms. We are returning to the UNSC Houston for some much needed R&R.”

\x\x\x\x\

“So Vincent, what was going through your little head that made you made you go AWOL? Too eager to get yourself killed?”

“We didn’t get killed, Yao.” Vincent stood his ground, “You’d think saving a soldier who went MIA would get someone anything but criticism.”

“He’s right, Private. Ya can learn somethin’ for a kid like him.” Mathews defended, only getting Yao to shut his mouth, but the Private was more than likely to start chatting again.

“Are we there yet?” Richards solemnly hung his head, his eyes locked to his blood stained uniform, still holding his hand tight around his shoulder. Mike leaned over and wrapped an arm around him, careful not to touch the wound.

“You don’t leave a fellow soldier behind you dick,” Mitch glared at Yao in a menacing tone and the Private nervously looked away, dropping himself from the argument as he sunk back further into his seat.

“I asked are we there yet?” Richards spoke once more, bringing his head up slightly before it fell back into his lap. The Lieutenant had lost a lot of blood, but what was left stayed in his body.

“I don’t know,” Mitch shrugged, releasing himself from Richards with a quick pat on the back. After that the bay filled with the mixed conversations of the soldiers. Some were whispering to each other in delight while another proudly proclaimed how “badass” punching a Jackal between the eyes is.

“Hey Vincent, that was some nice driving back there,” Mitch leaned in, held behind by his harness.

“Eh, I haven’t met anything yet the ‘Hog can’t handle.”

“You’ll find one eventually. The things aren’t indestructible.”

“Don’t jinx me Mitch. How many Covies do you think you killed?”

“Oh, I don’t know. The sand obscured my vision... a lot?”

“So… what? Five? Ten?”

“Fifteen. I think. Most of them were Grunts.”

“Yeah? By how much lead you were pumping I thought-“ Vincent was cut short by the sound of an inaudible screech. Electricity could be felt through the air as if someone just rubbed the ship with balloons. Vincent hugged his assault rifle and looked to Mitch, the two friends sharing worried looks. The screech grew louder and louder and then the cabin briefly shook before ceasing; the whole ordeal over in a matter of seconds. The lights cut out, consuming the ship in darkness.

The next thing Vincent felt was the sound of his skull slamming against the wall as the ship violently jarred.

\x\x\x\x\

The next thing he felt after that was a slap to the face, and he awoke Mitch glaring him down.

“Thank God you’re alive! I thought you’d never wake up!” Through the darkness he saw his friend standing over him, sighing heavily.

“Wha…? What? What? What’s going on?” Vincent’s head stirred and pained his neck as he tried to look around. He was dizzy, disoriented, confused. The rest of the squad wasn’t in much better shape; Mathews, Mitch, and Vincent were the only ones awake, and the other soldiers were either unconscious or worse. Vincent weakly brought his head up and noticed the barrel of a Battle Rifle floating ominously in front of him. It was his gun. The strap that held it around him must have broken off somehow. We reached out and touched the cold metal of the barrel. The light tap sent the weapon floating away and he lunged out, grapping the stock, and pulled it tightly wrapping the gun in a bear hug. If anything training taught him, it wasn’t to lose sight of your weapon. The Pelican shook once more, violently rattling.

“Get the fuck down Private!” Mathews pulled Mitch back down into his seat. “Am I goin’ to have to buckle you in?” The Sargent yelled, sitting down in a seat of his own.

“No sir!” Mitch saluted, throwing his harness down over himself. The ship shook again, this time with velocity. Vincent got butterflies in his stomach; a sign he was falling. They ship was falling. They were reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. The ship was dead. They were going to crash. They were going to die. Held down by the surge of adrenaline, Vincent sat in his seat like a statue.

“Ugh… where…?” Richards looked up, regaining consciousness. A fresh streak of blood stretched itself across his forehead.

“Get down! Brace yourselves soldiers!” Mathews bellowed over the squeaking the hull made; twisting and bending in the atmosphere. There was the sudden flare of light of through the peephole in the door that led into the cockpit. The door was sealed, and the light was a blazing orange. The ship was likely on fire.

“Don’t tell me this is how it ends. We had a mission to complete! Why didn’t we finish it!?” Mitch cried out, his voice slowly being lost to the screams of the falling ship. The harnesses on their seats pushed up against them attempting to counteract the immense g-forces. The orange glow that lit the internal bay disappeared, the Pelican still screamed, and then it came to life. The roars of the engines barely made themselves audible over the scream of the Pelican falling out of the sky. Much to the satisfaction of everyone who regained their consciousness, the lights flickered to life. They felt the sudden jerk of the ship pulling sharply to the left and into an ascending climb.

“God damn! We’ll live!” Mathews cried out in joy, getting nervous laughter from Mitch and Richards. Vincent eased up from his trance when his butterflies crashed hard to the pit of his stomach; the harness held him tight. Vincent straightened his legs against the floor doing his best to not slide out from underneath the straps. The Pelican shuddered, but kept climbing.

The thrusters that pushed the ship through the air coughed and spat with every second. The Pelican continued to climb; rolling onto its side in a sharp angled turn. It kept rolling, until it was inevitably on upside down, and darkness returned to the ship. The engines sputtered a final time, and they fell. The Pelican tumbled and fell. Adrenaline returned to his system in even higher amounts. Someone screamed. Vincent tightened his grip on the rifle.

The Pelican nosed towards the ground below, impacting something. Whatever it was they hit was nearly vertical. The Pelican bounced at the impact, but returned to scraping the surface. The cargo door that once secured the squad from the outside world buckled. A supply crate, torn free from its restraints, flew against the door breaking it down. The chunk of metal twisted and snapped off its hydraulic lines, leaving the ship to fall at its own pace. Vincent looked up to the outside world and made a keen mental note; one that would imbed itself deep into his mind.

There was silence. All Vincent heard was silence. They were crashing at an obtuse angle, scrapping along the hard rock surface of a mountain. The exposed hole from the door being torn out showed a possessed Warthog, its tires turning on their own as it raced down the rocky slope with them and its suspension doing its best to hold the roll cage up against the rear of the Pelican. The vehicle was only held down by the weight of the Pelican and chasing the ship to the ground below, the intimidating grill and hooks of the winching system stared Vincent in the face. The Pelican buckled and bounced again, returning to its grinding descent against the rock with a bang. A wing snapped off and Vincent saw as it tumbled awkwardly behind them before it smashed into a boulder in a wreck of twisted metal. The moon stuck its head out from behind the night sky, watching the spectacle below.

Their other supply crate shook violently like a bull, throwing itself against its restraints with every bounce the ship took until it finally became free. There was a deafening squish as the crate smashed up against a wall, splattering an unfortunate marine against the wall and taking the corpse with it out the gaping hole. The crate smashed into the Warthog, knocking it slightly to the side; only half of it still under the ship.

Mitch looked up to the Vincent terrified, crossing his chest. The two exchanged stares. Mathews looks at the cockpit with a stony blank expression. Richards was knocked out again. At least he’d die painlessly.

Mitch looked out to the Warthog; the menacing beast chased after them, wanting to get closer and closer and smash into them from behind. This mountain couldn’t drag on forever. Vincent watched Mitch release the assault rifle from his grip and it fell upwards into the windshield of the Warthog, doing little more than cracking the windscreen before the weapon tumbled out of view. Mitch looked to Vincent and gulped. Vincent watched as his best friend started to unhook his harness; the very thing that kept alive and the very thing that would end of killing him. He had a slight idea as to what Mitch was attempting, and the thought seemed impossible to even conceive.

“No!” Vincent wanted to shout, but he didn’t hear himself speak. He didn’t hear anything. Mitch gave him a slight nod before undoing the final strap and fell out of the ship.

Mitch flew straight into the windshield of the Warthog, through it, and into its cabin. The vehicle buckled again, almost coming loose from underneath the weight of the craft it resisted from crushing under. But it kept going. Its tires turned with the stone mountainside, bouncing with every bump in the surface. Mitch was in pain, but alive. He sat quietly, eyes wide, sprawled out inside the makeshift cradle the Warthog cabin made. Vincent looked back to his friend in astonishment and he looked back, but then off to the side; ahead of them. Mitch could see something coming Vincent couldn’t. Mitch shuffled uncomfortably into the Driver’s seat and rustled with the control, bringing the Warthog’s headlight to life. His eyes widened still, shifting between Vincent and whatever lay ahead. The mountain peak grew progressively further into the distance as the Pelican screamed down its face.

Vincent looked down and fought relentlessly with his restraints. Maybe he could land in the Warthog with his friend! All he had to do was avoid slamming into the grill of the vehicle. But the main buckle that held the nylon straps together didn’t give. Desperate, Vincent brought up the rifle he had still held on to, above his head, and fired a three-round burst into the shackle. It gave, hitting Vincent in the leg with a ricochet as he was torn out of his seat. The rifle that just gave him a fighting chance was knocked out of his grip and flew with him into the night.

Vincent bounced off the hood of the Warthog, off the underside of the Pelican above, and into his friend, kocking himself out.

\x\x\x\x\

The entire trip down the side of the mountain lasted probably twenty seconds. The ship, already damaged beyond repair, buckled again with another bounce against the hard rock. A rear engine tore itself from the bending bolts that had held it in place. A single strand of a fuel line still tethered the engine to the ship, trailing it behind the Pelican like a wrecking ball. With a bounce, the Warthog that crammed itself between the Pelican and the ground jarred free from underneath the rear of the ship. For a brief instant, it drove itself down the side of the mountain like something out of a cartoon. The vehicle was snapped into reality by the tumbling engine behind it, knocking it to the side at the last instant.

The Pelican smashed headlong into an enormous boulder. The Warthog continued down the slope, bounding out of the way of the wreck, hitting a rock and getting tossed into the air. The Pelican that once flew proudly through the air did so again for a final time, a second before it smashed into the face of a cliff and got consumed in fire. The Warthog continued its haphazard roll down the face of the mountain, bouncing off another rock, doing an aerial maneuver that would make Peppy Hare proud, before landing on all four wheels and continuing its descent at an unearthly speed. By impossible chances, the slop slowly evened out into a level surface. The vehicle continued to travel on its own into the straight, even ground at the bottom of the canyon that carved its way through the mountain range. The Warthog continued to roll, slowly losing momentum before coming to a sound stop. The remaining headlight flickered out of existence.

A bloodstained figure staggered out of the vehicle and collapsed onto the ground. The legendary Warthog lived up to the hype.

\x\x\x\x\

April 12th, year 6 PH

1: 58 am

Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria

Princess Luna burst through the castle doors, right into a surprised patrol of pegasus guards. They weren’t her guardponies per se; rather they were Celestia’s Royal Guard. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t order them.

“Guards!” Luna shouted at the three ponies snapping them into attention, “A meteorite has just impacted the Whitetail Woods, possibly starting a fire. I need you three to secure the site and set up a perimeter. Put out any fire you come across, and send for reinforcements if necessary. I do not want any civilians getting near the crater. There’s no telling how dangerous the site is.”

Silently, the guards saluted and flew out the door Luna had come in from. Now that that was over with, she had to go share the news of the meteors with her sister. Luna ran down the hall towards the throne room. A guard tried to stop her about something, but to no avail. Luna took a sharp right and then a left and went into a full sprint to the end of the halls.

Luna stopped in her tracks right in front of the double doors and straightened herself. After briefly adjusting her saddlebags, she nudged the door open.

Celestia sat idly at the window, exactly the way Luna left her over twenty minutes ago. Her attention slowly drifted from the moon that dimly lit the sky to her overexcited sister.

“I see you enjoyed the meteor shower, sister,” Celestia said with a small grin.

“Oh yes, ‘Tia.” Luna nodded her head, getting a slight satisfactory nod from her sister. “But they weren’t meteors! They were meteorites!”

“Yes, I saw that. Atmospheric reentry tends to illuminate the sky. And there were four of them, right?”

Luna let out an annoyed sigh. Astronomy was her department and Celestia just took away the opportunity for Luna to impress her.

“…but…” Luna began, getting a cocked brow from her sister, “Something about them was… off.”

“Oh? How so?”

Luna smiled cheerfully, “Well, two of them trailed smoke and crashed somewhere in the Everfree Forest.” Celestia tilted her head as if that’s all Luna had to say. She was about to interject but Luna kept talking.

“And two of them curved, doing impossible aerial maneuvers for any space rock. One of them slowed into a glide and landed in the Whitetail Woods. The other regained altitude somehow, and it crashed into the mountains behind Canterlot.”

Now Celestia was intrigued. The thought crossed her mind that Luna was simply pulling her leg, but the serious glare Luna gave her rejected any possibility of that. Whatever her sister had just described she saw with her own eyes and wasn’t making things up.

“Well, that’s troublesome. Are you sure these rocks made such midflight adjustments?”

“Of course I am ‘Tia. There’s a possible fire at the crash in Whitetail Woods, so I dispatched a squad of guards to the area. I’ll order some more to relieve them in the morning.”

“Good. I’m very interested in these two “intelligent” rocks. I’d love to go and investigate but I fear we might lose track of time. The sun will need to be risen in a few hours.”

“So we’ll wait until morning then? We can go to the one that crashed in the mountains. The two in the Everfree Forest should be undisturbed, so we can secure them in due time.”

Celestia looked to her sister who was grinning wider than ever. Celestia knew what was coming next and took a deep sigh.

“But…” Luna continued, “You are the one that raises the sun. I can go now, can’t I?” Luna eagerly smiled awaiting approval from her sister. Celestia smiled to herself and took a deep breath. There’s no stopping Luna when she puts her mind to something.

“Very well, but take a patrol with you.”

Chapter 4: Heart

November 5th, 2552

1824 hours

Crew Chief Warrant-Officer Megan Irene Andres

D77H-TCI Pelican Dropship callsign “Heart”, Earth, South Africa

“Alright, we got two KIA and zero wounded.” Megan returned to the cockpit and sat down, strapping herself back in to her seat.

“Thanks buttercup.” The pilot sarcastically joked and repeated the information the other Pelicans in the squadron.

“Hey, is Spade back yet?” Megan looked up, tightening the straps around her chest. The rest of the squadron was in a tight arrowhead formation as they climbed through the atmosphere, Heart leading the way. The copilot looked down to her console and flicked a switch. The display in front of her lit up in a green hue.

“Yeah, I got them on radar. They’re regrouping…” as she spoke his voice faded. The last bit of that sentence she didn’t finish and stared blankly at the screen. “Dammit, we got bogeys inbound. I’m counting two large blips following Spade.”

“Fuck!” The pilot yelled out and began calling a warning to the rest of the fleet. “Phantoms on our six!”

The Pelican slowed down its climb, hesitant on what to do. But with a sudden jump of speed the ship continued flying up towards the Houston, leading the pack. Megan brought her hand up to her neck and twiddled her dogtags between her fingers. Sitting with the pilots she had a front row seat at the spectacle before them, although she couldn’t see anything except for the sky.

“We’re entering the stratosphere. Come on Shamrock, we’ll get you home.” The pilot tried to reassure in his headset.

“What’s going on back there?” Megan asked.

“Nothing serious, it’s just a graze. Why don’t you guys cover out asses?” The pilot barked again oblivious to her question.

“What’s going on back there?” She repeated.

“Come on Shamrock. Just play follow the leader.” The pilot spoke again ignoring her questions. The copilot craned her neck around to get a glance of the annoyed crew chief and turned back around.

“How are you guys holding up back there?” The copilot asked into her headset. A brief pause later she turned to tell her what she learned, “One bogey down, one remaining. Shamrock’s been hit though.”

“They aren’t talking. I think their communications are shot,” the pilot agreed, his voice weak. The copilot back turned around during the frenzy and spoke to the crew chief indirectly. “So newbie, how’d your first day with Royal go?”

“You know I’m a Warrant Officer, right?” Megan hissed. The copilot simply laughed to herself and returned to the console.

“Entering the upper mesosphere. Shamrock, can you hear us?” The pilot spoke over the shortwave communications. Heart slowed down briefly to get a view alongside Shamrock. A small trail of smoke emitted from one of the wings, but it was nothing to be concerned about. The pilot waved through the canopy at Shamrock, but there was no immediate reply. The copilot took brief control and rocked the ship’s wings to try to get a response. A few seconds later, Shamrock returned the gesture.

“Yeah, they rocked theirs back. That Pelican has seen better days,” The pilot relayed to the rest of the squadron.

“Thank god,” The copilot sighed, flying Heart back into the lead of the formation. Megan was pulled back into her seat at the sudden jump of speed.

“Good lord…” The pilot murmured, his gaze fixated out in front. Megan forced her head forward to see over the pilots’ seats and outside the windscreen, and was in disbelief at what she saw. The Houston was coming into focus, a barely visible outline in the black sea of outer space. Several miles off its bow however, five Covenant warships appeared out of subspace making a head on advance towards the frigate. The Stalwart-Class Light Frigate that was the Houston was never made for a full on engagement. It could probably hold its own against a Covenant light frigate but not a full on warship, let alone five of them.

Make that four. One of the enemy ships opened up a brief volley, the plasma rounds bouncing off the Houston’s primitive shields, overcharged and disabled them altogether. The Houston’s nose began to slow with a soft white light and its MAC cannon fired, delivered a devastating hit to the front of its attacker. Violent gaseous explosions rocked the Covenant cruiser, following up with a much larger shockwave. A sizeable chunk broke off and fell towards Earth, the rest of the crippled ship listing and following. Royal turned a sharp right to avoid getting near the path of the debris as they began their fall to Earth.

“Ha! Look at that baby burn!” The pilot screamed in joy.

“The Houston’s still in for it…” Megan groaned, falling back once more into her seat.

“I know,” The pilot deadpanned. “The Covenant is going hammer-and-anvil on them. I say we bug out to the Sympathy.”

Megan continued to watch the spectacle before her. The Houston was motionless, probably reloading for another attack. Off to the right, the Sympathy was heavily engaged guarding the Houston’s flank. The vessel, a Marathon-Class Heavy Battlecruiser, is more than capable of holding its own against any given ship in the Covenant Navy. But it couldn’t keep at it for long, especially when the advantage of numbers was turned against it. Three Covenant Destroyers idly charged up their plasma torpedoes ready to strike as one. The Sympathy opened fire with one of its MAC cannons, obliterating one of the ships. It continued its onslaught and retaliated against another by launching dozens of missiles, effectively rendering their target crippled beyond repair. The third Destroyer however was left untouched and opened fire with a steady spray of torpedoes. The shieldless hull of the Sympathy was no match.

“FUCKING DAMMIT!” The pilot screamed in anger, pounding his fists into his console. The Sympathy’s hull buckled as one torpedo made a clean hole straight through it. The hull twisted at the change in pressure and began to resemble a large awkward corkscrew. Small explosions blew apart bits of armor off into space as the enemy Destroyer came in for the death blow. Even in the obvious state of disrepair, the Sympathy’s remaining MAC cannon visibly charged ready to fire; the vacuum of space slowly crunching the Battlecruiser into a smaller and smaller piece of twisted ball of metal. Then, with a defiant last stand, the MAC cannon discharged. The high-velocity round ripped the enemy vessel to shreds, but the Sympathy sacrificed itself in the process. The entire ship crumpled in upon itself from the enormous recoil, halving its initial size as enormous levels of decompression continued to condense the lump of floating scrap.

“Yeah, we are too.” The pilot kept up a conversation with the rest of the squadron, head hung low into his lap. “Thrusters are giving it their all though,” he added while adjusting a few of the instruments.

“Damn it all.”

Above them, the Houston was still motionless. Aside from the blinking of random lights, there was no evidence the ship was alive and it appeared to not be making any sort of an avoidance maneuver. The vessel hadn’t yawed to direct an attack at any of the Covenant, so whatever it was they were doing it wasn’t going to be an attack. The Houston sat like a sitting duck  as the Covenant got into position, beginning their steady crawl to get all four ships full broadside against the frigate.

“We’re in the Troposphere,” The pilot added sound to the stillness of the cockpit.

“Are they doing what I think they’re going to do?” The copilot asked.

“Yeah, it’s stupid, but desperate times call for desperate measures,” he answered. “Put on your diapers boys, this is going to be close.”

Megan took the hint and sat back down in her seat, tightening the harness as much as she could without constricting her limbs of blood.

“What are they going to do?” she asked, her words floating endlessly in the air.

“The Houston’s going to attempt a low-altitude emergency slipspace jump,” The copilot stirred uneasily. “Funny, I thought it was banned to do so between the Earth and the Moon.”

“With the cargo we’re carrying it doesn’t matter,” the pilot added in. Something got his attention and he slowed the Pelican once more, almost to a halt. Shamrock became visible once more off the wing, the billowing trail of smoke had ceased.

“They’re doing fine,” the pilot reassured and sped back up to retake the lead. “Wait, what? Shamrock! Kick your tail into high gear! Dammit Shamrock! Put your ass in overdrive now!”

“There’s the friend I know and love,” the copilot joked.

The pilot continued his rant. “Shamrock, jettison your tank! You’re not going to make it! Fuck it, I’ll shoot that thing off them!”

A momentary blur of white flooded the cockpit. The squadron was no more than ten seconds away from the Houston, and if they could get into the slipspace bubble that would engulf the frigate they’d be taken along for the ride. But the Covenant was now on either side of the vessel, and they opened fire with a volley of Plasma Torpedoes. Small crackles of white lightning slowly arched around the Houston as the ship was readying for the jump. Within seconds they’d be in another star system.

“Wait, we made it! We’re within range of the slipspace bubble! We made it!”

The pelican made a midflight slide as it drifted ever closer to the frigate. The instruments inside Heart slowly began to glow as small streaks of lightning jumped through the Pelican.

“God dammit Shamrock speed the fuck up! You’ll be caught outside the slipspace bubble! GOD FUCKING DAMMIT SHAMROCK!!”

“Brace!” The copilot screamed.

\x\x\x\x\

Megan smashed her head against the back of her seat, effectively bringing her back into consciousness. Her vision blurred, her ears rang, her sidearm free of its holster. Megan groggily shook herself out of shock and saw her standard issue Magnum floating in front of her, the barrel non-reassuringly pointing her way. She reached out for it, but only batted the weapon across the cockpit. It silently drifted into the front windshield with a soft clang. Megan got up to try to grab it again, but her harness held her in place. With trembling hands, she undid its restraints and lazily drifted towards the weapon.

All electronics were shot. That’s the only reason the artificial gravity wasn’t on. The Pelican itself wasn’t even functioning, almost as if every fuse decided to blow at once. Actually, that was the most probable outcome from the surge of electricity emitted from subspace. If they were within the Houston, which Heart most certainly was not, its thick hull would have protected against the anomaly. Megan tried to remember back to her training, but she could only remember so much:

1: Make sure you have your weapon on you at all times.

2: Make sure your harness is secure and your tray is in the full upright position during landing/takeoff.

3: Leave the pilots alone and let them do their thing.

4: If it’s hostile, you shoot it.

Wait! the pilots! Megan flung herself around to the pilots, still beings clinging to the seats.

“Dammit! Wake up! Please!” Megan’s cries were heard by no one. She checked their pulses, and the copilot was barely clinging to life. She was unconscious, but alive. Megan leaned in to check the other pilot’s heartbeat, and as she was undoing the harness she was met a grizzly sight. The pilot’s entire ribcage was sunken into his chest. The steering column must have stabbed the poor soul right in the gullet.

That’s why you buckle up… Megan couldn’t help to have the thought cross her mind. The copilot was still knocked out, and short of opening up all airways there was nothing that could be done about her in zero gravity. She was a crew chief, not a doctor. Megan could operate the Pelican all by herself if necessary, but the ship would have to be working first. After moving the corpse to her old seat, Megan sat down in the pilot’s chair and started flipping through the instruments. Nothing responded. Heart was a floating chunk of scrap in the middle of space.

Megan looked out the cockpit windows and scanned the green and blue orb that was a planet before her.

“No… it’s not possible! We… we… we were within range! We should have gone into the jump with the Houston!” Then, where was the Covenant?

The four Covenant warships, the remains of the Sympathy, the full scale war that raged above the Earth’s atmosphere were all absent from the scene. This couldn’t be Earth and it couldn’t be any of the colonies either. She didn’t know how long she was knocked out for, but there’s at least a dozen UNSC orbital defense stations surrounding any given colony.  They should be clearly visible from her position. Megan looked around for something, and underneath her seat she found her prize.

Emergency Field Utility Kit for Temporary Survival sat idly on her lap. The Emergency Kit, or “Fuck-This” as the marines cleverly pronounced them, held the basics for rudimentary survival. Assuming you can hunt and find fresh water in the wild, you could live in any hospitable biome indefinitely. Otherwise it only had enough rations for three men to last a week. And there was no water or wild game in the cramped cockpit of a disabled Pelican floating through the vacuum of space.

Among food and water, the contents of the footlocker sized container held a tent, three emergency blankets, a rough map of the Milky Way, an interspecies communications device, a hunting knife, an emergency locator beacon, two short-wave walkie-talkies, Boxes of bandages and bags of spare blood in case things took a turn for the worse, duct tape, matches, a compass, an empty notebook with a pen, and of course an SMG with a few spare magazines. It wouldn’t be the UNSC if they didn’t put a gun in everything. Megan took out the locator beacon and turned it on, throwing everything else back into the kit save one of the radios. Thinking fast, she picked it up and turned it on to Royal’s channel only to receive static.

“Hello? Is anyone there? This is Warrant-Officer Megan Andres of UNSC Lambda Platoon, callsign Heart. My Pelican is unresponsive and floating above an unidentified planet. Can anyone hear me? How copy?”

“I repeat, my name is Megan Andres and we are floating through the dead of space. I don’t know where we are, reporting one KIA…”

*bang*  *bang  *bang*

“…and I can’t access the rear of the Pelican. I’m locked inside the cockpit. We have a six man squad trapped in there too. Come in, anybody. How Copy?”

“Repeat, I don’t know where I am. Is anyone out there? Anyone? I repeat, my name is Megan Andres…”

*static*

\x\x\x\x\

Megan had stashed the emergency kit back under the seat. For the past hour, she had spent trying to get the Pelican’s electronics back online. With oxygen delivery systems turned off, the engines would have to get air in down at the planet’s surface. That is, if the atmosphere had any significant amount of oxygen to begin with. And the ship’s emergency supply was running low too.

Heart groaned in agony, throwing Megan against the console.

Righting herself up, she looked out the window to see the planet gradually getting closer. The gravity field was sucking Heart in, and if the systems didn’t come back online anytime soon the ship would have no chance of survival.  Megan pulled herself back into the seat and threw on the harness.

“Dammit, work!” She furiously punched the console and it beeped to life.

“Just like in the cartoons…” she grumbled while going through the pre-flight checks. Albeit the Pelican was technically flying right now, better make sure everything was functioning properly before turning on the engines. Flaps were working and so was the rudder. Landing gear is offline, but the problem it proposed was going to likely be dealt with anyway. All other electronics would need to be recalibrated before they could work, but Heart just broke into the atmosphere and there’d be no time for that. The Pelican continued its plummet, the altimeter spinning madly in every direction. Megan struggled to get that piece to work, and when it finally did she had a sense of direction. In her frantic fuss of toying with every switch and dial, most of the sensors spurred to life.

Good news: The ground below was more or less flat, so an emergency landing should be easier to pull off.

Bad news: The engines wouldn’t turn on. The most Megan could do was glide, but the Pelican currently had the aerodynamic qualities of a brick. Probably because she was flying it upside down.

Worse news: She was already at thirty thousand feet and rapidly falling. And if the engines didn’t come online soon, there’d be no way to turn and pull out of the free fall.

Peering through the canopy, the ground below opened up into large, rolling hills and flat plains as the Pelican burst through the cloud layer. Up ahead a forest was approaching, and a bunch of trees is not somewhere you want to do a crash landing. Megan pushed down hard on the yoke, trying to keep the craft more or less in a stable upside down glide while she furiously tried to get the engines to respond. After a minute, enough air finally got the fan blades to spin. The friction of atmospheric reentry was enough to get the fuel to combust, and one by one the thrusters came back to life. Megan squealed in joy and pulled up. But since she was upside down, the Pelican nosed over. A boggy marsh flooded her field of view.

Realizing her mistake, she rolled over and pulled up, jettisoning everything nonessential to lighten to load. The craft sluggishly pitched high, dropping its missile pods, external tanks, and the vehicles it was carrying. Heart pulled up out of the steep dive mere feet above the lake when a large explosion rocked the ship. The Pelican shuddered and a wingtip touched the water.

The craft nosed into the water and cartwheeled along its surface. The sudden g-forces knocked the inexperienced pilot out as the Pelican continued to skip across the water like a fan blade. The craft hit the shoreline and ricocheted into the air. For a brief second, it actually looked like it was flying as it soared above the treetops. That moment quickly passed as it nosed back over the canopy, entangling itself deep into the mesh framework of the thickened trees. Heart snagged itself on several vines and thick branches, suspending the damaged ship thirty feet above the forested ground.

\x\x\x\x\

April 12th, 6 PH

1:46 am

Sugar Cube Corner, Ponyville, Equestria

Pinkie Pie was trying to sleep soundly that night. She had just thrown one of her signature birthday parties for a very special friend; Colgate. She just turned twenty three the day before; almost the whole town spent the day partying and was now thoroughly exhausted, evident by the soundless vacancy of the streets below. Even in the middle of the night, Ponyville often had some sort of commotion going on whether it was somepony sneaking across town or a lost cat scampering between buildings. Pinkie Pie was in all likelihood the most hyperactive pony in Equestria, if not the world. For her to sleep was a wild concept in of itself. She’d occasionally powernap for twenty or so minutes like Rainbow Dash had taught her long ago, but this was the first time the mare was in a deep sleep for any extended period of time.

Her calm trance abruptly ended when she suddenly shot upwards off her bed and into the ceiling, falling back down on to the floor with a loud thud.

“Owie! What the hay?” Pinkie rolled across the floor, her flank shuddering violently against the cold hardwood. “Oh no! Twitchy-twitch! Twitchy-twitch! My tail is twitchy-twitching!” She clamored, desperately trying to stand back up. However every attempt failed with a sudden jerk of her tail and caused her to collapse back onto the ground. Scared senseless and on the verge of going in tears, Pinkie Pie reached out and grabbed for anything to use as support. After a second of frantic wailing, her hooves came into contact with the legs of her bed and she pulled herself in clinging for dear life. All the while her flank bounced violently up and down with the chaotic twitching of her tail.

And just like that, it was over.

As soon as the escapade ended, she sat back up on her haunches in full composure as if nothing had ever happened. The pink mare glanced around her room as if the darkened walls would provide an answer. The reply came as a cold chill running down the length of her spine.

“Hmm… first the twitchiest tail twitch ever, and now spinal chills?” Pinkie Pie stood back up. “Twitchy tail means something is about to fall, so whatever it was must be HUGE!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed to the empty room. It suddenly dawned on her that something big was about to or already had fallen and she looked up to her ceiling, careful not to walk underneath the lighting fixture as she made her way to the bedroom window. The dead streets of Ponyville presented itself to her in all its dull and darkened glory.

“But… I… I’ve never had spinal chills like that one before! A full body shudder means there’s going to be a doozy, itchy hoof means something bad is about to happen…” Pinkie Pie lifter her foreleg. “Nope. No itchy hoof.”

Suddenly the entire building shook for a brief second, which was enough to get Pinkie to lose her balance and fall back onto her haunches.

“OH! Spine chills mean earthquakes! No, earthquakes are hoof-itch trembling-legs eye-flutter sneeze.” Pinkie Pie stood back up staring non-itching hoof. The gears slowly grinded in her head, screaming the obvious until its message was finally reached.

“Wait a minute… I didn’t get a hoof-itch trembling-legs eye-flutter sneeze! That wasn’t an earthquake! Then... what was that about?” The mare thrashed around on the floor.

“Augh! This is going to drive me insane! I need to find out!” This being Pinkie Pie, an unusual burst of energy for the pink pony was something not to take lightly. She was only ever this excited before when she went to the Grand Galloping Gala last year and another time decades before that when she was just a filly, throwing her first party. The result of that party got her her cutie mark. In no more than a few seconds, Pinkie Pie was rummaging through the stillness of town looking for evidence to the source of the unusual spine chill. After inspecting several trash cans, a vegetable garden, and a couple mail boxes came up empty, the pink mare admitted defeat. Whatever caused the unknown reaction of her Pinkie Sense was beyond her expertise.

“Maybe Twilight will know!” Pinkie Pie yelled to herself in the middle of town square.

“Hey, Shaddup!” Somepony screamed back.

“Teehee! Sorry!” She yelled her response to the many buildings and began bounding off towards the library.

\x\x\x\x\

Twilight was on the floor of library’s main room scanning through a literal sea of books. Almost every nonfiction tome was pulled off its shelf and littered the floor. Twilight thought it’d be best to do a quick scan of every book and sort them into two piles; ones which could hint towards the strange astronomical phenomenon and others that could not. The pile labeled ‘helpful’ dwarfed is nearby neighbor by several dozen additions. Such books (to name a few) included topics along the lines astronomy, geology, chemistry, aerodynamics, and history.

“Augh!” She screamed, slamming her face into the open tome before her. “There’s nothing! Nothing could explain why those meteors did what they did!” Twilight flopped onto a pile of books.

“Heya Twilight!” Pinkie Pie suddenly filled her vision.

“Augh! Dang it Pinkie Pie! Stop sneaking up on me like that!”

“Hehehe… sorry...” Pinkie Pie blushed and helped Twilight to her hooves.

“Hey, how’d you get in here anyway? The front door was locked.” Twilight asked.

“The balcony door wasn’t!”

“The balcony? How did you… never mind. What do you need?”

“Well…” The pink pony inhaled deeply and began. “Well you see I was sleeping in my bed all cozy and tired and stuff because I was worn out from Colgate’s party when suddenly I had the biggest twitchy-tail twitch ever and I flew into the ceiling and rolled around on the floor so it must have been something big that fell because that was a HUGE twitch and I mean huge and then I got chills going up my spine which is odd because I never had one before but at first I thought it was an earthquake but then I realized it wasn’t and I have no idea what spine chills mean so I was wonderingifyouhadanyidea!” Pinkie Pie took in another deep breath and refilled her lungs. She sat down on her haunches expecting some sort of answer out of the bewildered Twilight.

“Sorry…” Twilight started off. “But I know nothing about how your Pinkie Sense works, so I don’t know what your chills could mean. Although I do have an idea what caused your tail to twitch so… violently.” Twilight trailed off in deep thought. She looked to the pink mare and motioned for her to follow as the two walked back up to the library’s rooftop. Twilight pointed out over the nighttime horizon towards the Whitetail Woods.

“You see that smoke? A meteorite crashed there.” Twilight turned and pointed the other direction, “And two others crashed in the Everfree Forest. Another one probably landed behind Canterlot.”

“Oh… I see! That probably explains it! The bigger the tail twitch, the bigger the thing that must have fallen! Want to go see look for them?”  Pinkie Pie hopped around in place like a dog eager to get off its leash.

“Of course I do! But since two of them flew so close to Canterlot, the ones in the Whitetail Woods and the mountains are probably being probed by the Princesses as we speak.” Twilight lowered he muzzle and looked off towards the Everfree Forest. “There’s a lot of clouds tonight. I saw the two crash in the Everfree Forest, and I’m not sure if anypony else did. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’d probably be better to go into the Everfree Forest and secure those ones before something comes by and ruins them. It’s not every day a space rock lands in Equestria you know!”

“Well then what are we waiting for!?” Pinkie Pie hopped off the roof and fell the thirty or so feet to the ground below. Gasping, Twilight rushed to the side of the railing to see Pinkie eagerly prancing in circles on the ground. Twilight sighed, and with a simple teleportation spell she appeared alongside her friend.

“Well you see Pinkie,” Twilight tried to calm the overly energetic pony. “There’s two of them that crashed there. I do have a general idea of where they crashed, but I need help sanctioning them off. I would love to get the rest of the girls to help but after that party everypony is probably fast asleep. Heck, we should be asleep now too.”

“Well what are we waiting for? You want to get the space rocks safe, right?”

“Yes, of course!”

“Then let’s go wake everypony and get our flanks out there!”

“Believe me Pinkie, I have the urge to. But the Everfree Forest is not the least bit safe. Especially at night…”

“So we’ll go first thing in the morning! I’ll go tell everypony-“

Twilight wrapped a hoof around Pinkie’s snout. “No, we’ll wake them in the morning. Be patient, Pinkie Pie.”

“Okie dokie lokie!”

Chapter 5: Carbon

April 12th, year 6 PH

1:59 am

Celestial Royal Guard, Pegasus Squad-57, Lance-Corporal Iron Lance

Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria

After the brief mission objective given to them directly by Princess Luna herself, the three pegasus guards emerged in the castle courtyard through the doors the princess had just barged through. They immediately took to the skies and flew off in the direction of the Whitetail Woods, where a billowing column of smoke barely camouflaged itself in the night sky.

“You know, the Night Guards should be taking care of this,” Silver Wing spat out. “Aren’t they better equipped for nighttime operations?”

Captain Sabre Star craned his neck around. “Shut up Private. You need a new experience instead of standing in front of a door all day.”

“He’s right, Silver.” Iron Lance added. “Besides, we were the first ones the princess came across. This seems like an emergency and if she had the time she would likely have gotten some Night Guards. You should feel honored to receive a direct order from the princess herself!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m tired. I should be sleeping, the Night Guards should be awake,” Silver mumbled.

“They are awake you idiot! They’re Night Guards!” Lance groaned at the recruit. “Besides, it’s our fault we were awake and happened to be standing where Princess Luna came in from.”

“No, it’s Dawnstar’s fault that that Dungeons and Draconequus game took more than eight hours!” Silver tried to come up with some sort of excuse.

“Equestria to nerd, even I know those games can take entire days to finish! Sabre and I had to haul you away in case you forgot!” Lance would have gone on had his commanding officer not silenced them.

“Lance! Silver! Shut up! Both of you!” Sabre growled. “It’s about a five minute flight to the Whitetail Woods crash site and I’d like it to be a peaceful one!”

Lance sighed and continued on the flight path as the three flew in a spearhead formation. The column of smoke was becoming less and less visible, hinting there was no fire or at least it was snuffing itself out. Hey, less work for him. They just had to find the space rock, make sure no civilians stumbled onto the site, and then go home when the extraction team arrives to pick it up. Was there an extraction team coming?

“Hey Sabre, somepony’s going to come relieve us at some point, right? I mean, how long will be out here?” He asked.

“Knowing the Princess of the Night? It shouldn’t take so long, maybe a few hours. There hasn’t been a meteorite impact since I was foaled so I’d be easy to imagine researchers would be all over it soon. Why do you ask Lance-Corporal?”

“Like Silver said: I’m tired,” He frowned. Silver stifled a laugh at his discomfort and that was shot down by a stare from Sabre.

Oh, how Lance hated his recent promotion. While it did provide its own benefits compared to his previous ranking, it was very easy to get confused with his name and he was often teased about it. And it didn’t help that he was trained to operate a lance either. The meter long, retractable poles that get built-in to a guard’s armor are very well hidden. A small bulge right above the right shoulder was the only indication anything could be hidden away, and to the untrained eye it might just look like the other shoulder piece was just slightly dented downwards because of a previous skirmish. One probably would not even notice the difference at all.

That’s three lances: his name, his rank, and his weapon, all of which could and would easily be confused with each other.

They approached the out edge of the Whitetail Woods and touched down in a small clearing, trotting up to the larger patch of treeless land.

“Ugh, we’re going to need help. There’s no way the three of us can create a perimeter this large,” Lance groaned at the sight in front of him. Implied by the large mound of thrown up dirt, the meteor must have come in at a shallow angle and hit here first before it bounced or something the remaining kilometer; the smoke cloud still be seen faintly off in the distance.

“Unfortunately…” Sabre eyed the strewn field. Several kicked up mounds of dirt and the segmented troughs hinted that the area to cover would be enormous.

“Hey Silver Wing, go back to Canterlot and get us some help, would you?” He turned to see the Private already heading off in that direction. “And please get some Night Guards!” He yelled. The silhouette of a hoof waving in approval against the moonlight verified that Silver Wing got the order. It shouldn’t be too surprising though. After all, the night was uncomfortably quiet.

“Hey Sabre, want to bet how many of times the thing bounced before it came to a stop?”

“I’m game. Fifty bits says… nine.”

“Shoot, how about ten?” Lance grinned at his superior.

“Are you sure you’re up for counting these small craters? You’d have to do some elementary-level math,” Sabre tautened in return.

“Oh shut up,” he said irritated. Lance took the lead and started counting every considerably sized pot hole in the usually flat ground.

“Do these troughs count?”

“I thought that’s what we were counting! There are more than just those?”

“Great...”

“You know what, screw the bet.”

The two guardponies walked across the exposed land making mental notes of the numerous potholes and kicked up dirt. The meteorite must have been going real fast to skip across the ground like a stone on water. It also had to have been pretty flat to do so, but then again meteors aren’t just perfect spheres. It shouldn’t be that big of a surprise.

“Oof!” Lance cried out and fell face first into the ground.

Sabre stifled a laugh. “Hey, you should watch where you’re going.” The Captain walked in front of him and knelt down grinning. Lance, irked, brought his head up.

“Cut me some slack, it’s the dead of night and I’m not fully awake,” he sighed.

“Neither am I and you don’t see me stumbling over rocks!” Sabre couldn’t contain his laughter at this point, but was kind enough for it to leave as a small chuckle.

“Hey, I didn’t trip over a rock! It’s…” Lance craned his neck around at the mound he tripped over. “What is it?”

Lance stood back up and the two walked over the mysterious object. The unrecognized stone was roughly the size of a foal, but it was badly burnt and had jagged and sharp edges. Sabre kicked the stone getting it to inharmoniously vibrate a low hum. The Captain brought his hoof back down again and underneath the stone, turning it over.

A small cloud of soot kicked up when the rock fell back over, but it wasn’t a rock. Rather, some odd chunk of metal looked back at them.

Lance mused at the strange sight. “Is that steel or aluminum?”

“Not a clue,” Sabre murmured, looking back to the column of smoke that was no more than a faint trickle at this point. They were about halfway through the field now and another half kilometer to the meteorite. Barely visible, the silhouette of the space rock stuck out of the smoke.  

“I don’t like this,” Lance pouted. Sabre nodded in silent agreement and spread his wings. Lance took the hint and the two pegasi flew off towards the fallen stone as fast as their wings could manage. And this stone more and more resembled a box the closer they got near it. A big, metallic box. It sat against the tree line, the column of smoke seeping out from holes in the container.

From fifty feet in the air above the box, they could clearly see it wasn’t a meteorite. Looking back at them was a long, rectangular metal box. A rough estimate put it just under a hundred feet long and maybe fifteen or so feet wide. If you counted the large triangular blades underneath it, it was probably sixty feet wide. The end of the box closest to the field was considerably thicker, as if there was another box attached to the larger one. The thicker end came into a fine point like the nose of a zeppelin, and the other end flattened out like a beaver’s tail. The closer they inspected it, the more and more qualities of a ship started to emerge.

The two guards touched down, cautious of the site.

“You want to bet this was some Gryphonic contraption that took a turn for the worse? I highly doubt this thing is a meteor,” Sabre mused.

“No doubt it isn’t a space rock, that’s for sure. Aliens, maybe?”

“Unlikely. It looks like something the Gryphons would have made.”

“Maybe the aliens helped them build it?”

Sabre snorted. “Yeah, and aliens helped the Gryphons build the Great Pyramid of Gizzard. Here, set up the perimeter and wait for Silver to get back.”

“Sir, with all due respect, I don’t think you fully comprehend the concept of perspective. Two ponies don’t make a perimeter. Four or five maybe… but not two. Especially for a zone this large.”

“Well I just know we’re going to get chewed out by our superiors if we don’t do something.”

“It’s the dead of night. I highly doubt anypony is out here, let alone saw anything fall from the sky. Princess Luna is likely the only one who knows what this thing is.” Lance stomped a hoof to emphasize his point. Sabre looked at Lance and then to the strange box.

“Well, what in Celestia’s name is it?” Sabre asked.

“My Guess? A zeppelin of some sorts. But I’ve never seen anything like it. The balloons are probably crushed underneath it or floated away.”

“Doubt it’s a ship. Why would the flying Gryphons need some misshapen zeppelin?”

“Good point.”

The two trotted over the wreckage and started inspecting what they could see without actually touching it. They quickly deduced that it indeed was some sort of ship, evident by the glass screen that covered the pointed nose which is presumed to be the front end. Several unusual markings stood out from rips and tears in the metal; white and orange symbols occasionally obscured by scorch marks. And on the wall of the larger portion that gave way to the beaver-like tail, Lance found the source of the smoke. A small crack between the wall and the rest of the frame trickled out the thick black smoke.

“Hey Lane, I think I know what happened.” Sabre called out from wherever he was.

“Uh-huh.” Lance was too preoccupied analyzing the hole the smoke billowed from.

“Okay, so this thing comes down low and fast, making it easy to get confused with a meteor, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It comes in for an emergency landing, hits the ground back there, skids for like half a kilometer, gets caught in something, flips over, and skids the rest of the way only to be stopped by these trees.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, I think it’s upside down. It wouldn’t be very aerodynamic if… hey, are you even listening?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Lance!”

“What? Oh, sorry. I’m just… thinking…” Lance trailed off deep in thought. He looked at the indiscriminate pocket on his shoulder, and then back to the hole in the ship. Daring to step onto the thing, he walked over to the gash the black smoke steadily escaped from. Twitching both his shoulders in a singular and uniform motion, the meter long, cone-tipped lance extended forward.

“Hey, what the heck do you think you’re doing?” Sabre jumped up beside him.

“Help me with this,” was all he responded with before he stabbed his lance into the smoke. Twisting side to side, the wall began to slowly bend with him widening the gash. Sabre let out an audible and clearly irritated sigh, but he produced his own lance and pushed his in as well, twisting and turning with Lance. With each inch, more and more smoke escaped and began to rush into their faces. Holding his breath, Lance gave a final tug that was soon followed by a loud snap. The metal wall began to groan and creek on its own, causing the two guards lances retract and forcing them to stand aside at the menacing groans coming from the ship. Sabre hesitantly approached the wall again and kicked it, narrowly avoiding the chunk of metal as it came crashing down and exposed the inside of the ship.

“I thought it was a door!” Lance cheered as the large amount of remaining smoke escaped in a gigantic wall of black smog.

“Gack!” Sabre coughed, stumbling away from the entrance and off the ship only to fall onto his stomach beside where Lance once stood. The eager guard trotted into the vessel the first second the smoke cleared, leaving the gagging Captain to catch his breath.

The inside of the ship was unique to say the least; several boxes, dozens of unusual stick-things littered the floor, and a couple L-shaped objects were scattered around among them. A large tear in the ceiling (actually it was the floor of the ship) exposed dozens of dangling wires and was also the apparent source of the smoke. On both sides, strange metal covered forms were strapped to the walls. Each one had four appendages that loosely dangled towards the ground. At the far end, a much smaller door than the one he just pried open closed off another part of the ship. Sabre appeared in the entryway as Lance once more took a stab at the second door. After a brief struggle, he turned and kicked the door in with a thunderous smash.

“What the… what are these things?” Sabre nudged one of the objects on the ground; a long cylindrical piece of metal took up two thirds of its overall length, and the object was certainly the longest of all the others. Another was one of those L-shaped things... actually they all had some sort of an L-shape to them, but some were just more oblong than others. He looked up to the strange metal things strapped to the walls with their appendages hanging useless towards the ground. If the ship was upright, they looked like they would be designed to hold any one of the objects.

“HOLY HORSEAPPLES!! SWEET CELSTIA WHAT THE HAY!?!?” Lance screamed as he retracted from the doorway.

“What!? Lance!” Sabre’s own lance erupted at a moment’s notice and he hopped over to the trembling pegasus guard, aiming his weapon directly through the doorway. “What the hay is it!?”

All Lance could do was stutter inaudible gibberish. Even though the guard’s coat was bleach white to begin with, he looked paler than normal. Daring a glance into the opening, Sabre peeked into the chamber and gave a similar reaction, but unlike Lance he retched all over the floor, mixing his stomach contents with the blood.

Oh, there was a lot of blood.

The room was tiny to say the least, and the smell of burnt flesh stung the air. Two more of those object holding things hung from the ceiling, their appendages dangling like vines that dripped with blood. On the ground, right beside the kicked in door, a similar form laid sprawled out across the ground. Most of the metal had been torn off; exposing underneath it a creature of unknown origin, and it was dead. Or at least Sabre hoped it was dead. No creature deserved to have its organs on the outside of its body. He hoped they were its organs. Sabre backed away from the entryway and looked to Lance as he stood there trembling, his eyes staring off into nothing. Sabre took a second to look at walls lined with similar bodies, all strapped tight against the ship.

He let out a sigh, trying to act calm behind his dumbstruck fright. “Yeah… aliens.”

The sound of a loud clang from within the tiny room made them both jump. Sabre gulped and turned back to face the doorway, his lance drawn. The three bodies hadn’t moved, but the small tapping of something inside made him crane his head around the corner. Being careful to avoid the mess, the guard stepped onto the fallen door before he started his search of the noise.

It didn’t take long. An unusually black, metallic box dangled by a cord from the ceiling. The cord gave way and snapped and the box landing into a pool of blood splashing some of it on the Captain’s shins. It took some will power not to vomit uncontrollably again, but he kept his eyes on the black box. On the top of it was a glass screen, several dials and a few switches.

He glanced over his shoulder to see Lance, still in complete shock, staring at the box as well. Sabre looked back down at the thing, and overcome with curiosity he took the tip of his lance he carefully poked it.

\x\x\x\x\

He could feel even though it hurt.

He could breathe even if it was hard.

He could see even if it was blurred.

He could hear even if all he heard was nothing.

His nose is clogged with blood.

And that’s the only thing he can taste too.

Captain Troy Higgs went to take off his helmet but the slightest motion made him nauseous. With little option, he hung upside down from his seat in the Pelican and went to take in his surroundings. All along the walls, the eight men of Fireteam Zulu dangled upside down with him. He was probably the first to regain consciousness after the crash. The Pelican was dully lit; what light there was seeped in from the bay door which was now mysteriously missing.

All he could remember was that the crew chief explained they were going in for an emergency landing in a forest, and it’d be best everyone strapped themselves in for dear life. And that’s what everyone did.

After a few seconds of not moving he tried to flail his arms, and this time he could do so without getting dizzy. Plus, they didn’t seem to be broken. Troy bit his lip as he carefully removed his helmet. The ODST took a second to look at the reflective visor, which for the most part was completely shattered. Several scratches and a large dent in the back indicated he hit his head, so it’d be best to take things slow. Troy carefully set the helmet on the ground above him and glanced at the gaping hole into the outside world.

Odd… it was day when we left Africa. How long was I out? Troy was pleasantly surprised by this, but the next thing he noticed was more confusing than anything.

At the entrance to the cockpit, a white horse stood in the Pelican visibly trembling, and it hadn’t noticed him yet. Something about this horse was off (aside from the fact that a friggin’ horse had wandered into the turned over Pelican,) and the closer he scrutinized it the more he saw, and the more he was taken aback.

First off, the horse was small, probably four to five feet high. Secondly, some features were too disproportionate for a normal horse. For starters, its eyes were disturbingly huge and took up maybe a fourth of its face, and its legs looked too short for the rest of its body. The third thing he found uncomfortable about this equine was that it was armored from practically head to toe (or hoof?) with a glistening helmet and what looked like an enormous saddle protected its back. He could barely make out that the armor on the horse was gold, so whoever owned it must have been of some nobility. At least the Pelican crashed someplace where there was a human civilization. Oh, and the horse had wings.

So, yeah… Troy didn’t know what to make of that. A pegasus?

Troy watched the horse’s ears flare up and it looked inside the cockpit where there was another armored horse. The first one went in and stood beside the second. Both of them took interest in something, and the later leaned down as if to pick something up.

”Flight Log: November 5th, 1972 hours.”

The two horses reeled back on their hind legs in complete surprise.

“Location: Unknown. Standby... Location unlisted.”

“D77H-TCI Pelican Dropship Lambda 02.”

“Cockpit Recording damaged. Recovering executable audio files. Standby…”

“Files recovered. Reconstructing. Standby…”

“Cockpit Recording reconstructed. Audio file after reconstruction is 2:31 in length. Playing. Standby…”

The horses calmed back down, nickering in the room. One of them snorted. The sound of the cockpit recording echoed through the air.

--Voice 1: “We’re going down! Mayday, Mayday, I repeat! This is Lambda 02 and we’re reentering Earth’s atmosphere! Last known position-“

*static*

--Voice 2: “How are comms?” *inaudible* ”…Dammit. Well, it’s better than-” *inaudible*

--Voice 1: “Yeah, Spade’s having just as much luck as we are.”

*static*

--Voice 2: “Fuck! We need to get the engines back online now!

--Voice 1: “Don’t you think I’m trying!? Electronics are shot!”

--Voice 2: “Quick! Get the-“ *static* *inaudible* ”-and go into full afterburner when-“

*static*

--Voice 2: “Shit. Sorry Shamrock, sorry Heart. We’ll come back for you.”  *inaudible* *loud clang*

--Voice 1: “Hey Spade! Where the hell do you think you’re going!? We agreed-”

*static*

--Voice 2: “Is everyone buckled in?”

--Voice 3: “Yeah, and I advise you do the same.”

--Voice 2: “Already-“ *static* *inaudible* *static* *loud clang* “-got it?”

--Voice 1: “Alright, easy does it. What’s our speed?”

--Voice 2: “It’s-“ *static* *inaudible* “-four thousand feet and falling.”

--Voice 1: “Get ready, things are going to get bumpy!”  *inaudible*

*static*

*loud crash*

--Voice 1: “Hold on!” *inaudible*

*static*

*loud crash*

--Voice 1: “We’re going in to fast! We won’t-“ *loud crash* *creak* *grinding noise*

*static*

*explosion*

*static*

*grinding noise* *loud crash*

*…*

”Ending audio playback. Standby…”

\x\x\x\x\

“What the hay was that about?” Lance spurted out the words between his chattering teeth. He looked around the room he was in, doing his best to avoid catching sight of the corpse(s). Out through the shattered glass window in the front of the ship, an enormous tree trunk blocked any view of the outside world. He groaned and looked back to Sabre who was still giving breathless stares to the black box.

“I… I don’t… I didn’t understand any of that. All I got out of that was a bunch of hollering and other inaudible crap.”

“I could hear the sound of… or I think it was the sound of, this thing crashing.” Lance tapped a hoof against the doorway making a small clang.

“So it’s some sort of magical recording box thing?”

“I told you… aliens…” Lance was able to conjure a grin out of his unease. Sabre shot him a look.

A loud crash echoed through the ship.

\x\x\x\x\

“Fuck!” Troy screamed after he landed headfirst on to the metal. He must have been weaker than he though after he undid himself from his seat; his hands slipped free the straps he wrapped tightly around them and he quickly sat up inspecting himself.

“Legs… not broken. Ribs… possible bruising but not broken. Ankles… sprained but walkable. Arms are okay. Neck is fine, and my back…” His spine popped. “Ah, that felt good.”

\x\x\x\x\

Lance and Sabre stood motionless as if a cockatrice decided to stare them down. One of the alien beings had fallen off the wall it clung to and was now tending to itself.

“Is… it talking?” Sabre whispered.

“Not in any language I know,” Lance replied.

The two Royal Guards didn’t dare move.

\x\x\x\x\

The two horses, if not aware of him before, were now. They were motionless in the doorway of the cockpit, both of them staring at him and Troy couldn’t help but stare back.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Troy called out. The two horses flinched. “Your horses shouldn’t be here! Hello?”

He shrugged and tried to stand back up, but his legs gave out from underneath him. He was still too weak to so much as do anything. There was a Fuck-This in the cockpit, and he’d have to get around the horses to get to it.

\x\x\x\x\

“Yeah… that thing can talk.” Lance mused.

“I don’t understand what it’s saying. Is it trying to talk to us?” Sabre asked Lance, not fully expecting an answer.

“Possibly…?” Lance took a step forward. “Hello?”

The alien blindly looked at them from where it sat.

“He-Hello? Can you understand me?” Lance took another step towards the being. Sabre quietly watched from the doorway.

\x\x\x\x\

One of the horses was nickering and giving other equine-like sounds, but the way it did so it seemed intent on aiming its ‘words’ at him. Troy sat on the floor dumbfounded. The horse moved its lips as if making intelligent conversation.

\x\x\x\x\

“The thing looks kind of harmless. I’m taller than it is.” Lance called back to Sabre. The Captain slowly walked up to and stood beside him. The two ponies stared at the alien in complete fascination, no more than a few feet from it.

\x\x\x\x\

The horses kept moving their lips as if trying their luck at talking to him. They looked scared, not really wanting to stand close to him yet they were.

Those facial expressions… so human yet… they’re not. Troy never broke eye contact with the horses for more than a second. They stopped neighing at him and went to do so with each other, deep in some sort of verbal and intelligent conversation.

Troy took his arm and wrapped it around the dangling harness of his seat, pulling himself up. Now that he stood on two legs, he could see these horses were about four and a half feet tall, the top of their heads coming about midway up his breastbone. The two armored horses took a step back, gawking at his height and taking glances between themselves, himself, and more specifically his legs.

Outside, the sound of metal scraping on metal got Troy’s attention as did the horses. Someone was approaching the entrance into the wrecked Pelican.

“Hello?” Troy called out. “I found your horses! I’m an ODST of the UNSC and I’m going to need-“ He stopped when three more winged horses walked into the doorway. “Great. Did we crash on a ranch or something?”

\x\x\x\x\

“The hay is this?” Silver Wing stood in the doorway to the metal box accompanied by two Night Guards. Their purple armor and darkened coats stood as exact opposites to the Royal Guards’ white coats and golden armor. The young recruit and the two bat-winged pegasi stared at the tall, lengthy creature that stared back at them. Behind it, Sabre Star and Iron Lance looked around the creature to meet the eyes of the three pegasi.

“The hay is that?” One of the Night Guards asked, pointing a hoof at the thing.

“…An alien?” Sabre shrugged.

“…It doesn’t look harmful,” Lance added. “There’s more in here… dead ones…”

The creature stood between the two groups of guards, and looked down to the floor. It slowly bent down and picked up one of the smaller L-shaped objects that littered the floor and held it with both of its palms. The alien gripped it tightly in one palm and with the other it supported its body against the wall, fumbling in place. The creature’s lips moved and it said some indistinguishable moans and grunts, slowly advancing the three pegasi in the ship’s doorway.

“Stop!” Silver commanded and drew his lance. The pointed tip came within inches of the alien's torso.

The creature immediately lifted up the L-thing and pointed it at Silver.

A loud bang echoed throughout the night.

Silver stumbled back, eyes wide, and collapsed.

Sabre tackled the creature from behind, stomping a hoof into the back of what he thought was its head.

\x\x\x\x\

April 12th, year 6 PH

2:28 am

Canterlot Mountains, Canterlot, Equestria

Princess Luna arrived on the scene of the crash site in the Canterlot Mountains. As her chariot rounded the corner from behind one of the mountains, she placed herself somewhere between excitement, horror, and unbounded fascination at the burning mess below. A few of the Night Guards in the seven-pony formation went off to gather clouds and snuff the flame but Luna quickly called them back.

“There’s no risk of the fire spreading. Plus, you’d destroy the rock’s crusted surface.” She sternly told them.

“Forgive us, Princess of the Night.”

“Please, I though we’ve been over this. Call me Luna, or Princess Luna if you desire.”

“Forgive us, Princess Luna.”

Luna smiled to herself. The flight formation touched down a hundred yards from the still burning stone and they started to put together a base of operations at the mouth of the canyon. She dispatched four of the guards to block off the other side and then do a patrol over the air. The other two and herself began setting up the command tent, several tables and other geological equipment. The research teams would be arriving in the morning so she had to get everything prepared for their arrival.

And now morning was four hours away, yet they were already done assembling the camp.

“Princess Luna, do you know what these tracks are?” One of the guards spoke to her.

“What is it Major…”

“…Apollo, Princess.”

“Major Apollo. Forgive me; I’m not too well with names. Now what is it you inquire?”

“These tracks are most unusual,” Apollo pointed to the ground. Some thick-wheeled carriage or cart had previously been through the area, and the tracks were still fresh.

“…And there appears to be some sort of design to them as well,” Apollo added. Luna hummed in agreement at the checkerboard style pattern left in the markings.

A loud roar echoed through the canyon.

Probably just a manticore, Luna thought. “I hope whoever they were they didn’t take too many rocks before we got here, if that was their intentions.”

“What if they set the meteorite one fire!?” The other guard cried out after emerging from the newly erected tent.

Luna turned to him. “I do not think that is the case Lieutenant…”

“Lieutenant Nightshade, your highness.”

“Lieutenant Nightshade,” Luna continued. “I saw this rock and others like it as they fell out of the sky. Two of them trailed smoke as they crashed, so it’s more than likely it was just some flammable gas inside that’s simply burning out. Although we cannot denounce the possibility this fire was set on purpose.” Luna had just finished her address when another guard flew in, hovering a few meters above the ground.

“Princess Luna! Come quick!” He called down to her. “You’re going to want to see this! It’s unbelievable!”

She cocked a brow. “What? What is it?”

“It’s no meteorite! It’s some sort of extraequestrial craft!”

Chapter 6: Shamrock

April 12th, 6 PH

1:42 am

Sweet Apple Acres, Ponyville, Equestria

“You know, we should be sleeping.” Sweetie Belle moaned. Scootaloo, hidden completely from view, shuffled around underneath her blanket and expelled several crunched up balls of paper. Apple Bloom looked up from her own drawings only to sharpen her already-diminishing pencil. Both of them completely ignored her. The light gray unicorn filly sighed and looked down at her own design beside the dwindling flame of the lantern. It wasn’t much light, but enough to see what she was drawing without completely lighting up the clubhouse. Being the younger sister of a seamstress, her artistic skills were well refined, but nowhere up to par with any of the art and paintings she’s seen in museums.

She looked down to the abomination she had drawn. It looked more like a plate of spaghetti rather than the spool of thread that was her initial design. Sweetie Belle frowned at it, flipped her pencil around, and began to slowly erase it. How was she supposed to know what her cutie mark would look like anyway? They appear on their own after a pony discovers their special talent, and there’s no telling what they could look like or even symbolize. Sweetie Belle stared once again at the now blank sheet of paper. Just like her flank. Blank. Just a blank canvas where anything could happen, but there would only be one outcome.

A ball of paper erupted out from underneath Scootaloo’s blanket like it was launched from a catapult. She didn’t even bat an eye as the projectile bounced harmlessly off her cheek and onto the ground.

I wonder what Scootaloo’s been thinking of. Sweetie Belle thought. She leaned over and used her hooves to unfold the crumpled sketch, revealing a very crude and poorly drawn lightning bolt. She’d seen that before, but she could quite tell where. The filly shrugged and slid the drawing away and returned to her own paper. Her mind was completely blank. Just like the paper. Just like her flank.

She sighed heavily, collapsing onto the ground and accidentally knocking over the lantern. The small trickle of light faded. The only other source of illumination now was the lantern Scootaloo greedily tucked away with her underneath her little cocoon.

“Hey! Now Ah can’t see what Ah’m drawin’!” Apple Bloom looked through the darkness, barely making out the figure of Sweetie Belle.

“Can’t we just go to sleep already? I’m tired…” Sweetie Belle moaned.

“No way!” Scootaloo stuck her head out the blanket. Light seeped its way out of the newly made cracks, flooding the clubhouse with color. “We need to figure out what our cutie marks will look like!”

“Hey! Turn that down!” Apple Bloom snapped to the orange pegasus. Scootaloo’s heart sank at the prospect of possibly getting caught awake. She immediately rushed into her blanket and rustled around. The sound of scrapping hooves echoed through the building followed by a loud crash. All light faded at that point, plunging the clubhouse into darkness.

“Heh… Oops…” Scootaloo reemerged with the lantern. It completely got snapped in half. “Sorry, I accidentally stepped on it.”

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes in the shadows, unnoticed by the others. “Eh, Rarity’s got plenty of them.”

“Well, turn yours back on!” Scootaloo’s white teeth barely reflected miniscule amounts of moonlight, exposing a cheeky grin. Sweetie Belle leaned over and set her lantern upright, and pressed the button to turn it on. When it didn’t, she tried to pressing it again. When it still didn’t turn on she started to shake the lantern vigorously. The sound of dust and ashes rattled inside.

Uh oh. Sweetie Belle flipped the lantern over and flipped open the trapdoor at the base, exposing the inner workings of the device. She shook it once more and a faint cloud of ash trickled out and onto the floor.

“The meg’s been used up!” She announced. The reflection of Scootaloo’s glistening teeth faded as the filly’s lips closed and formed a frown. “Oh well!” Sweetie Belle beamed, tossing the lantern aside. “Time for sleep!”

“Not so fast, we can still use ta’ meg* in ta’ other lantern!” Apple Bloom opened up the broken lantern’s trapdoor and out popped the large ruby. Rolling over in defeat, Sweetie Belle shoved her lantern towards the farm filly. Apple Bloom eagerly took the lantern and inserted the meg.  She flipped it right-side up and turned it on and the dimmed light eagerly returned and pushed back the dark.

“There we go! I reckon it’ll probably last another week or two.”

Suddenly the whole clubhouse shook like a rattle. And it shook violently, even if it was only for a few seconds. The three fillies were thrown from their respective positions and into the air and came back down in a tangled heap of limps in the center of the floor.

“What ta’ hey was that?” Apple Bloom kicked out.

“Sweetie Belle, get your marshmallow butt off me!”

“Oh, sorry Scootaloo…”

“I’m gonin’ ta’ repeat myself. What was that?”

Scootaloo shoved Sweetie Belle off her and stood up on all fours, flapping her juvenile wings to readjust he feathers. “I haven’t got the slightest clue.”

“Well, I kind of want to find out now…”

“I thought ya said ya wanted to sleep?”

“Yeah, but it’s obvious we won’t be sleeping now!”

Scootaloo picked the still burning lantern up with her teeth. “That’s the spirit!”

Apple Bloom grinned in the faint light and nodded. Sweetie Belle smiled and looked at Scootaloo’s confident smirk.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders go!” The three shouted in unison and bolted out the door, crossing Sweet Apple Acres in the midst of the night.

\x\x\x\x\

“Uhm, where we going?” Scootaloo stopped in her tracks after they emerged just outside the farm’s boundaries. The other two fillies came to a stop as well, eyes scanning the meadow in front of them for any signs of what caused the tree their clubhouse was in to shake like it did.

“Maybe it was an earthquake?” Apple Bloom mused aloud.

“Doubt it,” Sweetie Belle responded. “Earthquakes usually last longer than that, and are soon followed by a series of aftershocks. It’s been maybe thirty minutes and there haven’t been any aftershocks yet.”

“You would know, dictionary.” Scootaloo teased.

“I think an almanac would be more accurate, actually. Earthquake definitions in dictionaries tend to only be-“

“You proved my point.” Scootaloo smugly retorted and walked away into the open. Apple Bloom giggled and followed the orange pegasus. Not daring enough to be stranded in the middle of the night, the white unicorn filly quickly ran to catch up to her two friends.

“Alright then ‘almanac,’ what do you think it was?” Scootaloo asked sarcastically as Sweetie Belle trotted up.

“Um… I don’t know. There are not too many things that can shake the ground just once like that. Maybe a meteor or some sort of explosion?”

“Wow! Do you really think it could be a meteor? Oh, could you imagine if we found it? That would be so awesome!”

“What’s a meteor?” Apple Bloom asked.

“A giant rock that falls from outer space,” Sweetie Belle answered. “…Actually, they aren’t always big. The last one to land in Equestria was decades ago and it was kind of small.”

“Giant rock?” Apple Bloom rubbed her chin, her gaze working its way into the night sky. “Like ta’ moon?”

Sweetie Belle thought for a moment. “Yeah! Just smaller!”

“Hey, maybe we can get our meteorite hunter cutie marks!” Scootaloo exclaimed. The three fillies stopped their brisk walk through the meadow to exchange glances.

“Yeah! I reckon that could work! If there hasn’t been a meteor to hit Equestria fo’ decades, we could be ta’ first in years ta’ have a cutie mark like that!”

“Only problem is we don’t know where it landed…” Sweetie Belle deadpanned. The three fillies’ ears drooped back in unison as they stared at each other, contemplating what to do.

“Hey wait a minute…” Scootaloo mused. “Isn’t this the Dreamy Gates meadow?”

“Yeah, it’s right next to ta’ farm. Why?”

“Fluttershy’s house is near here then! Maybe she saw something!”

“She’s probably asleep Scootaloo…” Sweetie Belle sighed. “And we’re supposed to be asleep too. We probably will get in trouble if Rarity finds out we’re not sleeping, let alone that we’re outside in the middle of the night.”

“The whole point of a slumber party is not to sleep, Sweetie Belle.” Scootaloo hissed.

“Well, it shouldn’t hurt nopony ta’ just see if she’s awake, would it?”

Scootaloo decided this was motif enough to run off towards Fluttershy’s cottage. Apple Bloom eagerly galloped after her and reluctantly Sweetie Belle followed close behind. The cool breeze of the night ruffled their manes and occasionally tossed them in their faces. Nonetheless Scootaloo pushed on leading the charge. Luna’s moon hovered in the darkened sky above like a satellite watching their every move. As they continued their trek, the flat meadows slowly turned into rolling hills, and with the clearing of each mound the crusaders got ever closer to Fluttershy’s cottage. After five minutes of blind running, they ran up one final embankment and standing before them was the house meticulously carved out of a tree, just like Ponyville’s library. But probably unlike the library, the lights were on. Every light inside Fluttershy’s house was on.

“She’s awake!” Apple Bloom cheered.

“Woo hoo!” Scootaloo cried and bolted down the hill, dragging the lantern with her.

“Wait… for… me…” Sweetie Belle crawled after her friends, gasping for breath.

One after the other, the three soon found themselves standing at Fluttershy’s front door. Light poured out like a waterfall from every window and crevice it could find. Scootaloo eagerly pounded on the door in a rush, but got no response. The orange filly repeated her method of knocking, but the only answer came as a hushed squeak.

“Fluttershy? It’s us: Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle! We were wondering if-“

The door suddenly flung open with such speed it was almost blasted off its hinges. A very distressed yellow pegasus stood in the doorway, and with a single motion she wrapped all three of the crusaders in a foreleg and swept them inside. The door recoiled from its original swing and came back around at full force, slamming itself shut. The whole series of events took no more than two seconds.

Fluttershy threw the three of them onto her couch and glared daggers at them. It wasn’t quite as powerful as The Stare, but the message was sent and received: she was not happy with them.

“What are you three doing outside at this time of night? You could have been hurt!” Her out of character scream forced the trembling fillies to huddle up in the deepest crevice the couch could provide.

“I… I… We-we’re so-sorry…” Scootaloo was able to whimper.

“We we-were just c-c-coming ta’ ask ya s-something…” Apple Bloom sputtered.

“I t-tried to t-tell them…” Sweetie Belle hesitantly spoke.

Fluttershy sighed. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so mad,” She popped down on her haunches in the middle of the floor. “You three should not be outside at night! Especially at a time like this! Who knows what’s out there? Did you not feel the ground shake or see the fireball? For all anypony knows it could have been some sort of monster! That’s why I have all these lights on. Monsters tend to stay away from the light…”

“A fireball?” Scootaloo suddenly leaned over the couch as if the previous ordeal had not happened at all. “It must have been a meteorite then! Do you know where it crashed Fluttershy?” The other two fillies immediately appeared alongside their friend, grinning wide. Fluttershy flinched backwards and almost fell over.

“Um… I saw the fire maybe two kilometers east of here…” Her heart sank at the sudden realization of what she’d done. The cutie mark crusaders were standing on the couch, their eyes glistening and smiling mouths agape.

“I-I-I mean… four hundred kilometers up in the sky! There’s no way a-anypony could go up there to investigate it! I guess you’ll just have to go home now, or you can stay here for the night if you want... if that’s alright with you…”

“Cutie Mark Meteorite Hunters GO!!” The three shouted in unison. Apple Bloom grabbed the lantern in her mouth and the three were already on their way out the door.

“WAAAAAAIT!!” Fluttershy wailed, taking off after them. She burst through the front door to see them already running towards the Everfree Forest, the dull ball of light from the lantern illuminating them. “Wait you three!” She yelled and flew after them.

Fluttershy you stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid… Oh how she wished she brought a lantern of her own or something. Angel would have to watch the house while she was out which she prayed wouldn’t be long. The three fillies had just crossed the boundary into the forest, and Fluttershy was maybe fifty feet behind them and closing. She burst through the screen of foliage and reemerged surrounded my more trees and bushes, but no ponies in sight. The yellow mare knew the forest like the back of her hoof, but the crusaders did not. More than likely they were already lost wherever they were, and the Everfree Forest is no place for a pony to be at any point in time, let alone a filly in the middle of the night.

And it was her fault they were lost. If only she was faster. If only didn’t tell them about the fireball. If only the fireball hadn’t started in the first place. A soft giggling echoed through the soundless night and Fluttershy took off towards the right. No, it was to the left. The source was coming from the left. No, the right. In front of her? Where? Oh no… Fluttershy was lost too. She helplessly squealed, her wings impulsively locked to her sides. A sudden ball of light emerged behind her.

“Fluttershy? You don’t need to scream.” A voice spoke.

“Yeah, we was right behind ya!” Apple Bloom said. Fluttershy twirled around to see the three fillies staring back at her.

“Girls!” Fluttershy went limp and leaped forward, covering them with her wings. “Why did you run away? You could have been hurt, or worse! What if a manitcore found you before I did?”

“But we wanted ta’ find the space rock…”

“And get our cutie marks…”

“And how do you know it’s a meteor?” Fluttershy hissed.

Scootaloo pointed up a tree with her hoof. “Because it’s right there!”

Everyone craned their necks towards where the orange pegasus was pointing. High in the pine tree above them, a large block-shaped object dangled in the branches from some sort of rope.

“Wait here,” Fluttershy tapped her hoof on the ground. The crusaders eagerly watched as Fluttershy spread her wings and floated up to the strange object. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t a meteor. The object in question resembled a chair with no legs, and something was securely strapped to it. Whatever it was it had to be important enough that nopony wanted it to break and more so that whoever hid it hid it high up in a tree. Although they could have done a better job securing it to the tree; several of the ropes that held it up were frayed, some of them snapped completely. What strands remained intact traced about forty feet up to the peak of the tree where a sheet of fabric clung on top, it too tearing and falling apart.

“It’s not a space rock,” Fluttershy explained from high up. She might have been relieved but the three fillies were not. “Somepony wanted to hide this up here.”

“Well ah reckon they did a poor job! That’s no way ya hide somethin’!” Apple Bloom said, spitting out the lantern in the process.

“Oh well…” Fluttershy shrugged in her hover beside the object, taking advantage of the situation. “We better no disturb it. Time to go home!”

“But what about the meteor-“ Scootaloo went to speak but got caught up by a loud snap. Fluttershy turned to see the object slowly sliding down tree, only three ropes holding it up.

*snap*

Two ropes. Fearing that the thing would fall, Fluttershy reached out and grabbed one of the ropes in her teeth right when the other broke. Fluttershy might not be a strong flyer, but she’s carried her share of weight before. And this thing was beyond what she was capable of. The pegasus desperately flapped her wings in an attempt to at least stop the thing from crashing into the ground at significant speed. She lowered it the some forty or so feet to the soft ground of the Everfree Forest.

“What is it?”

“Was it heavy?”

“That’s not a space rock!”

“Where did it come from?”

“Why would somepony want to hide it?”

“What is it?”

Fluttershy immediately stopped the crusaders before they could get any closer.

“Listen, girls, um… don’t… touch this. Okay?”

“Why?” Scootaloo asked. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Girls… you’re in enough trouble as it is.” Fluttershy tried to act assertive, but it came out in a more sympathetic tone. “I’m sorry… but you really shouldn’t be up this late! And you ran off into the Everfree Forest all on your own! Um… y-your families’ are sure to hear about this. You should go back home before… anything… before you get in more trouble.”

The three fillies stood still contemplating the situation. Deciding that Fluttershy was right, they ran off towards Fluttershy’s cottage taking the lantern with them. Hopefully they’ll stay there. Fluttershy now turned her attention the mysterious thing that fell out of the tree. She couldn’t just leave it there. The pony who hung it up would probably think the worst if they found it on the ground like this. Fluttershy had to leave a note or something. She hastily dug around the forest floor for anything to use, but decided it’d be best to just write a message in the dirt in front of the thing. It was too heavy to put back in the tree anyway.

To whom it may concern:

I found your thing hanging in the tree.

It was going to fall, so I lowered it down as gently as I could.

Hopefully it’s not too damaged, and I’m sorry if it is.

However you should really find a better place for your prop~

Some unknown sound reverberated through the woods. Fluttershy’s hoof sailed off before she could finish the message.

“Um… hello?” The pegasus looked around her surroundings, but the crusaders took the lantern with them when they left so her visibility was shortened. Wherever that noise came from, it sounded like an animal. Fluttershy waited patiently for the sound to happen again.

“Hello? Is anypony out there?”

\x\x\x\x\

…

…

…

…

The pilot groaned one more time, hanging his head.  His vision was blurred as he could barely make out his own legs through the cracks in his visor. He tried moving them but felt restrained, not in the sense of being tied down but forgetting how. His attempts with his arms fared no better. The last thing he remembered was…

Fuck. He thought. He couldn’t remember what he was last doing, or where he was, or his own name for that matter. If only he could get a grip on his surroundings, he might be able to jog his memory. However when you’re so weak that the only muscle that moves is your own heart, you aren’t going anywhere or doing anything soong. Something prodded his shoulder sending a jolt of pain through his arm. He winced. His injured heart couldn’t deal with skipping a beat, so he tried to best to stay calm. He bit his lip as another poke sent a surge of pain through his arm.

He somehow found the ability to flex his fingers. Even if it was an involuntary reaction to the pain, it meant he could still move them. Whatever was poking him wasn’t letting up. This time it came up and rested against his neck. A shrill cry could be heard when it reacted, sending his ears into a deafening ring. It wasn’t so bad, after all he could hear now. But from his neck down, his whole body hurt. It even hurt to breathe; not that he wasn’t getting any oxygen but from the motion of his chest moving with his lungs.

“Probably a few broken ribs…” he muttered. His vision was still blurred and black, so he was either blinded or it was dark. There was another crying sound, but this one sounded more like intelligible language. He couldn’t understand it, but it was soothing; something along the lines of a horse’s nickering crossed with the sound of a crackling campfire. It wasn’t Human, but it wasn’t Covenant either. Whatever or whoever it was that had been poking him applied pressure to his chest, almost like being sat on. A brief coughing fit ensued and the pressure was immediately relieved. The next thing to happen was the feeling of a soft cloth or similar being wrapped around his neck like a noose. He did little to protest (as if he could anyway) and succumbed as it became tighter and tighter. The wrap became less constricting for a bit after he started gagging, but it stayed around his throat.

A few clicking noises could be heard and then he fell over. Rather, he was actually gently leaned over onto his side, but regardless it caused him to become nauseas. Thankfully he was in too much pain to vomit. His entire body ached like he was given an acupuncture treatment with white-hot steak knives. Whoever laid him down turned him over onto his back, face up to the night sky, evident by the moon.

Vision slowly started to come back with the small amounts of moonlight, but it was insufficient. Something, presumably the person who was treating him, leaned over his face and eclipsed the moon. All he could tell from the figure is that it had long hair. Extremely long hair that tickled his nose. He smelt strawberries for some reason. That was the last thing he remembered.

\x\x\x\x\

She freaked out initially when she noticed the blood on her hoof from where she touched it, which ticked off that this was an animal. Fortunately there was a bunch of vines nearby, so she could make a crude tourniquet around the animal’s neck without constricting it. It wouldn’t be sufficient, but it’d stop the pressure long enough until she could get home and grab her medical kit. Fluttershy had grabbed the tearing fabric from the tree and made a makeshift sled for the creature as she dragged it along the ground with her teeth, careful to avoid potholes and other objects that could tear apart the cocoon. Her quick diagnosis showed that it had several broken ribs, possibly broken legs, a concussion, and several lacerations to the neck and limbs. The strange animal was obviously furless; evident by the pink skin and bulkiness of the clothing and the helmet it wore to protect itself from the elements. She had no choice but to leave the chair-thing behind since it was too heavy to drag too. Hopefully nothing would disturb it; the chair could explain more about the animal and why it was hanging in a tree.

Fluttershy made her way back to the cottage and kicked in the door, almost sending it off its hinges. She’d have to buy a new one again if it kept being abused like that. The lights were still on, and the yellow pony dragged the unconscious animal and the makeshift cocoon into the center of the living room, almost passing out herself from sheer exhaustion. But the creature’s life depended on her, so she shrugged it off and darted upstairs to grab as many supplies she could carry in a single trip. On her way back down, she noticed the crusaders weren’t in her cottage, so hopefully they went home. She couldn’t worry about them right now anyway.

Her main focus was the animal’s chest, so the hind legs could wait to be stripped. Fluttershy started taking apart the animal’s (surprisingly several) layers of clothing, confirming her suspicions that it was completely furless. Other oddities about the animal were that it had no tail, small eyes, and a flattened face with a pointy nose; no snout. She couldn’t verify its gender, but muscle mass implied it was male. Scars, both old and new, randomly spread themselves along its abdomen. The position of its joints in its legs noted that it wasn’t a quadruped, so it had to be bipedal. But how could something balance itself on two legs? After removing the helmet, she saw a very short, dark brown mane sat only on the top of its head and didn’t go down much further along its neck. Fluttershy carefully removed the crudely made tourniquet and replaced it with a much more efficient wrapping of gauze, careful not to constrict the throat.

What are you… Fluttershy thought. She was able to stop the bleeding, patch possible infected wounds, and deal with some of the bruising, but this animal was beyond her expertise. The pegasus pony spent the rest of the night on her haunches, closely examining the animal and standing by incase anything happened.

\x\x\x\x\

April 12th

5:30am

Canterlot Castle, Canterlot, Equestria

Princess Celestia had just sent the spell in motion that would push the sun above the planet in half an hour, giving the moon enough time to dip below the western horizon. She smiled as a hint of orange began to emerge, pushing away the black of the night. In thirty minutes the first of the sun’s warm rays would be visible across all of Equestria. Now that that was out of the way, she could turn her attention to the meteors she promised to help her sister out with. However Luna had sent her a letter almost two hours ago that she had neglected to read. Hey, it’s not her fault a peaceful demonstration against the new tax rates in Sacramaneto need dealing with; somepony just had to bring out the paintballs and make it a federal case. Who’d have thought that such a hassle could come out of raising the tax rate to two percent? Celestia trotted into her private study where the scroll waited for her idly on her desk. The royal alicorn took the time to prepare herself some tea before she sat down on her favorite plush pillow. Levitating the tea and boiling the water with a simple spell, she took a small sip to test the temperature. A little warm, she cooled it down a bit and drew the scroll out in front of her, unraveling it and reading the hastily scribbled message.

‘Tia, something of dire importance has been discovered. It appears that when I felt dubious earlier tonight, it was for good reason. The meteorites that fell were no meteor, but some sort of extraequestrial vessel. Even though the one ship in the Canterlot Mountains is destroyed beyond recognition, we have already recovered a superb amount of information. There is reason to believe that the other three meteors are alien ships as well, and I request that you immediately dispatch units to search for the two that crashed in the Everfree Forest and back up the squad in the Whitetail Woods for they are understaffed.

~Princess Luna

Celestia took a sip of her tea as she read, and promptly spat it out after reading the third sentence. Celestia reread the entire letter again and again to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Feeling more or less satisfied, and slightly angry that she hadn’t read the message earlier, she destroyed the letter. The Princess wasted no time pulling out her own parchment and a quill, writing to the commander of the Royal Guard her orders for him in the Everfree Forest. He is to take two patrols of the elite and loyal Helios Platoon and conduct a search in the Everfree Forest for the two unknown objects. Since Luna gave the vaguest of descriptions, Celestia told them to look for anything out of the ordinary and quarantine them off the public. No unauthorized ponies were to accidently stumble on to the sites. After the scroll was bound and magically sent to its intended recipient, she went to write another for Luna. After that she stood and was about to go assist the group in the Whitetail Woods when there was a knock at her door.

Can’t do anything without interruption… Celestia sighed and swung the door open; one of Luna’s Night Guards came rushing into the doorway.

“Princess Celestia! Thank heavens I found you!” The guard gasped.

“What is it?” Celestia asked quizzically. “Why aren’t you asleep? The Night Guards are supposed to be-“

“Forgive me for the rush, Princess…” The guard interrupted. Celestia was slightly taken aback in surprise at the informality. “But we need assistance in the Whitetail Woods immediately! A group of interlopers has just been detained from some sort of large ship and are on their way to Canterlot for… analyzing.”

Celestia cleared her throat. “Well, I was about to head out there, but the situation appears to be under control. Why are you addressing me right now?”

The Night guard cleared her throat. “Because one of the Royal Guard has been critically injured by one of them, and regulation is that you need to be notified in such a case.”

Celestia’s eyes widened. Where they under some sort of alien attack? The Night Guard continued, “The guard is in a stable condition, but he might not fully recover. I have sent back the research team that tried to come to the site on account of their safety, but nothing else has been recovered from the crash site.”

“Alright, thank you…”

“Amber, 1st Lieutenant Amber.”

“…1st Lieutenant. I’ll investigate this site myself, and I want all recovery and research teams from all sites to be called back and put on hold until further notice. There’s no telling how dangerous these things are. When the… interlopers are back in the castle, put them in the maximum security medical wing. I want all-“

“Four.”

“…Four? I’d have thought there’d be more considering the size of the object you described.”

“There was eleven, but only four show signs of life. It’s… a really gruesome scene over there.”

Celestia frowned. “Come with me. We’re going to the Whitetail Woods.”

\x\x\x\x\

April 12th, 6 PH

5:35am

Canterlot Mountains, Canterlot, Equestria

In a puff of smoke, the scroll materialized itself in front of Luna.

About time… Luna silently hissed. She looked up from the strip of metal she was looking at to read the letter Celestia had written in response to her own… two hours to late. At least she found the time to raise the sun…

Dear Luna, forgive me for my tardiness with this letter. Something had developed that required my immediate attention, and I fear something else requires both of ours. First and foremost, these craft contain some sort of extraequestrial life, and it may be hostile. A Royal Guard member has been seriously injured by one of these interlopers in the Whitetail Woods, so I urge you to push extreme caution. Secondly, all research teams and civilians are to be suspended from accessing these crash sites. At your request, I have dispatched a unit to the Everfree Forest to search and close off the other two objects. I myself am about to go investigate the Whitetail Woods crash site. And finally, please watch after yourself and your fellow guard.

~Princess Celestia

Luna frowned at what she just read. Fortunately the research team hadn’t arrived yet, so that would one easy problem to solve. She brought her head up from her work and looked across the ravine at the still burning wreckage of the alien ship. While she would put the fire out, doing so might destroy invaluable pieces of information. And it was already too late to recover any bodies, for if they weren’t burnt already they would more than likely be crushed by the impact the ship made. Luna brought her gaze up to the mountainside the ship had apparently slid down. A large gouge in the rock showed the ghastly series of events as the ship came into contact, slid down the enormous face of the rock, hit a bump and then careened to its final resting place. Luna looked back down the burnt sheet of metal she was trying to get information from, but other than titanium the rest of its properties remained unknown.

“Princess Luna,” Major Apollo landed beside the Princess. “We found the origin of these tracks, and you won’t believe it.”

Luna looked skeptical and glanced down to the odd wheel tracks in the ground. Her horn glowed and one of the plaster molds she had taken appeared next to her. “You mean these?”

“Yes… and they started up there.” Apollo pointed up to the peak of the mountain where the assumed initial impact was. Luna stared.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Luna looked off to where the tracks had left the canyon beyond the barricade that was set up. The tracks went on for another hundred meters before they were lost in a river. There’s no telling where in Equestria the carriage that created them could be. Luna sighed.

“Unfortunately there is nothing we can do. Send out a report to all nearby villages to be on the lookout for an unusual carriage or cart. Urge them not to approach it but to alert the Guard immediately.”

Apollo saluted. “As you wish. And, if I can make a suggestion-“

*KA-BOOM*

Luna reactively threw up a spell that would protect herself and the major. The sudden expansion of the force field-like ball kicked up the table she had all her findings and instruments on, sending them flying forwards. Then the objects stopped and flew back at them as the shockwave hit, harmlessly bouncing them off the shield.

“What the hay was that?” Apollo squeaked, his hooves covering his ears.

“Is anypony hurt?” Luna called out, getting muffled replies from disoriented guards, but everypony was accounted for. Some had a few minor scrapes and burns, but nothing serious. The alien craft had violently exploded, sending a large chunk of it through the air that landed a few yards away from the Princess. Luna looked to the blazing inferno that had just tripled inside, and the recovered evidence that had just been destroyed.

“Maybe we should put the fire out…”

*Meg (noun)- short for Magically Enchanted Gemstones. They’re my little explanation for how “electronics” are powered in the FiM universe. A meg is essentially a battery, and when it runs out of power (magic) it turns to ash. Megs can be enchanted from any sort of gemstone, but the length of time one will last depends on the following variables:

Crystal structure, type of gemstone, size, amount of magic stored inside, what sort of machine it will power and for how long.

Megs however are generally extremely weak, so they tend to not cost anything or are bought in bulk as they usually last a few days to a few weeks. Most unicorns can simply craft them themselves, and the only ones sold are generally of high quality can last several months if not years without being replaced. One that could last a single year might cost close to two hundred bits, and Applejack sells apples at a bit apiece so there’s the sense of their value. Most ponies sell things for only a few bits each, so a meg that will last a year would be hard for your average pony to buy. An average meg that lasts a month would cost around twenty bits, and one that lasts a week close to five bits. However prices vary depending on the vendor.

If a unicorn is extremely lucky and he/she finds a high quality gemstone and enchants it, they could sell it for a high price. This is generally how it goes. Also, enchanting a gemstone does little to raise its value. Rarity specializes in finding gemstones, but enchanting high quality ones takes a considerable amount of concentration to make. As little value could be made, Rarity generally doesn’t bother selling megs. Instead she uses the gemstones for her dresses to hike up their prices, so she makes more money selling dresses then she would if she sold megs.

This also explains why Diamond Dogs have an obsession with them. When the kidnapped Rarity, they used her to find gemstones and then they could sell them at higher prices later. Dragons like to eat gemstones, but the lower quality stones are easier to come by so they aren’t too picky when it comes to eating. High quality gemstones are seen as deserts and other delicacies.

Lower quality gemstones are commonplace and include rubies, sapphires, emeralds, jadeite, diamonds, and essentially any other gem that would be considered very expensive here on Earth.

High quality gemstones include ones found commonly on Earth, yet they are rare in Equestria. This includes quartz, opal, amethyst, turquoise, amber, and garnet as well as mythical ones like Fire

Rubies.

Now with the above information, when Apple Bloom uses the ruby on the lantern, the lantern should be able to create light for up to two weeks on account of the gem’s quality, size, large amount of magic, and that it would run a simple machine.

Another thing, like I said before megs are very weak. That ruby could probably power a lantern for a couple weeks, but it’d die in an hour if it had to power something complex like heartbeat monitor all by itself. Most large machines however allow for multiple megs to be used at once, but even a dozen or so of those types of megs would only last half a day. Small, simple machines like a light bulb take little power so a weak meg can power one for a while. Machines with numerous moving parts and other complexities usually require more power to operate.

Chapter 7: Preperations

April 12th, 6 PH

7:00 am

Ponyville Library, Ponyville, Equestria

“Hey Twilight! It’s morning! Can we go now? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can we go now?” Pinkie Pie bounded in circles around the library floor, careful to avoid the several mounds of books Twilight hadn’t yet cleaned up. At least she finished sorting all the library’s books into two piles, one that could beneficial in her research of the meteorites and one that could not. Unfortunately, the former dwarfed the later in size nearly tenfold. Twilight was busy sitting on haunches, staring at the enormous mound of assorted parchment that stood before her. She sighed. Neither of the two mares slept for the remainder of that night. Twilight spent it sorting the books and Pinkie Pie did… whatever it is she does.

“Um…” Twilight blinked. “Sure… I guess. I’m going to get ready. Pinkie, can you go wake the girls? I can get Rarity.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” The pink pony gave a salute.

“Tell them to be here in an hour. We got a lot of area to cover and I’m sure they’ll want to get ready, eat breakfast…”

“Got it!” Pinkie Pie acknowledged as she bounded out the library’s front door, slamming it shut behind her. Twilight winced at the sudden, loud crash that pierced the general quietness of the town. A book toppled off of the giant mountain of tomes and came sailing down, bonking her on her head. Twilight let out an audible groan, as did her stomach. Placing the book back on top of the enormous mountain, she decided to listen to her own words and make something to eat. At eight o’clock they’d be heading out to the Everfree Forest.

\x\x\x\x\

First stop: Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie went into a full gallop across the slowly-waking town. Celestia’s sun was now just above the horizon, basking the sky in a wondrous shade of pink and orange. Just like sherbet ice cream. Oh, how she hasn’t had sherbet in a long time! Pinkie Pie would have to stop by Bon Bon’s parlor to pick some up. Oh! She could bring some for the expedition! Surely everypony would get tired after the long walk searching for the meteors, and what would be better after a long day’s walk than some good old fashion sherbet?

Before she knew it Pinkie Pie soon found herself underneath Rainbow Dash’s cloud house. No doubt the pegasus was asleep this early in the morning, but she needed to get up. Now.

“RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAINNBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW DDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSH!!!”

No reply.

“Rainbow Dash! Come on! Get your flank out of bed!” Pinkie hollered towards the sky, but again got no sort of response. If only she could walk on clouds, oh how she’d…

Pinkie Pie grinned at her wild idea. She needed to get back at Dash after the little fiasco with the noodle incident last week anyhow, and here she could take care of two problems at once. Seemingly out of thin air, the pink party pony withdrew the one thing she never leaves home without. Carefully making adjustments to the pitch and direction, Pinkie Pie aimed the barrel to where the bedroom ought to be.

“Fire in the hole!” Pinkie Pie pulled on the draw string, releasing the air pressure of her party cannon and fired a solid barrage of streamers and confetti into the floating structure. Just as expected, the colorful paper went straight through the cloud floor. A large thump could be head inside followed by muffled curses.

Rainbow Dash, more color in her mane than usual, appeared at her bedroom window. “Alright!! Who’s the wisepony who decided to shoot…” Her angry glare met Pinkie Pie’s ecstatic smile. “…at me. Ugh, nice one Pinkie.”

“Get up!” Pinkie Pie yelled.

“Why? Do you have any idea how early it is!?”

“Sure do!”

“Ugh…” Rainbow Dash facehoofed. “I’m coming…” The cyan pegasus returned to her room and a minute later swooped down in front of Pinkie. “What is it?”

“Some meteors fell into the Everfree Forest last night and we’re going to go look for them!”

“Space rocks? Boring…” Rainbow Dash sighed, ready to go back to bed.

“Oh shush, Dashie,” Pinkie Pie teased. “Come on, it’ll be fun! My Pinkie Sense made a sense that I can’t make sense of! It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Pinkie Pie, you don’t make any sense.”

“Exactly! The only hope of finding out why I don’t make sense is those meteors!”

Rainbow Dash cocked a brow. “Pinkie, if those space rocks will allow you to make logical sense for one moment, then by all means let’s go!”

“That’s the spirit! Now, you go wake up Applejack and I’ll go get Fluttershy! Meet up back at the library!”

\x\x\x\x\

*knock* *knock*

“I’m sorry, but we don’t open until ten. Please come back in a few hours, will you?”

Twilight, irritated, knocked on the door again. “Rarity! It’s me, Twilight!”

The front door of the Carousel Boutique slowly slid open. Rarity stuck her head out into the morning air, eyes squinting.

“Oh Twilight, darling, do you have any idea how early it is?” Rarity groaned, still half-asleep.

“Of course I do! Didn’t you hear or see those meteors fall last night?”

“Meteors!? As in a rock from space fell to Equestria!? I’ll be right out in a moment!” Rarity swiftly slammed the door shut in Twilight’s face. Half a second later it swung open, almost knocking the unicorn over. Rarity hastily stepped out with her saddlebags on and started trotting in impatient circles around Twilight.

“Where did they fall?” Rarity grinned wide. “Come on, I want to get my hooves on one before something awful happens to it!”

“Wow, Rarity.” Twilight shook her head in disbelief. "I didn’t take you as one who’d be interested in astronomy!”

“Astrono-what now? Oh nonono, I just want to harvest the valuable rocks! Could you imagine an exclusive line of dresses the likes that ponydom has never seen before!”

“Right…” There’s the Rarity Twilight knew and loved. “Well, depending on how many samples I’m able to collect, you can take your pick from what’s left!”

“Deal! Now let’s go!” Rarity started to trot away, only to return a few seconds later. “Er… where did they fall?”

“If I tell you, you’re just going to run off by yourself.” Twilight rolled her eyes and walked away with Rarity following close behind. “Pinkie Pie is getting the rest of the girls. We’re going to go together.”

\x\x\x\x\

Rainbow Dash hovered impatiently in front of Applejack’s bedroom window, pounding on the glass. Inside, the orange earth pony stirred awake in bed. She sighed at the sight of a cyan blur floating right outside.

“What is it now, Rainbow?” She asked while lifting up the window.

“Pinkie Pie wants us to meet up at the library. It’s something about her Pinkie Sense and meteors.” She answered.

“Wait… Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense wants us to meet at ta’ library?” Applejack asked, slightly concerned.

“…I guess? I don’t know. Just meet up at the library soon.” Rainbow Dash turned and flew away to get there herself. Things went faster than she expected.

\x\x\x\x\

“FLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTEERRSSHHYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

Pinkie Pie knocked feverishly on the cottage’s door. “WAKE UP FLUTTERSHY!”

Right then and there Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense went off, sending another cold chill down her spine. She stopped to think about what it could mean, but the door swiftly opened and a very restless and ticked off pegasus emerged. “Pinkie! Keep it down!”

“Whoa, sorry… Come on, Twilight wants us to go to the library!”

“I can’t, Pinkie Pie. Tell Twilight that I can’t come… for whatever reason she wants me to be there. I’m a bit caught up at the moment.”

“Well, that’s obviously obvious! You’re so tired!” Pinkie Pie playfully ruffled Fluttershy’s mane in an attempt to make her more awake. It wasn’t working. “Hrmph. What is it that’s got you so preoccupied?”

“Well… I found some sort of animal in the Everfree Forest last night…” Fluttershy mused, deciding not to rat out the crusaders.

“What sort of animal?”

“Well… I…”

Before she could react Pinkie Pie already nudged open the door revealing something covered in blankets and laying in a heap on the living room floor. There was no use hiding it, so Fluttershy stepped aside and let her in. As Pinkie Pie approached it, her poofy mane began to ‘deflate’ at the gruesome work Fluttershy must have put into keeping the animal alive. Lifting the blankets off revealed some unrecognizable animal, and what wasn’t covered in bandages showed off terrible scars and disgusting bruises. Fluttershy had wrapped a very large bandage around its abdomen and another around the top of its head, both seeping red. Several bloodied rags littered the floor, and another cloth rested over its hips. It was asleep, but she could still tell its eyes were abnormally small for an animal its size. What’s more is that it looked like it couldn’t even walk with the way its four legs were arranged.

“Did you shave it?” Pinkie asked, prodding the pink, soft flesh of one of its legs.

“No, that’s one of the stranger things about it! It does have hair all over most of its body, more in… some places than others… but the hair is cut so small... My guess is that whoever stuck it in that tree was very cruel to it.”

“What? It climbs trees?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I don’t know. I found it strapped into a chair or at least something like a chair, and it was hanging from a tree. If I wasn’t there to save it, it would have fallen and probably died!”

The pink pony’s mane slowly started to the resemble cotton candy again, but she still had a curious look of disgust. The poor animal must have been through a lot to end up the way it did now. Pinkie Pie got in for a closer look; inspecting some of its wounds, feeling its smooth pink skin, running a hoof through its mane…

“Um, Pinkie Pie?” Fluttershy tried to get her attention. “That’s there to cover its…”

Pinkie Pie blushed and lowered the cloth back over the animal’s hips.

“Oh. Ehehehe… I see why you have that there…” Pinkie Pie sat on her haunches and shook the image out of her head. “Um, Twilight asked me to bring you to the library but…”

“This is more important,” Fluttershy finished for her friend. “Somepony needs to watch after it.”

“I wish I could help in some way,” Pinkie Pie sighed. “Do you have any idea what it eats? I could bring over some cupcakes for it if it wakes up!”

“Actually, about that…” Fluttershy walked around the animal to its head and pried open its lips with a hoof. Pinkie Pie got a glimpse of its canines and winced.

“I see…”

“Yes, it’s a predator. But it also eats plants.” Fluttershy opened the mouth more and exposed a full set of molars. “And that’s another confusing part. Its teeth are the only indication it eats meat, but its body is in now shape or form capable of being an adequate hunter.”

“Does…” Pinkie frowned. “Does it eat ponies?”

“I hope not.” Fluttershy tilted her head at the animal and chuckled slightly. “And even if it did, it’s in no condition to attack.”

“It doesn’t look like it could even eat, either.” Pinkie Pie poked its nose and playfully smiled. “Why don’t I go to Sugarcube Corner and make a nutrient-shake incase in wakes up so it doesn’t have to eat any of us?”

Fluttershy smiled. “I think that’d be a great idea.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Twilight we won’t be going with her.” Pinkie Pie got up and trotted over to the doorway. “I’ll be back in about… thirty minutes. Be safe.”

Fluttershy waved goodbye as her friend left. Turning her attention to the animal, she started to get curious about the things it had with it. Fluttershy walked over to corner of the room where she stashed its belongings and pulled out its clunky, blood-stained clothes. The stitching alone was enough to tip her off that the creature must be intelligent. Other items included a strange metallic L-shaped thing, some small metal plates strung on a chain, and the animal’s helmet she found it wearing. All these objects just screamed intelligence, but how could such an animal go undocumented in the Everfree Forest? And if there was one, there had to be more. Maybe it was a pet? That might explain why it was wearing clothes; somepony could have made them for it. She’d have to show them to Rarity some time. Maybe the seamstress could identify where they could have been made.

\x\x\x\x\

“Heya girls!” Pinkie Pie bounded towards the library where the rest of her friends were waiting more or less patiently.

“There you are Pinkie Pie!” Twilight smiled. “Um, where’s Fluttershy?”

“About that…” Pinkie rubbed the back of her head. “Fluttershy found some strange animal, and it’s hurt pretty badly. I’m going to stay behind and help her take care of it.”

“But… I thought you were the one who wanted to go search for the space rock?” Rainbow Dash pondered.

“Well, yeah…” Pinkie Pie admitted. “But the poor animal is hurt really badly. Somepony’s got to be there to cheer it up!”

“Well that’s a mighty kind thing for ya to do sugarcube, but isn’t part of this whole adventure about dealin’ with ya Pinkie Sense?”

Pinkie Pie shrugged. “Yeah, spine chills… which is weird because I’ve never had them before so they could mean anything. What’s weirder though is that I got them again when I was at Fluttershy’s home. Maybe it has something to do with the animal? It’s the best lead I got!”

“Alright darling, go right on ahead.” Rarity waved a hoof as if to turn her away. “We won’t stop you. Now why don’t we get a move on girls! Let’s go find me… I mean find us some meteorites!” Rarity declared and galloped away into town.

Applejack watched as Rarity disappeared behind a corner. “Um, does she even know where…”

Twilight hung her head. “No. No she does not.”

“WELL… I’m off! Hope you have fun! Save a space rock for me, okay?” Pinkie Pie waved goodbye as she bounded off to Sugarcube Corner. Rarity reappeared moments after slightly embarrassed, and sat down without so much as another word. Twilight let out in audible sigh. She had just lost the one pony who could maneuver them through the Everfree Forest in a heartbeat, and now with only a party of four it wouldn’t be practical to split into groups of two. Unfortunately, they’d have to stick to finding just one of the two meteorites.

“Come on girls.” Twilight tugged on her saddlebags. “Let’s get going!”