Miles underground, where nothing should have lived.

Filled with toxic radiation; they stirred.

They awoke, chittering from their years long naps.

They had grown grotesque, macabre, horrendous and disgusting.

But they lived

And they were hungry.

Taios sighed as he finally took a break, the 'Hut' as the Vets called it, was actually a mobile base sent down from an orbiting mothership to supply, feed, and shelter the troops sent to ground. Most of the time, an impulse was fired, an electrical code packaged in a parcel of a mini EMP that commandeered any nearby floating nanites, forcing them to morph like Stem Cells and become different metals, alloys, base metals, and components. But after a preliminary scan showed all metallic components (as well as nanintes) obliterated by some unknown event, the techies in charge of the Troopers sent down a massive 3 storey base, complete with turrets, docking stations for air-craft, and a whole host of other things.

He tugged miserably at his skin-tight suit, the troopers hadn't taken them off since they'd arrived, not since the Geiger Radars exploded due to the enormous toxicity levels

For lack of anything better to do, he backed up until he was several meters from the construct, then ran full tilt, wall running, grabbing a jutting piece of machinery, and slowly, methodically climbing up the massive tower.

with a sigh of relief, he leaned back against a Radio tower, now sitting comfortably at the very top.

"YO TAIOS! What're you doing up there man! The fight's down here!" He heard a Vet over his mic, Dane, one of the Snipers assigned to cover the troopers as they methodically built up their defenses.

"On lookout duty! Throw me a rifle!" He shouted back, instantly his PUI lit up, notifying him that an item had been 'gifted' to him him. Checking he smiled, one DASH-TEC PtSI floated in his inventory space.

The PtSI or Planet to Satellite Interface was not exactly a 'Sniper' but it fell under the same class, with a massive Scope able to zoom in on a target on another continent (if the planet was flat). It was used primarily by scouts used to designate targets for overhead satellites to destroy. It was sleek black, the basic design pattern for any DASH-TEC weapon, how ironic that the actual pony the company was based off of was the universally famous Rainbow Dash, the first pony to break the sound barrier un-aided. Who was also technicolored.

The psuedo-barrel was a small and cylindrical, used by a special infrared lazer, the stock was the average model for a gun, triangular in shape, it the bottom of the triangle rested against the ponies shoulder while he/she took the shot. But the site was the biggest, with a base filter that could cut through fog, grass,mountains, and even other living beings, it was affectionately called 'the all seeing eye' by many who used it.

"Thanks Dane!" Said Taios, eagerly sending the blue-prints to the factory building he sat on. In a few seconds, another chime notified him that the PtSI was ready for transfer. And he did as the PUI instructed, 'resoluting' the gun.

"Alright then, camp time!" He chimed laying prone and bringing the scope up to his eye.

But as soon as he did, he saw something, far off into the horizon, a dust cloud began.....moving.

"Command this is Guiding light. Do you this?" He immediately uplinked the gun-site to a live feed system that showed all the crew-members what he was seeing.

"Copy Guiding light, we see it, but we don't know what it is. Keep an eye out." And with that the the radio went dead. He did as he was told, gripping the gun tighter and keeping his eyes wide open.

"Hey Matt? You seeing this?" Kev had been making his way to the planet's surface when something caught his attention. Well a couple things actually; the fact that his Rad-Det (radiation detector) was going hay-wire. And the fact that the planet was....brown. Nothing but brown, cracked earth as far as the eye could see.

"What the hell happened here?" He asked aloud.

"Dunno Kev, looks like some sort of fight or something." Said Matt now rocketing towards him, a thin blue contrail behind the unicorn as he came closer to his deep-floating friend.

"...Maybe, we should take some soil samples or something." He replied. Matt simply nodded, and with that, the two rocketed off towards the planet's surface.

Re-entry

He always loved the burn. The feeling of being a meteor as it rocketed at unimaginable velocities towards a planet's surface. He found himself smiling as he did so.

"Wooooohoooooo! This never gets old!" Shouted Matt, Kev forced himself to turn his head, a task only accomplished by spending hours upon hours facing off against G's that could tear skin from flesh, and flesh from bone.

To his left, Matt was doing cannon-balls, nothing below him to stop his fall. He began spinning faster and faster until his individual features were blurred as his condensed body picked up speed with the sheer absence of gravity. Soon enough though, he pulled out in glamour, pulling off back-flips and pirouettes. And even some Axis spins. Kev smiled and just reclined into a sitting position as he plummeted, 'Free-falling' was just like Sky-diving...only deadlier since the pony free-falling was falling from space. Well not falling, falling would mean they had no control over their directions and that gravity was pulling them downwards.

No, they were jumping. Added to the fact that it was from space, some of the Free-Faller suits malfunctioned, after all, the suit itself wasn't made so much as to withstand hurricane force speeds, rather, it was made to protect it's occupant from deep-space hypo-thermia or asphyxiation. Therefore, jumping always had a risk.

But Kev smiled.

"All part of the job." He thought wryly. Soon enough however, they found themselves using their jet-packs and artificial wings to slow their descent, turning the fall into a fly.

"Alright! Kev! Set down there!" Matt pointed at a spot in the distance. Kev grew a confused scowl before switching on his overlay. Seeing that it was a patch of water.

Once the two coasted near the designated location, they set down, turning off jet-pack and artificial wings.

"Alright, let's see here." Said Kev taking in the sites of the water. It was a small murky pond. And by small, a roadside ditch after a rainstorm would be bigger than it.

Matt snickered as he saw Kev slipping into 'Captain Biologist'.

"Alright, waters murky as fuck obviously. I'm reading high levels of radiation, obvious as well." He seemed to stop and grow a puzzled look.

"I'm also reading high levels of Acetone, methane...and Carbon Dioxide?" He paused for a minute. Matt did too.

"Alright Captain, what's going on?" He asked, though he found himself ignored by the earth pony as he paced mumbling to himself, occasionally walking over and scanning some nearby rocks.

"Hello! YO! Doc!" He screamed waving his hooves comically.

Kev looked up sharply, he had piercing emerald green eyes that really got to you.

"Methane, Carbon Dioxide, Acetone..." he trailed off.

"ENGLISH!" Shouted Matt.

"Something is living on this planet. Probably mutated, do you know what this means? Something happened here." He returned to muttering.

Matt shook his head in disapproval and made a move to walk off.

But something blocked him.

"Wow!" He said falling on his rump, a wall seeming to come from out of nowhere. Massaging his head, he looked up.

"What the he-" he cut himself off as he looked up.

*Static*

*Gunfire*

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!

Zetski had been monitoring both the Free-fall Team and Zapman's vital's feed when he first heard the distress call which came in the form of a ping, a notification. He sent a single thought switch to second channel and in an instant, he was looking through one of the two troopers.

The Faller was staring at his teammate....or what used to be him.

Something had grabbed him and lifted him up, all the while it was screaming...inequinely, something that shook Zetski to the bone. It was like listening to the wailing death-throes of a cat while simultaneously listening to some mutated insect.

The beast itself was massive, twice the size of the trooper, Kev. It was a diseased grey, with blisters and Ulcers running along it's flanks. Zetski could barely make out the Equine features underneath the horrible mass of Faust knows what. It had holes in it's hooves and as he continued staring, Kev shattered his spell

"CHANGELING!" He shouted, the video feed suddenly swung forward as Kev rushed forward. He heard an anguished battle cry as the Free-Faller plunged in his Plasma Lance, a standard issue sword made of nearly a million degrees of heat. The creature screamed in pain, a scream that was not of this world before collapsing, it's head loped off.

But as soon as it fell, several others exploded from the ground.

"THIS IS FREE-FALL UNIT 1! HOSTILE CONTINGENCY! I REPEAT! HOSTILE CONTINGENCY!" He shouted, all the while, a small (standard issue) automated plasma gatling seemed to appear from out of nowhere, sliding into position on his shoulder. It shot at any of the unfaustly beasts closing in from all directions, it's very shape a whir as white hot super-heated bolts of plasma seemed to shoot out like one large beam. Kev himself was hopping around, slicing into an enemy here, wheeling around and stabbing another of the beasts as they tried to corner him and his downed friend.

Matt however, was in horrible condition, a large puncture wound was bleeding profusely as he lay there.

Acting as quick as lighting, Zetski sent a quick thought-message to Zapman with the Faller's coordinates.

BACKUP, NOW. and with that, he sent a thought-message linked to the video feed through the main chat-thouroughfare.

HOSTILE CONTINGENCY

(play now)

Zapman had been on the verge of nodding off when he got the message.

BACKUP, NOW

And as soon as he thought-clicked the message, his extended sniper/eye zoomed in on a writhing mass of....things.

But as he zoomed in further, he could see a trooper. Bleeding heavily, suit damaged and torn beyond recognition, but a trooper non-the-less.

"Alright, lock and load ARC!" He shouted, instantly a bar appeared at the top left of his HUB in his suit. Innocuous by itself, but what it was monitoring was quite substantial: the overheat gauge for the ARC cannon.

He began shooting, the recoil was astonishing, or rather it would have been if he hadn't been in space, and if he hadn't been used to it. On anyone else, even in space it would tear both their front hooves off while burning off their hoof-prints due to the heat.

One ARC discharge was a heated lighting rod of about 7 million volts, more than double the amount of an average bolt of lightning.

There was a reason he was called Zapman.

Without another word, he fired off 3 quick fire shots, with his ultra zoomed scope, he saw that he had vaporized at least 20 of the abominations. Another couple shots, back in a stratospheric environment, the gun would have sounded like a nuke going off. But in space, it sounded like a missile exploding. A hyper-nova missle.

He gritted his teeth and fired another 3 round volley.

30%

Warned the Off-shoot A.I. He paid it no mind as he carefully scoped out his next target. "Switch to Stainless Steel!" He shouted, instantly a ding notified him that the deed had been done.

This time, he saw that the ARC shots had given the trooper some breathing room. The still moving one hauled the injured one, both of them limping. He smiled as they cleared out a bit more. Then, he heard urgent dinging, swinging his rifle around again, he spotted a-

Oh dear Faust, there were....Billions of them. He zoomed out, thinking that he had over-estimated, he thought the writhing mass was only of thousands. But as he zoomed out further and further, and the masses ceased to grow smaller and smaller, he gasped and grimaced in water.

"Boys we're in deep shit here!" He shouted, picking off another couple thousand with another ARC shot, this time he waited because his overheat gauge was getting higher and higher.

"Shit, shit shit shit shit!" He kept repeating.

He was grimacing.

Until he saw the projectiles.

They were blue dots, just mere dots from this range, that was until he saw them starting to get closer and closer. They looked like comets, only...they were heading up.

"SHIT! THEY'VE GOT AA!" He shouted, turning his attention from 'cease-and-assist' to 'defense'. Using the depleted uranium shells, he sniped off the closest of the blue AA fireballs, but they just kept coming.

"Faust help us all." He muttered as he kept shooting, and praying.

Vex sat grimacing, she focused intently on two scale models surrounding her. One was of the ship and the space surrounding it, courtesy of scout-sattelitles. The other of the base. She brought up another one, and to her utter-shock, she saw that there was a whole spot of land. Visible from space, moving and coming closer to her base.

"Alright listen up! I want the Juggernauts out, and I want it yesterday! All personnel on Recon and Resources retreat and prepare for remolding. I want Recon on those two SOB's right at the front line, get em out of the line of fire! And someone radio up Command! Tell em to send the whole Faust damned fleet! And send down 3 more bases! Close clusters everypony we've only got 3 minutes before they're on us! AND FOR THE LOVE OF FAUST SOMEONE START ISSUING ZAPMAN'S AA DEFENSE REQUESTS!" She shouted, the crew was doing a pretty good job of evading the blue hell balls heading their ways. And as the crew and troopers kicked into high-gear. She began issuing build commands for the ground, much like an RTS player would their in-game troops.

First of all, she issued a literal shit ton of Automated Turrets, mortar launchers, Rail Guns, and Concusory nukes. She didn't want to kill off her ground troopers, but she wanted to take at least some of the heat off of them.

As soon as the buildings descended from the ship, evading the now Bulllet-hell seeming mass of energy balls, she issued another build command, a clone factory. Common technology used by the rich to live out their long lives. The trooper's DNA would be stored on back up files on a server in the mothership, a copy would be sent out into a new body, and theoretically speaking, they'd come back to life.

She scowled and focused intently on the grid and layouts in front of her, things were going to get messy.

Crayleene, a greyish unicorn drove her Flutter-corp HST (High Speed Transport) through the seemingly hellish layer of balls upon balls of energy. One mission and one mission only: get to the downed Faller troops, and get the fuck out.

The light-weight vehicle was rarely used and rarely issued, achieving speeds of about mach 30 at fastest, and the controls were massively sticky because of this. The little Transport had a chance of stalling at every sharp turn, at every roll or twist.

Which is why Vex had issued the HST to Crayleene.

And Crayleene had made it her own. Naming it Thunderbird.

But now as the thunderbird screeched through the Ozone layers, she couldn't help but grit her teeth. Her bird was only mere centimeters away from becoming just another flaming wreck. There was no end in site to where these things were coming from, and the sheer madness of flying through these insta-killers was a suicide note in it of itself.

But she was grinning, grinning like a maniac, because of the thrill. The terror of knowing that one wrong move, one loosened flap could lead to a quick and grisly death. The sheer relief of seeing a hole in the ranks of the AA rounds. She pulled into an Aeon rolls to avoid a few getting too close yet too far to pilot normally.

"HELP! FAUST DAMMIT! THEY'RE CLOSING IN ON US! HELP!" She felt rather than heard the raw pleas in the voices of the troopers as she began closing in.

And soon, she saw them; Kev and Matt. Matt was severely wounded, a large red puncture wound hidden by the black suit poured blood and she knew that if he didn't get medical attention soon, he would die. Kev on the other hand, was a dead stallion talking. His suit had torn, exposing his skin to the high-level radiation. Already one of his eyes was gone, milky white and dripping out of the socket. The flesh on his exposed hooves and chest was flayed and tearing, oozing off. It pained her to see him like this, but she knew that as soon as his adrenaline let off, he would be in a world of unimaginable, horrendous pain.

"HOLD ON YOU TWO!" She shouted into the thoroughfare Comms, now on fire with orders being given, and orders taken. As as the occasional cry of help as a scout team got pinned by whatever the hell these things were.

As soon as she was above them however, she pulled the plug on the main engine, and instead diverted power to the many smaller engines used to hover and the main mini-rail gun.

"GET DOWN!" She ordered, immediately Kev let go of Matt and ducked, using his hooves to protect his head. She let out a war whoop and pressed the fire button, lighting up the closest monsters like it was barbecue night on one of those Cannibal planets.

As soon as the lines of changelings had been diminished, she lowered the rear hatch and allowed the two to crawl onto the shuttle, all the while screaming profanities and encouragement dually.

"Glad you two asshats could make it!" She shouted, Matt moaned while Kev tried for a laugh. It didn't work, his lungs and heart must have been ulcered up the ass.

"Look....not.....gonna.....make....it..." He managed to whisper. She sighed and set the ship to auto-pilot.

Once out of the cockpit, she felt the pits of her stomach drop, and tears at the corner of her eyes.

Kev was sitting, clutching his chest as he rasped for air, his breaths coming quick and unevenly. She guessed the bulges under his suit must have been broken ribs.

"Damn it Kev..I-" He held up a hoof, hissing in pain.

"Don't...talk...not...fault." He gulped for air, his pupils dilating and shrinking quickly.

"Connect....now.." He said. She knew the extra strain of linking with her would kill off his servos but as she tried to interject, he roared.

"NOW!" And so, their eyes met, and they began uplinking.

Red flags. Red flags everywhere. Cay could see that her guesses on the ribs was correct, the top most 4 had been broken as well as 2 in the middle. There were foreign growths on his heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and stomach. Blood vessels had been popped, the nerves in his eye had been severed and there were several red flags on that.

But even through his dooming injuries, he passed her a file.

Her tears blurred her own Interface as the download bar popped up.

As soon as it finished, he sighed and leaned back, a massive OFFLINE appearing over his body as the red flags disappeared.

With tears running down her face, she opened the file, and read.

And as soon as she finished, she raced back to her to her seat. He had been carrying vital information. And after reading it, two things had changed:

1. She felt a dawning sensation as she realized that this was going to be a fight, not for her life, but for the lives of everyone.

2. Things had become personal.

"I'll show them hostile contingency." She hissed, her voice dripping with anger.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3: It's not a threat, it's a promise Estimated time remaining: 21 Minutes