Fallout: Equestria
Broken Steel

Chapter 2: Not of this World

I stood behind a shattered window looking out into the streets of Ponyville from the second floor of the dead tree that was labelled as the Library. I had spent a good hour in the cellar looking at some old remains. It turned out that some of the residents of 112 had found their way to Ponyville and started a community here before the Raiders came and either killed or sold some of them to Slavers but unfortunately there wasn’t much left to show they had even been here at all. I wouldn’t have found anything if my E.F.S didn’t show the objective marker pointing to the Library and once inside it directed me to the door leading to the cellar.

Raiders were in the streets, small groups of three or four. I guess they are looking to find out what happened to their friends from here when the Stable Dweller took them out. I grinned as I aimed my 50cal out the window and down at the first group I seen. Now it’s my turn. I didn’t have much need for S.A.T.S since my visor enhanced my E.F.S and I was a dead shot with a sniper anyway. I zeroed in on the first Raider and fired. Boom!! My first shot echoed through the streets just as the Raider literally exploded in a gory mess. His two companions froze in fright as they looked at each other coated in their friend’s blood and organs, giving me the perfect opportunity to shoot again. I fired my second shot and the Raider on the right went down with a shot the head, his brains painting his back as the bullet tore through his head. The other Raider, realising there is a sniper in the town dove for cover behind what looked like a mail box with a pegasus on the side. I couldn’t get a decent shot on my target so I aimed for a spot on the mail box hoping for a critical hit on my target when I fired again. My shot pierced the mail box with ease and I heard a meaty slap and then a cry of pain as my shot tore through my target. I watched to see what happened and the Raider stumbled out with a clean hole through her belly. My 50cal had put a clean hole through the belly of this Raider, I couldn’t believe how off my aim was at that. I was about to fire again when I noticed more red contacts appearing on my E.F.S closing in on both sides, at least six were running towards my location. Its no surprise to me they discovered where I am, my thunderous 50cal shots could be heard half way across Equestria.

I opened my storage compartment and pulled out the Lever-Action Shotgun as I would be reduced to close quarters combat. At least my armour was strong enough to withstand the pathetic weapons these idiots use and I think this will be a good opportunity to get some close range weapon practice. Hovering the weapon by my side I started to trot down the stairs heading to the front door, waiting for the Raiders to start piling in.

I waited for a little while but nopony kicked the door in and come charging at me. I looked at my E.F.S and I could see that they were just standing there on either side of the door. Letting out an annoyed moan I trotted to the door, extending my magic to grip the door knob I pulled it open and then I was met by an electronic beeping noise. BEEP! BEEP!! I looked down in time to see four mines on the doorstep “Oh smeg” I cried and before I could do anything. Ka-Boom!!! I had never felt so much pain in my life as I was sent flying backwards into the bookshelves from the blast. I received crippled forelegs and my armour also received some nasty fractures to its armour plating on the forelegs and chest. I moaned from the pain as I rolled back onto my belly to pick myself up as my armour suit’s medical system kicked in and applied healing and restoration potions to fix me up but unfortunately my armour wasn’t near anything that could be labelled as scrap metal so it couldn’t be repaired.

As I was recovering the Raiders began to enter the library. Luckily for me my lever-action shotgun had landed beside me and I quickly picked it up with my magic and stood with a groan. I may have been healed but fuck it still hurts. “What the fucking hell? That bitch is still alive” The lead Raider of the group shouted in disgust at the failed attempt to kill me with the mines. “That’s right you fuckers, I’m not dead yet” I shouted back in anger as I fired my first shot from the lever-action. The buckshot peppered the whole group but from the range I fired it from it only caused minor damage, more of an irritation than any harm. I then broke into a gallop, charging at the Raiders as they readied their guns and before any of them could get a fix on me I ploughed into the lead Raider with a satisfying crunch as my heavily armoured body broke his ribs, collapsing his lungs. He fell instantly unable to breath. One of the Raider’s holding a sawn-off in her mouth fired, the poor condition weapon didn’t help make the shots lethal as the buckshot from it pinged off my armoured hide harmlessly. The other Raiders had melee weapons, a pool cue, like that’s gonna do anything to me, and a combat knife with a serrated edge and again, that’s gonna do fuck all to me. I entered S.A.T.S for the first time in possibly years and took aim at the Sawn-off, I toggled a singled shot to her head before turning to the other two and doing the same. It felt weird being in S.A.T.S as time seemed to come to a stand still so I could get my targets and once I ended the spell, everything returned to normal but I got off three shots with the shotgun in quick succession thanks to S.A.T.S. Sawn-off went down without a head and so did Pool Cue but Combat Knife seemed to have moved somewhat so my shot didn’t hit her head. Instead it tore into her lower back and she went sprawling on the floor. She was still alive as I trotted up to her.

“Please, I don’t wanna die” She begged rather pathetically.

That pissed me right off, a Raider begging for mercy. Didn’t she know who the fuck she was talking to?

“You should have thought about that before you murdered everypony I knew” I growled angrily at her.

“I didn’t do anything to you”

“You fucking Raider bitches murdered my whole Stable”

“We didn’t do that! We never been near a Stable”

“I DON’T FUCKING CARE, YOU’RE A RAIDER AND ALL YOU FUCKERS ARE THE SAME” I yelled filling with deep rage as memories of what I saw in my Stable before I left came flooding back.

She whimpered, tears in her eyes from her fear of death and me. “Please, I didn’t do anything to you”

“Didn’t do anything to me, you RUINED MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE” I screamed at her and I raised a fore hoof. I couldn’t control myself, I was being driven by my rage, I would never consciously do this. I could see her eyes widen as she watched me raise my hoof. “Please Celestia no” She wept and I then brought down my hoof so hard that the Raider’s head exploded in a wet and crunchy splat as I curb stomped her. I let out a deep growl of anger as I used my magic to pull off my helmet, dropping it on the floor before I let out an angry scream. “I’M GONNA KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU RAIDER FUCKS”.

I stepped out of the library looking at my E.F.S and saw that the remaining Raiders were running away, fleeing after hearing me scream. I couldn’t blame them. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to clam myself down. If I was a smart pony I would have realised I had an anger problem. After several minutes I calmed down enough to be able to think clearly. My E.F.S became clear as the Raiders fled the area.

Bang, the sound of splintering wood brought me back to my senses. I looked around for anypony breaking wood, expecting a Raider with a Ponyball Bat to have broken it on something but as I turned my gaze fell on the door frame of the dead tree library and the rest of the tree. Large cracks had formed in the body of the tree and seemed to stretch up its trunk. Inside I could see the first floor sagging lower than I remembered. I heard another splintering bang and the first floor sagged lowered and I then realised what was happening, the library was collapsing. I began to run away from it until I remembered I had left my helmet in there. “Ah shit!” I said to myself out loud as I turned and went into full gallop to go and retrieve it before it got crushed but unfortunately as I got half way to the library there was one final bang of breaking wood and the whole inside of the library came crashing down. I saw my helmet get crushed by the weight of the several floors coming down on it. I knew those mines packed a punch when they sent me flying but to cause enough damage to make the library collapse, damn!

“Ah for fuck sake, my helmet” I moaned to myself as I had just lost an important part of my armour. Yeah, it was really important. I know some Steel Rangers opted out of having helmets, saying they cut some visibility and made them look like monsters. I could agree with the monster part with the dragon like spines and sail like appears of the back of the helmet that housed our mane but it saved your life from being shot in the head. My helmet was indeed very important as the visor built into it enhanced my E.F.S range and the right side lens had my 50cal’s scope system installed.

Oh yea, didn’t tell you about that did I? My 50 Caliber Anti-Machine Sniper doesn’t have a scope built onto the weapon as it was designed to be used on a battle saddle and so if it was connected to a battle saddle that is mounted on magical power armour it would auto install the software drivers into the suit’s systems so the helmet’s visor could act as the scope, also the helmet controlled the movement of the gun’s aim, where my head pointed, the gun’s positioning arms moved it accordingly. My sniping ability with the 50cal had be reduced a lot but thankfully the 50cal was also designed to work without a helmet but aiming it manually is hard and to get a target for it, it had a laser sight mounted above the gun barrel on the main housing in front of the ammo feeder.

xxxxx

I began hearing that awful March of the Parasprite music again. The tell tale sign of a Spritebot nearby. I had left Ponyville and was heading over some hills away from the Raider town when I heard the coming bot. The music stopped behind me and I turned around, almost slapping the Spritebot out of the air with the long barrel of the 50cal.

“Whoa, careful with that thing” The tinny voice of Watcher called out.

I thrusted the large barrel up against its visual sensor. “I am not in the mood” I growled.

“Easy there Appletart”

“Ugh, sorry Watcher, I’m not a happy pony right now”

“Yes I can tell from the tone in your voice and what I just witnessed in Ponyville” The bot hovered silently for a moment before speaking again. “Did you find anything regarding the residents of Stable 112?”

“Not much, found a room in the cellar of the library which contained some items from them and a couple of notes saying how they had found this town empty and began to make it they’re home. I guess the Raiders killed them”

“That’s unfortunate”

There was a distant boom from somewhere far away but I heard Watch cry out in surprise and the sound of the boom a lot louder from the speakers of the Spritebot. With a burst of static the little robot began playing that music again and started hovering away.

“What was that?” I asked myself. I shrugged it off and began trotting down the hill until I heard something in the sky. Something like a sonic boom. I looked back behind me and saw something smoking in the sky, descending down from the cloud layer near the mountains. It must have been huge as I could clearly see a T shaped object falling down at a steep angle with jets of flame coming out from behind it. I watched as more jets of flame erupted from its underside, pulling it out of its steep dive. As I watched I noticed it was heading right for me and still falling. In seconds the huge object passed over me, I could feel a tremendous down draft from the jets of fire below it as it flew over me. I was amazed the thing was flying, it didn’t look like it could even fly, it was too boxy and didn’t have anything that looked remotely like a flying device, no propellers or anything. Its front looked like it had been on fire as the front and the underside of the forward half were stained black but the rest of it seemed to have a goldish colour to it.

I was intrigued by this, finding myself curious to what this thing could be as it flew, dropping lower every second. I began galloping after it, my gaze locked on it as it flew. I began climbing a hill still watching the object as it passed over the hill. It had gotten a lot lower before disappearing over the hill and I noticed small explosions coming off its side segments. Before I reached the top of the hill I heard an equestria shattering bang as the huge heavy object hit the ground and that was followed by teeth grinding metal on dirt and rock screeching as it grinded against the dirt floor. When I reached the top of the hill, the massive object had come to a stop about a mile and a half away in the middle of some barren land. From up here I could see it was indeed T shaped with one long central section with two smaller segments mounted on the rear half. As I looked at it I noticed it was bent. Its thinner front half had been pushed back against itself, forcing it to bend from the heavier rear half pushing against it. The front half was at an angle from the rear half leaving a large triangular gash in its right side, a perfect entry point. I started down the hill to examine it.

xxxxx

This thing was huge, clearly the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in Equestria. I walked down its right side external segment. Looking up at the wall of scratched gold painted metal I noticed a huge insignia painted on its side. It looked like a swooping bird of prey in a circle but the circle stopped where it met its wings. The insignia was coloured white with a black background. Passing that I then noticed writing, it was named but…I don’t believe this, it’s in equestrian, in our native language. I began to wonder if we really did make this. It doesn’t look like anything we’ve ever made before but the fact its lettering was equestrian, I wasn’t sure. Oh, its name, sorry, its name read “GDCS KODIAK II”. I’m guessing the first part is an abbreviation and the last, must mean a number since neither of them form a word. Its name didn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before either. Just what is this thing?

I had to estimate this thing to be at last two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet long, it was gigantic. I found the huge hole in its side, an almost perfectly clean split in the metal hull but the floors and rooms looked like they had been ripped apart as metal was twisted and mangled where it seemed to have stretched before breaking and furniture and other equipment had fallen over or fallen down into the hole. I saw that the split had opened up to a corridor running down into its interior. “In I go” I said to myself.

Trotting down a corridor I was amazed at the size of it from the inside, even in my armour there was plenty of room in here for like four ponies to be walking side by side. More reason for me to think this isn’t a pony made object. Despite its roominess the corridor was filled with wreckage, well, bits and bobs that weren’t secured had been thrown all over the place like somepony threw a wild party in here.

I entered an even larger corridor, according to my Pipbuck’s local map screen, this corridor ran the length of the thing as it was just one long corridor as far as my Pipbuck’s scanner could reach. Looking up I saw an illuminated sign hanging from the ceiling. It read “Bridge” with an arrow pointing down towards the front and “Engineering” with an arrow pointing toward the rear. Stepping into the corridor I looked to my left, towards Engineering and gasped as I saw the floor and ceiling a little further up the corridor has been pushed up and down, closing off the corridor to the rear half. Must be damage from the bending of the hull I assumed and so I looked down the dark long corridor towards the Bridge. I figured going to the Bridge would be a good place to start exploring this thing as from what books I’ve read back in Stable 88 about old sailing ships was that the Bridge is where the ship is controlled from.

The corridor towards the Bridge began to show more signs of damage from its impact with the ground as I started seeing many buckled panels, ceiling panels and the floor being bent or twisted and from some holes in the walls and ceiling from where panels had fallen away with loose wiring were lots of sparks. “Warning!! Multiple system failures detected, Warning!! Multiple system failures detected” Called an electronic female voice from an unseen speaker. I nearly shat myself in fright as I wasn’t at all expecting a voice to suddenly call out from nowhere. “Fucking Celestia” I screamed “That scared me half to death” I complained as I continued on. It took me a little while to reach the Bridge due to the length of the corridor and the damage it sustained towards the front. In that time the same electronic female voice repeated more failures, it even stated some of them, ones that seemed important like Life Support. That one didn’t bother me since I knew the thing was exposed to the outside air.

The door to the Bridge was closed but the control panel to the right of the door was glowing green meaning it was still active so I used my magic to press the door control button. With a metallic screeching and a hydraulic hiss the door slowly opened vertically, like that of most doors in my Stable. Once the door had opened I gasped at what I saw. Inside were six bodies, bodies that were NOT of ponies. I knew now this wasn’t a pony made thing, it was alien, those bodies were alien.

Inside, despite the fact the thing hit the ground just below this room it was in rather good condition apart from the blood and shattered windows which let in the natural, but gloomy, day light in. Three of these aliens were still strapped into their seats but the other three looked to have been thrown from somewhere against the walls from how they were crumpled up on the consoles and the blood splatters on the walls and window frames. Those in the seats most of been so violently shuck from the crash that either their necks or spines were broken. All six of them were wearing some sort of uniform that was the same coloured gold as the painted metal of the outside of this thing, they also bore the same insignia on their chests. These aliens were odd looking things, pale skin on some, yellowish on another and brown on another. They only had fur on their heads, well I think its fur, some had fur on their arms but it wasn’t as covered as their heads. Their uniforms hid most of their features but I was sure as hell not gonna touch them. Looking at them closely I was able to tell which were males and which were females, their gender difference was easy to notice. It hit me, these were the only bodies I’ve found since I entered this thing, I’d not seen a single body walking down that central corridor. A ship this big, can’t have been piloted by just six creatures like these.

I was curious to know what happened here, why these six were the only ones in here and why it dropped out of the sky and the biggest question I guess I had was, where the hell did this come from? Looking at one of the bodies I noticed it had an outstretched arm as if reaching for something. I followed the direction the arm was pointing and noticed a screen that was still working. Looking at the flickering screen I saw it was set to play something as on the screen it read “Touch screen to play last recording”. Curiosity getting the better of me I touched the screen with my horn and the screen flickered off and then back on, showing one of the dead creatures looking back at me as it began to speak in a deep, gentle male voice.

“This is Captain Michaelson of the GDCS Kodiak two. I am recording this message because our mission is a failure, our ship has been damaged and we are unable to fix the damage and continue on our mission” I sat on my hunches as I watched and listened, at the end of that he looked distressed and pained and when he spoke again it was reflected in his voice.

“If this ship survives the crash on the planet below, I would like the inhabitants to know what happened here, or if the Kodiak three finds us” He took a deep breath before continuing.

“Ninety years ago our world, planet Earth was hit by a meteor that carried with it a poisonous plant life form which we called Tiberium. It began to grow on our world like a weed, spreading and popping up everywhere. Tiberium first appeared as green crystalline structures which seemed to stick closely to a water sources at first but after several months it spread out across the whole planet.

Five years after its arrival Tiberium was present in over two hundred locations around the world and had become recognised as a valuable resource as when it grows it soaks up most of the soil’s minerals making it very profitable when harvested. This sparked a conflict, a world war with a terrorist group calling themselves the Brotherhood of Nod. We of the GDI, Global Defence Initiative, fought back against the Brotherhood and won, but the war never ended really, by 2020 we realised that our war with Nod was only a minor problem as the real war was with Tiberium. It was growing faster and changing, making new threats like mutations and poisoning our people. We knew then that if we didn’t act soon, we’d loose our world to Tiberium” He stopped for a moment to rub his eyes and looked back behind himself for a moment before returning to the screen.

“In 2030 we were at a critical stage, our world was on the brink of dying, the level of Tiberium had killed at least four billion people and the constant battles against Nod killed a further billion. Soon another war erupted and we learned that the leader of Brotherhood’s master plan was to use a missile to turn the entire planet into a Tiberium world, claiming that Tiberium was our next step in human evolution…”

I paused the video for a moment, shocked and interested at the same time to what was happening to these…humans. I thought we had it bad during the Great War. I looked back at the video and resumed it.

“…No, Tiberium would kill us all, no human could live with it. If anyone got infected it would slowly crystallise your body, turning you into a Tiberium Crystal. Luckily for us we managed to stop the mad man from launching it and to our amazement we also recovered some sort of crystal ball which turned out to be some kind of data matrix. It wasn’t man made as there weren’t any tool marks or anything to that looked remotely human about it and with the fact we couldn’t read the data since there wasn’t anything that could read it, we came to the conclusion that it was some sort of alien artefact. As the years passed we were able to decode some of the data on the matrix, we learned that the matrix itself was called the Tacitus and that it housed data on Tiberium or as it said on the Tacitus, Ichor.

We had managed to make changes that allowed us to greatly slow down the spread of Tiberium thanks to the Tacitus but our world was still under threat. Even though we were unlocking its secrets we still hadn’t found a cure. In 2047 a third war erupted with Nod but this war took a turn none of us expected. Close towards the end of the war we were tricked into using our Ion Cannon to destroy a Nod temple which when it exploded, it also detonated a liquid Tiberium bomb which was what Nod had planned from the beginning.

Soon after that event we were invaded by an alien race called the Scrin. They proceeded to attack anyone and anything when they landed all around our world. We soon learned that this was just a diversion to keep us occupied while the aliens built strange towers. Getting our act together we started pushing through the alien’s defences, destroying tower after tower until we came to the last one which Nod seemed to be defending for some reason. The aliens retreated though this tower afterward and the tower went silent then. The aliens had the firepower but not the numbers in conquering us so we assumed that what invaded wasn’t a proper invasion force, more like a harvesting force to build those towers.

We continued to try to unlock the secrets of the Tacitus but were still not finding a cure and our world was slowly dying. By 2072 our planets population was down to barely four hundred million and we were still nowhere near making a cure and so, with nothing else to do we began to form an evacuation plan. Earth was going to die, no matter what we did to slow the spread of Tiberium. Our only chance was to leave our world and find a new home. We quickly designed two ships, a scout ship and a transport ship. The first was this one, the GDCS Kodiak two. This ship was designed to transport a good number of GDI personnel in stasis and was programmed with an AI to search for a new planet capable of sustaining human life. The other, the Kodiak three was to bring the remaining human population to the new world once we found it.

A few days ago the Kodiak two flew into a nebula. We had flown through nebulas before but this one was different, this one seemed to have a high electronic charge and once we were in it, the flight crews were awakened from stasis to help keep the ship flying as the systems were being fried. We managed to get out of the nebula by altering course but after we left it, our ship was so damaged that barely anything worked. We were on a collision course with a planet a few days out.

The technicians did what they could to try to fix the damaged systems but still we were locked on a collision course. Most life support systems had been fixed and some flight controls but still not enough to get us back on course. As the captain I knew we weren’t going to escape this so I ordered for the ship’s evacuation. I was going to stay behind as it was with some older traditions for the captain to go down with the ship. My five closest friends wouldn’t leave with the others, I can’t blame them either. We had been through two wars together, fought at each other’s side and helped each other out through thick and thin. I wouldn’t of left them either.

We found that our mid range scanners were still operational and we discovered that the planet we were heading for had life on it. We were just going to sit and wait for the ship to slam into the surface but since this planet has life we have to do what we can to make sure we don’t kill anything if we can help it. The Ion Reactors on this ship would cause an explosion that could be roughly as strong as a nuclear bomb or more. The ships stabilising thrusters are still operational and we should be able to bring this ship out of a dive and land it on its underside. We might have been able to land it if the main thrusters weren’t stuck on full power.

We are sorry we failed.

This is Captain Michaelson of the GDCS Kodiak two signing off”

With that the screen went black. I looked back at these aliens, these humans. They had it worse than we did and they paid the ultimate price, they lost their world.

“WARNING!! ION REACTORS DESTABLISED, WARNING!! ION REACTORS DESTABLISED” Blared the most terrifying warning siren I’ve ever heard. I remembered from the recording that the human said these were bad and I didn’t want to stick around for when they went off. I began racing out of the Bridge and up the central corridor to the corridor I used getting in. In my panic I took a turn too early and ran down a corridor that led deeper into the ship instead of towards the break.

I must have taken turn after turn as I ran deeper and eventually ran into a dead end. I couldn’t for the life of me remember which way I had come getting in, the panic in me building. I lifted my Pipbuck so I could see the map and to my horror the screen was flickering so badly I couldn’t make out anything. There was usually nothing that could interfere with the Pipbuck’s operation but something in this ship was affecting it. Panicking wasn’t going to get me anywhere except getting me killed. I took some deep breaths to calm myself down and looked around, thankfully I noticed direction signs on the walls and found some pointing me back to the central corridor.

“WARNING!! ION REACTOR DETONATION IN FIFTEEN MINUTES, WARNING!! ION REACTOR DETONATION IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. ADVICE REACHING MINIMAL SAFE DISTANCE”

I got a lot of ground to cover to get away from this so I began to gallop as fast a I could back out into the central corridor and continued onwards to the corridor close to the break that lead to the way out. More warnings sounded as I ran, my progress was being hampered slightly as the longer I took running down the corridors the more explosions that ripped out of the walls, floors and ceilings. This whole ship was tearing itself apart. An explosion erupted out of the wall beside me and flung me into a closed door, my ears were ringing and I could feel a warm dampness in my fur on my right cheek as a piece of metal cut my cheek open. My suit’s medical system kicked in and gave me a healing potion injection to close the wound. I hate that system sometimes, it’ll give me a healing potion sometimes for a scratch or something that wasn’t serious at all, like that scratch. Hearing the warning sound again, over the ringing in my ears, saying I now had ten minutes to get clear, I bolted.

I jumped out of the break in the hull and started galloping as fast as I could in just one direction to get as far away from the ship as possible. I counted that I had about two minutes to get clear when all of a sudden a pony dressed in black power armour with an insectoid like stinger tail and antenna like beam weapons landed in front of me. “Halt!” She barked at me but I just changed course to avoid running into her. “I said halt” She screamed from behind me after I shot past, I looked around for anything to take cover behind and thankfully I saw a large rock which could shield me, I hope. Diving behind it I braced myself for the explosion I knew was coming.

The same armoured pony landed again in front of me behind the rock with me, she didn’t look happy. Now that I wasn’t running I noticed she’s a Pegasus pony. Armoured pegasus pony, that means…

“I told you to stop damn it”

“What the…fuck is…Enclave…doing here?” I screamed, panting heavily from all my running.

“I’m asking the questions here, what are you running from?” She demanded.

“That thing…going to go…boom” I gasped getting more air into my lungs.

“What?”

“Its going to…explode” I wore a serious expression that told her I’m-not-shitting-with-you. She flapped her wings to get airborne just enough to see over the rock. I saw her face go grim “Oh shit, my squad” she screamed before she took off. I lay down and put my hooves over my head and braced myself.

I heard the most deafening explosion ever, forcing me to put my hooves over my ears from the explosion. All around me everything was bathed in a bright blue light from the explosion. I felt a massive rush of wind as the blast started blowing everything around it away like paper, I even saw a dead Enclave pony shoot past along with bits and pieces from the ship.

There was then a far more power explosion, I felt its shockwave run through the ground under me and then I heard it, the sound of my rock cover breaking. “Oh shit” and then it exploded and I was sent flying with the rest of it from the powerful blast of wind. Screaming as I flew, I then felt something hard hit the back of my head, there was a sharp pain and then my vision started going dark as I blacked out before I landed and was partially covered in dirt.