“Your objective is to infiltrate enemy lines and gather what information you can while the rest of the battalions set up,” Degouje said over the COM. Degouje Cadenza, the intelligence pony advising me for my mission. Other Recon ponies were being deployed in squads, but I was on my own. In addition, I was deployed via Drop Pod, which isn’t exactly the most comfortable thing in the world.

“After you have gathered what information you deem important, you are to join up with Alpha squad. They should be about 5 Cs from your final position.”

Yeah, but projections can’t predict pony-beings, I thought, annoyed that High command suspected they would know my patterns of operation. But what they thought they knew was definitely wrong. I would learn that later on.

“Once you make contact with Nix’s surface, there will be radio silence. Good luck out there Beta.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly, but I didn’t have my own radio in the pod.

I saw my radar filling with dots to my east; this meant I was close to the ground.

*** *** ***

I heard a nice PFEEEW! As the lid on my pod exploded, letting me exit.

“RRRRRRAAAAAGH!” I heard somepony behind me. Quickly I turned to face my threat thinking, wasn’t I dropping into unoccupied territory?

What I saw surprised me greatly. It was a white stallion in purple armor charging at me with a spear. Needless to say, I parried his feeble blow with my Makk, let it sling to my side on its strap, and pulled out my combat knife. He tried to circle me, but I was too clever. When he stumbled on some rubble I dashed forward, my knife sinking into his flesh as easily as a hot knife through butter.

“Sorry, pal, but you started it.” Then I looked into his eyes. What I saw in his eyes made me wonder, does he know not what is happening?

In his eyes was fear. Perhaps the most deadly weapon on any battlefield.

I loved to use this tactic whenever I could. Being sneaky helps. A lot.

However, I think I was the one who was more scared at this time. Are we even on the right planet? These ponies are acting extremely weird to me. I finally took notice of my surroundings, noting that these native ponies didn’t seem to be bothering me.

I was in a…castle of some sort? I have never actually seen a castle, they were so ancient that every one of them back Feralda, The NLR’s home planet, had been either demolished for building space, worn away by the elements, or just plain buried in dirt over time!

Glancing awkwardly at the assembled native ponies I managed an “Uhh…I’ll just be leaving now…I guess….”

Silence.

“Right then, I’m guessing you won’t be needing this,” I said to them as I pushed the button in my pod labeled, Self-Destruct.

As I ducked for cover, one of the hiding ponies galloped away from me, yelping. I realized I had just landed in her hiding spot.

She was half way across the open area between piles of rubble when I managed to say “Sorr-!”

KAKROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The explosion ripped the skin off of that one, and I’ll not go into further detail, for the sake of your lunch.

“-ry…. Uh, oops?” the other ponies just stared at the charred body, not moving a muscle.

“You killed ‘er!” I heard a mint green pony say, “You killed ‘er just like ‘at?”

“Hey, bro, I said sorry!” Some ponies!

I searched around for a little bit looking for the exit. I had found it, a stairwell.

Just before I walked below, I looked back at the natives, frozen in horror.

Well, at least we speak the same language, I thought with a frown. Some ponies!

Author's Note

Another chapter with minor edits. These short chapters will pop out reeaaal quick because I'm not actually righting, just transferring the content over and fixing some grammar/spelling/things that make this story not suck.
Stay Beautiful.