X-PONY/X-COM: The Extraterrestrial Combat Unit

Chapters

The begining (prolog) (Orginal)
The First Alien War begins (Orginal)
Enemy Unknown (Orginal)
Terror in Draceville (Orginal) re-writhen chapters awaited
The begining (prolog)
The First Alien War begins
Enemy Unknown
Terror in Draceville
Back at Treetop Base
A new pony recruted
X-COM equipment (will be updated)
Cancellation

The begining (prolog) (Orginal)

The begining

Introduction

It is 1999 and Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have started appearing with disturbing regularity in the night skies. Reports of violent pony, griffin, dragon, buffalo and zebra abductions and horrific experimentation struck terror into the hearts of millions. The mass public hysteria has only served to expose Magica's impotence against a vastly superior technology.
Many countries initially attempted to deal independently with the aliens. In August 1998, Griffin island established an anti-alien combat force; the Razor Talons. Equipped with Griffin-made fighter aircraft, the Razor Talons certainly looked like a powerful force. However, after 5 months of expensive operations they had yet to intercept their first UFO. The lesson was clear: this was a worldwide problem which could not be dealt with by individual countries.
On December 11, 1998, representatives from the worlds most economically powerful countries gathered secretly in Treetop City. After much debate, the decision was made to establish a covert independent body to combat, investigate and defeat the alien threat. This organization would be equipped with the world's finest pilots, soldiers, scientists and engineers, working together as one multi-national force. This organization was named the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit.

***

Prelude

1947

Equestria Army Pegasi Corps personnel from the 509th Bomb Group report the crash of a "flying disk" in the desert near
Appeloosa, Buffalo territory. Some reports claim that there were two objects, and that one actually housed three alien beings: two dead and one alive. Before the end of the day, Equestria Army Pegasi Corps officials retract the story, claiming that the object that crashed was actually a weather balloon. The existence of alien beings is categorically denied. All of the "weather balloon" debris and other physical evidence of the "Appeloosa Incident" are quickly whisked away to Wright Airfield in North montains.

1997

Reports of the UFO activity increase thoughout the world. At first, the sighting are relatively rare, and serious scientists write off the reports as hype surrounding the 50th anniversary of the Appeloosa incident. However, as reports continue to increase, the legitimate press joins the tabloids in plashing "We Are Not Alone" headlines across the front page of major metropolitan newspapers all over the world.

1998

Documented cases of pony abductions by UFOs become commonplace in areas of sparse population in countries throughout the world. World governments step up their military readiness, and there is a general news blackout in most of the affected countries. Scientists try to make contact with the aliens, but there is no substantial response.
Many countries begin to contemplate a direct military strike against the aliens. Griffin island, taking the lead with it's stereotypical blind bravery and courage, forms the 'Razor Talons' , an anti-alien combat force. After five months of operation, using the best equipment available, the group is unable to intercept even a single UFO. Due to lack of funding, Griffin island is forced to disband the Razor Talons in November of 1998.
On December 11, 1998, the United Nations Security Council holds a clandestine summit in Treetop City, Evergreen forest. After much debate, it is unanimously decided that a covert, multinational force should be formed to investigate, combat, and (hopefully) defeat the aliens. Assembling the best pilots, soldiers, engineers, and scientists from all the funding nations, the Treetop City council establishes X-COM - the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit.

The First Alien War begins (Orginal)

The First Alien War (AW-I)

Comander Kim F.'s log:
1999 January 1st: The First Alien War Begins
'We have got our base under Treetop City astablished now. X-COM is redy. Equipment in top class, armour of best quality, best troptransport and air intercept craft availebul. Soldiers eger to fight against the aliens. Radars of the best computer to find. Now it is only to wait. And I hate waiting.'
Morning log entry over.

I got up from my chair and was going to go to the mes hall for breakfast. I walked down the steps from my offic and wandered if we culd get som action soon and not have bean a fireplace for money like Razor Talons was. I cuckled when I thout how bored thos Griffins must have bean. When I got to the mes hall I saw it that nopony was there. Then I relised how dump I was. I was the alien contaonment's mes hall. I culd not belive that I have forgot my own base's layout alredy. I walked away from the alien containmen facility and tryed to find my way to the mes hall. It took me half an houre to find it. It was the second facility behinde the third living quater.

If you wonder how I got to be a Comander when this is the first day for X-Com. Well just say I have my contacts and that the earth pony that was suposed to be our comander got into a coma by get to know that our base was underground.

And by the way I am a unicorn whit cream colored coat and black mane and mustch. And you can simply referens me as Comander Kim, or els you will be executed.

Now the brackfast was the usual. Vegstebulls. I took as I said the usual I eat every breakfast. A cup of tea and a dasie sandwitch.

I know this is not interesting so I will skip to the afternoon.

In total we where 50 ponys in this base. 10 scientists, 10 engeneers, 3 pilots, 14 soldiers (including myself), 5 medics and 8 chefs.

The other soldiers,medics,scientists,pilots and engeneers was bored out of there mind. The pegasuses was flying in the hangars for the planes, the other unicorn playing card in the radar room and the earth ponys dansing in the mes hall. I? I was on my way to the my living quater to take a nap. When I was by my bed the alarm whent of.

''Warning! Warning! UFO detected!'' was herd from the spekers.

Finaly I thout. Now we can have fun.

I galoped to the wepon room but it looked like i was to late. It was only 1 stune sod, 1 granade, 1 pistol, 3 clips to said pistol and 1 electro-flare. The unicorns needed all there magic to there whepons so use it fore light spells was not good. I looked if it was anything els but nothing. I sighted a hatefull sight. If I don't get to kill an alien today I will not let the soldiers back to the base until I kill one alien.

I tock what i culd and run of to the Skyranger. All 13 other sooldiers plus our pilot waiting for me to do the battle peping speach. But I had not the temper to do thet right now (and cuse I am not so good at english as you can see by my grama fail and spel fails) and only shoted at them to come onbord. The Intercepter 1 hade got lucky enouth to come close enouth to use its cannon to send it down. We was alredy runing low on money by all purcased extra equipment.

When we landed at the crash site it was dark. But the sky was clear and light blue. Then I turned around and saw it was a montain there and it come smoke from the side of it. It looked like a 5km walk. The 5 pegasuses in the team was not alowed to fly up to the treetops becures it wuld tell the aliens where we where.

We started walking. The pegasuses flying near the ground so they culd hold ther wepons in there fore hoves, the unicorns levitated our weponry whit our magic and the earth ponys had there whepons in there mouth. I was glad the used pistols and not bigger guns. It wuld be harder to use them then it alredy was for them whit simple pistols.

To be continued

Enemy Unknown (Orginal)

Enemy Unknown

As the team walked and flow through the forest in direction to the mountain and smoke pillar we had a feeling of being watched. I was in the lead of course and still angry for the lack of good weaponry that I got. I had hoped to use the rocket luncher but one of the Pegasi had got it. But at least we have a mission. Razor Talons did not even get to encounter a UFO in the air. We have downed one and now about to scavenge it.

When we got out of the forest and to the foot of the mountain we heard something in the bushes behind us.
Then a green energy projectile shot out and nearly hit one of the unicorns in the head.

The whole team turned around only to see something running to the Skyranger.
The thing looked grey and bipedal but and was only a bit higher then me. And I was the next tallest pony in the base.

Half of the team ran after the alien back into the forest.

The other 6 ponies and I started climbing the mountain. Only 3 unicorns (me included), 2 earth ponies and 2 pegasus, one of whom had the rocket luncher.

When we finally came to the crash site we got attacked with the same green projectiles as before. One of the projectiles hit one of our Pegasi in the face and he fell to the ground like a rock, dead.

6 left and with who knows how many and what enemies. One of the unicorns primed and threw a grenade. When we herd the explosion we thought we had won. We were still under attack. And we heard the enemy approach.

I looked out from behind a rock I was hiding behind. I saw that it was one of the same species as before. Grey and bipedal whit a head as wide as its body and whit big black eyes. Its nose was small and flat and a small mouth. It's arms and legs thin and no hooves.

I moved out of my hiding place and started shooting at it with my pistol. It withstood 6 shots before it went down screaming in agony. From the bullet holes came a green liquid that I presume would be its blood.

I turned around to look at the UFO. Its front was still intact but it came thick black smoke from the top of it. Something had exploded when it crashed. I herd an explosion from the direction of the forest. And a Pegasus flying up to the sky in celebration. That alien was killed. The other 5 in my group walked out of there hiding spots. I turned to the front of the UFO again and its door flew open. Smoke coming out in thick clouds. An alien halted and fell unconscious on the ground.

We waited for more aliens to come out but nothing happened. After 3 minutes the smoke was cleared and I walked inside. The center of the UFO was blown to pieces and there was 2 bodies on the ground. There was a hole in the roof exactly at the middle of the UFO. It excisted five trashed bases for chiers around the crater. I counted up how many alien bodies we encountered here plus the one in the forest and got 5 alien. We have cleared the UFO.

I walked out and ordered scavenging of the UFO. 4 soldiers walked into the UFO for the scavenging. The Pegasus with the rocket luncher guarded the unconscious alien and aimed at its head.

I chuckled and said, ''Bomb Wing you know that is a wast of good rockets.''

Bomb Wing frowned and put the luncher away taking out his Pistol instead.

''That's better.'' I said.

When I turned around and walked up to the alien I had killed, I heard Bomb mutter ''Kill joy.''

I rolled my eyes and started scavenging the body for equipment. It looked like it had pockets in on its torso. And they looked out of place like they were surgically added. On the ground was its weapon, a long blue tube like firearm. The tube looked like it could fit one and a quarter grenade. When I started searching the body I found what I presume was clips for the weapon and some kind of grey and orange orb. The item looked nothing more then it would be of any use. I thout back to the explosion I heard six minutes before. It could not have bean one of our grenades and it did not sound like a High Explosive.

I mumbled to myself. ''Could this be some kind of grenade and what that kind of power?''

I put the object on the ground carefully and returned to scavenge the body. I did not find any more equipment.

I put what I had found in the sample saddlebag.

When we returned to the base and left what we had found to the scientist and put the unconscious alien in the alien containment it was time for the funeral.

It was a simple ceremony. We put the body in for cryogenic freeze and then in the freeze room in the bottom layer of the base. We could not have a funeral outside with an alien invasion going on. The bodies of the dead would be de frosted after the war so they could get a proper funeral but for the moment this was the best we could do.

I looked at the monitor with a sigh. It said:

R.I.P

X-COM soldier

Whirlwind

Rank: Rookie

Killed in battle at age: 35

1999 January 1st

You call that flying?

Commander Kim F.'s log
1999 January 1st: Night report
Our first battle was good. Now we know what our enemies look like. We have also got one alive specie from the crash site and much alien equipment and craft technology.
But one thing I don't like is how resistant this things are. And their weaponry is more powerful then expected. We need to start use our prototype weaponry research. If we can't kill them faster we will get killed like Whirlwind.
Our radar systems must also need to be upgraded to take a bigger area. If not Interceptor 1 was on patrol we would have missed that UFO. We need to get our technology up to their level or we will be defeated in a year.
We need to use public recruiting to get soldiers now.

X-Com Commander Kim F. out.

To be continued

Credit to RoflNom for making this readebull.

Terror in Draceville (Orginal) re-writhen chapters awaited

Terror in Draceville

1999 January 13th 03:28 (morning) Evergreen Forest time
I woke up from my sleep by the roaring cirens.

''Warning! Warning! UFO detected!''

I culd not belive what I heard. Alredy a new UFO. I jumped put of my bed and put on my black glases. I had sleept in my armour again and I regreat it. My back hurts like needels was hamered in it.

The roaring form the cirens continued.

''UFO offload in Draceville, Draconit!''

I was shooked. Draceville, the capital of Draconit an island contry bigger then Griffin Island.

Most of Draconite was desert even near the sea. The dragons of Draconit says have a very unusual power. Draconits gem suplie is also one of Magica's biggest.

It was time to battle.

We had not found someone to replace Whirlwind yet so we was 1 stalion short. Our recertc on laser weaponry was going forward but it is still to dangerus to use out of the testing chamber. Our alien has not giving us any information sice it woke up. When we got it to speak it was not anything we culd understand. I don't know what we was expecting, it to speak evergreen?

The weaponry we had found in the battle 13 days ago was not cooperating whit our dicesembling group. We could not even get out the clip or activat the firearms. What I presume is a graned was a granade was right.

The group that had ran after the alien inte the forest saw it priming a grey and orange orb. One of the pegasi used her auto cannons armour perscing ammo to make the alien trip. When it had fallen it still had the granade in its tube limped palm. Before the team got close the granade exploded and most of the team fell back of the shock wave. The pegasuses flew up to avoid the explosion. The pegasi that had made it trip flew up sky high in celebration.

I was happy for her and promotet her to Squaddie. Her name is Trip Shot. That is convinient.

I had sean that the soldiers had problems to use the guns in fast reacion. Some weaponry was to heavy for the unicorns to lavitat good to then use fast. The pegasuses had provlems to hold there heavy weaponry in there fore hoofs even when they where hovering vertical. The earth ponys had it worse. There teeth wa still hurting after having ther weaponry it there moute. And the weapons was also in bad shape whit the saliv from ther thoung. The trigers was to big fore there thoungs to move. Our engeeners had some ideas fore weaponry stands monted on the sadels but it was one problem. The heavyer weaponry was not easy to get stabil so they don't fall to there side. The rocket launcher was to powerfull when it launched it's rocket and mead the use stager and fall on there back. The pegasi thout it unconfortabel whit there gyro sadle. It was a bit in the way for ther wings. And none of the soldier liked hove to use there weapons. And it was not fun white the auto reloding. I did not like the sadels eaiter.

I walked to my room door and it slide open. The cirens was still going.

I started runing to the weaponry storage and found that I was one of the last to get ther. And again Bomb Wing had taken the rocket launcher. But he did not use his new gyro sadel. He was the one that hated it the most. When he tryed it whit the launcher he was send out off the sky by the recoil.

Trip Shot on the other hoof loved the gyro sadel. Now she is using two auto cannons. One whit armour percing and one whit high explosivs.

I got lucky this time. I got a sniper rifel, 2 spare clips, 1 proximetry mine, 1 granade, 1 motion scaner and 2 electro flares.

It would be late night when we got to Draceville. And it was a 3 hour flight whit the Skyranger even at top speed.

Now it is time to run to the Skyranger.

I had a short talk about the mission to the soldier and pilot. I said that we mus save the civilians of Draceville from the aliens at any cost. Draconite was one of our biggest founders.

Our pilot flew to her cocpit and startet the engins. I and the 12 others walken into the Skyranger and took a seat against the walls.

The hatch for hangar 2 slide open. The Skyranger was prepering for its vertical takeoff. The engins now roared migthy and we got altitude. In seconds we was up in the clouds and flying towards Draconite and Dracville.

****

1999 January 13th 07:39 (morning) Evergreen Forest time
1999 January 12th 23:39 (night) Draconite time

Draceville, the capital of Draconite. Nearly destroyd. Thunder roared abow us. A storm had apered out of nowhere.

''How can it be thunder here? It almost never rain here.'' I said in confusion.

I saw a thunderbolt go to the grond.

It came a big explotion from the other side of the city. I had my rifel ready by my side levitating in my green brown magical glow. The same color as my eyes.

I waved my left hoof to get some to come whit me.

I got three ponys to follow me. The other 9 spread out around Draceville.

Trip Shot, Bomb Wing, I and a earth pony walked to the east side of town where a thunderbolt had hit the ground.

As we walked trou Draceville we herad sounds all around us. I looked at the motion scaner that was on my front right leg. It was filld whit yellow dots aproching. I trow one electro flare out in the darkness. That that was aproching us was big and black. It was dubble my size and was bipedal. It had claws like a crab but it looked insect like. It's teeth's was grey and big. It's eyes was small almost dot size and dark blue. It had two big purple claws on each foot. Betwen it's exo-skeleton was pink mucels. It had something that looked like spikes on its shoulders.

It aproched fast. The dots on the motion scanner had turned the other way when this thing aproched.

I started shoting like mad at it whit my rifel. Bomb Wing launched a big rocket but it missed and hit one of the brick buildings. The buildigs wall colapsed by the explosion reviling it's inside. Trip Shot used bout of her auto cannons at the big insect. Armour percing and explosiv bullets rained down on it. The amour pericing penetrated it while the explosivs knocked it back. The grey earth pony shot a bulet of incendiary ammo at it whit her heavy cannon. It came a scream of agony came from the insect as the smoke frome all the shots cleared.

I looked at my scaner and the dot was gone. It was dead.

I turned to the earth pony and said, ''Good shot Fire Bullet.''

''It was easy. I have seen snails run faster.'' said Fire Bullet.

''Ha. And sice when dose snails have a runing speed?'' argued Bomb Wing.

Fire Bullet frowned.

''Come now. We have still much left to kill.'' I said.

We heard another explosion not far away from where we were.

***

On our way to the place where the thunderbolts and explosions hade came from we was greted by many dead bodys of the same black aliens. All tosted. I cunted them and I got up to 8 of the aliens.

It was something whit them here that was not right. But what I culd not tell.

A thunderbolt striked the ground in front of me. I jumped back scared of how close I was to be a burned crisp and more importent my mustach. I herd a certain pegasus lauth behind my left shoulder.

I turned my head and glered at Bomb Wing. ''Lauth as long as you can but you will scrub the toilets when we get back to the base.'' I said whit anger.

Bomb got quiet at once.

I looked up into the sky. There was storm clouds all over the city. All deep black and whit thunder roaring.

We into a nearby building and sertched for anything that culd be hidding there.

It was almost emty. On one wall was black dragon blood. A corps of a red dragon whit black horns whit marks of burnt flech and shaterd scales. It had one of it's claw at the end of the blood splater. When I got closer I saw that is was words.

I read it out load: ''Snakes''

I did not understand what the dragon ment by snakes but it did not feal good.

We turned around and walked back out only to be shot at whit green enegry projectiles. The projectile hit the wall. It mised my face whit 5 cm.

We backed fast into the building again to take cover.

A new explosin culd be heard as a thunderbolt hit the ground near the building. We herd a skream of agony of the alien but it did not sound like one of the insects or the grey aliens. This was more like a gurgeling sound.

I looked around and saw my team scared. I was supiced to see the purple coted lump on the floor that was Bomb Wing. I sighted when I saw him. It was smoking from some of his fethers on his left wing. It had hit him before hiting the wall.

Fire Bullet was alredy druging him whit pain killers from her medi-kit. And it looked like she was woryed about what was out there to as much as I was.

Trip Shot was redy to open fire as fast as she culd when something wuld open the door.

I looked at my motion scaner. Something big was aproching. I had the my ready. We have used a whol set of each clip and a rocket on that insect. Only Fire Bullet had used 1 bullet. She was after all the base's sharp shoter.

The door flew open. Somthing bipedal and deamon like walked in. We opened fire hysterical. Trip Shot had changed her explosiv ammo to armour percing in befor hoof so that this place wuld not blow up it she missed. When our clips where emty it was over.

The deamonic creature aprotched whit it's silver gray razor sharp claw and two deep blue eyes. It's black wings covered it's whol body. It looked like a dragon. Teeth's that looked as sharp ast it's claws and two spike like horns on it's backhead. On the ineside of it's wing was silvery patterns that looked like the lightning outside.

The begining (prolog)

The Beginning

Introduction

Nearly a thousand years had passed since Nightmare Moon had returned and been beaten by the Elements of Harmony and despite the technological increase in all the major countries of Magica, a new threat has just started revealing itself to the populace.

It started simply enough, strange lights being seen in the skies over various towns and cities, some even being seen by pilots or natural fliers as they made their way between towns. Ever since the turn of the century, about 1900ANM (After Nightmare Moon), the strange sightings had gotten increasingly more common across the planet until around 1960ANM when a report was made to the Princesses of a strange flying disk that had crashed near Appleoosa on Equestria’s border with the roaming tribes of Buffalo.

Pegasi Corps personnel from the 509th Bomb Group were the first military ponies on the scene and while many news crews attempted to broach a story about an alien space ship complete with alien crew, the soldier Pegasi steadfastly denied that there was anything alien about the crash as they gathered up the wreckage. Instead, it was claimed to be an experimental observation balloon, one that was supposed to allow unicorn and earth pony overseers monitor pegasi weather teams on the same level, which also explained the ‘aliens’ of course, as they were merely normal ponies in specialised clothing for working at height.

Every piece of physical evidence of the ‘observation balloon’ along with its contents was rushed over to Wright Airfield in the North Mountains where it disappeared from public view, only to be studied by those under the Princesses’ remits.

Over thirty years later, as more and more people of the different nations travelled and mixed, reports started of UFO activity across the globe. Most scientists wrote the reports off as hype from the incident near Appleoosa being over thirty years old, however the reports grew in frequency remarkably quickly and soon both the national press and the tabloids are reporting the incidents to the world at large, stating that Magica is, in fact, not alone.

By the end of the year, in 1998ANM, the world leaders face an increasing number of claims of foal-napping or the equivalent along with reports of mutilated animals, some of them pets. In response to the reports, many of the supposed victims are quarantined and examined by military personnel as the governments clamp down on the news reports, refusing to allow any news company to publish a report of a suspected encounter.

Between that and the increase in military readiness across the world, paranoia soon seeps into the hearts of many citizens and conspiracy theories run rampant across the globe. The most common one being that the world governments have not only made contact with the aliens, they either are aliens, are under their control or are working with them. Despite the rumours, the government scientists tasked with trying to find a way to communicate with the aliens receive no response from them.

As the year reaches its midpoint, the world governments are presented with the unenviable of dealing with an outside force that seems to be intent on causing terror on a global scale. As such, many start planning for potential military action against the aggressors.

Taking the lead, the gryphons of Iolaire formed the Razor Talons as their own anti-alien combat force. Unfortunately, despite the reckless courage of the gryphons that made up the unit, and access to the best equipment available to them, the group failed to intercept a single UFO and was shut down due to lack of funding at the end of the year, after a mere five months of operation.

With the failure of the Razor Talons, members of the Magica World Governments held an emergency, clandestine summit in Treetop City at the heart of what had once been the Everfree Forest. After several hours of argument and debate, it was unanimously decided that the nations that made up the MWG would fund a multinational task force to investigate and combat the aliens while drawing as little attention to them as possible. Each nation would put forward its best pilots, soldiers, engineers and scientists to form the Extra-Terrestrial Combat Unit or X-Com.

Even as the force gathered, the UFOs grew bolder and the reports of floating lights and violent abductions grew ever more common, increasing public hysteria along with proving the impotence of the conventional military forces.

After several months of work, Equestrian ponies completed the first X-Com base under Treetop City, a group of their best manning it as Iolaire provided their best weapons and the dragons provided armour and vehicles.

Credits to Grathryn fore making this 120% more awsome.

The First Alien War begins

Please, if you can, see this video before reading. See it as an intro for the chapters.
X-Pony Intro

The First Alien War (AW-I)

Commander Kim F.'s log:
1999 January 1st: The First Alien War Begins

“With our base under Treetop City finally complete, X-Com is ready for action. We have the best available equipment from the gryphons, the best planes from the dragons, the best soldiers, and all eager to fight against these aliens. The computers and radar that have been supplied by the buffalo and zebra are the best in the world. Now all we have left to do is to wait until the buggers show up, and I hate waiting.”

Closing the log down, I got up from my chair as my stomach growled at me, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. Leaving my office and making my way along the somewhat unfamiliar corridors of Treetop Base, I frowned, wondering whether we would get some action any time soon. The last thing I wanted was for X-Com to end up as a money sink the way the Razor Talons had, though the thought of them did bring a slight smile to my face. Those gryphons must have been so bored just sitting around waiting for the aliens to actually show themselves.

As the door to the mess hall opened, I frowned, seeing nopony there, why was there… oh, right. I facehoofed at how dumb I had been, this was the mess for the alien containment area, not for the rest of the base personnel. I knew I should have studied the map more. Turning around, I trotted back to the living quarters to search for the right mess hall.

It took over half an hour to find the place, squirreled away being the third set of living quarters. Sighing in relief when the door opened to reveal living ponies rather than dead air, I trotted up to the galley where three ponies were dishing out food to other hungry ponies. Getting together my usual, a daisy sandwich and a cup of tea, I found a table to eat at.

*****

After a morning of drills and practicing with weapons in the base’s shooting range, I was heading back to my quarters to sleep off lunch when the sirens started howling. “Warning! Warning! UFO detected!” One of the radar techs’ voices echoed over the noise of the speakers.

Finally, I thought, now we can have some fun. Or at least get the chance to put what we were learning into practice for real. With any luck, one of the three pilots would have taken their interceptor out to shoot the bug down while both squads of soldiers geared up.

Galloping to the armoury, I found the other soldiers had already raided it, leaving only a pistol with some ammunition, a stun rod, grenade and an electro-flare, not that we should need the last as they were designed for night use. As good as we were at magic, we didn’t have a Twilight Sparkle amongst us and it took all too much effort to keep the weapons floating around to start casting light spells, plus it gave the earth ponies and pegasi a light source in a pinch.

Grabbing what I could, I hurried for the hanger where our Skyranger stood, finding the rest of the soldiers waiting outside the ramp leading up to the aircraft, probably for a pre-battle speech. Growling at them, I waited for word to come in that Interceptor 1 had managed to bring down the UFO before ordering them aboard and climbing in myself.

The Skyranger landed about five kilometres away from the site of the UFO crash, unfortunately on the side of a mountain where even the vectored thrust of the plane wouldn’t be enough to get it down safely, much less let it launch again once we were done there. With all the troops out of the Skyranger, I ordered the soldiers forwards in pairs, moving slowly through a forest that lay between our LZ and our target, with the pegasi hovering close to the main group. We didn’t need them being spotted by alien eyes and giving away our position to the enemy.

As we walked, I used my telekinesis to hold my pistol out in front of me, watching how the others held their weapons. The other unicorns did similar to me, something that would probably serve us well in the future. The other pony species seemed to be having problems though. Pegasi were gripping weapons in their fore hooves well enough, but hooves would be awkward on weapons built for claws. Earth ponies would have things even harder, having to hold their weapons in their mouths, making me glad I didn’t have to do that.

Twitching my tail in prebattle nervousness, I looked back up the mountain towards where the plume of smoke guided us towards the UFO crash site. What type of aliens would we encounter, I wonder, and why are they attacking our planet in the first place?

To be continued…

Credits to Grathryn fore making this 120% more awsome.

Enemy Unknown

Please, if you can, see this video before reading. See it as an intro for the chapters.
X-Pony Intro

Enemy Unknown

Walking through the forest, I glanced back at the rest of my squad for a moment before motioning two Pegasi to scout ahead. My tail twitched as they flew slowly towards the pillar of smoke we knew was the downed UFO. Was something watching us? The fur on my back stood up as I floated the pistol along at my side, trying not to mutter about the lack of decent weaponry available to us, especially since we only had one rocket launcher between us, and that was in the hooves of one of second squad’s Pegasi.

Still, even with that being said… or muttered as the case may be, at least we managed to bring down one of the strange ships; the Razor Talons hasn’t even managed to catch a glimpse of one in the air during their time in operation. X-Com one, Razor Talons, zero. Something made even better by the fact we were now getting ready to scavenge anything we could from the downed vehicle.

Breaking out of the forest near the foot of the mountain, my ears flicked back as I heard the soft sound of rustling leaves behind me. Turning back, I noticed one of the bushes we had just passed starting to move, something metal looking poking out of it.

Yelling a warning, I watched in horror as a bolt of green energy flashed across the area, almost hitting one of the other unicorns in the head as she threw herself flat on the ground. The bolt blew a chunk out of a tree above the unicorn, causing a large oak to crash down along our path as the bolt burned a hole the rest of the way through it, green flames licking at the wood.

Bringing my pistol to bear, I fired into the bush, getting a groan of pain followed by the sound of running feet as the others gathered themselves and opened fire with their own weapons.

As the creature ran, in the direction of the Skyranger, unfortunately, I caught a glimpse of it. It looked like a slightly older than baby dragon, but without the wings and scales. Dull grey skin covered it from its bulbous head to its flat feet.

A quick motion of my head and first squad went after the alien, jogging through the forest back the way we had all come, this time pausing behind trees to avoid getting a face full of green fire as the creature shot over its shoulder at them.

The rest of second squad followed me up the mountain towards the crash site, though none of us were eager anymore. After seeing what the green… thing had done to the tree, I couldn’t say that I blamed them.

As we reached the crash site, a dozen more of the projectiles came out of nowhere, causing all of us to throw ourselves flat while the pegasi dodged and wove through the air in an effort to avoid them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for one of the pair as another green bolt hit him in the side, causing him to give a horrible scream as his flesh boiled away from his bones. I flinched as he fell from the sky and lay dead, the horrible smell of burnt flesh hanging heavy in the air.

One of the unicorns threw a grenade in the direction the green bolts had come from as the remaining six of us took cover wherever we could, sheltering behind rocks or cringing in dips on the ground as more bolts flew at us, right up until we heard an explosion from the grenade.

At that point, we thought we had won, several of the others glancing over at each other with triumphant grins on their muzzles that was until we heard the sounds of flat feet slapping on hard ground. Risking a look out from the small rock I was hiding behind, I spotted another one of the grey-skinned things from before. This time though, I could make out more detail. Its bulbous head had no muzzle to speak of, just a tiny mouth and huge black eyes, ones bigger than any other creature I had ever seen. In its thin forelegs, it was carrying some kind of… something; I couldn’t tell what it was supposed to be.

Ducking out of cover, I flinched as a green bolt splashed on the rock one of the others was hiding behind and opened fire on the creature. Fire flashed across my vision as the gun went off, followed by a howl of pain as the grey thing dropped what it was holding, green gunk oozing out of a hole in its shoulder. It turned to look at me for a moment with its soulless black eyes, before another bullet made its head splatter on the ground behind it, leaving it to collapse.

A whirring noise from the UFO distracted me as a hatch slid open, another plume of thick black smoke joining the stuff coming from the top of the craft. Bringing my weapon to bear on the new opening, I watched as a third one of the things staggered out, more black than grey thanks to the amount of soot. It collapsed into the open air, coughing and hacking before lying still as the others emerged from their hiding places, all weapons pointed at the opening in the damaged craft.

My ear flicked back as something exploded in the forest. Looking back over my shoulder, I spotted a Pegasus flying up into the open sky, pumping a hoof in celebration. Apparently that was three of these things down, I would have to remember to congratulate that Pegasus once we got back to base.

Turning my attention back to the UFO, I frowned, studying it as I waited with the others for the smoke to clear or more aliens to come out, whichever happened first. Beyond the hole in the roof, or what I presumed was the roof, there was a fairly large set of holes in the side I could see, probably from Interceptor 1’s chain gun, along with dirt and muck from a rough landing. Still, the shape shouldn’t be able to fly, unless it didn’t work under the type of physics we understood.

After several minutes, with no more activity from inside, the smoke thinned to the point where we could get inside without getting instant carbon monoxide poisoning. Twitching my tail as I floated my pistol back near me, I ordered one of the pegasi to guard the unconscious alien and groaned when he promptly pointed a missile launcher at it, talk about overkill. “You do realise that’s a waste of good missiles, right?” I asked him as the rest moved carefully to the door of the UFO.

The Pegasus frowned, but shouldered the launcher and pulled a pistol instead, pointing it right at the creature’s head.

“That’s better,” I commented dryly.

Making my way inside, I chuckled as I heard the Pegasus -- one called Bomb Wing ironically enough, I wonder if his parents ever thought he would do something like this when he grew up – mutter “Kill joy.”

Entering the UFO carefully, the first thing that struck me was that there was the remains of a fairly large fire in the middle of the craft, bits and pieces of furniture including five chairs scattered around the single room. What had been the cause of the fire? Whatever it was, it had probably been important so we would have to keep an eye out for it in the future.

Checking around the room, I found two more aliens, or rather, most of one and the head of the second. Glancing around, I spotted a green stain under some toppled machinery. Four dead aliens, one unconscious outside, that were five in total and there were five chairs here. Unless any of them stood in flight that meant there were no more aliens here. We had done it, our first mission and we had succeeded in clearing out an alien vessel and capturing it.

Making my way back outside, I nodded to the other three. “Search it; get whatever you can carry back to the Skyranger. The scientists will want to look at all of this stuff.” I ordered, flicking an ear as all three ponies saluted.

Moving to where the alien I had killed lay, I poked it with a hoof, still not quite believing that these things had caused so much havoc around the world, scowling as I noticed slits in the skin of the torso.

Using my magic, I opened one and grimaced at the sight of ribs underneath when I looked inside. Something had added these ‘pockets’ surgically, but it begged the question of what purpose there was to them.

Checking them all, I found several strange looking metal items, ones that looked sort of similar to the clips for my pistol, if I turned my head to the side and squinted really hard at them. The other thing I found was some sort of grey and orange ball with what looked like an area that could be pressed, something that I carefully did not do. It didn’t look like it would be any use to anypony, but that said, there had been an explosion earlier, one that hadn’t sounded like any of our grenades, and none of us had carried high explosives that I knew of. “Could this be some type of alien grenade?” I asked myself, twitching my tail as a shudder passed through me. The gun had melted a pegasus’ side to the bone, I really did not want to find out how much damage these orbs could do first hoof.

Putting what I had found in a sample saddlebag, I rechecked the alien’s pockets and found nothing more. Turning my attention to the thing the alien had dropped when I shot it, I used my telekinesis to pick up the blue tube thing. It looked little bigger than a couple of grenades on its longest side, but the way it had been held suggested that it hadn’t been something to throw around. Maybe this was what those clip-things belonged to. If it was, then this was likely the weapon that killed my comrade. Much as I wanted to leave it here for that, we would need everything we could find if we were to have a chance of beating these aliens, even using their own weapons against them. I added it to the samples in my saddlebag as the rest of the squad exited the UFO and sighed, time to clean up and return to base.

*****

On returning to Treetop Base, we handed over everything we had managed to lug back to the Skyranger over to the scientists, who told us they would “get around to it,” I hoped that wasn’t a euphemism for throwing the samples into a black hole, but they were trying to research new weapons and a couple of useful pieces of equipment, namely an improved med-kit and a motion tracker.

Bomb Wing, along with two others had a great deal of fun putting the unconscious alien into a containment cell and ensuring it would not be getting out any time soon. Unfortunately that meant it was time for the funeral of the pony we had lost today.

The ceremony was rather simple, and rather cold given we had to cryo-freeze the body before putting it into the morgue on the lower levels. It had been agreed by the higher ups that we would have a proper funeral in a temple graveyard once this war was over, but doing so now would attract unwelcome attention, both from the aliens and from the press.

Locking the draw, I looked at the monitor on it with a sigh. It said:

R.I.P
X-COM soldier
Whirlwind
Rank: Private
Killed in battle at age: 35
1st January 1999
“You call that flying?”

*****

"Commander Kim F.'s log
1999 January 1st: Night report
Our first battle against the aliens went well; we now know that they can be killed as well as what they look like. Even better, we have managed to capture an almost intact alien craft and a living alien. Hopefully the haul of technology or the alien will reveal something about them."

"Unfortunately we don’t know how resistant these things are. Their weaponry is certainly more powerful than ours on a size by size comparison, more powerful than anypony expected. The sooner we get the first prototypes of our new weapons into action, the better. If we take too long to kill these things, then we will end up losing more ponies than we can replace and our morgue will be filled with the bodies of those like Whirlwind."

"It was also lucky that Interceptor 1 was out on patrol at the time the UFO was spotted; otherwise we likely would have missed it, it being as small as it was. We need to upgrade our radar systems to cover a larger area and increase our general technology level; otherwise it is likely we will be defeated inside a year. We need to start recruiting drives as well; we will need the soldiers very soon if this keeps up."

"X-Com Commander Kim F. out."

To be continued

Credit to Ghrathryn for making it 120% more awsome.

Terror in Draceville

Please, if you can, see this video before reading. See it as an intro for the chapters.
X-Pony Intro

Terror in Draceville

1999 January 13th 03:28 (morning) Evergreen Forest time

The blaring of the base’s sirens woke me up from exhausted slumber, along with somepony yelling over the base intercom. ''Warning! Warning! UFO detected!''

Groaning as I scrambled out of bed, I grimaced, remembering that I had ended up sleeping in armour again, and now I was paying the price. Muttering as I stretched the kinks out of my back and hearing it crack and pop as if things were going to burst out of it, I grabbed my glasses with my magic and hurried out of the dormitory, placing them on my muzzle as I bolted for the armoury.

''UFO offloaded in Draceville, Draconit!'' The operator called over the intercom. “All combat ponies to the Skyranger hanger prep for immediate launch.”

I skidded, almost missing a turn from the shock I felt at that statement. Draceville, the capital of Draconit an island country bigger then Iolaire, most of Draconite was desert even near the sea. The dragons of Draconit are said have a very unusual powers. Draconit’s gem supply is also one of Magica's biggest.

Entering the armoury, I found the remaining twelve members of the unit had beaten me there, and Bomb Wing was busy loading the rocket launcher, though he hadn’t picked up one of the gyro-saddles that had come in last week. I couldn’t say that I blamed him on that, since the first time he had tried mounting the rocket launcher on it, he had almost ended up going through the firing range’s back wall by the recoil off it… they needed to do something about that as it made using them in the air with heavy weapons more of a liability than a benefit.

Lighter weapons however, it was another story. Trip Shot, the mare that had eventually taken down the alien that had fled us in our last mission – by making it trip as it tried to throw one of those strange orange balls at the squad – loved them and had started equipping an autocannon on each side, one loaded with armour piercing ammunition, the other with high explosive rounds.

Most of the unit were now equipped with the gyro-saddles, simply because mouthing the grips of weapons made for those with talons or claws was just too inefficient, both on reaction fire and on reload times, not to mention the harm that came to the weapons and the ponies trying to handle kickback from them in their mouths. More than one Earth pony had ended up with broken teeth trying to use something heavier than a pistol.

Going through the weapons racks, I grinned as I found one of the sniper rifles we had gotten in the same shipment as the gyro-saddles, along with one of the newly produced motion scanners, two clips for the rifle, two of the electro-flares and a pair of explosives, one a grenade, the other a proximity mine.

It was much better than I had managed to get on the first mission, but it was still far from perfect. Unfortunately nopony could figure out how the alien weapons actually worked, our research team couldn’t even tell which way around the clips were supposed to go or which one fitted which weapon, much less the mechanics behind the weapons and our own laser weaponry was still in the testing phase, too dangerous to be in a pony’s hooves given their tendency to melt after a few seconds of continuous fire.

Making our way to the hanger, the thirteen of us boarded the Skyranger for the three hour flight to Draceville, most of the others taking seats along the sides of the plane as its engines warmed up, causing the plane to vibrate as a roaring filled the hanger.

Sticking my head into the cockpit, I glanced up as light shone in my eyes, the sealed hanger doors grinding open above us before checking with the pilot and co-pilot. It seemed it would be late at night when we reached Draceville, even with the plane going at top speed for the entire flight, and we were supposed to try to save as many civilians as we could. The last made a lot of sense actually, given Draconite was one of the founding nations and biggest contributors to X-Com.

*****

1999 January 13th 07:39 (morning) Evergreen Forest time
1999 January 12th 23:39 (night) Draconite time

Reaching the capital city of Draconite had been rougher than it should have been, mostly due to the fact there was a massive storm right on top of Draceville. As the hatch lowered, letting us out into the night, I gasped. The city was nearly destroyed, something that was driven home as another massive rumble of thunder split the air above us. “How can there be a storm here? This place is supposed to be a desert.” I muttered in confusion, getting a few equally confused looks from the others in the plane.

As the others exited the plane, blinking as rain soaked their coats from the storm that was rapidly getting worse. The pilot had said something about the winds being ‘gale force’, though fortunately the ruined buildings broke them up, giving us some shelter.

I motioned the group to split into teams before having to blink as lightning turned night to day briefly, dropping on something on the other side of the city. The thunder shook several of the buildings around us, suggesting that the bolt had either landed very close, or had been larger than normal.

I frowned, motioning Trip Shot, Bomb Wing and one of the Earth ponies in the unit to come with me, bringing my sniper rifle up, the hazel glow around it and my horn matching my eyes as I levitated it along in a ready position.

As the remaining nine broke off into trios to explore the rest of the city, we headed east slowly. After the last mission, running muzzle first into one of those green bolt shooting grey aliens wasn’t high on my things to do in life, particularly given my weapon was designed for distant.

Pausing for a moment as we moved to investigate where the lightning had hit, I glanced at the motion scanner, waiting for the blips on it to steady from the movement I had been making before frowning as one yellow dot moved back at forth in a rather spastic pattern, coming closer all the time.

Flicking my ears forwards, I dropped the leg with the motion sensor on it back to my saddlebag, pulling one of the electro-flares out of it as I heard a growl from the thing ahead of us.

Lobbing the flare into the darkness, I gasped sa it activated, revealing a big grey creature that looked very much like a mutant crab, especially with the massive claws on the ends of its forelegs and the tiny eyes.

On seeing us, it ran towards us, faster than anything I had ever seen on the ground. My rifle came up and spat fire at it, but even with the supposed power of its bullets, they didn’t seem to slow it down. The noise of my rifle, however, seemed to wake the others up. A plume of flame erupted from Bomb Wing’s rocket launcher, streaking into the side of a building as the thing danced out of the way, the explosion causing stone and brick to rain down along with the water and all too common lightning bolts.

A roar of fire came from Trip Shot’s position as she flew up over a ruined wall to get a better angle at it. Green blood turned black in the yellow light of the flare splashed on the ground as one of the explosive rounds blew an arm off the things, more ran down its torso as armour piercing rounds punched through its shell, slowing it down enough that a shot from the Earth pony’s heavy cannon caught it square in the chest, causing it to screech in agony as it combusted. I snorted softly at the sight, must have been the incendiary rounds.

As the smoke cleared and the screeching stopped, a glance at the motion scanner told me what I needed to know, the ugly thing was dead. I looked back at the grey Earth pony that had killed it. “Good shot, Fire Bullet,” I complimented her.

''It was easy. I have seen snails run faster.'' Fire Bullet responded with a shrug.

''Ha. And since when do snails have a running speed?'' Asked Bomb Wing, hovering down now the current threat was passed.

Fire Bullet frowned.

“Both of you keep it until later,” I cut in, sensing a potential flash point. “We have more important things to be doing than arguing over whether snails can run or not, like that thing’s buddies.” No sooner had I said it than the storm reminded us that it was still intent on getting its fair share of destruction if nothing else as another lightning bolt ripped the side out of a building in a brilliant explosion.

*****

Making our way towards where we had seen the last lightning bolt hit the ground, we made our way around to where the wall had been blown out by something, probably lightning, though I had never seen it do this sort of damage in Equestria. Stepping through the opening, Trip Shot stopped, going grey under her fur before bolting back outside to get sick.

Stepping into the building myself, I soon saw why. Over a dozen bodies littered the floor, only a few of them dragons. Most were the same shell-covered aliens that we had just encountered, and all of those looked like they had been killed either with fire or electricity given the charring on their exoskeletons.

The rest looked dragon-like, except for the metal on them, though the amount of blood around them suggested that whatever had hit them had been more vicious than a manticore with a thorn in its paw.

Glancing up, I scowled as saw what looked like a pair of angry blue eyes floating in the darkness of the building, just before a lightning bolt struck the ground right in front of me.

My yelp was lost in the crash of thunder that flattened all four of us, catching me midair as I jumped back. That had been too damn close, seriously too damn close. Most of the time lightning didn’t do too much when it was called as part of a spell, but this was different, this was nature untamed. This could have turned me into a roast pony. Picking myself off the ground, I shivered as I checked my moustache, fearing that it had gotten scorched.

Hearing semi-hysterical laughter behind me, I turned and glared at Bomb Wing, who was lying on the ground, curled up. “Laugh it up, but remember, Bomb Wing, when we get back to base, I can and will have you scrubbing toilets for the rest of your career.” I growled, causing him to quiet at once.

Glancing up at the sky as the rest of the unit picked themselves up and gathered their equipment again, I twitched my tail. “Something must be behind all this…” I muttered, watching white lightning cut across black clouds that blocked out both the moon and the stars.

Bringing my attention back to the ground, I motioned the rest over to another building, not wanting to push our luck further with the one we had been investigating. Something didn’t want us in there, and whatever it was, it was probably responsible for the deaths of those crabs.

Searching the building, we came up empty, nearly. Something lay against one of the walls. Nodding to Trip Shot, I shifted as she tossed an electro-flare into the room, revealing a red dragon lying against the wall. Moving closer, I lowered myself on my front legs to check for life-signs, only to find none. Part of its face was just gone, along with one wing. Blood covered the ground, black, but still tacky, along with what looked like something else’s arm and shattered scales.

One arm of the dragon was pointing to something on the wall, following it up; I frowned, noticing a single word drawn in blood. “Snakes,” I read aloud. I frowned, looking at the others, who looked equally confused. What did the dragon mean by ‘snakes’? Whatever it was, it was making my mane stand on end just at the base of my neck.

Turning back and leaving the building, I glanced around; yelping as lightning illuminated the area for a moment, just long enough for me to see a glint of metal. Jerking my head back as I stepped back quickly, I yelped again as a bolt of green almost grazed my muzzle, taking a chunk out of the wall near one of the windows. It passed so close I could feel the heat of it, hotter than fire.

Doing an abrupt about face, we all bolted back into the building, taking cover behind its walls against any more of the green fire.

Moments passed in silence, the only sounds our heavy breathing as we tried to recover from the near miss. Twice in the space of a few minutes, I had nearly been hit in the head by something that could have cooked me where I stood. This so wasn’t good for my heart, never mind anything else.

A volley of green splashed against the wall of our cover, a few shots making it through and nearly grazing us. I heard a yelp from behind and glanced over, grimacing as the light of the electro-flare revealed smoke coming from one of his wings. I grimaced, motioning Fire Bullet to check him, and noticed her pulling pain killers from the med-kit she was carrying, using one hoof to inject them before stomping on the few embers along the feather, not once taking her eyes off the wall that formed our cover.

I changed out the clip on my rifle nervously as something outside roared, followed by the sound of a lightning bolt striking the ground, the thunder almost drowning out the pained screams of several aliens, the sounds different from the crab or the grey, more gurgling.

Glancing back at the others, I noticed all three of them watching the door tensely, both Pegasi twitching their wings nervously as they checked their weapons and aimed them at the door, Trip Shot spinning up her autocannons, and letting them stop as more roars and screams came from outside.

I checked my motion scanner as things got quiet again, leaving us with thunder and our own breathing once more. Something was moving outside, something big, and given the sounds we had just heard, something powerful. I gulped, mentally running over our supply status.

Of all of us, Fire Bullet was in the best state, having only fired one shot from the heavy cannon, of course, being the base sharp shooter probably helped that along. Bomb Wing had also only fired one shot, but he couldn’t carry anywhere near as much as missiles were heavy. Trip Shot and I had gone through an entire clip on each of our weapons, on just one enemy. If this thing was able to avoid or withstand our weapons long enough for us to run out of ammo, we were screwed.

Lightning lit the area as the door flew open, causing Trip Shot and I to fire in response. It took us both a moment to realise that we were shooting at an empty doorway. Not only was this thing powerful, it was smart as well. Not good, really not good.

“Are ye done shootin’ at nothin’, little soldiers?” A gruff voice asked from outside, the accent much like those in certain parts of Equestria. “Yuir opponents go’ in me way, they wonnae be botherin’ anydragon in this town again.” It continued, carrying despite the storm.

I gulped, not really believing this was happening. “C-C-come in… slowly,” I ordered, attempting to keep my voice level. It wasn’t easy, especially with how nervous I was feeling.

The feeling didn’t get any better when a big black creature moved into the doorway, electricity arching over its body as two hard blue eyes scanned the room, and twin silver glows resting on its arms as blood dripped from razor sharp claws. It was either a daemon, a dragon or both.

“Sae, whot be Lothrae doin’ gettin’ themselves mixed up in hedrachin pharsyn o’ this type?” The creature asked, the black fading from its scales, revealing gold underneath, along with a pair of massive wings, traced with silvery patterns that looked similar to the lightning outside, coming from silver wing arms.

“W-w-what… a-a-are you?” Fire Bullet asked, raising her cannon to point it at him in an attempt to be menacing. One that wasn’t working particularly well given he simply snorted at her.

The dragon… daemon… thing… leaned against one of the inside walls. “Name’s Ghrathryn Cal’drith an’ I be a Franthoryn, little Loth, one tha’ isnae too ‘appy ‘boot certain unwelcome… guests tha’ invited themselves along on what was supposed tae be a diplomatic recon.” He growled, lips pulling back to reveal an array of curved fangs easily as sharp as the claws on his hands and feet. “Course the damn hedrachin cannae make weapons big ‘nough tae be useful, even if they’re bloody backward.”

I was paralysed in fear, and consumed by curiosity at what Ghrathryn had said. What had he meant by ‘diplomatic recon’ and who were the parties involved? Were the aliens trying to turn the dragons against us or were the dragons trying to broker for peace with the aliens already? I didn’t know, and that scared the hay out of me.

I gathered myself to speak before being interrupted by a beeping noise coming from the leg I had the motion scanner on. “What the…?” I asked, looking down in confusion. Bringing the leg up, I frowned at the screen of the motion scanner. It wasn’t because of more movement, though there were slight pulses of sound when one of us shifted, instead there was an icon that looked like a phone showing in one corner of the screen. “Trip Shot, do you know what this means?” I asked, showing her the scanner.

“What, you haven’t read the instruction manual?” She asked, sounding more than a little surprised, her eyes widening and her ears flicking up to complete the picture.

“Instructions?” I asked her, “Is it supposed to do more than showing where moving things are in relation to it?” I asked in surprise.

Trip shot face hoofed at my question and groaned. “It’s an emergency call,” She explained tapping the icon on the motion scanner, “From our pilot.” She added, tapping the button to play the message back.

“Commander Kim, where are you?” Our pilot screamed out of the device around my leg, causing my ears to lay back. “The others have returned to the plane and they’re all heavily injured. You need to get back here now, we’ve got orders to pull out and if you don’t get here in the next thirty minutes orders are to leave you and everypony with you behind.”

Oh, oh bugger. That did not sound particularly good, in fact it sounded terrible. “Well… why are we standing around here?” I asked, looking at the other three ponies. “Let’s get moving! I don’t wanna swim back to the base and I don’t think you do either.”

“If’n yuir goin’, I’m comin’ with ye, Loth.” Ghrathryn put in, having been listening, his tone flat, but carrying an authority I had only heard in the Princesses before. “I cannae do anythin’ else ‘roun’ here an’ yuir gonna need help gettin’ back tae yuir plane. The place still crawls.”

I swallowed, looking up at the dragon, recognising the tone. This was not a dragon to mess with, especially not right now. “Two questions first,” I said, trying to make myself sound steadier than I felt. “Was it you that called down the lightning on these… things? What type of diet do you have? I don’t want to have anything in my base that could eat me or my soldiers."

Ghrathryn’s lips twitched in what might have been a smirk, or something a lot more sinister. “All Franthrae ‘ave tricks they c’n use, bein’ a Jhoshor Frenthryn means weather be me main one.” He replied, his body blacking out again as electricity started to crawl over it once more, “As more’n one hedrachin has found ou’ tae their cost. As fer eatin’, meat, bu’ not Loth meat, ‘less there be nothin’ else, an’ no’ hedrachin meat, I eat prey beasts, no’ ridin’ beasts.”

“Then, welcome to the Extra-Terrestrial Combat Unit, or X-Com, Colonel Ghrathryn,” I said, getting raised eyebrows and more than a few mutters from the other three. Dropping back a little, I sighed as he snorted. “I still don’t trust him,” I whispered to Trip Shot, who was nearest to me. “Giving him a high rank is probably the best way to avoid upsetting him, since I don’t want to take the chance of getting eaten, no matter what he says.” I pointed out as he disappeared into the storm again, his black form practically invisible in the murk.

Leaving the building behind him, after reclaiming the electro-flare inside, we stopped as a bolt of lightning illuminated the mess that had probably once been aliens. One body smoked from where lightning had struck it, orange scales charred black along the snake-like lower body. Another lay on its back, its torso covered in metal armour that hadn’t protected it from the dragon’s fury. I swallowed, wading into the mess to grab what I could from their clawed hands, only to find that the weapons were so much scrap, still glowing red from where they had been melted by fury untamed in the form of pure lightning. At least we knew what the dragon had meant by ‘snakes’ now.

Checking the clock on the motion scanner, I hissed out a breath. According to it, it was now one forty-nine in the morning on January the thirteenth, nineteen ninety-nine local time. According to the call log and mission timer, we had been here for two hours, and the call was already twenty-five minutes old. We needed to get back to the Skyranger, now.

*****

Fortunately it only took us four minutes to make it back to the Skyranger at full gallop, unfortunately they were the longest four minutes of anypony’s life in our group as it seemed that more snakes and those crab things came out of any conceivable blind alley.

Most of them we managed to avoid others we went through. By the time we reached the plane, all of us were wounded and we had barely any ammo left, though the sight of Ghrathryn ripping the arms off a crab that managed to grab him by the wings, followed by cutting its head off with some strange silver glow would probably stay with me for the rest of my life, especially given the thing’s scream still echoed in my ears.

I watched the dragon bound up the ramp of the Skyranger as we reached it, managing to move faster despite taking a more awkward route and staying on the ground. I had to wonder about that, he could have flown, so why wasn’t he?

I shook my wondering thoughts off as screams echoed from inside the plane, not that it surprised me given that even on all fours, he was big, and he hadn’t dropped that black out thing he did, which only made him look creepier. “Be quiet and be brave!” I yelled, trying not to trip over my own hooves.

Bomb Wing and Fire Bullet reached the plane next, hurrying up the ramp, Bomb Wing’s wing still smelling of burned feather despite the rain and the run since it had been singed.

Blinking rain out of my eyes, I watched as Trip Shot landed, and nearly collapsed at the top of the ramp, her body covered in sweat as well as rain, her colour greyer than normal from pure exhaustion.

I need a bath once we get back to the base, I thought to myself, slowing a little as I reached the lowered ramp. It looked like I was the last one here, and me the commander. I sighed, then started as lightning struck almost on my hocks, the thunder from it threatening to flatten me again. That traitor! I thought, before hearing a low groan followed by a thud along with the scent of cooked shell fish. Risking a glance behind me, I gulped at seeing one of the shell-covered aliens, smoke coming from various places around its body. I looked up to see Ghrathryn watching me, his eyes cold, though he nodded to me.

Twitching my tail, I hurried into the plane, giving the dragon a thankful nod as I passed him, he had, after all, just saved my life for the second time today. Making it to the cockpit, I wrenched open the door. “Get us the hay away from this bucking place!” I yelled at the pilot, who nodded, the roar of the plane’s engines picking up as the hatch slammed closed.

Heading back to the last available seat, on Ghrathryn’s right, I collapsed with a sigh, trying to ignore the water and sweat running down my coat as the plane lurched into the air. “Well… I doubt the leader of Draconite will like this, if he’s still alive.” I muttered.

Ghrathryn snorted softly. “He’s alive, an’ if he’s go’ any complaints, he can take ‘em up wi’ me uncle. ‘Course it might take a while fer the message tae get tae Harrenthias from here.” He commented dryly. “Sides, little Loth, ye did yuir best, everyone left in town when ye go’ there was already dead bar me, bu’ then I’ve always been ‘ard tae kill.”

I glanced up at him. “Why would the leader of Draconite need to talk to your uncle?”

Sighing, Ghrathryn’s scales returned to their normal colours. “’Cause I was t’one tha’ go’ the town evacuated when those hedrachin showed up, an’ me uncle be t’king o’ Cal’drith… then o’course, I’m sure me lifemate would ‘ave some words fer him, as would ‘er sire.”

I blinked in shock, hearing gasps from around the passenger area of the plane. Even though he wasn’t the leader of the country we had just left, sitting right next to me was a prince of a kingdom, probably two if his lifemate was a princess. What was going to come next? Was he going to tell us that he was like the Princesses? I shook my head and closed my eyes, not willing to face that possibility right now.

This mission was getting better and better.

To Be Continued

Credit to Ghrathyrn for making this 120% awsome and he chosed to use this caracter. I'm unfamiliar whit this kind of caracter and he got to be a Colonel as I said. I don't wana be eaten. And if it was not for him this fic wuld be very bad writen. It was a good bit of gratitude to him for making this awsome and as I wanted to see my story.

Back at Treetop Base

Please, if you can, see this video before reading. See it as a intro for the chapters.
X-Pony Intro

Back at Treetop Base

1999 January 13th 12:54 (Day) Evergreen Forest time

The medical ponies were waiting for the Skyranger as it descended into its hanger, its fuel almost spent and its crew physically and mentally exhausted. As the ramp lowered, I made my way out, followed by Ghrathryn, who, like most of us, looked more grey than our usual colour, when our colour wasn’t grey to start with. Of course the appearance of the dragon, even though he was barely standing, was screams from the medics, their eyes wide and rolling in fear.

“Don’t worry about Ghrathryn,” I said, trying to calm them. “He isn’t going to attack anypony.” I added as he raised himself to his full height and stretched with a grunt, a flash of pain moving across his snout.

The medics gave me a curious look as the two of us made our way down the ramp, him seeming to favour one leg as he moved, and got out of the way of the others as they followed, all looking haggard. “I want to have every soldier checked over in the hospital area as soon as our equipment is taken to the armoury.” I ordered, getting more than a few grumbles from various parts of the room.

Two of the medics nodded and hurried off to prep the wards for incoming as I looked around, noticing Ghrathryn sitting on the floor near the Skyranger. “Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?” I asked him, twitching my tail as one of my own injuries twinged. “I want to make sure you’re not heavily injured. You’re our new Colonel, after all.”

He glanced up, grimacing at something. “I ain’ a colonel,” He muttered before dropping his head to look at the floor again, looking not only exhausted, but absolutely terrible. I grimaced as trickles of blood leaked from under his scales, wondering just how much they hid.

Turning my attention back to my soldiers, I scowled. All of us had been injured in our mad dash for the Skyranger, what with Bomb Wing’s wing starting to spasm in pain as the pain killer finished wearing off, Trip Shot barely staying on her hooves, even after spending three hours doing pretty much nothing in the Skyranger while Fire Bullet’s flame coloured tail scorched after a near miss by one of the aliens along with the wounds on my own hide.

Even with all that, the four of us had gotten off lightly all told, it would take us maybe a week before we were back in action, but healing broken wings or legs, cracked horns or hooves… those would take longer to do. It did not bode well for the future if we could go on two missions, and already have lost one and have everypony else injured to some degree.

The aliens we had just encountered were worse than the grey ones from the first mission, the crabs with their phenomenal speed and powerful claws. On the trip back, the others had told me about their own encounters with the snake-like aliens, making me realise how lucky, or powerful, our new ally was. From what they had said, none of our weapons short of the missile launcher could penetrate the armour they wore, and most of them had been lucky in that lightning had often chosen to strike right where the aliens had been standing. I glanced at Ghrathryn again, twitching my tail. We had been incredibly lucky to find a dragon that could do that to things that weren’t even scared by our heavy cannons’ HE rounds.

Seeing the last of the other ponies’ equipment had been put away, I set my own sniper rifle, what little was left of its ammo and the explosives away, followed by the electro-flares and motion scanner. Turning back towards Ghrathryn, I sighed as I saw that he hadn’t moved from where he sat. “I insist that you follow the medics to the hospital area and recover, you held that storm over Draceville for quite some time and need to rest.”

I started walking after the medics as they left, two pushing the cart full of equipment back to the armoury while the rest led us towards the hospital area. Hearing a groan, I glanced over my shoulder to see Ghrathryn limping along behind us and sighed in relief. At least he would be checked over now.

*****

Once we reached the hospital area we were shown to different rooms depending on our ranks. Catching the eye of the chief medical pony, I ordered him to take Ghrathryn to the area reserved for colonels while I had another ward waiting for me along. “We have the best medical equipment available to us,” I commented to Ghrathryn as he limped along, trying to make him feel a bit more comfortable, his height such that he ended up having to duck under the doorways, and even in the corridors it was a tight squeeze for him on his hind legs.

While the others were escorted to the section of the hospital for enlisted soldiers, Trip was taken to the NCOs’ section. There were effectively three main areas to the hospital, one each for enlisted, non-commissioned officers and full officers, each further divided for pairs of ponies for the most part, the base’s commander had an area for them alone, which made sense given there would only be one commanding officer in each base.

After leaving the others, I made my way to the ward dedicated to my care and pushed open the door to find a room that looked very much like my quarters, if one looked beyond the obvious medical equipment and monitors.

Putting my watch and glasses on the nightstand next to the bed, I levitated a chair over to the bed from where it had been stored in one corner of the room. Removing my armour, I dumped it onto the chair with a sigh of relief, glad that it wouldn’t be making me itch anymore from all the sweat that had dried in it or the rain that had gotten under it. Climbing into the bed, I pulled the blanket over me and stared at the wall for a moment. I had been going for ten hours straight, not that long compared to some, but they had been the most demanding, physically and mentally, of my life. Closing my eyes, I let out another sigh before sleep claimed me.

*****

Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 3, 13:20

My roommate could not have been any worse; he was the whiniest unicorn I had the misfortune to meet, even counting the old legends of Harmony and the pony that had driven a pack of Diamond Dogs crazy. This stallion was going to do the same thing to me if he didn’t shut up! I sighed to myself, grumbling as my wing ached, as if the pain from that… whatever it was burning my wing wasn’t enough, I had to put up with Little Miss Whine. I wish I could get hold of my missile launcher and use it on myself, with an incendiary missile. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to this.

“Would you shut the buck up, Stone? I’m trying to sleep here!” I snapped at him, growling when I saw his eyes start watering. What a damned pansy.

“O-o-okay, Bomb,” Stone sobbed, shifting his broken hind leg, “I-I’ll t-t-try to b-b-be quiet.”

I muttered something indistinct as I pulled the blanket over me, feeling it rub a little against the bandage restraining my injured wing. “I hope I get out of here soon,” I whispered to myself. Out of this damned room and away from Stone with his broken leg, broken horn and whining, the sooner that happened, the better I would like it.

*****

Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 1, 13:18

“And why am I in here again?” I asked the air around me, laying my ears flat as I ran over the events in Draceville in my mind. “Oh, right, now I remember, some snake-thing tried to shoot me and set my tail alight instead.” I sighed, slumping on the bed. “So now, instead of sleeping in my own bed, I have to wait for them to release me… though… why are they putting a bandage on my tail, it’s only hair that was singed, not like anything else got burned… and why am I talking to myself?” Turning around in my bed, I sighed again.

“I can understand bandaging my chest and leg because of my wounds, but the tail?” That just didn’t make sense, I mean sure we had more dexterous tails than most equines, but still….

“Would you shut the buck up, Stone? I’m trying to sleep here!” Bomb Wing’s voice cut straight through the wall surprising me. It was fairly amazing that the purple Pegasus had such strong lungs. On the other hand, the fact that he had gotten so annoyed at Stone Tear was no surprise at all. Spending more than a few minutes with that unicorn made most ponies wish they were dead. Fortunately we had been spared it on the trip back to base, mostly because he was far too scared of the dragon to make a sound, even though Ghrathryn had been silent through the trip here.

Hearing a mutter from the other side of the wall, I sighed again, closing my eyes, I tried to get to sleep, so I could avoid thinking about why they had bandaged my tail at least.

*****

Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, non-commissioned officer section, room 1, 13:35

I was tired but I just couldn’t fall asleep, the others intruded on my mind far too much, seeing them all so badly hurt. I shifted slightly, grimacing as the sound echoed a little, reminding me of the other reason I couldn’t sleep. I was alone in here, in the quiet emptiness of this ward. It made me feel as if the walls were closing in on me. That rule about sticking to your own wards and having separate ones for enlisted, NCOs and officers was really beginning to freak me out about now, the fear of being alone making me sweat, making my normally light blue coat turn dark.

Hearing something drip in the distance I yelped, sitting bolt upright for several seconds, my ears flicking this way and that. “I can’t stand being alone!” I yelled, more to hear a voice than anything. “I really hope this can’t get any worse,” I muttered, lying back down. If nopony got promoted tomorrow, I was going to turn my promotion in, so I could go back to being with the others, with ponies. That was why I had left my home in North Mountain, not to fight the aliens, though somepony had to, but so I wouldn’t be alone anymore. I felt tears start leaking from my eyes as I squeezed them shut, trying to sleep.

*****

Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, officer’s section, room 1, 13:10

I hurt as if a swarm of hedrachin had managed to catch me on the ground and chewed on me. Shifting slightly, I grimaced as my dislocated wing bumped something on the wall behind me, causing it to flare in pain in response. Actually, I probably hurt worse than somedragon that’s been on the receiving end of a hedrachin swarm, though probably not by much given those oversized rodents had poisonous teeth, poisonous enough that those ‘human’ creatures on the one world we had scouted briefly would die from a single bite.

Closing my eyes, I dropped my head forward with a groan, trying not to let the reaction headache start up just yet. I should be sleeping, in fact if I was back on the ship, or back on Harrenthias, particularly if my lifemate was there with me, I likely would be sleeping. Unfortunately I wasn’t in either of those places; I was on some dinky little planet that just happened to be between Harrenthias and the Ailiaar home world. It had been just my bloody luck that I had run across some unknowns in what was supposed to be a quiet system.

Of course guaranteed the reason I had been shot down by them was so that I couldn’t bring one of the big ships here, and given the five the dragon worlds had between them were pretty big, for life transports, they probably would have made things even messier than I intended on doing from the ground.

My tail twitched as I heard a couple of the Healers talking about my wounds, one asking the other just how I had managed to survive. I snorted softly, looking down at the casts on my arm and leg and the bandages wrapped around every conceivable bit of me. I had walked away from a high speed crash-down, primarily because my armour took the brunt of it and had been destroyed in the process, along with my ranged weapons. Then of course, those snakemen and their ‘pets’ had decided to crash the town I was resting up in.

Five hours of living on adrenaline and the storm surge I was pulling down to maintain the very storm I was using as my weapon and my way of keeping my body together had done a number on me. Of course, because of that I was so far beyond exhausted I now couldn’t sleep which wouldn’t help since it meant I was going to crash and sleep for a week, at the bear minimum once I actually did. I snorted to myself, actually, sleeping for a week sounded good right now, if I could get these talking Lothrae to stop startling whenever I moved. Unfortunately I needed them since they seemed the best equipped to cause trouble for those hedrachin that held the orbitals, and the most likely to have a comm set that could reach home.

“I can’t stand being alone!” My head jerked up at the voice, making my neck burn with pain from where I had gotten whiplash in the crash-down. I recognised the voice that was the blue out of the quartet I had approached, the winged one that liked heavy guns. It sounded like she was having troubles of some kind herself, of the loneliness variety.

I knew I wasn’t going to sleep easily, despite my exhaustion, and it sounded like the lothryn was going to have a tough time of it as well. Pushing myself carefully to my feet, I grimaced as my whole body ached, trying to keep my breathing shallow to avoid aggravating my ribs. I was paying for my foolishness now, but at least I had saved a good chunk of the dragons.

Catching my balance, I limped to the door, gritting my teeth against the pain of the movements as it opened. Sniffing the air, I held my uninjured arm against my chest, whimpering as my ribs hurt. Even so, I could smell a fear stink, one that was familiar enough for me to say it was the blue lothryn. I followed it, having to stop more than once to catch my breath or let things stop hurting.

One of the healers came out of an office to try to stop me, but a growl and a look sent him running away. I guess even the healers here are scared of dragons, if I could think straight, I would probably wonder what the dragons were scared of in that case, since most had been bigger than me.

Following the scent around a couple of corridors, I found a door that it was wafting under and opened it slowly with my good arm. Inside I could see the blue, winged lothryn curled up on one of the too small beds. Making my way over to her, I touched her shoulder gently, causing her to look up at me and gasp in surprise and fear – I really wanted to get off this damn planet with that reaction from most of these Lothrae – even so, she reminded me a lot of Jhoshor back home on Harrenthias, back when he had been a hatchling.

“Whot be wrong, little one?” I asked gently, remembering how I had talked to my own lothryn when I had found him in the storm I had ended up naming him for. I had picked up the name Storm Rider for a reason, and I had played on the nickname, by calling my lothryn ‘Storm’, Jhoshor to my Jhoshorythryn, a storm to my storm rider.

“I-I… hate being alone,” The little one replied, tears leaking from her eyes.

I smiled sadly at that. “Bu’ ye arnae alone, little’un, ye’ve got yuir friends ‘roun’ ye, if anydragon be alone ‘ere, it be me.” I pointed out, reminding her that I was the only one of my kind on this base, or more to the point on this planet.

The lothryn shook her head, biting back a whimper. “Th-they a-aren’t here an-and I-I can’t leave.” She said, her wings twitching.

“An’ whot be stoppin’ ye?” I asked, turning and pulling the mattress off the other bed, putting it close to hers with my good hand before settling carefully on it, groaning as various wounds flared up. “Would ye feel better if’n ye had somedragon near?” I asked, taking care to breathe shallowly so my ribs didn’t add to the chorus of complaints from the rest of my body, reaching over to brush her mane out of her face.

“Why would you do that?” She asked, looking at me suspiciously, I wanted to laugh at that look, but it would probably have ended up with me trying to not lose my ribs. “You don’t even know me.”

I shifted slightly, stretching out my injured leg. “Aye, I donnae know ye, bu’ I know yuir afraid o’ bein’ alone, an’ tae be honest, I donnae like it meself.” I admitted, closing my eyes. “Back home on Harrenthias, I lived with me family, five siblings, countin’ me adopted sister, me parents, me uncles an’ aunts an’ a host o’ cousins. Then I spent a nigh’ in a ghos’ house, met an Or’nae, one o’ the neighbourin’ clan,” I smiled slightly at the memories of that night. It had been a running battle all through, and probably the first time I had ended up as exhausted as this and the last until we had found the ship. “We spent the nigh’ t’gether fightin’ ‘til t’dawn, bu’ we formed a bond, one tha’ o’er time became love.” I sighed softly, leaning carefully back against the wall. “I miss’em, I was goin’ tae see me love again, ‘cause we’re ambassadors tae another world, an’ ended up ‘ere instead.”

The silence came, terse at first, but slowly more comfortable as the female started to relax a little. Reaching up, I brushed the drying tears from her cheeks. “There’s another reason I want somedragon ‘roun’ me righ’ now.” I admitted gritting my teeth as my wounds flared. “I spen’ five hours holdin’ tha’ storm, after walkin’ away from a crash I probably shouldnae have an’ on barely two days o’ healin’,” I sighed, looking up at her. “I’m gonna crash ‘ard pretty soon, I’m tae tired tae sleep, but tae injured tae do anythin’ else, I’d rather somedragon I recognise be ‘roun’, an’ ye I could find.”

I sat, watching her for a moment before she climbed out of the bed and made her way around, settling next to me. I felt a few tears run from my own eyes as she rested her head on my thigh. Gently, I used my good arm to move down so we were lying together, drawing some comfort from another in a similar boat.

I felt her head rest on my shoulder. “I don’t think we ever told you our names,” She murmured, “I’m Trip Shot.” She introduced herself before yawning.

I nodded, carefully reaching up to rub her ears and chuckling as she gave me a dirty look. “Jhoshor always loved his crest being scratched.” I commented dryly, “Though I doubt ye’ve the toughness fer tha’, Trip Shot.” I yawned, soon echoed by her. “We need tae sleep though, an’ I’d ‘preciate it if’n ye stayed close, I’d rather wake tae familiar faces, ‘specially given the headache I’m gonna have.”

She nodded, resettling herself as I closed my eyes, listening to her breathing slow and deepen before sleep finally claimed me.

*****

1999 January 14th 00:21 (Night)

Treetop City X-COM base. hospital area, Commander Section, Commander Kim Fareseed's room

I woke up sweating from a terrible nightmare, one worse than seeing an Ursa Minor trashing a town, losing my moustache in green fire. Reaching up desperately with my fore-hooves, I felt around my mouth and sighed in relief to find my moustache was still there.

Checking my foreleg, to look at the time, I groaned as I remembered that I had taken my watch off before sleeping. Reaching out with my magic to the find it on the nightstand, I picked it up and hovered it in front of my eyes, sighing when I saw that it was maybe twenty after midnight. “Great, it’s after midnight and I’m supposed to be asleep.” I muttered to myself, groaning when I realised that I didn’t feel tired anymore. “Now what am I supposed to do until morning?”

Placing my watch back on the nightstand, I shifted, trying to get more comfortable in the bed, only to feel something wrapped around my barrel rubbing against the blanket. Frowning, I lifted the blanket up to reveal a mass of bandages covering me. “Don’t they know not to waste this many bandages on small wounds?” I groaned in irritation, honestly, plasters would have done the job just as well.

Shifting again, I tried to shake out my tail, only to find that I couldn’t move it. Using my magic, I threw the blanket aside to find that my tail was likewise completely covered in bandages, “What?! Why did they mummify my tail? The only thing that happened to it was that it got wet!” I yelled in confusion and anger.

Now there was no way I would be able to go back to sleep, especially if every soldier had had their tails bandaged up, the cost in bandages would be insane, especially for Fire Bullet, who had the longest tail in the base, even though it had been burnt. Rolling out of bed, I levitated my glasses to their usual place on my muzzle and started out the door. The chief medical pony had a few questions to answer, particularly about why they had mummified my tail.

*****

Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 3, 00:40

Bomb Wing's dream

“Stone Tear, you have been sentenced to execution for the crime of driving your comrades insane with your incessant whining.” Commander Kim shouted through a megaphone, his voice carrying through the rest of the room and over the base’s personnel, who had come to see what, was going on.

I was happy, finally, after all this time, he was about to feel the pain I had endured when I had been stuck in a hospital ward with him all those months ago.

“Colonel Bomb Wing, your weapon of choice?” Kim asked, already knowing what my answer would be.

“Rocket launcher with incendiary rockets!” I shouted, causing the other soldiers to stomp on the ground in response, waiting to see the execution.

Curling up into a furry ball, the rock brown unicorn looked very much like his namesake, or he would have if not for his horn, cutie mark and the black and white mane and tail. I glared at him as Trip shot and Fire Bullet brought my rocket launcher into the shooting range, along with an incendiary rocket.

“Okay everypony! Let the execution begin!” Kim shouted through the megaphone.

As everypony in the base stomped on the ground impatiently, I loaded the incendiary rocket into the launcher and hoisted it up, pointing it towards the lump, “Any last words?” I asked, beating my wings to stay upright as I held the weapon.

"Yes!" Stone Tear said. "WAKE UP!"

“What?” I asked in confusion, confusion that Stone Tear used to pull a blue alien weapon out of somewhere and fire it at me, green flaming energy coming straight at me for a second before I felt burning pain and everything went black.

*****

I bolted up right sweating and screaming, the movement causing my wounds to flare in pain, making me bite off the scream with a yelp of pain. Unfortunately my scream woke Stone up from where he was sleeping in the bed next to me, causing him to tumble onto the floor with a screech followed by a howl of pain as his wounds impacted the hard ground.

Sitting forwards, I panted into my fore hooves, trying to work out how what could have been a perfect dream had become a perfect nightmare instead. My ears flicked up as I heard rapid hoof beats approaching the door moments before it flew open, revealing a bandaged tail, that quickly turned around to show a grey mare with a flame coloured mane. “What’s happening here?” She asked, her purple eyes wide and rolling a little in fear, the pupils tiny dots.

*****

Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 1, 01:10

I was woken up from sleep by a scream coming through the wall to the room next door, the room that Bomb Wing and Stone Tear were in. Fearing the worst, especially after the second scream, I jumped out of bed and ran out of the room, ignoring the injuries to my legs in my haste to get there.

Reaching the room, I bucked the door open and turned around, expecting to find one or both of them dead. As the stallions turned to look at me, I asked, “What’s happening here?”

As I looked at the pair of them, Stone started whining about his wounds and the pain they were causing him, making Bomb put his fore hooves to his ears as he gritted his teeth against both the pain of his own wounds and the desire to maim a certain unicorn, not that I could blame him on that part.

My heart went out to Bomb Wing at that point and I walked across the room towards him, nopony deserved to put up with this. “I don’t care about that gender separation rule at the moment,” I said, nosing him gently. “Nopony should be stuck in the same room as him.” I twitched my tail. “Join me?”

Bomb nodded, putting his hooves down again and getting out of bed slowly, wincing as his hooves made contact with the floor. “Gladly,” He said, limping as he gathered his armour before joining me.

As we left the room and closed the door behind us, the whining from Stone miraculously stopped. Frowning, I opened the door curiously, only to get another earful of his whining, which cut off mid word as I closed the door again, something which could not have been the door blocking the sound given it wasn’t sound proofed and I had heard them through a wall. “That bucking little pony only wanted the room to himself,” Bomb Wing grumbled, echoing my thoughts exactly.

“We can report him in the morning,” I said tiredly, getting a nod from Bomb, who was not only tired by irritated as well. The walk back to my room was short enough that it didn’t give me a chance to wonder what the medics would say about breaking the rule against mixed genders in the same room, not that it mattered in the face of dealing with Stone Tear. Any punishment would be better than being left with that pony for more than a few minutes, let alone an hour.

I stood aside once we reached my room, letting Bomb in first so he could choose which bed he wanted to sleep on, and as I almost expected, he picked the one that didn’t look like a disaster zone. I let out a soft sigh, walking into the room and kicking the door shut behind me before jumping onto the other bed. I flinched, biting my lip as tears sprang into my eyes when my right hind leg burned with pain. Taking a moment to focus on breathing and calming my nerves, I settled myself down, pulling the blanket over me again. “Good night, Bomb.”

“Yeah… good night, Fire and thanks from saving me from Stone’s whining. I can’t stand listening to it.” Bomb replied, having already settled himself in the other bed.

“Nopony can,” I commented dryly before closing my eyes and letting sleep claim me again.

*****

Treetop City X-COM base, hospital are, chife medical's office, 00:47

“What do you have to say for yourself?” I ground out, glaring at the mare in a doctor’s coat in front of me. “Why have you mummified my tail and wasted a good amount of bandaged on it?” I added, stomping one hoof to show how angry I was with her, my eyes narrowed. “The last time I checked, while we were on the way back here, my tail was wet from the rain and sweat, not burnt to a crisp!” I snapped, not giving her a chance to speak. “And even if it had been burned, you could have just cut away the burnt hair, there was no reason to waste all those bandages on it or on wounds so minor a plaster would have sufficed.” The last was added sarcastically since while our chief medical pony was very good at treating any kind of wounds we knew, I had not expected her to let the others turn our soldiers into mummies.

“I hope this will never happen again, because if it does and another soldier with minor or cosmetic wounds gets turned into a mummy, you will be paying for the bandages your staff used up out of your pay check, do you understand?” I asked, leaning forwards over the desk.

She only just managed to nod, severely shaken by our encounter. Even when I had first bucked the door open, interrupting her paperwork, she had been scared, by now her eyes were showing wildly, the pupils of her eyes barely larger than dots in her pink irises and her ears flat against her head.

“Good,” I said, dropping off the desk and walking out of the office, heading back to my own room. “It’s bad enough we’ve got problems from aliens, we don’t need them from our medics as well.” I muttered with a sigh. “I can’t let any more idiots work here… I need to make sure there is a test for them so we know we’ve got the best ones available… once I’ve recovered.”

To be contiued

Credit to Ghrathryn for making this 120% awsome. And showing here his yet again what he can make from scrap to a masterpice.

A new pony recruted

Please, if you can, see this video before reading. See it as a intro for the chapters.
X-Pony Intro

A new pony recruted

1999 January 14th 06:00 - Enlisted Ward, Room 1

Fire Bullet's dream

I walked along a red carpet wearing a fresh uniform along with a new rank patch, I had made it to Sergeant not that long ago, and barely a week ago we had found and destroyed the aliens’ base, defeating them for good. I remembered seeing it hanging over the magma chamber of an active volcano, suspended by metal cabling. Sending it into the molten rock had taken tonnes of explosives, but the explosions had been wonderful to see and the screams of the aliens had been music to my ears as it melted into scrap.

Now that the war was over, I could finally get married to the stallion of my dreams, Bomb Wing. After rescuing him from Stone Tear a while ago, I had him wrapped around my hoof. All that was left to do was to finally have the ceremony to tie the knot officially.

Everypony from the base had been invited to the Treetop church, even the dragon, Ghrathryn, had come, and everypony was in dress uniforms. Somepony had even managed to make a special one for Ghrathryn, designed so he could wear it even with his huge wings. It was something of a riot of colour as each of us wore the uniform of our old unit along with our rank symbols from our time in X-Com, each with the unit icon over the top of it.

When I finally reached the alter, I found Bomb Wing waiting there for me along with the priest waiting to begin the ceremony. After half a year of waiting, nothing could go wrong today.

*****

After all the prayers and sermonising from the priest, he finally got to the interesting bit, the vows. “Do you, Fire Bullet, take you, Bomb Wing, for your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do you part?”

I nodded simply, “Yes.”

“And do you, Bomb Wing, take you, Fire Bullet, for your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do you part?” The priest asked, turning to Bomb Wing.

“I do,” Bomb replied.

“Then,” The priest said, turning his attention to the rest of the room. “If anypony here can show cause why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

“I have a reason why they shouldn’t be married!” I heard somepony yell from the crowd, definitely a pony though; it didn’t have the dragon’s distinctive way of speaking. Turning around, I felt my breath catch in my throat as I saw Stone Tear standing forwards in his dress blacks, holding one of those blue alien guns.

“What are you doing?!” I asked confusion, fear and anger fighting for dominance in my voice.

“I’m waking you up from this dream,” Stone replied grimly before firing a bolt of liquid green energy at me. “Now, wake up!”

I screamed, curling into a ball as the energy struck my flesh, melting it from my bones as tears ran down my muzzle. The last thing I saw was Bomb Wing staring into the distance as if nothing was happening, not moving at all. The only thing I could hear before darkness claimed me was Stone Tear’s laughter.

*****

I bolted upright in an instant, my purple eyes snapping wide open as my breath came in short bursts, just short of a scream of fear. What happened to my dream? Why did it happen and why had it turned into a nightmare at the end? I asked myself, trying to get my breathing under control, only for something else to enter the fight. Sitting up reflexively had jarred and pulled just about every wound on my body, I could feel them aching and burning with pain, forcing a scream out passed my teeth, waking Bomb Wing on the other bed.

“Whu-what’s happening?” He asked, trying to jump out of the bed and make himself ready for combat before he had even woken up properly. “Are we under attack?” He blinked as he looked around, noticing that he was in a different room to normal. “Where am I?” He asked.

“Not with Stone Tear,” I answered shortly, still panting a bit from the pain of my wounds and causing him to jump.

“Fire?” He asked, sounding worried, “You do know the problems we’re going to have if one of the medics finds us now, right?” He asked, sounding like he feared the answer.

“As I said last night,” I reminded him, “I don’t care about that rule at the moment. Nopony deserves to be stuck in the same room as that alien weaponry using and whining unicorn.” I pointed out, stomping a hoof on my bed for emphasis before realising what I had just said. I gasped, putting both fore hooves in my mouth to try to take back what I had already said.

Bomb looked at me, confusion written plain on his muzzle, “Alien weaponry using?” He asked, his ear twitching a little. “What are you talking about?”

“Just… just a nightmare,” I responded, letting out a breath as I put my hooves down again.

Bomb looked at me, frowning, “You had one too?” He asked. “Stone Tear using a blue tube gun with green fire in place of bullets, right?”

I nodded, blinking in surprise. “How did you…?”

“That was why I screamed earlier,” He replied, scuffing a hoof against the bed. “I was about to execute him in my dream and he shot me.”

“O…kay, this is getting weird.” I muttered, getting a nod from Bomb Wing.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

I blinked, looking up at him, “About what?” I asked curiously.

“About your dream,” Bomb clarified.

“Oh… uh… he shot me at the end of a marriage ceremony.” I replied a little too quickly, trying to figure out just how much to say.

He gave me a look, “Okay.”

I sighed softly; this was getting really awkward really fast. “We should try getting back to sleep; we’ll need all the rest we can get.” I said, twitching my tail as I lay back down. I wish that my nightmare had been real… or at least what happened before the getting killed part. I thought to myself as I dragged my blanket around me again.

*****

1999 January 14th 09:00 - Enlisted Ward, Room 1

An equine scream of rage woke me up, making me yelp in fright. Looking around for the source of the noise, I found one of the nurse ponies standing near the door, looking more than a little pissed off. I recognised the mare, unfortunately. Nurse Spike Head, for the fact her blue mane looked like a series of spikes coming up from her brown coat. She had a reputation as being all too easy to anger, and being able to tear legs off living cockatrices.

“I-I-I c-c-can explain…” I started, shivering in fright.

“NO!” Nurse Spike Head roared, making both me and Bomb jump back against the wall as far from her as we could get. “He is going back to his own room this instant and neither of you will be getting any food for three days once you are allowed out of here!” She snapped at us, stalking forwards. “You both know the rules!”

I gulped, nodding as she stalked towards Bomb Wing. It was worse than I had expected. It was only supposed to be two days without food, not three.

Grabbing Bomb Wing roughly, Spike Head threw him onto her back, making his wounds hurt again if the yelp he gave was any indication. Grabbing his armour, she stomped her way out of the room and towards the one Bomb Wing and Stone Tear had been assigned. Shaking in fright, I curled up in a ball, not wanting to think about what could happen now.

*****

1999 January 14th 07:10 - Non-Commissioned Officer Ward, Room 1

When I woke up, my vision was filled with golden scales and the occasional bandage. Jerking back, I blinked as I saw the dragon’s head and remembered what had happened yesterday. Despite his own rather too obvious wounds and the fact he had to have been beyond exhausted, he had made his way here to comfort me, the least I could do was stay with him until he woke up, I had promised him that much. He was the only one of his kind on the base, and after what he had done for me, comforting me, he deserved the same. Shifting slightly, I lay my head on his shoulder again, closing my eyes.

I heard rather than saw the door open, followed by the sounds of something metal clanging against the metal flooring and somepony’s gasp. Shifting carefully, I glanced up, frowning a little when I saw Ghrathryn hadn’t moved. He was probably on the far side of unconscious right now, not that I could blame him. Turning my head, I twitched an ear, seeing the cream-coloured nurse pony trying to back away without making a sound. No surprises there after the reactions of… just about everypony I had seen encounter him.

It was strange and it wasn’t that everypony feared the dragon, even the Commander and the head nurse, a pony called Spike Head, who was one of the tallest ponies in the base and one of the heaviest, most of it muscle from what anypony could tell. Then again, even unconscious he seemed to dominate a room, and there was a subtle feeling of menace from him, like a storm looking for a place to hit.

The nurse managed to make it back out of the door, leaving whatever it was that they had dropped and closed it hard, causing my ears to flatten against my head. Even that noise failed to wake him. Flicking my tail out, I stretched briefly before settling myself again and making myself comfortable. Even though I wasn’t particularly tired, it wasn’t as if there was much else to do with everypony injured. Closing my eyes, I settled in to drowse until something made me move.

*****

1999 January 15th 12:00 - Feallmharfóir Homestead, Ailiaar Home World

I lashed my tail in agitation as I paced around the room I had been gifted in the headquarters of the assassins of this world. The nobles claimed that they were the power of the world, but I knew from experience just how good the assassins were and I doubted many people were brave enough to cross them willingly, especially since they controlled the orbitals with the ship they had found. Unfortunately that was not the source of my agitation, if it had of been, I could have quelled it more easily as I was well used to dealing with politics, even though I didn’t like it. I was Gr’an’tycth of Or’nae, politics came hand in hand with being a princess, and I was already a ‘diplomat’ since I was lifemated to one of the Gr’an’tacth of the Cal’drith.

I sigh escaped my lips as I turned to look out the window, watching the wind tease at the trees in the distance. If I was honest with myself, that was the real problem right now. I was mated to Ghrathryn, and he should have been here nearly a week ago. It wasn’t like him to not show up, unless something had happened. The fact he was missing worried me, a lot.

I heard the door bang open behind me and turned to look, frowning as I spotted one of the locals there, a black-scaled female with large feathered wings, “Somethin’ up, Vanora?” I asked, recognising her as one of the ten Ailiaar that had joined my lifemate and me, along with the rest of our group, in rescuing several diplomats when we had first met up.

She nodded the light glinting off traceries of silver that were showing on her wings and scales, those that weren’t covered by her robes. “Aye, V’rentryth, a message pod from a fighter just arrived at the Meán Oíche. They’re going to send the message down here so we can see what’s going on.”

“Where are they doin’ it?” I asked, twitching my tail. A message pod from a fighter meant that one of the little one-person craft had run into trouble and the only one I knew was coming this way was my lifemate’s… he wasn’t dead, I knew that much, but I could feel a cold knot settle in my stomach, since Ghrathryn was probably in trouble. I just hoped he was making more trouble for the ones threatening him than they were for him.

Vanora flicked her tail, reaching up to scratch her crest before pushing her hood off completely. “In the main study, in about ten minutes,” She replied.

I nodded, moving towards her and the door. “Then let’s be goin’.” I said, flicking my tail. I wanted to know what had happened to my lifemate and the sooner the better. When the other dragoness nodded, I followed her down the stairs, the pair of us joining the flow of acolytes and the like moving through the fortress.

*****

1999 January 15th 12:10 - Feallmharfóir Homestead, Ailiaar Home World

A low fire burned in the hearth as we all stood around the holo-projector, the high tech device looking remarkably out of place amongst the furnishings of the room, ones that had been here for centuries most likely, certainly before my time. I shifted slightly, turning my head to watch the red Franthoryn as Vanora leaned against my side.

“Repeat, this be Ghrathryn Cal’drith… I be under attack near… some alien force issss… donnae know ‘ow many, bu’ I doubt I’m gonnae ge’ outta ‘ere. Damn hedrachin are gonna force me tae… on the planet. I donnae know… if I’ll join ye… soon, bu’… trouble fer them. …Soon as I… gear, I’ll contact ye.”

The message had been filled with static and the sounds of a fight, which hadn’t been a surprise, what was a surprise was how angry V’rentryth looked. Having seen her fight before, I wanted to say I pitied whoever and whatever those aliens were, but… Ghrathryn was a friend, and so was V’rentryth. Somedragon attacking them was like somedragon attacking Vanora or any of the others of our group. You didn’t do that and think you could get away with it.

“You aren’t going out there alone.” The voice caught me off guard, stealing the words right out of my mouth. I turned to see the black, four-winged Rhyl’saar standing forwards. “V’rentryth, I know you want to go tearing off after your mate, but hear me out. When we fought together, we got more done than any of us could do alone, because of our skills. You helped us then, let us help you now.”

I nodded, flicking my tail against Vanora’s. “Noranna’s got a point, V’ren. Let us help, there’s a few of the larger ships near enough ready on the Meán Oíche, we can fix most of what’s left in flight and one of them will let us all come and carry more gear than one of the fighters.”

When she turned towards me with a scowl on her face, I thought she wasn’t going to go for it, not that I would blame her in that case, it was her lifemate that was missing after all. Then her expression softened and she nodded.

“I’d welcome ye all, an’ I’m sure Ghrath’d be glad tae see ye all.” V’rentryth said eventually. “’Ow long ‘til we can ge’ tha’ ship?” She asked.

“Give us a day to pack and prepare everything, then we can go searching.” I replied, flicking my tail. Breaking away from Vanora, I walked over to the red and put a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get him back, V’ren, and spirits help whoever gets in our way, because there won’t be any mercy from us.” I said, getting nods from the others, followed by several growls from nowhere, making me jump. Looking down, I saw the spirits that had formed into my weapons years ago resume their natural forms and fly up to my shoulders. A glance around at the others let me know what had happened; the spirits were lending their aid as well. We had their support, something that lifted a load off my shoulders.

“Thank ye, Keir.” V’rentryth said softly, putting a hand on mine as the others gathered around.

*****

1999 January 17th 16:43 - Commander's Ward

I had finally been allowed to leave the hospital wing, and without those damn bandages all over me since my wounds had healed fine, though my tail was mostly flat thanks to being stuck in the bandages.

I also had some good news for a change; I had received a telegram yesterday saying that we would be receiving a new recruit in about four days. From the dossier that had been sent ahead, he was supposed to be a moss green earth pony stallion with a blue and black coloured mane and tail. He was also supposed to hail from the northern part of the jungle nation of Amazone, just south of the Southern Mountains. It was pretty close to Equestria, but the mountain range cut it off, splitting the nations. Apparently they didn’t control the weather either, meaning the jungle was a hotter and wetter version of the old Everfree Forest. Of course, how he was going to get here was a question, since it was a long way from there to here and he was supposed to be making his own way here.

We needed to ensure he had a welcoming party waiting for him when he arrived, and that he got a grand tour of the base. I shifted slightly and sighed, I hoped that Bomb Wing, Trip shot and Fire Bullet had managed to recover by the time this greenie arrived, or else I would be there all along and that wouldn’t be good as it would be the same as painting a big bullseye on me for the aliens to take pot shots at.

Putting my armour on again, I grimaced, wrinkling my muzzle at the scent of dried sweat and blood in it. I really needed to wash it, but first I needed to get back to my room, since my clothes were all in my room, along with my spare armour. With the alien – aliens? – around I didn’t really want to go around without armour in case the prisoner attempted to escape, and besides, while I had a dress uniform, it was far too fancy and hard to get into for me.

Putting on my watch and glasses I ran through a mental checklist of things I needed to do as I crossed the room, heading towards the door. We still needed to make a report on what had happened during the Draceville mission and the grey alien was still sitting in the containment block, giving us no information whatsoever. Of course then there were the reports from the scientists on the research they had managed to complete, getting a uniform tailored for Ghrathryn along with armour for him. I also had to check on the injured soldiers, make sure the medical skills tests were implemented and check how much we had in storage along with how much free space there was… and see if there were any facilities we needed to get a crew to start building.

Leaving the hospital room, I hurried to my living quarters, glad to finally see the back of the place for the time being, even if it meant that the stress of my job was just beginning.

*****

1999 January 17th 18:20 - Commander Kim Fareseed’s office

Mission 2 Report, 1999 January 13th

Mission name: ‘Terror in Draceville’

X-COM Commander Kim F.’s Report

Commander’s notes:

The mission was terrible. Of our thirteen active soldiers counting myself, nine have been badly wounded while the remaining four have all been injured, though more lightly than our comrades.

The town of Draceville, while reportedly evacuated before we arrived on the scene, has now been almost completely destroyed between the effects of some very unusual weather patterns and what is likely the aliens attempt at attacking the townsfolk.

Unfortunately I must also report that it isn’t just one alien race we are dealing with in these attacks, there are at least three involved that we have encountered. While the ‘grey’ aliens mentioned in my previous report are relatively tough, they are a lot weaker than the two we encountered at Draceville.

One of the two is orange in colour and has what appears to be a snake-like tail in place of a lower body. The armour it uses is exceedingly strong, strong enough that even using high explosive rounds, our heavy cannons are unable to make much of a dent in it. Like the greys, this type of alien is a tool user. They also seem to have access to very similar weaponry from a personal encounter; their weapons spit green fire in place of bullets, much like the ones we found with the greys.

The first alien was accompanied by a second type when we encountered it; or rather we encountered this type of alien first, then the snakes. This one seems to be more like a crab, maybe with some sort of insect in the mix. They are very fast, but don’t seem to know how to use weapons of their own, however their crab-like claws are quite possibly able to crush through metal. On the good side, they also seem to be very vulnerable to fire based weapons, and electrical shocks of high magnitude quickly kill them.

We encountered a dragon whilst attempting to clear Draceville, one by the name of ‘Gra-th-rin Cal’duh-rith*.’ It seems that he, much like the Pegasus ponies of old, can tame the weather itself, however while they have to physically move clouds, he can call down lightning on a target from several feet away. He saved the lives of several ponies in Draceville, along with much of the population from his own report.

Also from his own report, he may well be an alien himself, hailing from a place called ‘Har-ren-thi-as*,’ which I do not recall seeing on any map of our world. He claims to be a prince – his uncle is apparently the king of a place called Cal’duh-rith* while his life-mate is apparently the daughter to the king of Or-nay*, wherever those are.

From what he told us on meeting him, he is a specific type of dragon, a ‘fran-thor-rin*’ or something like that, whatever it is, and he is different to those we have seen before. He also said he is a ‘joss-or fren-th-rin*’, presumably that means something like ‘storm dragon’, and that he was on a diplomatic recon of some kind.

Survivors: Unknown. Draceville evacuated by Grath-rin

Civilians killed: Unknown.

Aliens killed: Unknown.

Aliens captured: None.

Mission rate by Commander: Worse than terrible.

Soldiers survived: Thirteen, including me.

Soldiers heavily injured: Nine.

Soldiers lightly injured: Four, including me.

Worst injuries: Cracked horns, hooves and broken wings and legs.

Lightest injuries: Burn marks and minor cuts.

Civilians recruited: One. Grath-rin Cal’duh-rith.

Recruit rank: Colonel. I don’t really trust him yet, though he has said that he does not eat pony meat. I gave him a high rank in an effort to ensure he would become an ally and to avoid upsetting him. I don’t particularly wish to find him eating the base staff or myself one day.

New recruit status: Looks heavily exhausted and injured.

Mission ‘Terror in Draceville’ report ended.

X-COM Commander Kim F.’s report ended.

* - I have only heard these words, so I am unsure exactly how they are spelt; hence they have been sounded out for the time being.

*****

“Finally done,” I sighed in relief as I stretched the kinks out of my muscles. After having galloped to my office, something that had taken about quarter of an hour, sitting in one place writing a report for an hour had made me stiffen up enough that several things had popped when I stretched.

I hated dealing with the paperwork after missions, most of the time the memories were too fresh, particularly the bad ones like this last mission. How we had managed to avoid losing anypony I didn’t know, but it was nothing short of a miracle.

Sighing again, I turned my attention to the pile of reports still on my desk. It looked like I was going to end up being sat here for hours since there was a pile of them. Levitating the mission report out of the way, I took the others, flicking through them and frowning as I noticed that there were several research reports, primarily laser weapons, new medical kits, the alien guns and their craft.

Picking the top one, which turned out to be about the improvements to the medical kit, I made myself as comfortable as I could. Judging by the thickness of the folder, I was in for a minimum of a fifty page report on whatever new drugs they had found, this was going to take a while.

*****

1999 January 17th 19:30 - Amazone, north-east jungle side

As I walked through the jungle towards the Evergreen Forest and Treetop City, I frowned as I heard something moving through the vegetation nearby. Looking around, I frowned, not seeing anything out of the ordinary, just the usual different coloured plants, the parasprites that seemed to spread wherever they appeared, a dead manticore and a green bipedal creature….

“Wait… what?!” I turned my head back to look at the green creature, only to find it turning its hear towards me, making me realise that I had said that out loud, and loud enough that it had heard me, not a good thing.

As it turned to face me, I noticed that its face, unlike the rest of its body, was purple. Purple and scarred, given the lighter line crossing over its right eye. Whatever this thing was, it was not from around here that much I knew, and unfortunately its colouration meant that it would be perfectly at home lying in wait for an ambush in this sort of terrain.

When it finished turning around, I blinked as it grunted, sounding confused. What I had thought was its fur looked more like some kind of body suit, especially with the dark blue blood that stained it in several places, coming from rents in the fabric. Even with that, it still looked big enough and mean enough to break me in half with little effort.

I heard a thump and looked back at the creature, my eyes widening in fear as sweat started to bead on my brow. It was starting towards me, and it was licking its lips. Backing up, I twitched my tail nervously as I looked around for a way out of this mess. The last thing I wanted was to be some over-sized monkey’s dinner.

“Calm down, Bluelight, remember your training.” I whispered to myself, focusing on my breathing to calm myself. Closing my eyes, I focused on the magic that flowed through the earth and through my body, feeling the two bracelets around my forelegs heat comfortably as they picked up on the magical flow. I heard rather than saw the creature stop, then heard it roar as all the nearby plants bent and shifted, trapping it at my mental command.

Opening my eyes again, I let out an explosive breath, feeling sweat on my flanks and dribbling down my neck. “I’m an Earth pony, and I’ve trained my magic for years, but I still end up exhausted whenever I do that, what gives?” I asked the air, panting it out between gulps of air as I looked walled off creature.

Hearing a roar from the other side, I twitched my tail, turning and setting off in an exhausted jog through the trees. I didn’t want to stick around here to find out what that thing would do to me when it got out. As I trotted away, I glanced up at the sky. “Mom, dad… I promise I will find you.” I whispered, “Maybe my new job will lead me to you, but even if it doesn’t, I’ll kill any alien that stands in my way. They will regret the day they took you away from me.” I whispered, a tear trickling down my cheek.

*****

1990 September 7th 08:20 - Timber Town, Bluelight’s home
Bluelight's flashback

When I woke up that morning, I had thought it would be an ordinary day, the scent of cooking eggs for breakfast waking me from my slumber. Hurrying downstairs, I almost ran into the kitchen to find my mother cooking eggs while my father was gathering his tools for work.

Walking up to the larger stallion, I looked up at him. “Dad, when will you be back?” I asked in a small voice, not really wanting to see him leave for work.

“Tonight, I promise I’ll be back for tonight, alright, Blue?” He asked, leaning down to nuzzle me, nudging his head into my side gently, almost pushing me over.

“Really?”

He nodded, nuzzling me again. “Really,” He confirmed.

Grinning, I bounced over to the table to eat while mom packed a few things to help dad with his work. Not long after they left, I gathered my own things and left for school, not realising that this would be the last time we would be a family.

*****

1990 September 7th 16:50 - Timber Town, Bluelight’s home

That evening, as I waited for my parents to return, doodling on a piece of paper, the door to our house slammed open, revealing one of my friends, “Bluelight!” He started, sounding excited by something. “Come on, you’ve got to see this!”

Frowning, I nodded, following him from the house and to the harvesting grounds, where several… things were herding ponies into a strange beam of light. I didn’t know what they were, but just looking at the bipeds made ice settle in my stomach, particularly the way they were making the ponies go into the light. That was when I saw my parents in the herd, both their faces looking… blank, despite the distance between us. “No!”

Even as I yelled, the whole group disappeared along with the light, vanishing into the air. Breaking away from my friend, who was babbling excitedly about ‘aliens’, I ran over to where I had seen the light, pawing at the ground in an effort to find where it had gone.

“No… no… please…” I sobbed, tears trickling down my muzzle. “Please come back… please!” Unfortunately words had no effect on the uncaring ground and sky. I felt something change inside me that day, something cold wrapped around my heart. I would get my parents back, along with everypony else that had been caught by those monsters… those aliens. I would get them back and the aliens would pay for what they had done.

*****

1999 January 17th, 20:30 - Amazone, north-east jungle side

When I finally stopped, I had managed to get a fair distance away from that creature, into a clearing in the jungle, one of the few areas where there wasn’t much vegetation.

Dropping my saddlebag on the ground, I glanced around briefly before taking my sleeping bag out and unrolling it on a dry patch of ground. Lying down on it, I took out some food and rolled around to look up at the sky, taking a bite out of a cake bar. Somewhere out there, my parents were alive somehow, at least I hoped so. I blinked a tear away and sighed. Maybe, with joining this X-Com, I would be able to find them and bring them home safe again.

For now though, I needed sleep, I had a long way to go before I reached the base. Finishing my meagre meal, I closed my eyes and settled down to sleep, hoping that I had evaded that green alien and that I would find my family again.

*****

1999 January 18th 07:23 - Commander Kim Fareseed’s office

I woke up in my office with my head buried in research reports. Blinking sleepily, I rubbed my eyes with a hoof and looked down at the one lying open. This would be an almost perfect example of why I didn’t like heavy reading late at night, since it almost always resulted in me waking up with my muzzle in the literature. A hundred pages of scientific jargon on our new laser weaponry certainly counted as ‘heavy reading’, not only for the size of the document but for the fact that it involved wading through things only a physicist could really understand without a science-to-Equestrian dictionary, a map and a compass... okay, maybe not the last two, but certainly the first.

After shaking the cobwebs out of my head, I slipped out of the chair, groaning as my back started aching both from the position I had fallen asleep in and from the armour I was still wearing. Stretching out, I grunted as several things popped or snapped, settling back into their proper places, shaking myself out, I reached up a hoof to adjust my glasses as my stomach decided to let me know I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday by growling at me. Glancing at the reports, I grimaced at the state of them, whatever I had been dreaming about had apparently left me sweating, or maybe it was just my armour. Either way, I decided to leave them to dry out while I went to get something to eat.

I needed to get out of this damned armour first though. Sighing, I headed for the bathroom to clean up and dump the stinky armour in favour of something a bit fresher. Celestia knew, I would need it the next time we detected a UFO and it either landed or was brought down somewhere over Magica, but for now I could afford to at least let it be cleaned and mended.

Half an hour later and freshly showered, I made my way into the mess hall, just in time to have missed the morning rush, or at least what there was of one given most of the soldiers were probably still recovering from their injuries. Walking through the rows of tables, I flicked my tail as I approached the serving area. We had been lucky so far, we were one up in terms of how many people we had, granted we had lost one, but we had gained two with the dragon and the new pony that was supposed to be arriving in the next three days or so. Even with the Skyranger filled to capacity, we still needed more soldiers, who knew what other monstrous creatures the aliens would send at us next.

“Commander, what can I get you?” A voice asked, breaking me out of my own thoughts to see a dusky blue-grey stallion standing behind the counter.

I sighed, leaning against the counter. “The usual, Bjarne,” I paused as my stomach growled at me. “Actually, make it double,” Considering how long it had been since I had eaten, I probably needed the food, particularly after the hospital crap... though that brought up something. “And since you’re here... have you been able to get in any fish or meat?” I couldn’t recall whether I had told anypony that the dragon ate meat or not, but it seemed like a good idea to inform the head chef about the issue while I had him here in front of me, hopefully before the dragon in question woke up starving and decided to devour everypony he could catch.

I watched as the chef prepared my meal in silence, chewing my lower lip as it stretched on, only to jump as the plate of sandwiches was set down in front of me. “The CMO told me, Commander.” Bjarne responded, making me let out a breath of relief. “It has been... difficult to get such within Equestria, I have had to get in touch with the Iolaireans, we received two crates yesterday, more will be coming, though it is expensive to import... and an offence to the senses.”

I nodded, picking up one of the sandwiches with my magic and taking a bite out of it. “I can imagine given what I’ve seen, and smelt on the battlefield.” I responded after swallowing the bite. I could picture the chefs’ responses to opening supply crates to find meat packed into them all too readily given how the sight of those bodies in Draceville had affected Trip Shot. “However, I have seen this dragon in action, and I would much prefer that he stays well fed enough that he doesn’t start looking at us for food... particularly given I saw him tear the arms off one of the aliens in the last mission.” I shuddered at the memory. “That thing was a lot bigger than we are to him.”

Bjarne nodded, twitching the tail-knot he had as he turned to scowl at his staff as they worked on what would probably be lunch. “I understand that mission could have gone better, given you are one of the first soldiers to eat here since it occurred.”

I snorted softly, finishing my second sandwich. “That... is an understatement, still next time we will be better prepared,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

*****

1999 January 18th 10:15 - Non-Commissioned Officer Ward, Room 1

Waking up to a raging headache I expected, waking up to hear some unknown yelling about something I hadn’t. I took a moment to let my mind figure out just what was going on with my body, only to hear somedragon yell at the loth I had joined before falling unconscious. “I don’t care what he wanted, either he should not be here or you shouldn’t and frankly that monster deserves less than it has been getting so get out, now!”

“No,” That was the loth I knew, Trip Shot I believe her name was. “I promised I would stay with him, I won’t go back on that promise.”

There was an equine scream of rage, followed by a squeal and the feel of – what I believed to be Trip Shot – bumping into me. Enough was enough. My injured arm went around Trip Shot, making her yelp in surprise, even as I threw my uninjured arm out in the general direction of the other voice, the one that had called me a monster, a thought sending electricity coursing down it to arc across the room. “Back off!” I snapped at the other. “I donnae care jus’ who ye think ye are, ye donnae call anydragon a monster ‘less ye be wantin’ tae face the consequences, an’ ye donnae try tae force anydragon tae go back on their word.” I growled, my voice rumbling like a storm as it dropped into the quiet between the Lothrae.

Opening my eyes, I shifted carefully, sitting up, but still holding Trip against my side as I glared at the new lothryn, this one brown with a spiked blue mane. My lips pulled back from my teeth as she actually cowered under my glare. “Trip Shot was doin’ what I asked her tae do, lothryn,” This time I made the word a curse. With a cousin’s lifemate actually being the head of our stable and my family’s love of rearing Lothrae, I had seen plenty, both good and bad, come through our doors. This one seemed more of the latter than the former.

“Then you w-w-won’t get a-a-any food f-f-for three days.” She stuttered, trying to glare at me. “Neither of you will.” She added, falling back on threats.

Releasing Trip Shot, I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the pain — it was a lot milder than I had expected, meaning I had been out of things for a while — and stalked over to her. “Jus’ like a bully, tae use wha’ power they think they ‘ave tae try tae force things on others.” I said, kneeling in front of her. “Do ye really think I can be forced, girly?” I asked, flicking my tail.

“Y-y-y-you d-d-don’t s-s-scare me,” The loth started, making me smirk. She might have thought I wasn’t aware of things, but I could see a thousand little things that told me just how scared of me she was, and that was without her scent giving the game away.

“If’n I cannae get anythin’ tae eat here, I’ll jus’ go elsewhere, girly.” I pointed out, flicking my tail slowly. “Do ye really think tha’ t’soldiers here will willin’ly attack somedragon tha’ saved their lives, an’ held a storm fer five hours, fightin’ in it while I was injured tae save more lives than ye’ve e’er seen afore?” I asked, knowing the answer to that. None of these Lothrae would willingly attack me; they knew just how deadly I could be, especially in my element. “Lotsa electricity ‘roun’ ‘ere,” I commented. “I c’n simply draw on it if’n I need tae, an’ it wouldnae take much tae cook a little loth such as ye….” I commented calmly. That seemed to be the straw that broke the loth’s back, so to speak, since she turned tail and bolted out of the room. “An’ send a damn doctor next time.” I called after her, before snorting in amusement, damn bully was just a coward underneath the fact didn’t surprise me at all.

“Wow… I don’t think I’ve seen anypony handle Nurse Spike Head like that.” Trip Shot said in awe as she walked up to me. “How did you do that?”

I grinned, reaching over to ruffle her mane and getting a ‘hay!’ from her. “I was trained tae fight, bu’ I be Royalty, Trip, it comes with the territory tha’ ye learn how tae read another.” I pointed out, getting to my feet and testing things carefully. Nothing seemed to be wrong, and the headache had actually faded without that ‘Spike Head’ around, making me wonder how much of it was from her voice. “Ye get used tae pickin’ ou’ little bits tha’ tell ye what yuir dealin’ with an’ what ye can do tae press. She called me a monster, I played it up, but by bein’ the exact opposite type o’ monster tae the one she was expectin’, the civilised one.” I flicked my tail before tearing the bandages off and stretching out, there was pain still, but it was minor, something that I could deal with awake while the hibernation dealt with the rest… and possibly an unconscious tap into the power lines. “Why donnae ye show me ‘roun’, startin’ with the kitchen, since I could eat.” I commented as my stomach growled, making the loth blush.

“S-sure, this way,” Trip Shot said, trotting out of the room. Smiling slightly, I followed her.

*****

1999 January 19th 11:11 - Training Room

The training room was remarkable quiet today, perhaps in part due to the fact there was a dragon in the room, but mostly because there were so few of us active at the moment. Of the fourteen soldiers still on the base and still alive, it seemed that maybe half of us had recovered from our wounds. So far I had seen Bomb Wing, Fire Bullet, Ghrathryn - I had to snort at myself about that considering I had been in the same room as him - the Commander and Mr. Whiny.

Shifting under the weight of my battle saddle, I glanced over at the dragon again before aiming down the range at a paper target crudely shaped into a pony’s form. In one way, I was glad he was here, since whenever he came into a room, pretty much all conversation ceased, letting me actually think about what I was doing without having to listen to Mr. Whiny, on the other hoof, I was probably the closest thing he had to a friend in this place and I could see how much it pained him at times, even after only knowing him properly for a day.

Taking the trigger reins in my mouth, I bit down on them, sending a stream of bullets into the target for a second before releasing it. Shifting slightly, I blinked, flattening my ears as something thumped into something nearby. In the silence after firing my autocannons, it was as loud as a thunder crack. Looking around, I saw Ghrathryn standing, something in his hands, frowning, I moved to watch him, flexing my wings a little as Bomb Wing and Fire Bullet crowded around as well. As we watched, he pulled a long something out of a pile of similar objects and placed it across what he was holding before raising the entire thing up, bringing one hand back to near his cheek as he looked down the shaft of... was that an arrow?

Glancing down the range, I frowned as he released it, watching as the arrow soared down the shooting range and sank at least two inches into the target he was using. I whistled at the sight, blinking as a third arrow landed right between the other two, sinking in just as much, two more followed in rapid succession before he lowered the bow. If he could do that to our enemies, particularly if he could put those arrows into somewhere vulnerable to attacks, it wouldn’t matter that he didn’t have a gun before long. Combine that bow with his own strength and cunning... and powers, and somehow I doubted the aliens would enjoy seeing our Skyranger around, for the fact they wouldn’t know whether he was aboard or not.

“What is that thing?” Bomb Wing asked, hovering up from where he had been standing beside me to take a closer look.

Ghrathryn snorted softly, “This?” He asked, holding the bow up. “This be a simple bow, nothin’ special, leas’ wise no’ compared tae the gun I did ‘ave afore I crashed.” He flicked his tail, his eye ridges pulling down into a frown. “Tha’ said, bow an’ swords ’ave kept me safe more’n once afore now.”

“It won’t help here, nothing will help here.” There goes Stone Tear with his whining again. I sighed, glancing over at where he was standing away from the rest of us. “Those monsters out there’ll just shoot everypony with their green gunk and they’ll all burn, just like Whirlwind.” He continued, making Bomb Wing and Fire Bullet shudder. I frowned, wondering what the story was with that pair that they were reacting like that. Granted the three of them had been on the team that had gone after the UFO while I had gone after the escaping alien, so they had seen those weapons work but what was with the shuddering?

“Stone Tear, enough, we don’t need your negativity, especially not after the last mission.” I ordered, turning to face the unicorn.

“Ye’re righ’, a bow wonnae ’elp much in a head on attack ‘gainst those ugly hedrachin.” Ghrathryn said calmly. “Tha’ doesnae mean tha’ the bow is useless though, kid.” He continued, flicking his tail. “Thing is, I know meself, an’ I know t’bow, wasnae too long back since I used it all o’ the time, an’ swords are always a welcome addition tae the arsenal fer melee combat. If’n ye shoot a UFO down in t’forest, jungle or mountains, I c’n use the terrain tae me advantage.” I felt a hand drop onto my neck, claws running lightly through my fur and couldn’t help closing my eyes in pleasure at the sensation. “One o’ the wiser dragons in Or’nae once said there be five parts tae any battle, no matter the scale. Yuir side, yuir equipment, t’enemy’s side, their equipment an’ the terrain ye be fightin’ on. Knowin’ how tae use yuir abilities an’ gear to their best while knowin’ as much as possible ‘boot the enemy an’ the ground ye be fightin’ in will let ye win a battle, even if ye donnae claim yuir objectives.”

“So who said that?” Fire Bullet asked curiously.

Ghrathryn chuckled, his claws managing to find a couple of sweet spots on my neck, making me arch it. “Me life-mate’s sire,” He replied. “He an’ me own sire would have a comment ‘boot the type o’ ground we be in now an’ all. ‘In death ground, fight with all o’ yuir might.‘” I opened my eyes to look up at him, flicking my tail as he leaned forwards. “Make no mistake, Loth, ye be in death ground now, we all be. T’aliens have a fleet up there tha’ it’d probably take at least a couple o’ the flagships from me own group tae eradicate fer sheer numbers, bu’ tha’ donnae mean ye should jus’ give up. They may own t’orbitals, bu’ in a fight, they c’n only send down a certain amount o’ theirs in each ship. I fought t’las’ battle long afore ye showed up, by t’time yuir plane arrived, I’d been fightin’ fer three hours, an’ tha’ on two days o’ healin’ from the las’ battle, which I took down a couple o’ their capital ships an’ I donnae know ‘ow many o’ their lighters afore my fighter took too much damage tae continue. If me message pod made it out-system then in a few weeks, we’ll be gettin’ dragon backup, probably Ailiaar, maybe Franthrae as well, an’ then t’tables will turn. Until then, what we ‘ave here will fight as much as we’re able, an’ we’ll make ’em bleed fer every innocent they harm.”

“Why couldn’t Commander Kim give a speech like this on the first UFO?” Bomb Wing muttered to Fire Bullet, I glanced back at the pair of them in time to catch Fire Bullet shrugging, a twitch of her hide around her shoulders.

“Who cares?” I asked softly, turning to watch Stone Tear actually perk up a bit. “After that mess a week ago, we need this, all of us.” I glanced back up at the dragon before turning to my squad mates. “Him as well,” I added, shaking my wings out. “Let’s make sure the next time we encounter those snakes and crabs, we show them what ponies can really do.” I said, holding a hoof out to the other two, both of whom nodded, placing their hooves over mine. I smiled slightly, then blinked as a tail wrapped around out hooves, squeezing gently. Looking up, I saw Ghrathryn smile down at us and smiled back. Watch out aliens, X-Com was back in business and we weren’t taking prisoners.

*****

1999 January 20th 18:25 - Magica System, Beyond Luna Orbit

I grunted as the ship rocked from another impact against the hull, alarms sounding as the blast of green energy burned a hole through something we probably needed. Swinging the chair I was seated in around, I pressed the trigger on the hand grips I had in front of me, the quad-barrelled gun sending silver orbs out at rapid speed.

The silver disc-like craft that swooped around to try and attack us from that side exploded, “Got ya!” I exclaimed, grinning as I heard the chatter of the other fusion guns in different parts of the ship. Realistically this thing was supposed to fly with about twice the crew we had, but we were doing well enough handling the guns and everything else.

“Donnae be gettin’ too excited, Keir.” V’rentryth’s voice cut over the comm. as she sent the ship into a series of loops and rolls, throwing our aims off as well as the enemies. With the sky so full of ships, most of the largest about as big as the one we were in, I could see why Ghrathryn had had a problem; still he had probably wounded the suckers somewhere knowing that dragon.

“Aim for the big thing, V’rentryth.” Another voice added as another of our attackers exploded under a hail of fusion fire. “We manage to land on it, we can probably take it, and from there we can start giving these clowns hell.” It sounded like Cuetlachtli who was up in the cockpit, handling the defences.

Glancing around, I saw what he was talking about, one of the alien ships looked a lot different to the others, more organic, and it was a lot bigger. If we took that out, we could probably make things hell for the bad guys, particularly since it probably had shields that would withstand their heaviest weapons for hours.

“I be tryin’, Lach, keep yuir plates on.” V’rentryth retorted as I swung around to shoot at a target that skimmed us. “Ren, can ye see where they be comin’ from?”

“I make it two, maybe even three fleets up here.” ‘Ren’ responded, her voice cutting through the sounds of the battle despite its relative softness. “The organics are one, the discs are a second, but I see what might be two styles of the discs, the silver ones and some that look more brown. I can’t give you more than that on them right now, though both disc-type ships seem to be coming from another planet while these organic looking ones were just hanging around in space.”

I flicked my tail as an organic looking ship exploded in front of me, and not from my fire. “Maybe the organic ones are moving in on the disc-users territory.” I suggested, shifting slightly. “That or they’re passing through.”

“I doubt it, love.” Vanora cut in on the channel. “I saw a vortex out-system before we got mixed up in the brawl, I’d bet the organics came through that and were planning on staying, except they ran into the discs. The discs seem more numerous so we should probably take the organics and that’ll end their threat before it starts, then we can deal with the rest.”

“Would one o’ ye kindly open the door fer us then?” V’rentryth asked dryly.

Looking up, I spotted a large bay door above me and grinned. Shifting the turret around, I fired into the doors and saw them glow white for a moment before melting under the fusion cannon. Once the door was wide enough, I fired into the interior a few times to ensure that there wouldn’t be any surprises for us. “Take us in, V’ren.” I said, watching as the red manoeuvred us into the bay. The star fight was over, it was time to armour up and fight in the tunnels of the ship. This should be fun.

*****

1999 January 20th 19:00 - Reticulan Mother Ship, Beyond Luna Orbit

Bolts of yellow energy slashed passed the cover I was hiding behind as I held one of the half-pint aliens by the neck. The thing was barely up to my waist, or rather, down to my waist, since I was holding it off the floor and it was rather too occupied with not suffocating to try attacking. “Alrigh’ shrimp, tell me why ye be ‘ere.” I ordered, raising my other hand to point a pistol right at one of its big black eyes.

It warbled something indistinct, its hands clutching at my power armoured arm, causing me to scowl behind my visor. I didn’t know what it was saying, it certainly wasn’t Harren, not that that was a surprise given that we weren’t even in that system at the moment.

Another volley of energy cut through the opening to the room, followed by an explosion against the wall we were pressed up against. Fortunately the wall held, unfortunately the sudden explosion made me jump and squeeze, crushing the thing’s neck like an over-ripe piece of fruit. Dropping it to the ground, I looked at the others. “Keir, Vanora, would ye be kind enough tae remove tha’ pest with the explosive?” I asked the two Ailiaar, watching as they nodded and faded out, becoming barely more than shadows inside their armour.

Unhooking my rifle from where it was locked onto my armour, I grinned as something screamed in the next room before going silent. I probably would have screamed too, if I had seen the shadows literally come alive and try to kill me. Looking up at the pair as they became solid again, I grinned at them. “Nice work ye two.” I commented before nodding to Loranna, who was crouched on the opposite side of the opening in power armour of her own, her life mate standing with her. “Let’s give them somethin’ tae think ‘boot.” I growled, ducking around the door and opening fire with the weapon.

Energy glances off my shields as I ducked back into the shadow of the doorway, more burning the wall behind us as I ducked out again and open fire, hyper velocity rail rounds punching through the thinner cover the enemy is using and shattering on the green shields of one of their more important looking people. At least I’m guessing there’s some rank structure since some wear no armour, others only have some sort of muscle/tendril web armour and the rest have shielded versions in different colours from white to blue, it will be something to figure out once we’ve captured this bucket.

A bolt of green energy singed Ren’s armour, making the ridge-backed Tregun yelp as some of the heat breached her suit; I heard more than saw Keir and Vanora turn and heard them swear. A quick glance at my suit’s HUD told me why, I was still getting used to it, but I could see the orange dots on the edge of my radar’s range, more hostiles, probably from the other fleet. “We’ve got snakes and... something coming up the rear.” Keir growled over the suit comms, confirming my suspicions. “They must have followed us when we landed on this hulk.”

“We can’t fight a two front battle with just the nine of us,” Cuetlachtli pointed out, flicking his tail as he fired down the corridor at the approaching snakes. “I’m sure even the least combative of us learned that trick the last time we fought together.”

I nodded, summoning a ball of electricity to my hand before hurling it into the room we were still trapped outside of. “Then we need tae seal one o’ these groups away from us, leas’ til we can deal wi’ t’other group.” I said, flinching back as more of that yellow energy burned the air in the doorway. “Nor, see if’n ye cannae break t’door an’ get it locked down fer now, we’ll kill t’snakes firs’.”

“Got it,” Noranna responded, signalling the other three on her side of the doorway before grabbing something off her belt and tossing it into the room. As soon as it was in, I saw Noranna’s lifemate, a blue Rhyl’saar by the name of Kalim smack something above Noranna’s head, causing the door to hiss closed, muffling the crump of an exploding grenade.

Turning my attention to the uglies coming up from our rear once more, I level my rifle and fire at one of the big brown things, a single burst of caseless, armour piercing ammunition causing its head to explode even as it attempted to slash at Keir, who dived out of the way.

Green fire cut back through the air, causing my shields to flare for a moment before the shot spent its energy, even though they protected me from the attack, they blinded me just when I needed to see the most. Throwing myself to the ground, I heard other guns chatter and an alien scream of pain as the snake was ripped apart by attacks from several of the others in sequence. I glanced up, seeing another of the snakes moving to attack and opened fire on it, forcing it to duck behind cover. Unfortunately it was one of many, and all seemed to be lining the corridor leading straight towards us.

The air crackled as green energy streamed towards us, forcing us into what little cover was available, while our own fire had the snakes and their mutant allies hunkering down trying to pick us off. More screams from the aliens start as thick shadows whip out of the walls near a couple of them, grabbing them up and squeezing, the sounds of their bones snapping dull under the sounds of gunfire.

Taking a hint from my feather-winged comrades, I focus for a moment, reaching for, and finding, electrical currents flowing through this brute of a ship. Finding a target near the front, I blink, almost losing focus as a massive mechanised beast appears, crumping along the corridor. I grinned as my HUD locked onto it, reaching for the electricity again, both inside and outside that thing. Our guns probably wouldn’t do much to it, but an electrical surge would.

My body blacked out as electricity arced over the armour I was wearing, fortunately the designers seemed to have taken abilities like mine into account, making me wonder once again just who had sent the five ships to seed our worlds. Reaching out with my mind, I Pulled on the electrical currents, resulting in electricity scorching the air around the clanker for a moment before several bolts blasted straight into it, shorting it out and causing it to drop where it stood. “Clanker down!”

“My turn,” Cuetlachtli called, I looked over to see flames licking over his armour for a moment before the entire hallway ahead of us spontaneously combusted, filling with the screams of burning aliens. Things like that made me glad I had some abilities of a Child of Fire, even if I wasn’t true Fireborn the way the N’krondii were. Once the fire died down, we were left facing a pile of burned bodies. “And that is the end of them, time to finish this.” Cuetlachtli said grimly.

Getting to my feet again, I nodded, glancing over at the dozen burned bodies, not to mention the ones we had shot down and the shadow twins had torn apart with their shadows. Turning back to the room, I nodded to Kalim, who opened the door. This time, there was no fire coming at us. Moving in cautiously with my fellows, I frowned as the grey aliens, all dozen that were left put their hands in the air. For a moment, I wondered why, then I spotted the monitors on the walls behind them, they must have been using those to track us, and had seen what we were capable of through them. I lashed my tail for a moment, glancing back at the others. “Cuetlachtli, Keir, Vanora, take them and see if there are any cells we can use to hold them. The rest of you, let’s see what we can find out from this things databanks.” I said, getting nods all around. Today was going to be a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.

*****

To be continued

Thanks to Ghrathryn for making this 120% awsome and for rescuing this chapter from my writhers block. And thanks to Iambrony or Blurlight for joining the battle.

X-COM equipment (will be updated)

X-COM equipment

All equipment and armour stats and info is taken from ufopedia.org

Armour:

Coveralls:

This is the standard armour, plates of kevlar slipped into a set of coveralls. It is worn by any soldier not issued something better, and does not need to be bought or manufactured. It is unlikely to help against the alien weapons, but it may stop a stray pistol or rifle bullet.

Armour defense stats:

Front: 12
Right: 8
Left: 8
Rear: 5

Under: 2

Wepon: Firearm: Pistol:
The standard issue X-Com pistol is a high powered semi-automatic with a 12 round capacity.
Stats:
Weight: 5kg
Snap Shot: Accuracy 60%
Aimed Shot: Accuracy 78%
Cost: $800
Sell Price: $600

Clip:
Stats:
Power: 26 AP (AP = Armour Pirsing)
Ammo: 12
Weight: 3kg
Cost: $70
Sell Price: $52

Wepon: Firearm: Rifle:
This highly accurate sniper rifle has laser guided sights and takes 6.7mm ammunition in 20 round clips.
Stats:
Weight: 8kg
Auto Shot (three shots): Accuracy 35%
Snap Shot: Accuracy 60%
Aimed Shot: Accuracy 110%
Cost: $3,000
Sell Price: $2,250

Clip:
Stats:
Power: 30 AP
Ammo: 20
Weight: 3kg
Cost: $200
Sell Price: $150

Wepon: Firearm: Cannon: Heavy Cannon:
the Heavy Cannon and the Auto-Cannon - two highly versatile pony-portable cannons with a selection of shells tipped with armour piercing, high explosive or incendiary warheads. Their versatile ammunition allows their user to switch strategies in the field by simply feeding a different ammunition clip into the cannon.

The Heavy Cannon is heavy as its namesake and lacks the speed of the smaller firearms. It makes up for this by being very powerful. The biggest detriment is its small magazine capacity. It can only carry 6 rounds at a time.

Stats:
Weight: 18kg
Snap Shot: Accuracy 60%
Aimed Shot: Accuracy 90%
Cost: $6,400
Sell Price: $4,800

Clip: HC-AP clip: HC = Heavy cannon
Stats:
Power: 56 AP
Ammo: 6
Weight: 6kg
Cost: $300
Sell Price: $225

HC-HE clip: HE = High Explosive
Stats:
Power: 52 HE
Ammo: 6
Weight: 6kg
Cost: $500
Sell Price: $275

HC-Incendiary clip:
Stats:
Power: 60 IN
Ammo: 6
Weight: 6kg
Cost: $400
Sell Price: $300

Wepon: Firearm: Cannon: Auto-Cannon:
This is the automatic version of the Heavy Cannon. It retains the versatility of the Heavy Cannon and features a larger magazine as well as the capability for automatic fire.

The Auto-Cannon is heavier than the Heavy Cannon and less accurate. It is a slow and cumbersome weapon. It is the slowest three-shot-burst weapon in the X-Com armoury. It is also the Auto-Cannon's most powerful feature.

As with its close cousin the Heavy Cannon, the Auto-Cannon retains a versatile selection of shells to suit your every need. Armour piercing, high explosive and incendiary rounds are all available. By reducing the effectiveness and size of the shells, more shells can be stored in the Auto-Cannon's magazine, and the shells are slightly lighter to carry than Heavy Cannon shells. The shells still pack a considerable punch nonetheless.

Stats:
Weight: 19kg
Auto Shot: Accuracy 32%
Snap Shot: Accuracy 56%
Aimed Shot: Accuracy 82%
Cost: $13,500
Sell Price: $10,125

Clips: AC-AP clip: Stats:
Power: 42 AP
Ammo: 14
Weight: 5kg
Cost: $500
Sell Price: $400

AC-HE clip: Stats:
Power: 44 HE
Ammo: 14
Weight: 5kg
Cost: $700
Sell Price: $560

AC-IN clip: Stats:
Power: 48 IN
Ammo: 14
Weight: 5kg
Cost: $650
Sell Price: $520

Wepon: Firearm: Luncher: Rocket Luncher:
The rocket launcher is slow, heavy, and has limited ammunition. It is also one of the most reliable ways to kill aliens, and it excels at destroying alien hiding places.

Stats:
Weight: 10kg
Snap Shot: Accuracy 55%
Aimed Shot: Accuracy 115%
Cost: $4,000
Sell Price: $3,000

Rockets: Small Rocket: Stats:
Power: 75 HE
Weight: 6kg
Cost: $600
Sell Price: $480

Large Rocket: Stats:
Power: 100 HE
Weight: 8kg
Cost: $900
Sell Price: $720

IN Rocket: Stats:
Power: 90 IN
Weight: 8kg
Cost: $1,200
Sell Price: $960

Wepon: Melee combat: Stun equipment: Stun Rod:
The stun rod is a melee weapon used to shock enemies unconscious. The stun rod does not require ammunition.

Stats:
Power: 65 Stun
Weight: 6kg
Stun: Accuracy 100%
Cost: $1,260
Sell Price: $945

Wepon: Trowing weponry: Grenade: Standard Grenade:
The humble fragmentation grenade.

Stats:
Power: 50 High Explosive
Weight: 3kg
Cost: $300
Sell Price: $240

Wepon: Trowing weponry: Mine: Proximity Grenade:
The portable mine, this little beauty uses a weighted base and ultrasonics to set up a 3-meter detection circle with a 5-meter explosion. Exceedingly useful for mining corridors in base defense missions or "softening up" aliens emerging from UFO doors.

Stats:
Power: 70 High Explosive
Weight: 3kg
Cost: $500
Sell Price: $400

Wepon: Trowing weponry: Bomb: High Explosive:
Bang in a can. Bring one to UFO parties. Remember to run once lit.

Stats:
Power: 110 High Explosive
Weight: 6kg
Cost: $1,500
Sell Price: $1,200

Equipment: Trowing equipment: Smoke Grenade:
A Smoke grenade provides a portable smoke-screen that you can deploy to hide your troops. It operates the same way as a conventional grenade, but on detonation releases a medium sized dense cloud cover.

Stats:
Power: 60 (Smoke)
Weight: 3kg
Cost: $150
Sell Price: $120

Equipment: Trowing equipment: Electro-flare:
The electro-flare is a light 'grenade' that provides illumination under any low light conditions.

Unlike conventional phosphor flares, the electro-flare is not chemical, but electronic. The electronics are encased in a light but durable shell that, while unable to survive the shockwave of an explosion, will protect the delicate circuitry from being damaged when thrown against hard surfaces.

The batteries used in the flares provide many hours of continuous illumination, making it a viable strategy for X-Com field personnel to retrieve and re-deploy the flares as many times as necessary.

Activates at inpact.

Stats:
Weight: 3kg
Cost: $60
Sell Price: $40

Equipment: Motion Scanner:
This sophisticated device uses a variety of detectors and advanced computer algorithms to identify moving enemy units. However, it requires some practice to use effectively.

Stats:
Weight: 3kg
Manufacturing: $34,000 for parts, 440 Engineer Hours (440 hours for 1 engineer)
Sell Price: $45,600

Equipment: Healing: Medi-Kit:
The Medi-Kit is highly advanced healing facility with pain killers and stimulants that can be administered to injured units almost instantly under any field condition.

Stats:
Ammo: 10 charges each of healing, stimulants, and pain killers.
Weight: 5kg
Manufacturing: $28,000 for parts, 420 Engineer Hours
Sell Price: $45,600

Heavy Wepon Platform: Tank: Ground: Cannon:
The Tank/Cannon carries a cannon that fires powerful armour-piercing rounds. Up to 30 rounds can be loaded for a single mission.

Stats:
Cost: $420,000

Armour:
Front: 90
Left/Right: 75
Rear:60
Under:60

Ammunition:
Type: HWP Cannon shells
Damage: 60 Armour Piercing
Rounds: 30
Purchase Price: $200
Sale Price: $100

Aimed Shout: 90% Acc
Snap Shout: 60% Acc

HWP: Tank: Ground: Rocket:
This tank fires explosive rockets toward the enemy that will explode on contact with a solid object - be it an enemy unit or a wall. These rockets lack the strength of the Large Rockets used in the Rocket Launcher but are moderate in strength and provide a considerable punch. Each tank can carry 8 rockets at a time.

Stats:
Cost: $480,000

Armour:
Front: 90
Left/Right: 75
Rear:60
Under:60

Ammunition:
Type: HWP Rockets
Damage: 85 High Explosive
Rounds: 8
Purchase Price: $3000
Sale Price: $2250

Aimed Shout: 115% Acc
Snap Shout: 55% Acc

X-Com craft: Troop transport: Skyranger:
The Skyranger is a troop transporter with Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) capabilities. It is one of your most critical assets, as it the only way to get your soldiers to the scene of any Alien Missions (apart from when aliens attack your base). The Skyranger is also the only way for you to retrieve all the Alien Artefacts needed to research the production of newer types of craft.
The Skyranger is a supersonic transport capable of transporting up to fourteen X-COM soldiers to any point on the globe. It can also carry Heavy Weapons Platforms in the place of four soldiers each.
Each Skyranger has a $500,000 price tag: this is both an order price and a monthly fee, making it expensive to keep several Skyrangers at your base(s).

Stats:
Maximum Speed: 760 knop
Acceleration: 2 gear
Fuel Capacity: 1,500l
Weapon Pods: None
Damage Capacity: 150
Cargo Space: 14 soldiers (+1 pilot)
Initial/Monthly Fee: $500,000
HWP Capacity: 3

X-Com craft: Interception craft: Interceptor:
The Interceptor is the best combat aircraft that Earth technology can offer. Powered by dual pulse detonation engines, and with specially shielded electronic systems, the Interceptor is one of X-COM's most valuable assets in the fight against the alien threat.

Stats:
Maximum Speed: 2,100 knop
Acceleration: 3 gear
Fuel Capacity: 1,000l
Weapon Pods: 2
Damage Capacity: 100
Cargo Space: None (but 1 pilot)
Initial/Monthly Fee: $600,000
HWP Capacity: None

Craft weponry: Cannon:
The Cannon is considered to be the last resort for craft armament. It suffers from both a lack of power and a pitiful range, making it effectively useless against all but scout class UFOs.

Stats:
Damage: 10
Range: 10 km
Accuracy: 25%
Reload Time: 2 secons
Shots: 200
Ammunition Used: Cannon Rounds (x50)

Craft weponry: Missile: Stingray:
The Stingray is an adequate weapon, capable of taking down Small and Medium-sized UFOs.

Stats:
Damage: 70
Range: 30 km
Accuracy: 70%
Reload Time: 16 seconds
Shots: 6
Ammunition Used: Stingray Missile

Craft weponry: Missile: Avalanche:
The Avalanche missile is the most powerful craft weapon available to X-COM at time being.

Stats:
Damage: 100
Range: 60 km
Accuracy: 80%
Reload Time: 24 seconds
Shots: 3
Ammunition Used: Avalanche Missile

Cancellation

Both you and me know it, I won't continue writhing this story. I am more into reading other peoples stories then writing my own.

*Sigh*

Only reason I have not done this long awaited cancellation of this thing have been for laziness.
I know a lot of you that have favored this story or put it on tracking or the like don't get too disappointed... or if you even will, with how much time it has been sins last chapter was published.

One day, I might write a new story, but it won't be this, I know the original games and Fireaxis XCOM game, but I can't write combat. I will let the rest of the group handle all these X-Com stories and X-Com like stories.

So... I guess... thanks for reading what had been published, and I hope you guys enjoyed it...

*Sigh*

Wish I knew how to end this well...