Starship troopers Chronicles: Shimmering Sunset

It had been an entire month since Sunset's death by the unknown bug. An entire month since she had disappeared, leaving her team down another good leader.

In all that time since her death not a single bug had been sighted anywhere near Ponyville, though the princesses and the squad leaders had agreed that if they did attack then it would most likely be Ponyville that would be the first on the target, so a big effort was made to make Ponyville ready for war.

Lieutenants Norris and Bernstein, with the help of Twilight Sparkle and Shinning Armor, trained Equestria's existing military on how to combat Arachnid forces and use their more advanced knowledge to boost their technology while the rest of the troopers worked with the Royal/Lunar Guard Corps of Engineers to fortify the town. The engineers promised that by the end of the next month they would have these ‘Howitzers’ figured out and made to help defend Equestria.

Gauss had begrudgingly become Zebra Squad's C.O after Sunset's death, he kept everyone's mind occupied by having them do different tasks, some were trivial such as helping out at the post office or patrolling Sweet Apple Acres, while others were important to Ponyville's defense like helping set up automated guns at one section of the wall or protecting food and equipment caravans into and out of Ponyville.

In almost a month Ponyville had become a small bastion thanks to the work of Pony and Human kind respectively, once the M.I troopers had allowed the Ponies to study their gear and data on the ships, they were able to replicate them on a massive scale with the help of major cities like Canterlot, Manehatten and Stalliongrad now being protected by extensive defense grids of automated defenses magic mines which launched shrapnel upwards, simple versions of Gatling guns, but it was Ponyville that needed to be protected just as much as any major city. The town of Ponyville and its citizens had almost become a symbol to the rest of Equestria thanks to the Elements of Harmony living there, if it fell then the bugs would have taken out the symbol of victory against past evils and greatly affect moral.

On top of the new defenses added to the town, one fact that had not been known before was that Ponyville was set slap dab on top of a deposit of Mythril, which was so strong that even the bugs couldn't tear through it which meant that the town was safe from subterranean attacks. This granted a large measure of safety for Ponyville and allowed it to work as a good staging area for counter attacks and bug hunts without the allies having to worry about being dragged underground in their sleep.

Gauss oversaw the latest shipment from Manehatten arrive via retrieval ship, once it touched down several unicorns and Earth ponies started moving the containers off the cargo lift quickly towards the newly constructed supply Depot and any other facility that required the supplies.
It was truly a sight to behold, humans and Equestrians working together like this, Gauss just wished that it had only been on better terms. The people back on Earth would love good news like this as they tried to rebuild the war damage.

Gauss’s ears heard the familiar sound of hoof steps from behind him, turning slowly he was met with the sight of Princess Luna and two of her guards, both guards wearing the new Bat pony armor which was a mix of very primitive Kevlar and metal plates to withstand the blows from Arachnid pincers.

Gauss saluted to which Luna dismissed with a wave of her hoof "You do not have to perform such trivial things with me Lieutenant, we are friends and I have just come to talk." She turned to her guards

"Wait inside, please" She said and indicated to a nearby office where Unicorn Ponies were trying out primitive versions of radios which were a mix of Magic and technology.

"Yes ma’am" Gauss responded and lowered his hand as the princesses guards went inside "What do you need?
"Walk with me please" Luna said as she started to walk through the loading dock with Gauss in tow "What I am about to discuss with you is of great importance and it is imperative that my sister not learn of it"
Alarm bells were already ringing for Gauss but he let her continue.
"Over the last few years, ponies from different cities have been disappearing at an alarming rate unlike any other in Equestria’s history." Luna explained

"As of this month, the total now sits at 46 missing ponies. Ranging from guards to young adults and even children"

"Not to sound heartless princess but, what does this have to do with me?"

"One of the new security cameras your engineers help us set up to keep of bug activity near the cities recorded one of the kidnappings that happened a day ago" the princess revealed a data pad and handed it to Gauss with her magic.

"The camera was able to get a look at the kidnappers, and the identity of the victim caught my interest as well.”

Interested Gauss pressed play, it was late at night and the streets displayed were deserted as one would expect at that time. A young pony, probably middle school aged, madly dashed through screaming for help, she suddenly stopped in her tracks and started to back up slowly as something came slowly towards her from off camera. Gauss watched in growing dread as the unmistakable form of an arachnid stepped forward.

The poor pony didn't even have time to run as the bug picked her up in one swift move and carried her away into the night.

When the recording ended Gauss looked to Luna "Who was the one it took?"

"A young filly named Babs Seed." Luna said much to Gauss's dread “She is a cousin of the Apple family"

"Yes, Apple bloom talks about her allot" Gauss said "But why would the bugs take kids... Military and engineers yea I can understand that but civilian don't have any Intel on our fortifications. But since she is related to Applejack in a way this might have been a targeted kidnapping." he scratched his beard thoughtfully "You want us to investigate?"

Luna nodded "Yes, but I stress that you not tell my sister or Twilight"

"Why? Shouldn't they know?"

"Celestia is aware of these kidnappings and has been investigating... That is, until a few weeks ago" Luna now spoke in a hushed tone "She ordered the case dropped"

"That doesn't sound like her, not at all." Gauss pointed out.
"Indeed, I was equally worried but I just put it down to her knowing something I didn't, but the guard on watch the night of this recording have denied its existence and erased the original as well as keeping the incident shrouded in silence , the night guard luckily made a copy and secretly gave it to me”

"So you want us to figure out what's going on?" Gauss asked "And do it in a way that doesn't tip off Celestia?" Luna nodded "Alright I'll talk it over with the other squad leaders, but it’s going to be difficult to keep this hidden from Twilight"

"I know but we must try." Luna said as she looked out at that bastion that Ponyville had become and felt a tinge of sadness at what had become of the once peaceful town. "I fear this is only the beginning"

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Elsewhere, a number of creatures had a stare off, each trying to determine his or her weakness and what they would do next to leave the other in utter defeat and without hope of victory.

All were still, until one finally made a move to break the silence.

"Full House!" Dingo cried as he showed his hand, two jacks and three kings.

"Not so fast" Berry punch said as she showed her hand (or hoof in this case) " 4 Aces bitches!" she cried with a large smile as she went to collect the large pile of bits at the center of the table.

She was stopped by Chad she slowly placed down his cards, a 5,6,7,8 and 9 of spades " Straight flush" he said in his usual emotionless tone.

It was then that everyone involved regretted playing with the kilo squad man, the whole game he held a constant expression akin to stone, making him very hard to read by all of the other players.

“Dammit! You win again” Berry Punch exclaimed as the two Royal guardsponies and three humans began to put away their few remaining bits “How do you do it?”

“Just lucky I guess” he said as he got up and took only a small portion of his winnings “Take the rest between you, I'm going to get something to eat.” chad said as he left.

Dingo and his fellow zebra squad member, Garrus, watched him go.

“I can never get that guy” Dingo said as he took a few bits from the pile “What’s with him?”

“Chads been though as much as the rest of us, though I hear he was one of the survivors of Karvok”

“Shit, really? No wonder he's so quiet, having lived though that hell” Dingo took a swig of his cider while berry punch took a taste test of the brew she was making in a small cauldron nearby, something that was a combination of local cider and Human moonshine.

“God Berry I wish you'd finish with that beer already”

“Hey, I don't know about you humans but here in Equestria we like to make sure our brews are as strong they can be, and since brewing is my special talent I pride myself on making the best alcoholic beverages this side of Canterlot” She said as she showed the two royal guards out and coming back to the counter “So If I say it’s going to take some time then it’s going to take some time and that’s that”

“Ok ok fine” Dingo said, trying not to bring the brew master's wrath, as such a wrath would result in the loss of entrance to the only drinking spot in Ponyville.

Berry Punch turned her attention to Garrus as the angry scowl disappeared from her face “Garrus could you tell Doc that I've got her order of wine ready to collect”

“Oh? She got something planed our wayward lieutenant?” Garrus asked, regarding the medics crush on Gauss “I'm glad that the M.I allows for squad members to pursue relationships with each other. But I just hope they get the rank thing fixed, otherwise those two will be in trouble when SICON arrives.”

“So how are things going on that front anyway?” Berry asked as she picked up and mug and started cleaning it “Anyone call back?”
Garrus shook his head “No, Gauss says that there’s some sort of interference stopping all communications off world” he said before taking a swig of his drink “If we had a transmitter and knew our location in relation to the nearest SICON outpost then maybe we could get some help, but since at the moment we have nether we're stuck and the moment. Our best hope is to keep looking for some Argonite crystal to boost the signal strength by tenfold.”

“Well sorry about that, I'm sure you all want to hear from your families”

“Hrump! Not all of us” Dingo said quietly as he got up and started to walk out “I'll go check on the Ye Olde Goone Squade”

Once he was gone Berry Punch looked at Garrus with and inquisitive look “Dingo never got along with his parents, and his sister died on Earth during the last weeks of the war”

“Oh Celestia, Was she caught in the crossfire?”

“No, she fell ill and died a short while later. There just weren’t enough hospitals left and not enough medicine for everyone.” Garrus looked towards the door where Dingo had left through “The guy doesn’t really have much waiting for him outside of the Mobile Infantry. I almost wonder what will happen to him when the war’s finally over.”

“How about you? You got anyone waiting for you back home?” Berry asked.

“Just a dopey kid brother” Garrus said “He can be trouble sometimes but I wouldn’t trade him for anything.”
As the two chatted they were unaware that Dingo was leaning against the wall outside looking up at the sky, a pained look upon his face.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“KEEP THAT RIFLE STEADY SOLDIER, YOU! DO YOU WANT TO HAVE YOUR HEAD TORN FROM YOUR BODY! TAKE OUT THAT BUG!”

Shining Armour watched as Twilight, adorned in full power suit grilled his Unicorn Guards in using ‘Muskets’ as the humans called them. Some of the Guards were sweating as they tried to reload their rifles quickly with their magic and fire at the approaching wooden cutout of an Arachnid warrior moving towards them.

“And now you’re dead! Congratulations. Go out back and give me ten laps around the courtyard!” Twilight shouted to one of the Guards who let the carboard cutout of the arachnid get right in his face, failing the exercise. The Guard saluted her, put down his rifle and ran out of the Firing Range to do as he was ordered.

In another part of the training yard guards fought in small groups against a hoards of dummy wooden warriors, brought to partial life and made to move by master puppeteers for training purposes. The wooden dummy managed to ‘kill’ two guards by touching its pincers at their backs and the guards played dead while the rest of the ponies attacked its limbs with wooden weapons, training to hack off limbs and stab the beasts in their nerve stems.

This was this particular batch of guard’s first time even seeing a bug never mind fighting one, many times Shining had tried to get his sister to take it easy on the trainees but she insisted that this was the only way they would ever be ready to face the bugs when the time came. At some level he could understand treating the trainees so harshly.... but hearing it coming from Twilight scared him to no end.

The filly who not long ago would never even consider such a harsh training program was now completely set in the idea. Shining was scared by the change in Twilight and many shared his view, since Sunset Shimmer died Twilight had scarcely talked to her friends and according to Spike spent most of her free time either training, or locking herself in her lab from hours on end, trying to find a way to beat the bug threat through magic or science before the Arachnids overwhelmed Equestria and killed more of her friends.

While it was certainly true that she locked herself in her lab for extensive works before she had met the M.I troopers it still was worrying. And her eyes... those eyes... where there was once the sparkle of such wonder and beauty, now there was only dull purple eyes that showed none of its previous shine. Instead there was anger and desperation behind her eyes.

“She torturing the trainees again?” Shining heard from his side as Norris went and stood by him. They were in an observation room overlooking the training grounds.

“Yes, I've asked her to take it easy on them but she refuses.”

“Well she has the right Idea, she reminds me of my old camp drill Sargent to be honest”

Shining said nothing as he watched Twilight shove aside an unfortunate trainee who hadn’t been careful and nearly dropped his loaded rifle. Twilight exploded into a fiery tirade at the pony, releasing obscenities that were unheard of coming from the ponies’ mouth as she told him about how dangerous that was and proceeded to make him do pushups, with two backpacks on loaded with rifle bullets.

“It's hard... seeing her like this” Shining said “Even when she faced all the other evils that threatened Equestria before, Nightmare moon, the Changelings, not once has she ever taken a life, nor as easily as she does with a bug”

“From what you have told me before, she's always been able to fall back on the elements and her friends to face these threats.” Norris reminded Shining “But with the Arachnids, none of those will help, the only way to beat a bug is to kill it, and with General Patricks backing them... Maybe this is the only way she can think of to do any good” as Shining continued his silence Norris continued speaking to calm the ponie’s nerves.

“Shining, I know you don’t like seeing her like this and everyone who knows her shares you view, but me and Bernstein have an Idea, We're going to order her back to ponyville for some R&R and just in case she tries to wiggle her way out of it, we've got Luna to do some digging in the law books and find something to force her if she won't.” Bernstein said humorously though most of their plans included using a faked letter from Celestia telling Twilight to go out and have fun.

Shining looked away from Twilight in surprise “Really? But don’t you need her here?”

“You forget, me and Lieutenant Bernstein have been serving in the mobile infantry longer then she has known it even existed, We can whip these Trainees into shape just fine without her.”

Shinning nodded his thanks “Thank you.”

“Its no problem”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Twilight just couldn't believe it, she had just finished a training session with the trainees when Norris, Bernstein and Luna had come up to her and practically ordered her to take a week of R&R, they had even gone as far as gone looking for a law that stated that if at least two of four princesses voted that one needed to take a break for a certain about of time then the one would be forced to do so.

The two princesses who had voted this were Luna and Candace under the advice of Lieutenants Bernstein and Norris, all claimed that she had been pushing herself and her trainees to the limit and was doing more harm than good, barely taking time to relax and if they left her on this path it would cause her health both mentally and physically to decline.

“Nonsense” Twilight fumed to herself as she started packing, putting a small pistol in with her luggage and hiding it with her books and toothbrush. “I am in complete control of my faculties.”

“They have a point Twilight” Spike said as he packed his own luggage “You have been pushing yourself allot lately. You could use a break you’ve been working too hard.”

“Because I need to make sure we're ready!” Twilight snapped and instantly regretted it “Sorry Spike”
Spike waved off the apology “This is what they were talking about, you've got a shorter temper and barely sleep, when was the last time you showered even?" this got Twilight thinking and blushing.

"Exactly, look it’s only for a week, so you can take some time to relax, see our friends and take a break ok?"

Twilight contemplated arguing but looking at Spikes pleading eyes and relented "Ok Spike, if it means so much to you then I'll do it, it might be good to see the girls again."

As Twilight turned back to packing Spike said a silent thank you before returning to his own packing.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Deep within the Everfree forest, a patrol of Arachnid warriors stalked through the under growth, where ever they went, any remaining wildlife (that had not been devoured) in the immediate ran for safety or hid silently.

The Warriors were keeping their attention firmly on their surroundings, alert for any threats within their territory while in a way hoping to find something to sate their endless bloodlust and hunger.

Their antennae twitched as a loud beeping drew their attention, all five warriors roared and swarmed towards the source of the noise which was a bundle of items hanging from a low branch on a tree.

In an act of pure stupidity they all gathered around the beeping objects with the lead arachnid stretching up to get a better look at the objects, the un-fortune bug saw that the objects were explosives a split second before they blew up, wiping out the entire patrol in a common trick used to kill Arachnid patrols.

A couple meters away in the safety of a camouflaged fox hole, a robed figure sat with a pair of binoculars to her eyes.
"Hmmm, that should be a good enough distraction" there was a rustling to her right followed by a soft touch on her shoulder.
"Yes I could have easily snuck past them, but this was more fun. Get back and wait for my signal." the woman climbed out of the camouflaged hole and held tightly onto a scoped long barrel Morita rifle, the scope having been fashioned out of a small spyglass stolen from a pony trade caravan several days ago.

‘The downed supply ship should be this way’ the woman thought as she moved fast and silent like a ghost in the forest, quickly followed by the large outline of something large and muscular.

In a clearing a few more meters away sat the remains of a still smoldering downed supply ship, crates full of munitions, equipment, food and materials were strewn across the ground, sitting next to it was a pitch black, unmarked skimmer being loaded by three black power suited troopers were who were just finishing up with loading the crates of supplies onto the skimmer, which was already filled to the brim, they were being watched over by a single warrior bug which stood sentry on top of the downed ship. The bug let out a low growl as its hive mind sensed the deaths of the other warriors and began howling and warning the Human allies below that it was time to leave.

The cloaked woman leaned against a tree just out of the clearing and listened in on what the trio were saying while taking the safety off of her rifle and checking the magazine.

"Hurry up, I want to be out of here before that bug gets impatient."

"If you want to get out of here quicker then maybe give us a hand here" one the men carrying a large crate with his partner said.
"No can do, I'm looking for something" The man said as he rummaged in an open crate "The General said there was something he needed for his latest experiment in this shipment."

The large figure that had followed the woman was by her side and whispering to her as its ears picked up the words of Patrick’s men.

"Yes, that does sound interesting, we should capture that one and see what he knows." she said as the two grunts loaded their crate onto the skimmer "Ok on my mark, you take the warrior and I'll handle dumber and dumber down here" the was huff of confirmation and then the creature was gone.

The woman brought her scope up to her eye and settled her cross-hares upon the first of the grunts just as the leader of the group shouted out in triumph "Found it!" The woman retrained her sights on him to see what he had, held in his grasp was a large data chip with a glowing center.

"What you got there?" the woman said to herself as she trained her sights on one of the grunts and readied her finger on the trigger before she exhaled and squeezed.

The grunt soon had the unfortunate problem of having a pulse round through his head and out the other side, his buddy didn't have time to react as he too got a round through the skull.

The leader of the group jumped into cover and was looking for the warrior that was meant to be guarding them only for its mutilated corpse to drop in front of him. The Arachnid’s body looked smashed as if a giant had taken to it with a hammer for several minutes.
"Shit! what the hell is going on?" he shouted as he made to run for the skimmer only to run into the robed woman who slammed her rifle into his gut before producing a knife and stabbing it into the powerpack for his suit, rendering it almost useless.

"What's going on is that I'm going be taking your Skimmer, supplies and this" she took the data chip from the man and pushed him away from her.

"Thank you, oh and sorry but you’re coming to." She said after slipping the chip into one of her pockets an pointing the barrel of her rifle right at the center of the man’s chest,

"Like hell bitch!" the man shouted as he tried to rush her only for him to be struck from behind, he did however manage to knock the woman's hood off. He then paled at the realization of who he was looking at "No... but you’re supposed to be dead! That bug killed you."

A very much alive Sunset Shimmer shot him a toothy grin "I was, But I got better" the man was unable to say anything as Sunset wacked him over the head with the butt of her rifle. Shimmer then took his helmet and stripped off his power suit incase it had a tracking device in it.

When it was done she stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled loudly, the ground next to her shifted and soon several Diamond Dog soldiers in rusty or dented armor and carrying a spears burst through, several smaller dogs followed suit and began raiding the supply skimmer.

“Hurry up, we’ve got work to do and they will know something’s wrong.” She said as the dogs went to work and the large Diamond dog that had followed her came over.

“Fido do good on first mission?” The large dog that had once helped to kidnap Rarity asked. His face was scared from when the Arachnids had attacked his home and his once favorite jacket was torn from having to be on the run for a long time.
Shimmer smiled as she reached a hand back and began scratching behind Fido’s ear.

“Yes very very good on your first mission.” She said, trying not to laugh as the dog let his tongue hang out and his leg began kicking at the ground just like an Earth dog did.

“Now take this guy back to our den and tie him up. I’ve got some questions to ask him.”