Operation Harvest

DROP

‘ATTENTION ALL RECON TEAM MEMBERS PREPARE TO DROP.  ETA 3 MINUTES.’  The PSA speaker boomed over everything, even blocking out the sound of the fighter-bombers prepping for flight.  Banna had dropped only once, and when he had it had been straight into the middle of an Anteeist tank column thanks to Military Intelligence’s oh so brilliant minds.  He had gotten out largely unscathed, in no small part thanks to the late lieutenant, but ever since that day he had always gotten nervous about dropping, and would even go so far as to make sure he entered the hanger using the far entrance, just in case a squad was in need of a replacement officer.  This time he wasn’t dodging out of it.  As the only light infantry platoon there that was trained for landing via high-speed atmospheric entry was his platoon, he was going to have to drop in with them.  ‘T MINUS 3 MINUTES.’  I’d better get a move on, he thought.  Despite his predicament, he had still entered from the furthest entrance, partly through force of habit, and partly because he was hoping that, just maybe, someone else was going to replace him.  A light walk would probably calm his nerves down, yeah, that would do the trick.  He remembered that someone famous had said thinking about your fears were the only way to get over them- or was it facing them?  No, it must have been thinking about them.  Who in their right mind would actually face their fears? ‘T MINUS 2 MINUTES.’  One not-so-short sprint later an exhausted Banna reached the drop pod section.  It was to the extreme left of the hanger (or right if you were entering it from outside), and didn’t look that different to the rest of the hanger, bar the number of pods seemingly sitting about for no apparent reason.  In reality if someone observed closely, they would realise that they were prepped just above closed doors, ready to open when the command was given.  His was Pod 2-4, so he was looking for a pod two rows along and four pods down.  As it turned out, his pod was rather easy to find as it was the only unoccupied one there.  The announcer started the count down from ten to one just as he got himself into it.  His weapons had been placed in it already:  One standard issue rifle, one standard issue survival kit, one standard issue AT grenade (just in case) and one definitely-not standard rucksack with what seemed to be gems and various other valuables in them.  For diplomacy he presumed.  The Entire pod shook as the doors below opened and was slowly lowered down into the firing chamber, ready to drop onto the world below.  There was only a small window in front of him since glass wasn’t made for slamming into the ground at super high speeds, so his view was very, very limited.  It was also because if the soldiers could see the hell they were dropping into they would probably defecate themselves in fear.  Thank god he was jumping into a forest in the middle of the night then.  The sounds of the other drop pods being fired off weren’t exactly heard so much as they were felt by him in the sides of the drop pod. 2-4, that meant that he was going to be ninth to dro-  His train of thought was interrupted as he was suddenly met with an overwhelming amount of G-Force.

Twilight admired the stars from her balcony, a book resting by her side on the railings.  Apparently there was going to be a meteor shower in a few days, but the predictions were known to sometimes be off, so she had decided to stay up for the four nights prior just to make sure.

‘Twilight?’  Spike appeared at the balcony door.  ‘Don’t tell me your still doing that.’  Twilight turned her head.  ‘Go to sleep Spike, it’s way past your bed time,’ she said, not feeling up for an argument.

‘Huh, I should be saying the same thing...’  Spike left and disappeared under the covers of his basket and Twilight resumed watching the stars.  Just as she was about to nod off, she noticed a streak across the sky, almost instantly waking her.  1, 2, 3, after a little under half a minute she had counted around 20.  There had been so few of them compared to what she had been expecting, and had been so orderly compared to what usually happened coming one after the other, that they definitely could not have been the major meteor shower that had been predicted.  They were probably a precursor, bits that were at the front of the group, or something similar.  She yawned.  Spike was right, it was time to go to bed.  She turned and went inside, closing the doors behind her.

-

Brown.  What a crappy colour, and not just for the obvious reasons.  Banna had been vomiting for the last few minutes, and there was no sign that his gag reflexes would let up.  His vomit was brown, same colour as the ‘food’ served to them at breakfast, lunch and dinner, same colour as the muddy plains of Treyax, same colour as the dried blood of that boy-  Banna stopped himself.  It was best not to dwell on it, one shouldn’t dwell on those things.  He looked up to see 19 soldiers all staring at him, their expressions masked by their helmet’s visors and re-breathers.  He was sure he could hear someone snickering.  Standing up he put his helmet on and mentally shook himself.  ‘Okay, I’m going to have 5 fire sections, you four, here, you four here, you four there and you three come with me.  You all know what to do, but just in case you’ve forgotten, we are to mark the necessary places for the ship to drop the buildings onto.  Make sure your laser markers have a clear path, so no tree branches or brush above it.  Climb ‘em and cut ‘em if you have to.  After that we’ll establish a perimeter.  Any questions?’  One soldier raised his hand.  ‘Yes?’

‘Uh.. Sir what do we do if we encounter any natives?’  Banna shifted his weight to his other leg.

‘Do you really think anyone or anything for that matter would go into a big, dark forest in the middle of the night?’

‘No, sir...  but what if we do?’  Banna sighed.

‘Just don’t let them see you, you’ll be fine.  It’s not like anyone would be stupid enough to live in a forest like this anyway.’

The shadows of the trees cast by the moonlight could have unnerved anyone, but for someone like Zecorra whose home was the forest, they added beauty to the already magnificent biome.  Most ponies wouldn’t have thought of it in this way, but she had been attracted to the idea of a world where magic wasn’t required.  Maybe it was because it reminded her of home, even if it wasn’t one gigantic plain.  In the jungle, the only law was that the strongest survive, and to know that you were still alive (and therefore among the strongest) coupled with the fact that you had worked for it was immensely satisfying.  A cool breeze rolled across her face, rustling a few bushes off to her left.  It rustled again, but this time there was no breeze.  Maybe a small animal?  Then she heard voices.  Okay definitely not an animal.  They were getting louder, and had they been voices of a dialect she knew, maybe she would have gone to take a look, but there was something about these voices, something not right.  There were a lot of ‘Kh’s’ and the voices were low, a bit too low for somepony just going about their own business, then again there were monsters in this forest, so a hushed voice would be understandable.  She decided to wait and see what they were.  As she peered out from her make shift hiding place in a different bush, something emerged from the aforementioned spot.  Unfortunately for her, a cloud passed over the moon at this very moment and all she could make out was the outline.  This was still enough to scare her though.  The... the thing, was bipedal, and had all manner of things attached to its hide, most of them, she thought, seemed to be pouches, but she wasn’t sure of that.  Its hide hard and metallic in some places, yet in others it was loose.  Must be natural armour.  The head was something different altogether though.  It seemed to have, was that glass on its face?  There were two round short cylinders on each side of its nose which, coupled with its mouth was protruding out.  It was all metallic which confused her greatly.  What manner of beast was made of metal?  Last but not least it was holding a long sort of cylindrical device.  She knew she shouldn’t have come to this part of the forest.

Huh.  He had remembered hearing something here.  He looked left and right down what seemed to be a path about as wide as a single person.  It was probably nothing.  Then he saw a bag on the floor.  ‘What’s this doing here?’ he thought out loud.

‘Sorry, what was that sir?’ said one of the soldiers who was still behind the bush.

‘Nothing soldier.’  It was fairly simple, but who ever heard of a complex bag?  He opened it and saw there were a number of berries in it.  At first he was tempted to take one, but remembered that it could be poisonous to any off-worlders.  He sighed, rather loudly, and put it down.

The creature was about to leave when it spotted something on the floor.  Zeccora peered over to have a look, then realised that it was her bag!  She must have dropped it in her hurry to hide.  It picked the bag up and peered inside.  It said something out loud, seemingly to another one hidden in the undergrowth which responded before this one spoke again.  Wait a another one?  How many were there?  She expected it to take something, but it grunted in what seemed to be dissatisfaction.  Of course, why would a creature of metal care for food such as fruit?  It got up, looked around one last time, then left back the way it came.  She waited for a good minute before retrieving her bag and making her way home as fast as she could.

Banna walked back into the undergrowth before stopping and standing completely still, gesturing to his men to do the same.  He fixed his gaze on the path, waiting to see if anything would happen.  Sure enough, something did, a small animal, a bit over half the size of a human came out to get its bag, though none of the other soldiers could see it.  He recognised it as, was it a zebra?  He only knew this thanks to one of his friends from OTC.  His friend had come from a small moon on which they had zebras in the millions, something which was exploited by the general populace in the form of a planetary delicacy, which Banna had once tried (Didn’t taste that bad to be honest).  He wondered what it was doing here on an un-colonised planet, but when it picked up the bag then slung it on its back, something clicked in his brain and he realised what was going on.  Zebras were the dominant species.  He didn’t remember anything about zebras being sentient.  Wait a minute, slow down Banna, he thought to himself.  Just because a zebra can do a fancy trick doesn’t mean they suddenly had the brain power to think like humans.  He was known to jump to conclusions, but something like this?  This even surprised him.  He decided against his better judgement on telling anyone as the last thing he wanted to do was spend the rest of his time here lying on a sofa with someone asking him questions about his childhood.  Anyway, they had a job to do.  When the zebra was well out of sight, he got the team moving again towards the predetermined point on the map.