Stargate: The Equestrian Event
CH1: Skyfall
XXXXX
Pretext: The Age of Reformation
It is the 21st Century, and man has entered into the stars, but what it found was not a place of peace, utopia or understanding, the universe had shown man a cold and realistic outlook at what the future will ultimately be for the coming age. The stars were plagued with conflicts, and wars came and went like seasons, man was given its greatest challenge when it stepped into the galaxy, survival.
In 2003 an attack was launched upon the Earth by a race called the Goa'uld, the attack nearly brought the destruction of humanity, but thanks to the timely intervention of the First Terran Fleet, a vast fleet of ships constructed by the United States special division known as the SGC, Stargate Command, the fleet battled against Anubis and bought time for mankind to counter the invasion.
Though the war was won, the reality sank in, man was no longer alone, an age of rapid reformation took over the world, governments fell, nations dismantled, blood spilled, and people changed. A new age was ushered in from the chaos of the reformation and man began anew. The United Earth Federation was born, and humanity took its steps into the galaxy.
8 years have passed and after billions of sacrifices, untold number of worlds destroyed and havoc wrought upon the lives of those living in the Federation, the wars had nearly ended, nearly. The remnants of those defeated still plague the Federation, and new threats appear from the darkest corners of space to replace the defeated. But not is hopelessly bloody, there is still much beauty left in this macabre age...
XXXXX
Date: 21/2/2011
Time: 11:18 AM TST
Location: Pegasus Galaxy- Argus Cluster- Proxy III -7th planet
Carter stared out into open void laid before her; it was sight which in her opinion would never cease to grow old, it was a sight which she appreciated since she was very young, her hopes and dreams of coming out here motivated her to do so much to reach for the stars. And here she was, years later and in the prime of her life, a life spent well in her own opinion.
But amidst of being able to go into space, she found other things, a sense of duty which needed to be fulfilled, primarily the protection of the human race and the betterment of mankind. The years which she had spent in service of the US military's top secret Stargate program and then becoming part of the United Earth Federation, had taught her a lot about the universe.
Nothing was as it seemed, that much she had figured out on her own, the universe was so much greater, so much more vibrant, and yet so dangerous. Having been one of the first few people to step into the galaxy via the Stargate, the universe was opened up to a variety of experiences, some of them rather unpleasant and others, things she would remember till the end of her days.
However, there was still much to see, hear, and do. Time wasn't going to stop for her or the rest of the damn universe, at least not unless she activated the temporal displacement generator that the Asgard gave her, but she wasn't as keen to do that again. As she gazed into the vastness of space, her attention was drawn back to reality.
She had a ship to run. Turning about face to see what the crew was doing, she was pleased to see everyone going about their business, standing to attention, prepared for what was to come. She walked back to her seat as various technicians, crewmen and personnel walked about their business.
As she reached her seat, she was greeted by a familiar face. "Good to see you're in a humble mood today General Carter." A woman clad in a white shirt and black pants said as she materialized from a flash of light.
Carter looked at the materialised woman and replied curtly with a raised eyebrow and a curious tone. "I'm in a good mood when I get a chance to relax myself, or I'd probably go insane from the daily routine Amanda." She replied with a small chuckle.
"That I can understand, but it's time for a progress report ma'am." Amanda the Artificial Intelligence of the 'Rising Dawn' Arcturus class heavy cruiser stated. The artificial intelligence didn't waste any time bringing up a holographic image before the General of the current progress of their deployed teams.
"So what's the situation?" Carter inquired aptly as she did a quick overview of the current positions of her teams on the ground.
Amanda composed herself and shrunk down to a palm sized image whilst bringing up an array of images of the ground team's movements and recorded pictorials of the operation being undertaken.
"All 12 teams report that they're almost in position, they've minimized their detection, however they couldn't avoid the Genii guards at each critical location and have had to silence as many as they could. It won't be long before the guards back in the main chamber begin to wonder why their fellow soldiers have gone silent." Amanda summarized.
"Well it won't be much of a problem, there's still time before the teams reach their objectives and from there, it'll be up to Delta, Epsilon and Theta teams to deal with Kolya and his men, at least that's what should happen, before they begin to raise the alarm." Carter said thoughtfully.
"That is a rather optimistic outlook, considering that the Genii and Lucian alliance forces happen to be occupying the same space in such a complex labyrinth of tunnels. I doubt that the Lucian forces haven't dropped their guard just yet, they've grown to fear the capabilities of the UEF Forces of course, the past 3 years should have been clear enough." Amanda added.
"I never said that this was going to be easy, I said that the teams would reach their objectives in time to execute their attack, how it goes down, I'll be putting my luck on Sheppard and his team along with Jonathan's to get this done quickly and hopefully without risking too much." Carter said whilst carefully looking over the movement of the teams.
The blonde haired woman was anxious at least inwardly, the operation was almost underway, and phase 2 was set to begin as soon as the teams reached their position, what happened next; well it was in favour of them. She just hoped that the Lucian Alliance hadn't brought any nasty surprises like last time.
Also there was the fact that Kolya was involved in this as well; there was no telling what could happen with that man. He usually had back up plans or some sort of insurance to deal with a number of things, though not always effective, it usually resulted in him escaping the grasp of the UEF Forces for the most part.
As time counted down, she waited patiently, there was little else to do now but wait until the fireworks begin, and after that, the Arcturus joined with its sister ship the Daedalus, Firestorm destroyer and the 4 wolf pack Tempest class corvettes begin their assault.
XXXXX
Time: 11:25 AM [TST]
Location: Proxy III -7th planet- catacombs
The silence of the catacombs was deafening, it doesn't matter if this place was located on a barren wasteland where no plant or animals lived, or the fact that this place was a crypt for the tens of thousands who were trying to escape the destruction of their world. It was disturbingly silent place; it was as if the walls of the tunnels were sucking the light from their flashlights and optical holo-vision.
It was an unknown factor, the whole place was definitely not somewhere that the team wanted to be, but this was the mission. To infiltrate the most unwelcoming place imaginable short of a Wraith Hive Cluster, the teams sent on this mission were expected to infiltrate and seek out and if possible apprehend/kill 3 known war criminals.
Augustus Kolya, Eridus Talev, Triton Ukoia, men who had been responsible for the deaths of millions across 2 galaxies, and had escaped judgement for the past years only by immaculate planning and bad luck. But now it seemed that things had changed in favour of the United Earth Federation and its allies.
A link to these men appeared in a rather unexpected form, the former wife of Triton had learnt of the location of their hideout by coincidence, she had spent some time with one of his high ranking lieutenants and stole his wallet along with the information about their location. It was a world located on the edge of controlled space, a place where even the Wraith don't bother going to.
It was perfect since the surface of this planet was a barren wasteland left dead after a failed attempt at terraforming thanks to the Wraith war which destroyed much of the Ancient's infrastructure and technology across the galaxy, rendering the machines which were supposed to give life to this world useless.
But it wasn't only that, most of the inhabitants who remained were trapped, with no means to escape, and their supplies running out, the inhabitants attempted to seek shelter in the tunnels below their cities; there they remained until they died. After the war ended, the Genii and some scavengers came along and took their stake in the world to use for their own purposes.
It wasn't going to last though, these catacombs will soon become the graves of these people just like its previous inhabitants. As the team came to an intersection, the marine at point raised his hand, the team suddenly froze, the man at point called over the team intercom. "Sir, motion tracker is detecting movement ahead."
The third man down moved forwards to the man in front. "Damn, thought we bypassed most of the patrols." He muttered over the intercom. It was then the man added. "I don't think that it's another patrol, from what my sensors are reading, there's a large cavern ahead, it seems likely we're at our location." The marine stated clearly.
The officer looked through the data link and saw what was coming up on the marine's sensors, a pair of guards moving at a brisk pace in the next corridor above the cavern. From what his ultra-sonic imaging was getting, these people were armed with standard assault rifles and a shotgun. It wasn't much to deal with, but they didn't want to wake the dead with a firefight this close to the main chamber.
"Delta 1-3, will take charge and eliminate the patrol. Delta 1-2 you go and assist." The commander ordered.
"Understood sir." They both acknowledged and moved from the team activating their stealth fields they faded out of sight.
The commander didn't need to wait long; the two best specialists of his team were good at this sort of thing. From his HUD he watched as they moved in to the patrol, the data link he had up showed how the two were going to deal with the patrol. Delta 1-3 moved into a position behind the two men, whilst Delta 1-2 using his molecular bonding pads climbed the wall of the passage and moved above.
Once in position, Delta 1-3 tapped both of the men from behind, both men twisted about, but they saw nothing, and then Delta 1-2 made his move. From above he let his molecular bonding pads release him and he dropped in on top of the two confused guards. Without any warning the two suddenly felt light headed as they realised knives sticking out from their bodies.
The two couldn't move or even scream thanks to the fact that the blades which Delta 1-2 were using were emitting a high electric pulse which both paralysed and killed, it was also capable of generating heat which cauterised any entry point to stop any blood from being spilled onto the ground. Once both men expired, Delta 1-2 and 1-3 cleared the bodies out from the corridor and pulled them back to where the team was.
"Good work, Delta, we make out move." Their commander said, he used hand signs for them to follow again and they proceeded with haste to the cavern ahead.
It wasn't long before they finally reached a vantage point above the large cavern. The place was crawling with Genii guards and non-coms; there was a noticeable difference though. The Lucian Alliance members who sat directly on the other side of the chamber were brewing in their usual fashion. Both sides were separated by a large stone pillar in the middle of the cavern which seemed to be emitting light from an unknown source of energy.
"This is Delta Actual; we are in position, over." He said over the com channel back to the other teams.
"This is Epsilon Actual; we are in position. Hey kid you ready?" A familiar voice cut in.
"Hey I'm supposed to be in my 50s. And yes I'm ready to get this party started, now will you shut up and provide support?" The young commander of Delta snapped back at his fellow officer.
"Sorry Jon I just tend to forget, but in all seriousness I still outrank you." His fellow deadpanned.
"I swear Sheppard I will spit in your next meal." The disgruntled teen muttered murderously.
"Gentlemen, please stick to the mission, all other teams have reported in, they're ready to execute. And keep in mind we have a 10 minute window of opportunity do not miss it." Amanda cut in over their coms.
"Sorry ma'am." Jonathan said in his false compassionate way.
"Right, sorry." Sheppard said as well.
Amanda was relaying all the orders from Carter who was just as frustrated with the two officers bickering. "Delta, Epsilon, do you have eyes on the HVTs?" (High Value Targets)
Jonathan and his team began to scan the chamber for the men they were looking for. Sheppard was scanning the other side carefully as well, but they seemed to only get one.
"Only one is present. It's Kolya." Sheppard said darkly.
"Are you sure? We killed him twice before, I really don't want to do it again and again." Jon said dispassionately.
"Really funny, and yes I've done a full bio-scan, it's definitely him this time." Sheppard said as he looked over his nemesis.
Augustus Kolya, was a rather weathered looking man, he had various scars from his years as a commander in the Genii military. His dark hair had strands of grey forming, along with the greying scar on his face from when Sheppard rammed a combat knife into his face during a scuffle a few years back. That definitely brought back some memories alright.
The grizzled Genii leader looked thinner though, he had a more pronounced gut which had retracted after being on the run for so long. But his health wasn't getting better, it was clear that the man was reaching a certain point where he'd soon die simply from his condition. Ever since their last encounter, Kolya had said that he was succumbing to radiation poisoning, a cancerous tumour had formed in the back of his brain.
He was going to die regardless, but he was determined to get back at Sheppard, even going as far as joining hands with the Alliance of all people to do it. Of course this was pretty much going to be the last thing he ever does, he didn't look like he could put up much more of a fight. He had bags under his eyes, and it looked like he was taking some form of pain medication to cope.
After five minutes, the window was steadily coming to a close. They hoped to catch all of the members of the Lucian Alliance as well, but it seemed as though they were a no show.
Jon sighed. "This is Delta Actual; the other HVTs are not present. Shall we continue with the mission?" He called over the channel.
Sam who was back on the ship couldn't think of a reason to stop at this point, their window was about to close soon, they had to make a move regardless. And Sheppard was voicing his opinion on the matter fairly clearly. "I say we take one of them out rather than none of them at all."
Sam gave in. "Very well, all teams are to proceed with mission, elimination of target priority is a go. All teams on the ground prepare to execute objectives in 30 seconds on my mark."
Delta moved from their position and took a stance ready to move into the cavern and clear it out; Jon at point primed a flash-bang along with the others of his team. From the other side Sheppard's team took firing positions, tracking the most apparent threats. Sheppard himself armed his grenade launcher with a fragmentation round. He intended to clear the room as quickly as possible.
Sam timed the attack to the second, she had the ship prepared to jump in and provide support whilst the rest of the teams on the ground attacked in the confusion. "In 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Mark!"
In the cavern, the teams began their attack without hesitation. Jon watched as everything went into slow motion, from above he could see Sheppard pull his carbine down range and fire the 40mm into the largest concentration of Lucian Alliance troops. The grenade exited the barrel with a jet stream of fire trailing behind as the rocket propelled grenade hissed enticingly to meet its victims.
The troops lobbed in their flash-bangs at the same time, the silver and grey cylindrical grenades passed through the air spinning as they flung forwards into the cavern. The guards below who were on watch reacted in surprise, trying to get their weapons up at the attacking members of the UEF Forces, but they never got beyond lifting their weapons.
Sheppard's marksmen put the men down before they had a chance to raise them, the guards screamed in agony as hyper velocity shots punctured them from various directions. One who turned to face Delta had his head blown clean into a bloody mist. It was such a rush this feeling of battle, which ended shortly when the grenades went off.
"GO!" Jon shouted as everything caught up with him.
His team was up and at them, their guns trained on the nearest hostile and began pumping out rounds, he counted 3 hostiles in his sights and shredded them with his AR, shorts bursts of anti-personnel hollow point rounds made short work of their flesh and blood. Their bodies spilled outwards as the bullets passed through them.
But he didn't stop, the next person who got into his sights was a young Genii trooper who tried to bring to bear a shotgun, Jon put a round through his throat; unfortunately the young man didn't die immediately as the bullet blew a hole through his neck and left him bleeding profusely on the ground.
Jon didn't think to witness the death of the young man as he ordered his team.
"We're moving down."
Delta jumped down from their position, covering each other as they moved down, the number of hostiles in the chamber had been drastically reduced, but still those who remained seemed determined to fight to the death. From the other side of the cavern, he could see an agitated Kolya, issuing orders to frightened Genii troopers.
They didn't last particularly long as Sheppard's team made themselves known and began to rapidly carve to pieces the Genii troopers with their gauss guns. The troops felt one by one, but it was Jon who took the killing shot for the priority target in his sights, Kolya was busy looking at Jon with a face of absolute spite, too busy being distracted he didn't see the sudden burst from Jon's rifle as a 7.62mm passed through his chest at non-hyper velocity speeds.
The man dropped to the ground bleeding and shouting something which Jon couldn't hear over the gunfire, but the rest of his men were finished by Sheppard's team who joined Delta on the ground of the cavern. Jon and his team checked that all Genii and Lucian troops were dead before reporting in.
"Delta Actual reporting, HVT is down, I repeat HVT is down."
The cavern began to shake as the UEF Forces fleet arrived in system.
"We receive Delta Actual, we've begun our mop up operation, and all other teams have succeeded with their objectives and are moving to their extraction points."
"I copy; we just have one last bit of business to attend to." He said as he turned back to Sheppard who was walking slowly to the body of Kolya.
XXXXX
Above the planet, the fleets of the Genii and the Lucian Alliance Faction were patrolling as per their planned routine as they guarded the planet from any intruders who would dare to attack. However being left here for months without anyone attack, had left them in a state of complacency, so the arrival of the 'Rising Dawn' and its fleet was definitely a surprise.
Carter had counted on the Lucian and Genii to have dropped their guards since they had lost majority of their more trained, experienced, and skilled personnel when the UEFF had destroyed their primary capitals and recruitment facilities across the galaxy. There weren't enough of them left to comeback as a major threat. A troublesome faction which had caused lots of deaths through their actions, the Lucian Alliance had been steadily forced to lower the bar during their recruitment process and thus began to create a problem in its own right.
As the UEFF fleet appeared from hyperspace, they opened up with a full barrage of hellfire missiles, void wake torpedoes and a wall of tungsten which were fired from the various rail batteries on each ship. But the coup de grace was the main cannons on the 'Rising Dawn' and the 'Daedalus', both ships fired their heavy plasma cannons and the 'Rising Dawn's' NOVA Lance.
The NOVA Lance was a particle cannon which fired an enormous burst of energy in the form of a beam which could travel immense distances, but also vaporize anything which happens to be in its path. The beam was so bright, that it was said that it was like a supernova. The initial beam sliced through the enemy fleet like butter.
5 ships were destroyed in an instant whilst half a dozen were damaged in some way shape or form by the blast and the immense gravimetric distortion created by the beam. The rest of the fleet began their assault in a similar fashion laying down wave after wave of attacks, missiles and torpedoes followed by directed beam blasts from their plasma cannons.
The plethora of weapons being used definitely worked to throw the two fleets into chaos and since neither side had any command over the other's fleet, both Genii and Lucian forces began to try and form separate formations in close proximity. This quickly proved disastrous as the fleets nearly collided with one another trying to make a formation whilst still being assaulted by the UEFF fleet.
Carter watched as the two fleets scrambled away as their formations broke to pieces under the combined firepower of the 'Daedalus' and the 'Rising Dawn's' main guns. It wasn't long before they had achieved superiority above the planet when they received word from Delta that their target had been neutralized.
But something seemed off, things were going smoothly, rather too smoothly. Operations had their ups and downs, but it was surprising that the Genii and Lucian Alliance fleets would both begin their withdrawal so quickly. It was then she received word from Amanda.
"General!"
XXXXX
At the very same time…
Sheppard stepped carefully past the scattered corpses of Genii and Lucian troops; he finally reached the clutter of bodies which were once Kolya's personal retinue. Their decimated bodies a clear example of Sheppard's determination at vengeance against the man who had taken so much from him.
Kolya wasn't dead just yet, the bullet which Jon had fired was intended to mortally wound Kolya not outright kill him, there was still one last thing Sheppard wanted to do before Kolya died. He met the man as he gripped the side of the entry wound. The grizzled face bringing back some unpleasant memories of their earlier encounters.
"So it's come to this hasn't it?"
Kolya managed to cough out some blood before stating. "Yes it has..."
"You know how much effort it took to get to you?" Sheppard asked the man dying before him.
"Quite a lot I'd assume." He smiled as a trickle of blood spilled from his mouth.
"But now, I can safely say, it's over." Sheppard said as he drew his hand gun to finish the job.
"It is, but you and I aren't finished just yet..." The former Genii leader coughed through his gritted teeth as he slowly bled out.
It was then the attention of the marines was drawn to the centre of the room, the stone pillar which had sat in the middle of the room began to rumble, and before they knew it, it moved on its own, twisting and turning. The large pillar began to rise as it twisted upwards, shaking everything in the room as it moved.
The marines didn't know what to make of it, the sight of the moving pillar was encapsulating, Sheppard carefully analysed what he was looking at, as the pillar rose higher and higher, he could see what was pushing it upwards. Beneath the stone was large number of clear crystal like panes and joints which were connected to the pillar, each brightly resonating light from the core centre.
"I'll see you in hell." Kolya smiled one last time before he died.
The pillar began to suddenly increase in the energy pulses, but also begin to increase the intensity of light being emitted. Sheppard didn't need an Ancient specialist to tell him that this thing was bad news. He motioned to his team. "Everyone out!" Sheppard yelled over the coms.
The teams responded in unison, they cleared out the room as quickly as possible. As they entered into the nearest corridor out, Sheppard was followed by Jon who asked him.
"So what did Kolya want to say?"
"We'll meet in hell." Sheppard replied aptly.
"So no sincere thoughts or remorse or regrets?" Jon asked jokingly.
Sheppard threw him a glare and the man shut his mouth. As they moved to the next corridor, Sheppard had no reason to hide their presence on the world; he switched to an open channel and contacted the 'Rising Dawn' in orbit. "'Rising Dawn', this is Sheppard we've got a problem." He said over the coms as they hurried to their extraction point.
Carter on the other end received the communications and replied. "Colonel what's going on down there? We're picking up tremendous amounts of subspace energy concentrating in the primary chamber." Carter asked in a near demanding tone.
"That's Kolya, he knew we'd get to him, he left us a little going away present before he died. The chamber's been rigged with an Ancient power source on overload. Whatever they plan to do it's going to be ugly!" He said in a hurry as the teams began to rush to their planned transportation point.
Carter understood the situation and issued orders to the fleet.
"Amanda, get the fleet into formation above the site I want to get clean transportation locks as soon as possible, and prepare for an immediate departure, begin plotting fleet jump point to anywhere but here." Carter ordered as she continued to monitor the progressing mop up.
The AI nodded and added. "Of course, issuing commands, preparing for immediate hyperspace jump… and preparing to beam the teams off the planet so we can all die together." She said in a cheerfully sarcastic tone.
Eli then came over the intercom.
"General Carter I've got a calculation on the critical overload of the power source Sheppard was talking about. We have less than 4 minutes before they go critical. I don't know how fast Sheppard is at navigating that place, but he'd better make it within 3 minutes or we're all going to well, either incinerate immediately, or just be ripped to molecules." Eli said uncertainly.
"Well I don't intend to find out Eli, focus on getting Sheppard and the others back aboard the 'Rising Dawn' first, after that, we can discuss Ancient physics later." Carter said jauntily.
It was then Amanda alerted Carter. "Ma'am multiple enemy vessels are leaving the surface, counting 2 motherships and a number of transport vessels." The AI stated as it calculated the movement of the ships exiting.
"That's probably the remaining Lucian Alliance leaders. Damn it." Carter muttered as she saw the cluster of ships on the other side of the planet making a hasty getaway into hyperspace.
Back on the planet, Sheppard and Jon made their way to their extraction point while avoiding falling debris and blocked corridors, navigating through the millennia old maze was quite an effort, something even the UEF Forces have had years of experience since they had done this on various worlds. Even though these sorts of things get really repetitive and tiresome, the teams had a good sense of direction since fighting in various Wraith catacombs.
"Gentlemen you have 2 minutes remaining for extraction." Amanda declared over their coms.
Sheppard and Jon both cursed under their breaths as they finally reached the level above; they made a right turn past a blocked corridor and entered into a large antechamber which had once a large dome ceiling. The ceiling had long collapsed and had revealed sunlight above, a large shaft travelled upwards to the surface.
"This is Delta and Epsilon teams, we're here." Jon practically yelled as they finally arrived.
Amanda back on the ship understood and immediately beamed them to the ship. "Transportation in progress. General might I suggest-." She was about to ask to jump to hyperspace but the General gave her response instinctively without pause.
"Just fly damn it." Sam cut over the AI.
"Understood, beginning jump start." Amanda said as she pulled the ship from the orbit of the planet and as quickly as possible in the direction of open space.
However as they were about to jump, the 'Rising Dawn' was shaken by a shockwave, on board the ship, Jon and Sheppard grabbed the bulkheads of the ship trying to stabilize themselves as the ship shuddered. "Amanda what was that?" Jon asked over his coms.
Amanda responded in an agitated fashion. "We're experiencing some turbulence; please brace yourselves for hyperspace gentlemen." She said in a reassuringly calm tone as another shockwave passed.
Back on the bridge the crew were having difficulty staying upright as the shockwave passed. Carter was looking rather peeved about now. "Damn it, Amanda how long till we get clear?" She asked the AI.
The AI responded. "We're almost clear, jump in 12 seconds." She said as the FTL drive charged.
Eli managed to cut over the mess of chatter with an urgent message. "General, these gravitational waves, they're not just shockwaves passing through as energy, they're pulses of subspace which are following behind like ripples. There's another shockwave approaching, multi-folded by 20, contact within 4 seconds."
"We'll take that risk." Carter cut over the young scientist.
Amanda then announced. "Hyperspace initiated!"
Before the fleet of ships, a subspace event horizon opened clearly, the ships poured forth into the folds of hyperspace. But not before the last shockwave followed them through. The ships were knocked forwards violently as they entered into hyperspace. On the 'Rising Dawn' the crew were tossed around violently as the ship shook from the last impact of the dying throes of the world behind them.
Carter could only feel the ship shuddering, lights flickering, crewmen shouting out things which she could no longer hear from the noise of the chaos caused by the shockwave. But from what the crew was shouting, it sounded like hell had just broken loose across the ship. There wasn't much else but to wait it out.
Carter lost consciousness as she stared into the destabilised hyperspace window ahead of them, its green aura rippling with intensity, light blinding her sight. And then she suddenly felt nothing.
XXXXX
Date: 21/2/2011
Time: 12:22 PM TST
Location: Unknown
The wail of sirens was the first thing that could be heard over the groans of the bridge crew on the 'Rising Dawn', Carter's eyes cracked open only to be meet with a blinding amount of light. "General Carter, please don't move too quickly." She felt the touch of a medic grasping her chin as he used his pen light to check her responses.
The medic was one of Cassandra's subordinates from the 8th medical wing of the ship; he had a mobile medical scanner on hand checking her vitals. "Okay looks like responses are sound, you seem to be suffering a minor concussion from our bumpy ride, but that's not a problem." He said as he removed a medical tool from his case. "Here this is for the concussion." He said as he pulled a glowing neural pulse stimulator up to her forehead and gently pressed it.
In a matter of moments Carter's headache suddenly subsided and she felt a lot better. She managed to ask. "What's going on?" She asked as she rubbed her forehead where the medic had applied the neural pulse stimulator.
"Nothing much ma'am, we've come out of hyperspace about 20 minutes ago according to the ship's internal clock. Those in the medical wing managed to come about five minutes after we came through, from what I'm getting on the emergency medical channel we've got a few wounded from our transition. Thankfully no one has died." He said as he packed his things away and got to the next patient across the bridge.
Carter readjusted herself in her command chair and finally got a good look around her bridge, there were plenty of crewmen wandering around checking systems, a few were nursing bruises and bumps, one person had burns from what looked like an overloaded console. But aside from that, the bridge didn't look worse for wear considering everything.
She tapped her chair console and brought up her connection to Amanda, she hoped the AI hadn't been crippled from the effects of their sudden transition back from hyperspace. "Amanda, are you there?" She called over the direct line.
It took a moment but a fuzzy noise was all that she could hear. "Amanda, are you still operational?" She repeated.
This time she got a better response.
"I'm here, but it seems as though the bridge holo-emitters are currently offline, I cannot materialize at the moment."
Sam understood well enough.
"I just woke up, how's the status of the ship?" She inquired.
Amanda took a moment to compile the necessary data.
"Current status of the 'Rising Dawn' is operational, but we've taken extensive amounts of damage to our engines are probably going to need an overhaul. Outer hull has taken a lot of stress from our trip through hyperspace. Shields are at currently half strength, most of the damage is currently internal, mainly conduits, and circuitry across the ship have overloaded quite severely. As for the fleet itself, I've got reports of similar damage from the 'Daedalus' and our 'Tempest' class escorts." She summarised.
Carter could see that this was not the best situation to be in.
"How's the crew?"
"Not bad to be honest, people seemed more focused on getting the ship back to operational standard rather than be bothered about anything else. Though Jonathan and Sheppard are making their way to you from the lower transporter bays, they both sounded concerned about your health." Amanda stated with a hint of cheekiness.
Sam couldn't really be bothered to chastise the AI and simply sighed.
"Right. Amanda, what is our current coordinates? Are still in proximity of the Proxia system?" She asked.
There was a sudden pause as Amanda went to check, but it also seemed as though the AI was preoccupied. She came back on the intercom and reported in. "Sorry ma'am primary sensors are offline at the moment, I'm barely getting anything through our secondary, but from what I got prior to our exit through hyperspace we exited not at our intended destination."
At that moment Sheppard and Jon arrived at the bridge, both of them were still in their combat suits but had their helmets off. They greeted Carter as they strolled in.
"General." Sheppard said as he arrived.
"Gentlemen, good to see you're both doing well." Carter said as she greeted the two marine officers.
Sheppard shrugged with a sheepish smile. "It's probably not one of our most glamorous escapes in history."
"You're kidding right? What about what happened on-." Jon was silenced by Sheppard who threw him a look. "We never talk about that incident ever again Jon, remember?"
"Right." Jon rolled his eyes as his counterpart was still disgruntled about that fiasco a few years back.
"If you're done reminiscing about past screw ups maybe you'd like to hear me out before declaring the worst fail we've ever had?" Amanda jived from the other side of the com.
Sheppard asked aloud. "What could possibly be worse?"
It was then Eli, their Ancient specialist who called over the coms.
"Uh guys I just got main power functioning properly." He said as the light suddenly returned to normal and the sirens suddenly stopped. "Though I think I have some bad news." He continued.
Sam had a concerned look on her face, she then asked. "What's the bad news?"
"I've just got some of the main sensors and navigational array back online, and from what I can see, we're not in the Pegasus galaxy anymore." He said aptly and calmly.
"Exactly what I was about to say." Amanda added momentarily.
Jon and Sheppard both looked at each other with equally worried expressions. Sam asked.
"Where are we then?"
Amanda and Eli both seemed to close the line and chat amongst themselves before they replied a few seconds later. "We don't know." They both said in unison.
"Excuse me?" Jon exclaimed as Sheppard and Sam's expressions turned sour.
"We have no recorded data on this region of the universe if you could even call it that, I've just gone over our database from the Ancients record of stars, and our own categorized charts to this date. None of them match what we're seeing." Eli said as he checked over the details of the charts again. "No none of these stars are anywhere in our records."
Sam then asked. "Could there be a malfunction with the sensors?"
"Both our secondary and primary sensors plus the subspace navigational sensors? I highly doubt that ma'am." Eli said honestly.
Sheppard muttered something under his breath which sounded like a cuss, but Jon then asked. "Wait, where the hell are we currently?"
It took Eli and Amanda a moment to respond.
"We're currently located in a star system with one planet, one moon and nothing else of significance in sight, aside from a lot of ambient energy readings everywhere."
"Wonderful, we're stuck in the middle of nowhere without any idea where we might be." Jon said to himself.
"Stow it Major." Sheppard snapped at his counterpart.
Sam decided to take action.
"Amanda is the planet in this star system; does it have a breathable atmosphere?" She inquired.
Amanda took a moment to reply. "Yes, at least from what our sensors are receiving, the planet has a stable gravity; the temperature recorded should be much like that of Earth, there are large continents and various landmasses visible. But I'm having some difficulty getting precise readings."
Sam had an eyebrow raised. "What do you mean by 'difficulty'?" She asked.
Eli was the one who answered for the AI.
"Ma'am I'm getting the same problem, sensors can only get so many readings, but from what I can gather, the planet has an irregular amount of energy bleeding off. It's like nothing ever recorded, but the effect is clear, it's messing with the ship's sensors. Amanda and I can't ascertain what's on the planet precisely." The young man said as he searched for a means of overcoming the difficulties.
"So much for the millions of credits put into developing start of the art sensors." Sheppard said aloud.
Sam gave him a sharp look, which he turned away whistling to avoid being glared at. Carter made a suggestion.
"How about sending down an atmospheric capable suborbital drone?"
Eli thought about it and replied. "That might be for the best, aside from sending in a team onto the planet itself."
"Hey, we just got back from our last planet run; I don't think we want to go again." Sheppard objected to Eli's thoughtful suggestion.
Sam stated. "I think we better send the drone first. If things don't work out, we send in a team."
"If its fine with you ma'am I volunteer my own men and Sheppard's." Jon said aptly.
Sheppard looked at Jon and asked. "You love to make our lives a living hell don't you?" He glared at his fellow officer who had a shit eating grin plastered on his face.
"Don't worry, it's not like we've done this song and dance before, besides, we're still suited up remember?" He gestured to both of them still in gear.
The two of them turned back to Sam who had Amanda prepare a drone for launch. "Drone is exiting from lower hangar bay 18." Amanda announced.
They turned to see the bridge's large console display come to life as it tracked the drone through space as it made its way to the planet. Jon asked to Amanda. "How long is this going to take?"
"Not long the drone's get catapulted from the hangar via a mass linear driver; it should reach the planet it in record time, as for actually recording, that might take a while longer." Amanda replied as she continued to receive telemetry from the drone.
Eli then cut in. "Drone's entering the atmosphere. And General?" Eli asked Carter.
"What is it?" Sam said.
"I'm recording a high levels of energy, dispersal is unknown, this effect, I'm not sure but I think this is what's causing our sensor jamming problems. I think-." Eli never finished his statement.
"Ma'am, I'm having difficulty controlling the drone, control nodes are not responding anymore, sensor telemetry is still coming through but the drone is ballistic." Amanda alerted them.
"I knew this would happen." Sheppard grumbled.
"Quiet, it's not over just yet." Jon whispered to his comrade.
They watched as the drone's projected trajectory slowly pitched into a nose dive, from what they could tell it was heading in a north westerly direction, its speed was at Mach 5, and it wasn't slowing down. Amanda tried to send some commands to regain control but nothing seemed to work.
"Sorry ma'am I can't regain control, this is unusual, whatever's causing this jamming has cut controls from me." She said as they watched the drone finally begin to descend to the surface of the planet.
Eli then announced. "I'm receiving parts of the sensory readings, there's plenty to go through."
And then the drone hit the ground. "Now there's nothing." Eli announced in a disappointed fashion.
"Figures, a planet which fries any wireless linked machinery we try to use on it." Sam said to herself.
"Right as if we needed any more of those." Sheppard recalled his past experience.
Jon then cheerfully added. "Well look on the bright side, we don't need to go change again now do we?"
Sam asked to Eli. "Eli, how's the surface of the planet looking?"
"I've got a bit of data here, mostly basic stuff. The drone passed over the large western continent of the planet, which brought a lot of data, a number of recorded life forms, plants, animals. In terms of harmful bacteria and such, I don't there's anything we should be worried about." He responded as he looked through the recorded data.
Sam thought about this for a moment, their options were really limited in this current situation; there was a planet with life and a rather unusual condition for causing electronic problems for their machinery. "Amanda, do you think that this planetary condition might cause for any team we send by gunship, dangerous?" Sam asked.
The AI took a moment to contemplate this scenario. "There is a small chance, but the controls on the drone were functional, they were just not receiving commands from me. If this was a manned flight I doubt that it would have crashed. Well at least not like this." She replied.
"I have to agree with Amanda on this one, the drone's recorded data indicates that the drone seemed to stop receiving the commands from Amanda. If a manned flight had gone down, it's doubtful they'd have suffered the same problems." Eli said optimistically.
"Why do I get a feeling we're going to have to do something simple that quickly becomes unpredictably complicated?" Sheppard asked Jon.
Jon replied cheerfully. "Well that's just it; it's always like that now isn't it?"
Carter cut into their little talk and decided on what to do.
"Well it looks like we haven't got much of a choice. Gentlemen, I'd like you to take a pair CV-25 gunship along with a platoon, select your men from your own battalions, preferably those who have experience in forest terrain. I want you to recover that drone, and do it quickly as you can. In the meantime while you're on the ground do a bit of scouting, if there's a place we can set down the fleet for some repairs, record and report it." Carter ordered the two of them.
"Understood ma'am." They both said in unison with salutes.
"Good luck, and please keep in mind that you have a 48 hour window, if something happens we'll send down another team." Sam said as she dismissed them.
The two departed from the bridge preparing for their next fruitful adventure…
XXXXX
Meanwhile, on the world below, there was a place called Equestria, it was a land of magic and adventure, a land filled with mystery and myth. The kingdom of Equestria stretched for hundreds to thousands of kilometres in all directions, it was the third largest kingdom currently in existence, and it was situated on the 4th largest body of land on the world.
It has a long history which has almost become legend, and its heroes who have come and gone their names written down through the ages as footnotes in aging texts. Time however has been kind to the kingdom of Equestria, their lands going through a long vigilant era of peace, though as one wise man said. "Nothing lasts forever."
Peace ended with the return of an ancient threat, Nightmare Moon, and her madness to bring eternal night to the world. Then came the god of chaos, Discord who sought to bring anew an age of chaos to reckoning and bring the kingdom to its knees. From the far depths of the Badlands came the queen of the changelings, Chrysalis, who sought to conquer the kingdom with her brood army. And finally the return of an ancient evil, Sombra, the fallen king of an empire, who sought vengeance on those who defeated him over a thousand years prior.
Even in the face of such adversity, the Equestrians found strength to overcome such obstacles, the Elements of Harmony, magical tools forged to protect the kingdom of Equestria in times of great need. Through the years they've proven invaluable, but their need wasn't necessary all the time… hopefully not today.
"Everypony run! It's a stampede!" A pink furred, gold maned mare screamed aloud.
Ponies looked around as they saw what the mare was screaming about, beyond the horizon a mass of dust and dirt was being kicked up and the earth trembled, it was apparent that it was indeed a stampede. In moments ponies screamed and panicked in a similar fashion as the mare and began to rush to whatever shelter was readily available.
A pair of colts dived right into an empty cart, while another pony somehow managed to climb up a copper lamppost with nothing more than her hooves, how this was achieved is beyond explanation. Around town the panic and fear spread like wildfire until the oncoming stampede finally reached the outskirts of town.
Now the definition of stampede can vary, it can mean when people run in a mass flock panicking, or it could mean a horde of animals fleeing. But in this case the stampede was more akin to a flood, a sea of animals were pouring in from the Everfree Forest, snakes, goannas, echidnas, platypuses, ostriches, bunnies, foxes and a whole assortment of creatures not normally seen outside of the dark damp forest were now screaming through the town at an alarming rate.
The birds of the forest had also joined in the panic and were fleeing in all directions, which weren't necessarily as bad as the flood of animals on the ground, nevertheless the number of birds in flight made flying a hazard at best. Most pegasi were already trying to dodge everything as if the sky was raining spears.
In the north eastern part of town in a large tree house lived a young purple unicorn mare that had a fondness for dealing with the usual magic and mayhem which tended to occur on a daily basis. She had only woken moments prior to the sudden tidal wave of animals large and small.
"Spike, what's going on?" She asked aloud from her bedroom to a small purple scaled dragon hurriedly blocking all the doors.
The young dragon managed to reply whilst moving a whole stack of books to block a window. "I don't know, Lily began to scream in town about a stampede and now its plots end out there with animals from the Everfree Forest!" He said as he pushed the books to the swing windows.
Suddenly birds began to fly in from the chimney of the library, they swarmed over the entire library panicking and screeching as they tried to find their way out again. Spike got onto it immediately and closed the fireplace in a panic; meanwhile Twilight went about dealing with the birds. She used her magic and opened up the doors to her home's balcony.
The birds poured out from the tree house and back into the chaos outside. Twilight was confused as to what was going on, what could have set so many animals into such a flurry? Was it a natural disaster of enormous proportions? This seemed so surreal; does everything go insanely out of control when there's nothing else going on?
'Actually that's probably not so far from the truth.' Twilight recalled the amount of chaos being wrecked across the whole kingdom since Nightmare Moon's return.
It was like a never ending train ride of fun; just a lot more challenging than a train ride and far more hectic, also gratuitous amounts of pie, that last incident with the Pony Pie Ponanaza was the cake of the list in the wackiest things to have happened in the year. Somehow this should be expected now and again.
'Dear Celestia why am I even surprised anymore?' Twilight thought to herself as she hurried down to the lower floor.
"Spike, have you managed to get a letter to the Princesses yet?" She asked as she looked for a quill and parchment.
The baby dragon who was amidst barricading the ground floor with a whole stack of books replied in a strained voice. "I've been busy!" He said as he dropped the stack of books in front of the ground floor door.
Unfortunately his timing couldn't have been worse as he was suddenly slammed in the face by the door as a certain rainbow maned Pegasus arrived with ponies in tow. "Twilight!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she flew in.
Twilight was thankfully out of range as the rainbow Pegasus spun out of control and slammed into the nearby bookshelf with a resounding crash. Rainbow Dash was buried under an assorted pile of book. The other girls came in right after her, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and lastly Pinkie Pie strode in from the havoc outside.
"Girls what's with the all the animals outside?" Twilight asked her friends.
Rarity was the first to answer. "We thought you might have a better clue as to what was going on dear."
"Yep, there wasn't anyone else who could tell us so the next pony who would usually have a better idea was usually you." Pinkie Pie added nonchalantly whilst poking around some random books.
Twilight wasn't sure how to respond. "Uh girls I just woke up about five minutes ago, I have less of a clue than the rest of you." She said in an unsure tone.
Rainbow managed to pull herself from the pile of books and exclaimed in a surprised fashion. "What? How could you wake up later than the rest of us? I thought you're supposed to be the smarty pony, non-tardy whatchamacallit…"
Twilight threw the Pegasus a rather unamused look. "Rainbow I was up all night studying some new constellations in the skies above Equestria, it was Tuesday remember?"
"Oh right… that." Rainbow face hoofed.
"Huh, so you've got less of an idea than the rest of us?" Applejack asked to the purple unicorn.
"Yes, but why are you looking for me in the first place? I thought Fluttershy would know what would be going on, I'm not the animal expert." Twilight pointed to the butterscotch Pegasus that was still hiding in the back between Rarity and Applejack.
Fluttershy's head suddenly popped up and she looked around nervously as the other looked to her. "Um, I-I don't know either girls." She said whilst tapping the wooden floor with her hoof.
"Really? Not even you? But didn't you speak to your animals? I mean they usually provide some insight don't they?" Twilight inquired with a rather perplexed look.
Fluttershy nodded but something seemed off. "I'm not sure what to say girls; I tried to talk with my darling animals in my home, but all they could tell me was something was coming." She said as she suddenly shivered.
"What's coming?" Twilight pressed.
Fluttershy sighed. "I'm not sure, they kept repeating the same thing, there was something coming in from somewhere far and all the animals are scared, they're trying to get away from it. Poor Harry's currently barricaded himself in my room. Angel himself has gone and hid with all the mice." She rubbed her forehead in confusion.
"Wow from the sounds of that ah can imagine whatever's going on is a doozy." AJ stated her opinion.
"Yeah well we better figure out what that doozy is before it…" Twilight was about to finish her sentence when the ground began to shake.
The girls began to look around, the shaking was a slight tremble, but it began to increase in intensity. Twilight looked around to the nearest window which Spike had blocked; using her magic she knocked over the whole stack of books much to the disdain of the young dragon. "What in Equestria?" She muttered as she looked out the window.
Outside the animals had all vanished, no trace aside from the numerous paw prints, and carnage wrecked from their mass migration. But what Twilight was looking at was something else, a large black shroud was falling in the distance from the town, as it got closer the ground shook more.
"Merciful Celestia what's that noise?!" Rarity asked aloud as the sound of a dull roar broke over the silence.
"It sounds like that place in Windy Mountain, you know where it was really windy." AJ said as she rubbed her ears.
"How can we forget? I had to rub my wings from the windshear." Rainbow said in response.
Practically everyone had to yell at the top of their lungs to respond to one another as the approaching object finally passed overhead. Twilight herself was too encapsulated by the sight of the object as it soared over. It was a large delta wing object with a wingspan longer than that of its length, but the speed it moved at was supersonic, she saw more than enough performances from RD to know when something was moving faster than sound.
"What in the hay is that damn noise?" AJ asked to Twilight.
The purple mare peeled herself from the window and replied. "I'm not sure I think that might be a jet stream, I've only heard of a few theories regarding it from some aerospace ponies who wanted to make a flying machine…" She then realised that the girls weren't interested in a long detailed explanation to something rather complicated. "It's sound from an engine, a very powerful engine."
AJ nodded in acknowledgement that she got it; the others understood it as well sort of. The sound of the object subsided as it finally passed over the town. The girls could finally talk at a normal level, though Pinkie might have gone deaf. "Hey girls, can we stop yelling now?" Or she might have just been screwing around.
"Yes Pinkie you can stop yelling now." Rarity said to the pink mare.
"Okay." Pinkie replied happily in her normal tone.
"Right, now Spike, can you get-." Twilight was addressing the dragon when he was already behind her with a quill and parchment in hand. "Oh."
"I know the drill." He said with an eye roll.
"Right… Well let's begin with-." Twilight never got beyond that before there was resounding crash.
The whole town shook as object finally hit the ground, smack dab right in the middle of Everfree Forest with enough force to send a shockwave as far as Ponyville. The library shuddered for a moment, the girls almost jumped out of their fur from the sudden impact, the books seemed to follow suite with books from all the shelves suddenly being shaken loose.
"What was that?" Rainbow asked no one in particular.
Twilight sighed to herself at how many things were going on in one day. 'Mother of Celestia, I can't catch a break today can I?' She thought to herself.
"Girls that'd probably be the thing which flew over the town, it's probably gone and crashed." Twilight addressed to the girls.
"What in Equestria could do that?" AJ asked her.
"No idea, that's why I asked Spike, to write a letter." Twilight wanted to smack her head against something right now.
"Uh you want me to write it now?" Spike asked cautiously at the agitated mare.
"You know what? Buck it, Spike write to the princesses we're leaving for Everfree Forest right now, I can't be bothered to put up with anymore of this is so buck it all, we're going on an adventure." She said pulling a saddle from nowhere in particular and packing it with whatever she had on hoof.
"Uh Twilight you okay, you usually wait for the princess to reply before going ahead don't you?" Rarity inquired in a passive fashion.
"Well since you asked, this morning has been a haymaker of a disaster so no, I'm just going to do what we usually do ahead of schedule and get going now rather than having to deal with any more of these random disasters. Seriously when the hay did the world suddenly find the time to cut me off every ten minutes?" She muttered to herself in frustration as she opened up the door.
The girls weren't sure how to respond. AJ looked at RD who simply shrugged and said.
"Must be her off day."
"Hey Pinkie you…" AJ looked over at the pink party mare who suddenly had a whole bag of sweets packed and ready to go. She smiled cheerfully. "I stash emergency snack bags when I get the chance."
"Okay, well I guess we're going on an adventure." AJ finally gave up and followed after Twilight.
Fluttershy finally decided to ask.
"Uh girls shouldn't we wait for the guards? Girls?" She realised that they weren't bothered to listen to her at this point.
XXXXX
A tad later…
In the capital of the Equestrian Kingdom, two regal sisters enjoyed their morning reprieve at their dining table. "My, that was quite a nice meal." A tall elegant blue furred mare with a long flowing mane made of what looked like stars said as she sipped down her rose tea.
"Indeed… though I must say there's nothing like a delightful dinner amidst such peace and tranquillity in the morning." The elder sister mare who had a regal pristine white coat and pastel coloured flowing mane agreed.
Their peace didn't last as the doors to the room swung open with a single royal guard pony in gold armour and with silver wings attached to the front of his helmet began in an exasperated voice.
"Your highness terrible news!"
"Spoke too soon…" Luna mumbled in a disheartened fashion before she and her sister turned to greet the guard.
Celestia addressed the stallion. "Guard what's the emergency?" She inquired calmly.
"Something has fallen in the Everfree Forest, and also the animals from the forest have left in a swarm, its causing chaos throughout the region, the towns near the forest are currently requesting assistance from various pest controllers and also…" He was stopped by Celestia who said to the guard.
"Go back to the situation with Everfree Forest." She said duly.
"Oh right, an object from the sky came crashing down in Everfree Forest not more than 10 minutes ago, the town of Ponyville is in the middle of panic control, and the mayor has requested aid from the royal guard garrison to help with the situation."
"Has my dear protégé and her friends gone off to investigate ahead of the guards?" Celesita asked aptly knowing the response.
"Yes she has, she took the other members of her group and headed into the forest once the object struck, there's no report after that." The guard replied.
"Very well. Luna looks like we are in for another busy day, would you mind helping Twilight and her dear friends, I shall tend to matters here." Celestia asked her sister.
"Of course, I have quite an interest in what might have fallen in the forest." Luna said with a nod.
With that the two sisters departed to their duties…
XXXXX
Cut Derp scenes: I came up with these ideas when I began writing this story up, I cut them since this wasn't a comedy fic, nor is it satire enough to count as one.
1# Chubby…
"What in tarnation?" Applejack exclaimed upon finding a massive metal sheet stuck between the largest of the apple trees in the orchard.
She carefully walked around looking at the metal sheet, it was almost as big as the whole wall of her barn, and that was big. But seeing this thing stuck between two apple trees on a sunny morning in the apple orchard definitely counted for the more strange occurrences in her life. She could see the large sheet had strange symbols on them she couldn't make it out.
It was like it was Equestrian, but upside down. As she tried to examine the strange metal object's symbols, she heard someone approaching. "Applejack!" A familiar voice called out.
She turned about face to see a purple unicorn coming over from the farm.
"Oh hey there Twilight."
The mare finally reached her out of breath; she managed to begin speaking with a slightly laboured voice. "I-I saw… a meteor. I didn't think it'd fall to pieces though." She finished with an exasperated huff.
Applejack looked at the mare quizzically and asked. "Um sugarcube, ya sound like yer dyin there. How far did you run?"
"I ran from my tree house to here." She replied catching her breath.
"Seriously Twi? We live like a hundred meters from each other. How can you already be out of breath?" Applejack asked in a questioning tone.
"Hey lay off it's not like everypony has a farm to take care of. Besides I've had to carry my load every time when we get into trouble." The purple mare retorted.
(Red vs Blue references right here, can you guess what scenes I'm referencing?)
(To elaborate: The location of which I made Sweet Apple Acres to Ponyville is slightly different, the front entrance to the farm's about a hundred or so meters from the North Western outskirts of town where Twilight lives. Hey she needs to get to Everfree faster somehow right?)
2# Do you speak English?
As the girls approached the crash site they found the object was a lot bigger than what they saw, the earth had been tossed up; rocks which were usually deep in the ground were now smashed or smoothed by the strange object's super-heated impact. The crater was about over a hundred meters wide, but the amazing thing was that the crater which had been formed was smooth all around, but it didn't seem as hot.
Applejack decided to go and test the ground; she pushed her hoof into the blackened earth and noticed that it was warm but not hot. "Hey girls ah think we can walk in the crater."
Twilight checked as well using her magic to test if it was safe, once she pressed in hard enough she noted that the ground didn't crack, so it was viable to move across. Though Rainbow had already taken off and began to fly towards the metal object. "Who needs to walk? Flying's fine to me." She said as she zipped to the object in seconds.
"O-o-o, wait up!" Pinkie Pie said bouncing off and hoping her way to the object.
"I guess we better follow." Twilight said and went with the rest.
Though no one noticed Flutteshy did voice her objections. "Uh girls maybe we should wait for the guards? Girls?" She said quietly in an anxious tone while looking around cautiously.
It wasn't an uncommon thing that Fluttershy was ignored; she really didn't have such a loud voice, well that and she was never such for adventures to begin with. As they got closer they noticed that the object in question didn't survive the impact, some pieces had come off its angular shaped body, more specifically the wings.
As they crept closer they found a large piece of the wing stuck in the ground, it was further from the body which still seemed to be cooling off, Twilight took the time to check this piece of the object in closer detail. "Hmm…" She hummed as she looked at the large wing.
"So what's it say?" Rainbow dash asked hovering nearby.
"I'm not sure…" Twilight replied with a puzzled look.
"Uh girls." Fluttershy tried to get their attention.
"It looks like a word, but it seems strange doesn't it?" Rarity asked them as she too tried to make out what it said.
"Girls I think it's upside down." Fluttershy tried to get their attention once again.
No one seemed to notice that Fluttershy had figured out what it said. [USF-Forces SO-F11]
They continued to scrutinize the object while Fluttershy sat back and decided to let them figure it out on their own.
3# Okay not creepy at all…
(I had several ideas for a story; it's not easy coming up with something that'd work with ponies in the sense it would last more than 10 chapters before things tend to stagnate. This was based on the idea for an anthro story which I probably consider making at a later date.)
The group stared up at the smashed delta winged object which was wedged between the two massive trees of Winterfall Forest.
"Ain't she the single most beautiful thing you've ever seen?" The red gruff voiced stallion asked the trio as he stared up in awe at the large black object sitting high above them.
"Huh?" Skyline responded with a quizzical expression on her face.
"Umm I wasn't paying attention so I'm going to say purple pony party." Tanner said with a detached shrug while looking absently at the object.
"Well Big Red, I have to say it looks like something." Polar Pallid said in his usual calm and rather uninterested tone.
Big Red then clapped his hands together and said. "Right let's get to work, we take her apart piece by piece, carry them in cases and drop them back off at the camp." He said in a rather excited fashion.
Skyline then looked at him with concern. "Uh Big Red, your lady metaphor kind of entered into serial killer territory."
Big Red seemed to not care as he said to the group. "No time to chit chat we've got work to do, also if I find that any of the pieces are missing I'm going to kick the living buck out of you…" He said staring at the tan pony of the group.
"Hey why are you looking at me for?" Tanner asked.
"Well considering you never do any work anyway I'm guessing that'd probably be the reason." Polar Pallid answered Tanner's question.
"Oh please how the heck are we supposed to carry all of these back anyway, the thing looks like it must way a few tons for crying out loud." Tanner gestured at the object.
"That's why I want you to be extra careful… a lady like this has to be treated delicately." Big Red warned the tan pony.
"Delicately? This thing looks like it was built to withstand a direct mega-lighting strike, and it looks like it's been hit by a few." Tanner added.
