The first thing that welcomed me in this place was the icy chill. I haven't felt such a coldness since I joined the Space Marines.
I climbed out of my sleeping bag and stretched. There were no indications that something unusual happened in the camp.
In complete silence I took on my armor, put rifle on my back and went out for a little walk around the neighborhood in a place where we landed.
I think now is the right moment to tell you something about myself. My name is Reaper and I serve together with my team on the frigate called VSs Changeling. I have no idea where they got that name, but I'm not complaining.
Changeling was a great and fast ship. In my opinion, the best in its class, but that's a story for another time.
The path I walked was relatively favorable, the sounds that were making for me unknown birds filled the air and my memories have returned back to Earth. I didn't want to admit it, but I haven't seen my home planet for two years, even though there was nothing left for me. My friends were either here with me, or lost somewhere in a deep space.
My thoughts were interrupted for a few moments when a strange shock and a flurry of bright light illuminated the skies.
My visor faded into darkness so the brightness would not damage my eyes.
Immediately after that, on my HUD popped up a message that something is going on with the shuttle we landed in on surface.
I quickly snapped out of shock the explosion caused and ran back to the camp.
My temporary housing was torn to pieces and completely empty.
To clarify the situation, the expedition to this world consisted in the installation of signal beacons across the planet and my team of seven men was divided into pairs, so we had all the probes installed as soon as possible.
As the captain I remained at LZ. My only job was to watch the space shuttle, our only ticket back to the orbit of the planet.
When I found out that the source of the shuttle got hit hard and overloaded, I had enough reason to be upset.
The energy won't be a problem, I am able to repair the main power source in a few hours, but the main problem of my current situation was the fact, the explosion torn off the signal transmitter, so I won't be able to connect with others. My situation was bad enough to fell the discouragement.
I rather started the repairs, in the evening it should be all fixed.
"Well, then I'm going to the mountains to pick up my two colleagues, then I have to go to the west..." I thought out loud while I was joining together the broken contacts of a conductive connection.
As I said, the ship was capable of flight within a few hours. It was dark outside, even though it was only a quarter to five, the planet must have a different rotation than the Earth. I waited on the charge of propulsion and was seriously bored.
Well, actually, I did not wait that long, because now I am already flying above some forest. The woods gradually change in grassland and other straight, grass, overgrown areas, which almost immediately turns into a desert. The infinite and cruel desert, everywhere as far as I can see is only a reddish sand.
Suddenly, there was this buzzing again, the same one as in the morning and the entire shuttle shook violently.
Furiously, I pulled a lever stick up, but I wasn't prepared for what happened next.
Enormous turbulence hit me and I went off the track. Unfortunately, when doing the next maneuver I somehow struck the ground and buried the shuttle into the sand.
The cabin was almost all underground and the crash catapulted me from my seat. Fortunately, the airbag worked, so I didn't hurt myself..
From the ceiling burst the stream of sparks, and then all the lights went out. I was extremely sure that this ship not going to fly again.
Well, with a breathable atmosphere of the planet the air support is not the problem, but the bad thing will be food and water supply. The mission was supposed to be only for a few days, so the supply of food was very limited.
I turned off the main source of energy and released the distress beacon, even though I haven't thought someone will find it..
My chances of surviving were somewhere out there and I couldn't reach them.
Another option was to leave the ship and try to find an intelligent form of natives, which was the risky try, but not impossible. When we were doing deep screens of surface back on the mothership, the scans did pick up some sort of alien activity and not too far from my current position. I just hope the natives will be friendly.
I decided to wait until morning, then take all the remaining supplies and go to the East, out of the desert, to the center of that alien activity.
Again, the Sun came out too quickly. God, this place is giving me a chill.
This planet has already been proposed a few years ago for the colonization of the reasons like advantageous position in the space and the breathable atmosphere. Only reason they did not send here a collonization ships was that the values of atmosferical activities always showed a strange anomaly, and the first deep scanning two years ago confirmed active nano technology and energy curves of such frequency you can't even imagine. Anyhow, the planet was a gem and humans wanted it, some of them even tried to travel by themself, but were always caught by cops and put into prison for violation of Space travel laws, which were denying travels to non-colonised star systems by regular people. Only the military, like us, could do that.
On the way back to the main board I was thinking about what could cause such a massive explosion and I highly doubted that it was some kind of storm.
So, without any expectations of the results, I turned on the deep scanner.
What I discovered literally shocked me.
In addition to classic jumble of anomalous disturbances, the scanner showed something else, the IR trail, which leaves only after organic life form. Even though, that could have left me calm. The problem was that this creature shared the trail, which we were already familiar with. From the known species, only the Thenerians, the form of highly intelligent Humanoids similar to terrestrial predators, and reptiles have got this kind of IR signal. You can imagine how that brighten up my mood.
"Well, at least something." I said after the depletion of stocks, leaving the flight unable wreck. My destination was clear, the alien contact somewhere before me.
The Sun was burning intensely as well as anywhere else in the desert. My body temperature rose and the inside of my visor was covered with drops of hot sweat. But I wasn't about taking off the helmet, because of potential infection around, although I doubt very much that in this climate could survive anything.
And I had no idea what I can find as well, it could be dangerous. About 200 yards from the place where the scanner showed greatest values of signal, I found a black horse-like creature with wings. The creature was visibly after death, no signs of life.
My knowledge of the Xenobiology was rather poor, but even so, I knew that the insects, and this creature certainly belonged to the class of insects, associates in a large community and are never too far away from their colleagues. My attention turned to a cave in front of me. In fact, it wasn't a classical cave you will imagine in the first place, it was more like a hole in the ground actually, big enough for the entire swarm of these creatures. Without hesitation, I left the corpse alone and walked to the entrance of the cave.
The temperature inside was significantly lower and even through the layer of fabric, belts and ceramic plates of my armor were very good warmth isolations, the coldness was noticeable after a few seconds. My urge to turn on the heater it was repealed by the finding of relatively large drops of green and a little bit light-emitting blood. A bloody footprints led farther into the depths of the cave, and my curiosity prevailed once again.
I removed the rifle from my back. I didn't want to shoot, I did it more for my own sense of safety. Furthermore, the rifle was equipped with a motion sensor and IR tracks, which made my work much easier.
I continued slowly deeper into the darkness, shimmering light of flashlight lit narrow room in front of me, otherwise the impenetrable darkness was everywhere. Sometimes I noticed the drops of phosphorescent blood, glowing like a miniature beacons.
Then I heard a quiet female voice, tinged with tears, which kept saying: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything. "
The voice was somewhere in front of me, and gradually faded in the great painful groans. The signal, which brought me to this location was also noticeably stronger.
I increased the pace of my walk and were furiously spinning with the flashlight from side to side, because I didn't want to overlook anything. Then I saw it.
Horse-like creature, very similar to those outside, but with longer legs and a long, deformed horn around in the middle of the forehead. From the wounds on its stomach and throat was running rivulet of strange liquid mixed together with strands of greenish light-emitting blood.
The creature in front of me, as I could have guessed from the building of the body, which was definitely the female. Immediately when she saw me her body became catatonic.
I stopped over her and tried to explain to her that I don't want to hurt her. She obviously understood me, because she stopped to huddle up and looked at me.
Yes, it is definitely a female. Her expression was full of fear and exhaustion, but her eyes weren't murky, as the ones of dying creature, but still bright green with a rhomboid pupils.
I tore my gaze from her eyes, which was not easy, and went to the examination of her injuries.
In fact, it was not quite as serious as it might look.
Her body was covered with some type of external skeleton or shell from inorganic matter. Maybe that just saved her life, whatever happened to her and lacerations were only on a soft tummy.
I've activated the holographic interface and set the mode to HEAL to clear wounds and apply the disinfection along with Bio-foam, but the patient had a different opinion.
She bit me, luckily it was only into the gloves. Her canines dig into the metal plates, but not through it.
She was looking at me like she was waiting for something. After a while, she left my glove be and spoke up: "Why are you not defending yourself?"
The fact the creature before me just spoke up really surprised me. I took my remaining sanity and said: "Y-y-you can talk?"
"Of course, what did you expect." she grinned. Then, her head fell back and she managed to say " If you want to help me, kill me, I have nothing to live for. "
Her eyes, those two shiny emeralds, were looking at me almost pleadingly, but there was something else in them, something I couldn't identify.
Anyway, I did not want her to bleed to death here. At the moment, when her head fell back and she again revealed her injuries, I did not hesitate and applied full HEAL. This time, she didn't protest, nor any attempts to stop me were made, she was just watching me in silence.
Only now I realize that if I arrived later, everything could probably ended very differently, for me definitely better, but what is my life compared to hers.
When I finished the process of healing, the black mare was no longer conscious.
"Heh, at least she will pick up her strength and recover faster." I thought, when I was carrying her out of the cave.
I decided to take her back to the shuttle, although it was not able to fly, the life support still worked, plus on board was the infirmary, which rapidly increased her chances of survival.
That evening I once again put the power on and captured the broadcast of VSs Changeling saying that most of the crew came back on board with the rescue shuttle and the others are declared as missing in action. I was surprised that the MIA had been just me and George Ricks.
That evening all my hope of ever coming back home vanished, because another check of this planet was planed after next fifty years.
-a-three-days-later-
It's already a few days I am stuck here. Mare, which I recently brought on board, still didn't wake up.
It would be better if I could talk to someone. Loneliness was destroying me like nothing else before and I hoped that the creature will wake up soon.
It happened that evening, I sat there and was watching the sunset through the window. All of a sudden I felt a sort of strange feeling and I had to look behind me.
Mare, leaning on her front legs was looking at me with incredulous gaze.
"Why did you save me?" She was surprised and angry at the same time, "and where I am?" she added.
"You're in my house and I saved you, because I didn't want you to die in that hole."
I could say that she's flattered, she smiled at me a little bit, but then again put on a hard expression.
"I don't deserve to live, execute me."
"And may I know, why should I?" I asked.
She hid her eyes behind her teal mane, and whispered, "I killed creatures which were depending on me with my foolishness. Because of me, all my subjects are dead. "
Now the pieces are finally starting to fit together. That dead creatures outside the cave, they were her people, but I still don't understand what role she has played in their dead.
However, when I tried to find out more, she hinted that she is uncomfortable with this topic and doesn't want to talk about it further, I suggested a different thing then.
"We should go and look for help. This ship is lost and I have got only enough food for one person. "
I recognized a bit of disagree in her expression, but she didn't say anything against my idea. Later, when packaging the equipment, her opinion slightly changed and even, it seemed, that she is exited about changing the environment.
We left the ship next morning. I went ahead and the black mare walked behind me.
After walking ten kilometers and entering the core parts of the desert, I had the feeling that she rather wants to bury herself in the sand and die of hunger, than to endure the heat, what occurred around noon.
I tried to get the GPS system working in the meantime, so I could use the navigation. Of course, I didn't know how the whole system will work when the mother ship wasn't on the orbit.
After twenty minutes, the desert changed into the dry landscape full of boulders. My companion didn't show any signs, but I knew she's more than happy to be finally outside the desert and to be honest, I've been too.
In parallel with this fact I managed to get a navigation device back on, and I downloaded a few HD images of the surface. I had no idea where I'm taking the signal from, but who cares anyway.
"This is a very interesting ..." I said when looking at a satellite map of the area in which we were.
Mare joined me on my right side and looked over my shoulder, curious what I am looking at.
"What kind of magic is this?" she said, when she saw floating holo-map in front of my face.
"It's not magic, but the technique. You are looking on the satellite image of this desert and near areas. You know it this way? I need to sort out where we are." I said and hovered with two fingers over the vector on map.
"Well, umm, I think this spot is Everfree forest, and this must be Ponyville then." She stated, her hoof above the map and pointing at the destinations.
"More to the North is Canterlot and we have to be here." She put her hoof on map and got upset when it flowed through it.
"Ok, so let me to rotate the image and we are ready to go." I touched the map and the whole vector rendered again. Now whenbthe desert has been on the bottom, the whole map made much more sense.
"Where do you think that they will take our presence less hostile?" I pointed out a question I've been thinking about a while ago.
"Due to the fact that you're a mythical creature and I am about to get executed when I enter some city, so the list of places where we can go is really short. I think that Pony villa could be probably our the best choice, because there lives a friend of mine, or he lived when I've seen him last time. "
"Ponyville? Ok, as you wish... " I placed the flag to place, which she showed me a few moments ago.
"We should go. I want to find a place to camp before the night falls and a source of water, I am thirsty like hell. " When she said nothing, I continued, "and I'd like to know your name, if you have any, obviously. I know that it's a little rude to ask a lady that way, but it seems less rude to me than to call you a horse. "
She was silent for a moment, but didn't look like I offended her somehow.
"My name is Chrysalis." she said, when a good five seconds have elapsed since my questions.
"A nice name and it fits to you." I said to her, but It has to sound like a compliment, because her cheeks flushed a bit.
"My name is Reaper." I said hastily to drove away her embarrassment, "I'm a soldier and I serve in units of Space Marines. And what about you? "
Again she did not respond immediately, and I am sure she did not know how to answer at first. Finally, she said: "I'm unemployed."
OK, for a while I had the feeling that she's going to say something else, like, ' I'm Queen of the universe. ', or something.
Well, anyway, I didn't want to force the answers of her , so for the rest of our journey we were quiet.
After about two more hours, It began to get dark. Much to my surprise it was only six hours in the afternoon, which according to me is normal on planets with ellipsoidal orbit, not on the central planets like this one.
I asked Chrysalis about the topic and she explained that the planetary system in the system is dominated by the will of the monarch in Canterlot and that the current ruler is Princess Celestia.
From my point of view it is quite impractical that the whole system of the planets stood and fell together with the leader, but so be it If like it. Who am I to judge.
You can't even imagine, how happy we were when we found a small lake, when we left the dried lands. Both of us welcomed water like it was our long lost friend.
I asked her if she could find and clean up a suitable place for camping. Chrysalis fulfilled her task perfectly. Not only that, she also built a fireplace of wood, which she found somewhere.
I've showed her my gratitude, of course. She saved me some time and I could focus on building us a tent.
I've never understood how our engineers were able to design an armor inventory with the ability to absorb such a variety of things. I have wondered many times, but always without success.
Chrysalis sat on her ass and waited silently until I put together a random bunch of textiles and metal. On the other hand, it was she who helped me to construct the last stage of the tent, so she didn't have to feel useless.
The Sun had completely set and we sat by the fire and talked about plans for the next day. Just before we wanted to go to sleep, she asked the question I least expected from her.
"Reaper, do you have a special somepony? "
