Contact
Zero-Five-Zero
Chapter 1
I was woken out of my small nap by yelling.
“Ey!” Lucas yelled in my face, as I jumped up. “Get ready, it’s nearly zero-fifty and command wants us back at base by oh-one-hundred-thirty. Come on, get up. “
I shook the sleep from my eyes, as I grabbed my M4 that was resting against the side of the Humvee. Pulling my wrist up to check my watch, zero-four-zero. Right on time.
Pulling myself on top of the Humvee, I take the gunners position and ready the .50 cal. Lucas barks orders for the remaining Marines to get in the “fucking trucks!”
Ah, Staff Sergent, what would we do without you?
The small convoy of Humvees begins to roll out, Lucas comes onto the radio.
“All gunners, keep your head on a swivel. Heavy Tali activity has been seen in the area we’re about to pass through. Call out if you see anything, but do not fire. We’re on the move and are returning to base.”
The Humvees continued moving. So far, the country-side of Afghanistan seemed quiet and peaceful.
But that would soon come to an end.
After about ten minutes, a voice called out. Marcus, a gunner in the Humvee behind me.
“Hey! I see somethin’! At nine!”
Almost instantly, all guns swiveled to face the direction that Marcus had called out.
“I don’t see anything! You see anything?” One gunner yelled.
‘I don’t see jack!”
“It was something, looked like a big dog!” Marcus yelled. “I lost sight of it though!”
“I want eyes on it!” Lucas barked.
The area was silent, as all gunners scanned the area for the unknown, however, the darkness made it difficult to acquire it, the moon not helping very much.
“Anyone?” Lucas questioned.
“No, I think we lo-“
The talker was cut short as someone screamed.
“Fuck! A motherfucking sheet head just shot me with a bow! You piece of shit!” Marcus yelled.
I scanned the area quickly, but couldn’t seem to find anything.
“Marcus,” I began. “Where are you hit?”
“Fucking shoulder, shit! That hurt like Hell!”
“Are you o-“ I was cut off as something whizzed past my cheek and slammed into the metal backing behind me. In fact, at least twenty other arrows slammed into the Humvee facing the nine o’clock direction
Instinctively, I reacted, my thumbs depressing the trigger on the .50 cal and letting a burst of fire from the weapon into the general area.
“Contact!” Lucas yelled, even though contact had been initiated a while ago.
The rounds slammed into the hill where the unknown was sighted, clouds of dust flew up as the rounds released their full fury on whatever they hit.
“Cease Fire! Cease Fire!” Lucas Barked the order, several guns were immediately put away, but some gunners continued their barrage. This prompted Lucas to deliver the order once again, even louder.
The entire convoy stared at the hill, just waiting for something to pop its head out.
After a minute, and several tense, but short conversations, Lucas spoke into his radio.
“Command, Command, this is Viper 1-6 Actual, we have taken hard contact and are moving to investigate. Copy?”
“Good copy Viper 1-6, be advised, the nearest reinforcements are an hour away so you’re going in alone. How copy?”
“That is good copy, Viper 1-6 out.”
Lucas signed off the radio and looked over to the convoy.
“Bowlds! Take McClure and Ryans and check out that hill. Marcus, go see the Corpsman about that arrow.”
I pulled myself out of the gunner position from the top of the Humvee, grabbing my rifle as my legs hung down the hole.
After I had retrieved my rifle, I pulled myself out of the Humvee completely and slid down the side.
My booted feet smacked the ground, and I began walking over to the other two Marines picked out.
Bowlds stopped Ryans and me.
“Listen, Ryans, you take point, McClure and I will cover you.” Bowlds explained quickly.
We didn’t bother arguing, Ryans beginning the trek up the small hill. Before he got very far, however, something sounded.
In fact, it sounded like a trumpet.
“What hell was that?” I could hear Lucas mutter behind us.
Bowlds and I had our rifles trained in front of us for whatever may come down that sandy hill.
Seconds of silence passed, when suddenly, a whinny sounded. Yes, a whinny, like from a horse.
And like a hoard of multicolored ants, a large swarm of… they were ponies. Ponies in gold armor. Bowlds and I fired immediately, Ryans immediately running back towards the convoy. Bowlds backed up and continued firing as I finished my first mag. I began walking backwards, replacing the mag in my rifle.
I fired off a few more shots before turning tail to run. However, something tripped me up and I fell. I quickly flipped around just in time to see a pony begin to rear up in attempt to cursh me under hoof.
I use the pony’s bipedal stance and shoot up, grappling myself around the ponies barrel and forcing him to the ground. Well, more like we both fall to the ground, me using him as a cushion and him cracking his head on the ground.
Wait… he is a guy, right? Oh, yeah, I’m burning these clothes when I get back to base.
“Dante! Grab that pony and get back to Humvee!” Some yells form behind me.
Not bothering to argue or stop, I grab one of the stallions hind legs and begin pulling him.
I make it to the Humvees as the .50s are still spewing rounds, and the ponies falling in swaths. The Marines on their knee and the M4s spewing 5.56 rounds being just as deadly as the machine gunners. Someone had taken my spot as gunner.
As I moved in closer to the Humvees, two Marines moved from their position and took control of the stallion, one grabbing its hind legs and the other grabbing its front legs and carrying it bodily over behind one of the Humvees. I unsling my rifle and begin firing, taking down one pony who managed to make it past the .50s and riflemen.
This continues for at least two minutes until, I can only assume, the ponies smartened up and quickly back off.
However, the short fight had taken its toll, as at least one hundred bodies lay strewn across the ground, and the knocked out stallion lying behind the Humvees with body. None of the bodies on the ground were ours, thank god.
As the ponies retreated back behind the hill, one stallion stopped at the peak and stopped to look back, staring at us in contempt. He quickly turned around and headed back down the dune
First contact happened at Logar Province, Afghanistan, July eighteenth, Zero-Five-Zero. The skirmish that happened between the two groups began at twelve-fifty and lasted three minutes and thirty seconds ending at twelve-fifty-three.
“So… let me get this straight, Glint, you engaged an unknown military with unknown defensive and offensive capabilities, you lost over one hundred guards out of the group of three hundred before ordering a retreat, and you lost a guard-stallion to the unknown military.’
Steel Glint, now in chains and bowing on the floor of the throne room in a position that was more submissive then bowing, could only nod to the two Diarchs, as Celestia questioned him.
“It’s a good thing that they’re years ahead of us on weaponry, now we don’t have to worry about losing secrets because of your incompetence!” Celestia roared, Glint cowering even more.
“Take him to the dungeons.” Celestia ordered. Walking back to her throne, she sat down and hung her head, letting out a sigh.
“Brilliant, death certificates to fill out, attempts to start peaceful negotiations to get the bodies back. Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t abolished the death sentence.” Celestia stated.
“Sister, you seem worried. Extremely worried. Even more worried than when you were faced with Chrysalis.”
Celestia somberly looked down, and then sighed. She lifted her head to look Luna in the eyes.
“Luna, I’m afraid we may have woken a sleeping Major.”
Author's Note
Just a short one-shot for you all. Well... depending on what the fans want, it may turn into a multi-chapter story.
Please, enjoy.
If you like this chapter or favorite this story, please leave a comment explaining why.
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Cleanup
Zero-Five-Zero
Chapter 2
“Subject 98. Male, Unicorn. Possible cause of death, round to the side of the head.” One of the morticians dressed in a civilian hazmat suit. Said to his colleague, who marked it on a pad.
Clean up duty, after the fight last night, and this was fairly gruesome. Blood pooled everywhere form the .50 shredding the ones up front. I made sure to step around the congealed blood in front of me as I moved through the carnage. So far we had documented the types of equines. Two of them appearing to be the mythical unicorns and pegasi. The others just looked like a normal equine save for the smaller size and human like features. The normal looking ones, though, were significantly bulkier and bigger than the other two.
A couple of the guys had begun calling them ponies, for ease of speaking I suppose.
Stepping over a few bodies that hadn’t been secured, I made my way over to the mortician . The sun beared down, and despite the bodies having only been exposed for a few hours, the heat of the Afghan sun made this entire area stink.
The mortician, Jason I think he said his name was looked up from the pony body he’d been examining.
“Ah! Corporal McClure, how are you?” He asks, I don’t bother with formalities.
“Sarge wants you all to hurry up and clear this area. Drones are saying the nearest village is getting antsy and he doesn’t want to be here if the Tali makes a move.” I said, pointing my hand to general direction of Lucas.
“He can’t expect us to hurry this operation. We are dealing with an unknown species. Everything has to be carefully catalogued and collected!” Jason responded emotionally.
“Look, neither the Sarg, I, or the Taliban care about that. Just bag the fucking bodies up so we can get out of here before the Taliban decide to crawl out of their holes. We’ve been lucky so far, and I don’t want to push it.” I reply back. There was another reason besides the Taliban. My bed.
After we had called in what happened between us and the ponies, we were told to secure the site as they sent backup. I haven’t slept in nearly a day.
“But that’s simply not ho-“ Jason is cut off before he can finish his retort from someone calling for me.
“Hey! McClure! Sarge wants you!” It’s Bowlds, a couple of feet away. Grateful for the reason to get away from the mortician, I quickly run over to him.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Sarge is over by Bravo convoy, something about more ponies.” Bowlds clarifies.
“Oh, god.” I can’t help but moan to myself as I take off to meet him at Bravo. Bowlds stays behind to take place in the group of Marines running security.
The second convoy isn’t too far up the road, a couple of meters. The convoy’s making up a barrier on the road. I make it there in less than five minutes, and I can see Sarge looking at the sky with a pair of binoculars.
Slowing down from my small jog, I stop behind him, as another Marine taps his shoulder to let him know.
He turns around to face me. “McClure.” He says.
“Sergeant Mitchell?” I respond.
“We’ve got more ponies in the sky. Knowing you’re from Kentucky, I wanted you to have a look. What can you tell me?”
He hands me the binoculars as I look up to the area he had been looking at. With binoculars, it’s not that difficult.
Two ponies in the sky. These two aren’t wearing armor. They were both wearing what looked like blue jumpsuits, the one on the right with a dark blue mane, and the one on the left with a fiery orange mane. Both of their manes seemed to be spiked up. They were both peering over the cloud with their large eyes and ears perked up.
But there was one major thing off about them.
“Are they… sitting on a cloud?”
“As far as we can tell,” Sarge took the binoculars from me, as he continued on. “Yes, they are in fact sitting on a cloud. What can you tell me?” He responded as he moved to another Humvee that was making the barricade.
“Tell you?” I asked.
“I know you came from Kentucky and worked a couple of years on a horse farm. I also know that dogs back on base like you. So… work your magic. What were their bodies telling you?”
I was perplexed, honestly.
“Uh, what can I tell you? Their ears were perked up. They were watching us. That’s kind of all I can tell you.” I replied.
“Sir,” Another Marine called. “One of them ‘s coming down.”
I turned around from my position facing the Sarge to see, that indeed as the Marine had said, one of the ponies was descending downwards.
It was the orange mane one, a pegasus, obviously. It seemed to glide down very slowly as it landed on top of one of the Humvees.
No one moved. The pony didn’t move, and all the Marines around me were just as confused as I was.
The pegasus folded its wings to its sides, as it moved around and sniffed the top of the Humvee. It did a small circle around the roof of the Humvee, its nose close to the top of the of it.
It raised its head as it moved to the side, hopping down to the ground. Everybody stood still as the small pony, barely three feet tall, started looking around.
The thing acted like a horse mixed with a dog, nudging a couple of Marine’s legs while smelling, still no one moved to do anything. I think it was just because none of us could think of something to do.
I mean right in front of us was a… alien. There wasn’t a lot we could do.
She, I’m just assuming it’s female, made her way to me, as she neared, she pushed against my leg as I just stood there, debating on what I should do. She moved back after she was done smelling me, and looked at the barrel of my rifle.
She chomped at it. She brought her teeth and mouth around of the barrel. And I reacted with adequate force.
I smacked her nose.
She pulled back as she shook her head vigorously and the small snout scrunched up. She stared up at me with a death glare as I stared back. This lasted for a few seconds before she looked behind her, back at me and then took off flying. Going, what looked to be back towards the cloud, As I just stared at her. I lost her behind some clouds about thirty seconds after she took off.
Sarge was the first to break the silence.
“What the hell just happened?”
“What the hell were you thinking, Spitfire!” Soarin yelled as Spitfire reached his altitude, his voice betraying a strong hint of anger. He had just witnessed he antagonize a bunch of the weird aliens, after all.
She flew past him, as Soarin kicked off of the cloud, quickly gaining on Spitfire.
“You could have been killed! Or worse! We know nothing about them!” Soarin yelled as he flew next to Spitfire, who calmly tilted her head and looked at him.
“Relax,” She cooly replied. “I had everything under control, and I learned something about them.”
“What could you have possibly learned that was worth risking your life for?” Soarin questioned.
“They’re pretty calm and understand fairness.”
Soarin could only look forward in confusion as the pair moved to get to the portal that linked this world and Equestria.
Author's Note
I'm freaking tired.
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