Chapter 2: Welcome

Chapter 2: Welcome

The pegasus cab driver brought us to Manehattan General in what felt like record time. The large four story complex near the city’s center was spared being hit by an escape craft by what appeared to be just a meter’s width. The craft itself, empty of all passengers, had toppled a tree like a flaming lumberjack near the road that led to the hospital’s main entrance.

When we landed, I quickly paid the driver a few paper bills, worth ten bits, and helped O’Neill off of the rickshaw taxi. He gave a few weak grunts as I steadied him, and together, we hobbled towards the front door. The street was empty; everypony else was inside the hospital, or had gone elsewhere when the occupants left the crash site.Before we could enter, two security guards, one stallion and one mare, both in blue and black riot armor, aimed their shotguns at the human I carried. “Halt!” the stallion shouted loud enough that spittle flew from under the face shield attached to his helmet.The mare lowered her shotgun slightly, seeing the gash on O’Neill. “Strong Shield, he’s injured,” The mare said as she looked towards us with a frown. “How bad are you hurt?” The mare asked, her bright orange eyes pools of concern for the human. It was a bit surprising, since not a second earlier, she had pointed her weapon at us.“Took a spike rifle round before the drop,” O’Neill said, taking many deep breaths, “Brute nearly got me.”Wait…what, did he say? “You were shot?” I asked quickly with a gasp, staring at him incredulously. “I thought you got that in the crash.”“Nope,” he grunted, “Boarding party. I was surprised they sent a few Brutes with the Elites. You never see them fighting alongside each other.”Okay, he better explain a little more. “Brutes, Elites?” I questioned with a confused expression, “You’re not making any sense, O’Neill.” “Tell your stories later, after you get out of my sight,” Strong Shield ordered abruptly. I had no idea why he was being so hostile. These aliens had only just arrived a little while ago, and they seemed like they’d think before they fired. “Your kind have caused enough injuries by falling on us, and your buddies started taking shots at my friends.”Oh, that’s why. Armed aliens meeting armed police, that’s definitely not a stable mixture.The second guard, the mare, spoke again, taking a few steps forward, “Shield, he’s hurt and it’s not an officer’s job to decide who gets medical attention here.”Strong Shield gave an annoyed grunt and walked past us, intentionally bumping shoulders with O’Neill, who just let out a weak ‘oomph’. I turned to see the stallion pull out a small package of cigarettes before the mare came out and took O’Neill’s other arm over her shoulder.The mare spoke in a firm, yet gentle tone. It was hard to describe how she could be both rough and nice as she spoke to me, but she did. “Sorry about him,” she apologized as we walked forward towards the front doors, “Shield’s brother was shot by one of the aliens. ‘Humans’ is what I think you call yourselves. Luckily, the bullet just grazed him. Others weren’t so lucky. Some humans were nice, like the one with you and the one’s that crashed outside, but other humans opened fire against the police.” She gave a humorless laugh, “If I’m not mistaken, I think we started shooting first. All it takes is one jumpy rookie to mess things up.”My mind began to wonder away from their conversation, and a realization hit me. The wounded soldiers and burning ship led me to conclude one thing, “O’Neill, the brutes and elites you were talking about, are they some sort of army you are fighting?”Before a nurse took the arm I held over her shoulder, he said three words that rattled in my mind like a feral dog in a cage, “Yeah, the Covenant.” Something about that last word didn’t sit right with me.I couldn’t speak to him after he said that, as another nurse got in my way. It was a unicorn mare, her scarlet mane and tail disheveled, while her dark red eyes were accompanied with heavy bags. ‘Sanguineous’ was the name displayed on her tag.She looked at O’Neill and grunted, and at first glance, I could tell she was going to be slightly bitchy. Her voice and her looks hinted that she was exhausted, and like I had thought before, she had an attitude to confirm it. Looking between the both of us, she said in a very unfriendly, almost hostile tone, “I’ll keep this simple and tell you both that we won’t be keeping him here.” Looking directly at O’Neill, she scowled, “Legally, I can't refuse you service, but all I will do is patch you up. Don’t go expecting a bed and some rest.  I don’t care if you look a lot like us; we’re getting bullet holes in good officers. Officers I have to stay with and dig lead out of.”Without letting me get a word in edgewise, the angry nurse left, allowing the original nurse to help O’Neill to the emergency ward.For five minutes, I sat in the lobby on a chair and read a magazine. I was only skimming it, my mind elsewhere with everything that had been happening. When the time came, I used the remaining thirty bits worth of bills in my wallet to pay for O’Neill’s treatment. When he emerged from a door leading further into the hospital from the lobby, his side showed a bright pink scar of discolored flesh where his armor was torn.I quickly put the magazine down and got up from my seat, almost running up to him. “How are you?” I was concerned for him, though I had no reason to be, since I had just met him. Call me gentle hearted, but I hate seeing others in pain.“Fine, lass, I’m just a little weak from blood loss. I can walk.” He gave me a reassuring smile, but his body was shaking trying to hold himself on his two hooves--feet, they were feet like a dragon’s.“No, you’re not,” I stated sternly with a frown. Humans must have been as stubborn as earth ponies. I took his left arm over my shoulder once again and began to support his weight.O’Neill sighed as he reluctantly let me help him, “What now, lass?”I had no clue, so I improvised, “Midnight, Midnight Stargazer. That’s my name. I don’t think I properly introduced myself earlier. Also, you can just call me Night, or Star.”He gave a weak smile, reaching out his right hand for a handshake, although it was shaking badly, “Private O’Neill, Daniel O’Neill.”With my free hand, I shook his, and after releasing it, I sighed tiredly, “Mom’s gonna be pissed when I bring home an alien stallion.”O’Neill gave a light laugh at my joke, “Oh, why’s that, lass?” He asked as we began heading towards the automatic-sliding doors leading out of the hospital.“Because she’s overprotective of me,” I sighed, groaning a little afterwards as we entered the streets. They were still relatively empty, but I could easily hear gunfire in the distance. It felt really out of place with what I was used to hearing. “Seriously, I can’t go anywhere on my own without leaving a note, and if I’m interested in a colt, guess what?” I didn’t let O’Neill answer, “That’s right, not gonna get to go to his place.” Actually, I would have to find a colt who was in to me in the first place.O’Neill laughed as we walked down the street, “She doesn’t have to worry about me, I’m not interested in other species… and how old are you? You’re about as tall as I am, which last time I checked was around five and a half feet; but you sound young.”“Blame me for being a late bloomer, as well as my earth pony genes. Also, I’m almost seventeen. What about you?”“I’m twenty-three,” O’Neill paused for a second then asked, “So, you from this city, or did you move here?”“Ponyville, originally,” I answered, staring off into space as I spoke, “It’s a small town around eighty kilometers from here. We had to move on account of my dad getting a better job here. What about you?”He laughed, “Fourteenth generation farmer from Ireland. My dear old mother didn’t want me to join the Marines and fight the Covenant, but I didn’t listen. Five years later, here I am.”That was pretty interesting, but I had another question I wanted to ask, “So, how did you humans get here?”He shrugged, “Other than the Pillar of Autumn, don’t know. Last I checked I was preparing to board a strange ship the Covenant had found.” He gave an almost happy chuckle, “Then things started exploding, and I was fighting boarding parties to reach an escape pod.”“Whoa,” I said excitedly, gazing at him with slight awe, “that must have been scary.”O’Neill just shrugged, “The ride down was the worst part. Wait, I take that back, the landing was,” he said as he moved his free hand downwards while whistling, before making an explosion sound.Yikes.We continued on silently for a while longer, the rest of the city seemed to be faring worse, especially when we rounded the corner of the street. Looters had smashed shop windows, trash cans were on fire, and even one pony decided to spray a large red ‘A’ inside a circle on the street-facing wall of Pony Joe’s Cafe.O’Neill observed the chaos surrounding us, the yells of other ponies reaching my ears as police sirens wailed in the distance. “Damn,” was the only word I could hear him whisper out of his lips.I chuckled a bit, keeping a watchful eye for anypony that may try to attack us for chump change. “Ponies overreact to everything,” I explained, “You should have seen the riot when Discord flipped Ponyville out of whack. It was so bad, Celestia had to get the military down here.” <~-~>By the time we were nearing my apartment, O’Neill groaned as he shifted his arm, “I think I’m strong enough to move on my own.”I shook my head rapidly, “No way, O’Neill, you could pass out if you overtax yourself. It’s kinda a long way to drag you back to the hospital.”He sighed defeatedly and kept his arm over my shoulder, “Fine.”A few minutes into our walk, I caught him staring downwards - angling his head and eyes slightly at me - out the corner of my eye. When I faced him fully, he made sure to look away. “What are you looking at, O'Neill?” I asked.He gave a small chuckle, scratching the back of his head with his free hand. “Um, your legs,” he replied, smiling weakly.I groaned and rolled my eyes, “I swear, if your nose starts bleeding, I’m leaving you on the sidewalk with a sign that reads, ‘Free human, give to a good home.’” We both laughed, and after we settled down, I continued, “But where on Equus would I get a cardboard box large enough to fit you?”O’Neill shrugged, “Don’t know, lass.”I continued my statement right where I left off, my amused expression changing to a mask of seriousness, “But seriously, why are you staring at my legs?”O’Neill looked straight forward, an embarrassed pink coloring his cheeks from what I was implying, “I just realized they bend just like the legs of the Elites.”So the Covenant - or at least these ‘Elites’ - were digitigrades, like us, not plantigrades. Thank you, highschool Biology and your long vocabulary words.I saw R&R Tower poking out through the gaps between two other towers. Guess it’s time to get O’Neill back to the apartment and freak mom out… then nearly give her a heart attack when his buddies come to get him.Well I would have, but a loud sound, almost like the roaring of flames, caught my attention. When I looked up, I saw a gray and red flying triangle with big engines floating down from the sky.<~Requiem, right after jumping through space~>Smoke billowed from control panels as sparks flew around as sirens were wailing in shrill cries. The bridge of the Venator-class Star-Destroyer Requiem was in chaos. Captain Ronald Curtis was clutching his wounded side while barking orders to others on the bridge, his gray naval uniform stained with blood from the shrapnel wound he held.“CT-47790, I want a full damage report,” the Captain shouted to a Clone working at a sparking console as Curtis tried to smooth down his short, brown hair with his free hand. To the same Clone, he also asked, “Shield status?”The Clone - one of only six bridge crew members who weren’t on the floor or slumped in their chairs - nodded his head, manipulating the remaining controls at his damaged console. “Eight percent and holding, sir!” He gave a slight cough to clear his throat, “That battleship did a number on us. Fires on decks three through seven, the primary reactor is leaking. Decks one, two, and eight have vented atmosphere in compartments A, C, H, and L. Medical is overflowing with wounded.”Another Clone in a naval uniform reported from his console, a gash running down his face, blood no doubt getting into his left eye, “Captain, I’ve got a ship on scanners,” he blinked out red tears and winced in pain, “Scans show they’re running off some old tech… ancient compared to even most Outer Rim worlds.”The Captain nodded quickly, rising from his seat, as he began to get his damaged ship back in order, “Get fire control teams on the damaged decks, evacuate and seal the breached compartments. Activate auxiliary generators, cut fuel flow to the main reactor as well as vent what’s already in the reactor, and put the other ship on screen.”The lights of the bridge died and sputtered back to life as power was switched to emergency generators.CT-47790 shouted from his console, “It’s done, sir: reactor fuel vented with no fuel going in. The breached compartments are sealed off tight; and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but unless we make repairs soon, emergency power won’t last us long.”Captain Curtis nodded in agreement, “Very well; and the other ship?”A different Clone responded from his half useless control panel, “Drifting towards the…” He muttered something in disbelief, “the planet, sir.”Curtis gave the Clone a disbelieving glare. “A planet?” the captain muttered in surprise, “I don’t believe there was one in this sector. That battle was right in the middle of open space, how far did we move?”“It’s hard to say with all the fried controls and corrupted sensor logs; but if I were to guess,” one could see the Clone roll his shoulders with a shrug, “quite a lot.”“Sir!” The Clone at the scanners called out, making the captain whip over to face him, “I’m detecting heavy damage to their systems as well as several explosive detonations on board. Antimatter in origin. I think their going in for a hard landing on the planet.”The Captain gave a sigh, “Very well. Get a team to jury rig a patch job on the reactor, I want to see if we can rescue any survivors if they keep their course towards the planet.”The Clone cave a nod, “Aye sir, and one more thing. I don’t know if it’s a glitch, or if my sensors are fried from the firefight, but that sun and moon are travelling around a planet that doesn't spin.”<~Back on Equus~>Dozens of white and red, boxy shaped aircraft with wings began to fly out the side of the massive ship. It didn’t take me long to notice how each one was heading towards a different one of the multiple crash sites of escape pods.The tell-tale crackle of static reached my ears, coming from O’Neill’s headset. The human stallion looked up, then weakly pressed a finger to his ear, “Yes, Sergeant Major, I’m on my way.” O’Neill released his hold on the communicator.Giving a deep sigh, O’Neill looked over to me, giving a ghost of a smile. But I saw no humor in his expression, only seriousness, “Lass, would ya take me to the others? We don’t rightly know who or what these people are, and we need to regroup.”That couldn’t be good.I ducked in shock as one of the ships flew over us, it’s engine making a loud, high-pitched hum as it slowed, turned ninety degrees, and landed across the street next to an alleyway with an obscene amount of rubble spilling from it. I could faintly see an escape pod in there, crushing a few dumpsters and covered in destroyed brick.The doors on the side of the white and red, box-shaped craft, slid open with a loud hiss of air. Several more humans, dressed head-to-foot in white armor with yellow accents, hopped out, brandishing black rifles in their hands, looking heavier than Tartarus. They all looked identical, with the only difference between them was the personalizations on their helmets, such as tally marks and odd symbols. Some sort of strange, silver colored  floating robot accompanied them. I could see it had several medical looking appliances, like a syringe hand.Two of the soldiers spotted us and began to walk towards us, breaking away from the rest of the group. O’Neill reached for the massive pistol at his side, and in response, the two stopped suddenly and aimed their rifles at us, making me lock my muscles in the exact position they were in. I feared that the slightest twitch would get my head blown off.Could I get through one freaking hour without someone getting guns pointed at me?“Do you speak Galactic Basic?” The one on the right asked, his armor almost a perfect match to the soldier on the left.“If you mean Equish, then yes,” I responded, my voice trembling ever so slightly.The soldier on the left - who had what I could only guess was an alien girl’s face painted onto his helmet - spoke in a voice creepily similar to the one on the right. “Good,” he lowered his rifle slightly, “Let’s just put our weapons away, and try not to kill each other when we’re supposed to be aiding any crash survivors.” It was so hard to distinguish the two’s voices that I swore that under their helmets. They must have been twins. Or it could have just been them speaking through those white and yellow helmets with strange almost ‘T’ shaped glass visors.“Aiding us?” O’Neill asked, perplexed. “Just who in the bloody name of Hell are ya lads? You aren’t Covenant, but humanity does not posses tech that good.”Both of them exchanged looks, though I doubt they could tell each other’s expressions through the helmets. Looking back to us, they took turns spouting off ‘CT’ followed by a string of numbers, and near Equestrian sounding names: Waxer and Boil.The one with the alien girl painted onto his helmet - Waxer - removed it to show us a shaven head and rectangular strip of black hair under his bottom lip. He looked like humans and Equestrians face-wise, nothing like the green skinned girl painting. “What outfit you from?” Waxer asked, clearly to O’Neill who was in Gods know how much armor.“UNSC Marines, 5th platoon, 115th rifle company,” He responded in a near cadance like tone, solid and unwavering.Waxer seemed to be confused, but he didn’t ask O’Neill to explain, or maybe Boil spoke up before he could say anything by proclaiming in his own military demeanor, “212th attack battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic.”O’Neill began laughing, harder and harder until he started coughing.Boil removed his helmet, showing a face shaped exactly like Waxer’s, but with black hair and an arch-shaped goatee. Looking at O’Neill he asked, “What’s so funny?” His face shown a slight hint of anger towards the laughing and coughing O’NeillO’Neill stopped coughing and panted a few times to catch his breath, and once he did, he told the other soldiers, “That I’m standing here with other humans that are just as alien as the girl keeping me from ending up on my ass.”The twins - I guess they were twins from their voices and looks - chuckled, Waxer asking, “Where are the rest of the survivors? Or have they sought medical attention from… what planet are we on?”I groaned, rolling my eyes. What was I, the planet’s information center? “You’re on Equus. Seriously did they drop an entire army on us without gathering the first detail of the surface?”Waxer gave a humorous grunt, “Well, our ship was heavily damaged, but we knew we could breath down here, and that a ship we picked up on scanners went down on the surface. So, in order to evacuate our damaged ship, as well as help others, we did a blind drop.”I was only in the JROTC for a year and I have a better plan of action than that. Send scouts first before running headfirst into an unknown area. Good thing they kept out of griffon lands, since they tend to shoot at anything if it gives them half a reason to shoot. I imagine dropping in unannounced would be a big reason.Holding my comment in about incompetent commanders, I gave a smile and reached out a hand, “Welcome to Equus.”