//-------------------------------------------------------// The War for Equestria -by TheStarClone- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// The Find (Prologue) //-------------------------------------------------------// The Find (Prologue) Prologue They said it was going to be an easy task, thought Brave Boulder as he trudged through the muddy, decayed paths of Everfree Forest. They also said that he would be back in time for dinner with his family. But that was obviously not true. He was smarter than that. The brown earth pony glanced at the setting sun which was behind him casting a warm warmth on him which would soon leave him behind as he trudged deeper into the forest. He knew what he was looking for so it made the job easier. He just had to find the stupid rock and leave. After all they offered a lot of bits for this off worldly rock that fell long ago. Why would anypony take this job at night? He thought as he walked down the dark, spooky woodland path. Boulder knew he had to find this rock for the Princesses of Equestria or else he would not be paid and he needed the money desperately. The princesses had given him a map but it was pretty much useless because it was worn out and crudely drawn even ripped in places. Then he heard the howl, the howl of the timber wolves that reside in these woods. The howl echoed through the darkening woods echoing off the thousands of trees around him. Hearing this he quickened his pace walking faster down the path and saw, to his horror many pairs of glowing green eyes appear in the shadows of the forest. Frightened, Boulder bolted off the path, faster than he had ever ran before away from the path and into the deep forest not in any certain direction or any destination. He ran until he tripped on a tree root and landed face first into a cold swamp. Boulder shivered and picked his head up out of the murky water and instead of seeing a dark forest he saw something he had never seen before. As he studied the item he noticed a lot of things that were out of place. It was made of some sort of hard but light metal, It had vegetation growing all over it as though it had been there for a long time. It definitely was not built here because he had never seen something like this before and it was too advanced for the best builders in Equestria. It looked like a vehicle but it was round and had three large cylinders at the end . He noticed as he walked around the swamp that had the vehicle submerged in it. Unlike all vehicles that existed in Ponyville this one had no wheels on it at all. It also had lots of horrifying black marks all over it. The vehicle had some sort of cutie mark or a symbol on its side. Boulder had never seen the sign ever before. It seemed to be a black circle with many lines coming out of it with a circle surrounding it. As he wondered about the symbol he spotted a hatch on top of it underneath a huge branch that was covering the whole vehicle. Determined to find the artifact of the century Boulder climbed onto the hatch and with some difficultly moved the heavy branch that was covering the hatch. After opening the hatch and climbing down a ladder that was extremely too big for him he entered the vehicle and started to take in what was inside. But that all changed when saw the bodies. Being a well respected archaeologist and seeing mummified ponies in Egypt these bodies still surprised him. These bodies looked a lot like diamond dogs with their claw-like hands and legs but one thing that stood out to Boulder was that these bodies all looked the same with the same sneering blank faces and the same weird hard white clothes. " Geez, Its armor." he muttered to himself after touching the clothes of the alien species. The armor had some variety to it some were plain white where some with faded colored stripes on the armor and helmets. As he looked around the walls he started to actually realize how technologically advanced these aliens were with lots of screens and buttons. It looked like there had been a struggle and there were burn marks all over the walls and on the aliens themselves. They had weapons, or at least he thought they were weapons of unknown origin which were strewn all over the dusty, cobweb covered floor. Boulder was known for pacing when he was thinking and that was what he was doing now. As he walked he tripped again over the alien's leg and fell on a few of the big buttons on one of the screens. Boulder tensed knowing well what happened when you messed with an alien's ship. He had read the entire "Aliens invade Equestria" comic book series five times. He looked around for some sort of sign that the vehicle was working but when nothing happened he straightened himself up and climbed up the large ladder out of the hatch, sealing it back up. What Boulder had not noticed was a feeble faint blinking red light over the words "DISTRESS SIGNAL" Boulder happily got out of the vehicle and jumped off it making it dangerously rock in the murky waters. The vehicle groaned and to Boulder's horror, started to sink into the deep swamps of Everfree. He started to scream hysterically at the top of his lungs. The artifact of the century was lost never to be seen again. He watched as the tip top of the vehicle sunk under the black water. Boulder sniffed he was stuck in the middle of the forest, lost and still did not have the item for the princesses either. What a long night that is going to be. He thought trying to find where he left. He had to write a letter to Princess Celestia about what he found. In the middle of the forest under the light of the moon he conjured up a letter. It wrote, Dear Princess Celestia, I have found some sort of strange alien craft in Everfree forest while finding your off worldly rock you wanted. The beings inside were not ponies but more like diamond dogs in appearance with hard white armor and had weapons of unknown orgin. Some of the armor had colors on them meaning something I will probably never know. I could not talk to the aliens because they were all dead. The craft itself looked like it had been there for years with vegetation growing all over it. The craft had a odd symbol on its side that I will draw on this letter. They were technologically advanced, far more than we are now. The ship sank when I jumped off it. I will send this letter when I return home. Here is the symbol, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Galactic_Republic.svg/200px-Galactic_Republic.svg.png Awaiting your answer, Brave Boulder Boulder then turned away from the place where the craft once was and walked away muttering "I have found proof that aliens exist!" Knowing that he was going to rich he screamed and cheered loudly  Then many glowing pairs of eyes appeared around Boulder. He heard some growling and heard some scuffling in the mud then a pack of timber wolves attacked him. Boulder let out a bloodcurdling scream, his scream echoing throughout the entire Everfree forest. The scream waking up many of the ponies living in Ponyville nearby. Then 24 parsecs away on the Republic ship Destroyer a trooper named Fix awoke with a start the scream echoing in his ears.... //-------------------------------------------------------// Chapter 1: The Awakening //-------------------------------------------------------// Chapter 1: The Awakening Chapter 1 Fix got up from his hard cot and rubbed his throbbing head his eyes adjusting to the dim room of the barracks. What had he just seen? He had seen some four legged animal get attacked by some animal made of wood with glowing green eyes.The eyes still burned on his eyes. That scream the brown thing had screamed was still lingering in his ears like an alarm blaring. It had seemed so real. Ignoring the painful headache that had suddenly appeared he woke up Duke, another clone who was sleeping on the cot next to his. "Duke, Duke! Wake up!" Fix muttered as he shook the clone's body. "What is it? I'm trying to sleep here." muttered Duke sleepily before returning back to sleep. Increasing the shaking Fix continued to try and wake up Duke until in a flash he was on the ground with Duke pointing his DC-17 hand blaster directly, inches away from Fix's face. "Again, what do you want Fix?" Duke yelled in anger waking up all the clones in the barracks. Ignoring the yells of the angry clones around for being woken up Fix got up from the cold metal floor and sat back down on his bed, head bowed down waiting until it was all over. "Duke I had a dream again" Fix said mostly to Duke but the other clones could not help but chiming in. "I need to get back to sleep!" "Talk quietly please!" "Shh! I'm trying to sleep here!" After the yelling had subsided and most of the other clones had fallen asleep Fix told his dream to the rest of Quasar Squad which happened to be still awake. Their faces turned to very sleepy to very intrigued to horrified in a matter of minutes as Fix told what he had saw in the dream. Duke started to joke around it was what he was known for. "So you saw the crashed Republic frigate 9889 in some sort of organic swamp on a unknown planet?" said Nova who was like the know-it all of the group. He knew a lot becuase he always had a holobook on his person at all times "I highly doubt this because that frigate disappeared without a trace so it could be anywhere in the freaking galaxy!" said Bolt crossing his arms. "And you said that that the thing that discovered the frigate was a horse?" "Yeah I saw it as clear as I see you guys now!" "So you are saying the dream is fake?" said Fix, noticing the skeptical looks on their faces. He was dissappointed that the troopers did not believe him. " I totally am" replied Bolt. "Why?" "That frigate, there had got to be hundreds of frigates throughout the galaxy alone it was that exact one. The one which disappeared without a trace." Fix was about to say a witty reply to his squad's doubt but he was interrupted by a loud booming voice "Fix here obviously does not know what he is talking about" Duke replied triumphantly as if this is how he wanted the little conversation to end up."He was left in his growing chamber too long and it messed up his mind a little" Duke laughed with the other clones. When Duke said another joke at Fix the clones laughed but it all looked forced except Duke's. Fix just shrugged it off he did not want to make a scene or else he would be court-marshaled and put in the holding cells a few levels below. "By the way Fix you know clones cannot have dreams. Or at least they are not supposed to." "Really?" "Yes clones are not supposed to have dreams but sometimes they can its a problem in the genetics" interrupted Nova opening up a hologram. According to these statistics the percentages for a clone to be defective are..." "I had a nice dreamless sleep until you woke me up!" "Alright we should get back to bed now boys we got to work tomorrow" interrupted Bolt with a fake yawn. As Fix climbed into his bed he recapped what had happened in the past half an hour. The other clones nodded off in a matter of minutes but Fix stayed up. Nova was right, a clone trooper should not have dreams. But he was not defective that was for sure. He was pretty sure all the clones joked around with him because Duke did. Duke liked joking around with him for fun but it was all in good spirits so he said. He was the only one who continued to joke around with him without end. Fix took Duke off his mind and back to the dream. He could still see how horrified the horse's face was when he was attacked by the wood monsters. What were those things? They were a monster he had never seen before and he had to study monsters in the schools on Kamino. After what seemed like hours. A loud boom knocked Fix off his bed and loud announcement knocked him from his thoughts. "ATTENTION ALL PILOTS AND GUNNERS PLEASE REPORT TO YOUR STATIONS AND HANGERS IMMEDIATELY WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!" "Do you think it is droids?" Bolt asked sleepily as an alarm starts to blare all around the ship. "I hope it is" replied Rumble, another clone in Quasar Squad "Because I want to kill me some clankers with Hammer here" he patted the large minigun next to him. Hammer was Rumble's minigun he always used in every battle. He refused to use any other blaster or minigun. He was kind of crazy. "Rumble you need to calm yourself down or I will have to call you Droidbait"replied Duke with a small look of uncertainty on his usually goofy face. Nova watched as all the gunners and pilots left the barracks in a hurry to go to their stations or ships. "Half of those troopers will not come back alive" he muttered darkly to himself. "That is how the Republic is now is it killing men in a war the men don't even understand?" Fix pretending he did not hear this put on his armor with his personal designs on it. Some clone troopers had their own personal designs on the armor. Fix had decided to put to claw marks on the face of his helmet and put some blue on his shoulder pad. Duke had blue under his mouth and blue on his shoulder pad as well. Bolt had a blue lightning bolt on his chest and a little lightning bolt on the top of his helmet.  Nova and Rumble did not really have any personal designs just the standard ones given when a clone received its armor after it passed the tests it did have the blue markings of being in Quasar Squad. The ship lurched again causing the clones all to fall on the floor. They all looked around when they heard a loud unnerving grinding noise coming from the hanger. The clones all looked at each other with a look of horror on their faces. They had been in a war zone before but now their ship was the war zone. This had never happened before. The intercom piped on and instead of a recorded voice it was a clone shouting in desperation. "Attention Hangars B and A has been attacked by boarding parties of droids. I want all clones to report to hanga-" Zarrrkkkk, the sound of blaster fire amplified by the intercom echoed all over the barracks. The trooper grunted and fell with a simple thud which was announced all over the ship. The clones who were still in the barracks grabbed their guns and rushed in the direction of Hangar B. Quasar Squad grabbed their guns and Rumble grabbed Hammer and the clones rushed to Hangar B2, a part of Hanger B which was divided into three parts. Once in Hangar B Fix saw all hell break loose. Many ships were on fire, bodies were everywhere and there was even blood, in large splatters on the shiny metal floor. The men of Quasar Squad ran in different directions to go and defend the ship from the attackers. Fix himself took cover behind a crate and started blasting at anything that was metal and moving. Another grinding noise echoed loudly throughout the hangar then Fix saw what was causing those noises. In front of him a giant drill was boring through the thick metal. Once the drill was through it shot out with a hiss what looked like a large rack, a rack carrying balled up battle droids. "Commandos!" someone screamed as the commando droids jumped onto the clones armed with vibroswords. The nimble droids swiftly and quickly killed many clones, spraying blood everywhere. The dead clones then fell like puppets with their strings cut, not moving. Fix, watching his brothers die a horrible death had not seen the commando jump above him on top of the crate he was behind. The droid, using the handle knocked Fix right on the top of his helmet, throwing him to the ground causing blood to pour onto his face underneath his helmet. The droid then raised the blade for the kill....  Bracing himself Fix waited for it all to end but it did not happen. He slowly looked up to see a headless droid above him falling backwards, the blade tumbling out of his hands. He looked behind to see Duke carrying a blaster still smoking aimed where the droid had just been. Still startled Fix realized that Duke out of all clones had just saved his life. "Thank me later" Duke yelled as he went to help out Nova. Fix, looked over through the barrier dividing the three sections of Hangar B and saw clones fighting rocket super battle droids that were flying in the air. The blue barrier that was the airlock for Hanger B1 was blinking and sparking which meant that the airlock was going to go out leaving nothing between the hangar and the vacuum of space. Then it happened, a clone shot a rocket at a droid narrowly missing it. The rocket continued to go until it hit the airlock barrier at its side. The barrier overloaded and shut off with a loud deathly, zap. Almost immediately air started to get sucked out of the hangar. Fix watched as he watched as everything in that part of the hangar got quickly sucked into space. Everything, boxes, starfighters, clones and even the droids themselves were sucked out. Fix teared up as he watched his brothers, some of them he was really close to get instantly sucked out into space. There were some screams but they were cries for mercy before they choked to death and froze. Then in almost one minute there was nothing was inside that hangar. It looked as though nothing had ever existed in there and that the cleaners had just cleaned. Fix looked up to see more droids swarming him shooting bolts that were way off. As he blasted the droids he noticed something that was extremely frightening. The airlock for this hangar was sparking as well ready to give out.. Fix jumped up frantic on how to escape. He ran through the blast doors towered where the escape pods were kept. Then his heart sank to the bottom of his chest as he saw the escape pods had been already shot out, none remaining. They had taken too long and the escape pods had already been launched. he ran back to see Quasar Squad and two other clones still fighting the mass of droids that were gradually approaching them. "Guys we need to find the frigate!" Fix screamed at the remaining clones "Not a good time to thinking about that dream now, Fix" Rumble yelled over the sound of Hammer. "Yeah we need to get to an escape pod so we can escape, the barrier is about to break!" Bolt yelled "THERE ARE NONE LEFT!" "None l-le-left"  he stuttered. "I think he is talking about the frigate that is docked under the Destroyer" one of the clones yelled. "Come on we have to leave NOW!" screamed Duke as pieces of metal started falling from the ceiling of hangar and flames started igniting rapidly all over the blood and fuel covered floor. "Hold on! I'm helping someone here!" yelled Bolt as he was crouched by a fallen clone commander. "Just leave him we have to get out of here!" yelled Rumble as Bolt took off the hurt clone's helmet. Bolt stumbled back to see a blaster wound in the head. The commander was dead. Bolt stiffed a cry and then followed the rest of the clones out of the destroyed Hangar B. Another explosion rocking the entire ship. The hangar falling apart, pieces of debris falling on the remaining droids. "WE NEED TO LEAVE NOW!" screamed Nova at the top of his lungs. "If we do not leave now the barrier will give out and we will all be dead!" The men of Quasar squad agreed. As they ran through the blast shield the barrier blew out causing everything to go flying into space. Luckily all of the squad and the other two other clones were in the blast doors already holding on to handles. For the other two clones that were still in the hangar they did not make it. They got sucked out into space, the horror etched into their faces as they knew their fate. Nova quickly closed the blast doors to save the others. "Well, at least we are safe!" breathed Duke with a look of relief on his face. The other clones silently nodded in agreement,  they had a moment of silence for the clones that died in that hangar Fix thought of a whole barracks of troopers, dead. That battle had been a traumatic experience for all of them. "We have to get to that frigate before this blasted piece of metal blows up and we are still on it!" "Fix, we will have to hurry before we all die on this hunk of metal!" said Duke with a smile on his face. "I'm working on it!" As group ran throughout the ship multiple explosions were shaking the whole hallway. There were fires, most of them in the halls as well as the main engine room which was so hot the platforms were melting. The troopers ran into some droids but most of them were destroyed as they ran down the battle scarred halls. Fix had to avert his eyes when he saw the bodies of troopers who had tried to quickly defend themselves but were ambushed. The white armor had been stained with blood, a sparking light casting a blinking hellish glow in the hall. Fix ran up to a clone who had been shot in the chest multiple times and shot in the legs as well. Fix tried not to cry or whimper in surprise when he saw the clone painfully look up mercifully at Fix. The clone muttered something so quiet that even with the advanced hearing in his helmet he could not hear what he was saying. The clone continued to mutter at Fix then he sadly realized what he was trying to say. He was saying Please... Fix took his blaster and shot the clone directly in the head, point blank. The clone groaned but it was not a cry of pain it was more of a cry of pleasure that he was free from this hell. Fix felt a hand end up on his shoulder, it was Nova who had watched the entire episode unfold from behind Fix. from underneath his helmet Nova was tearing up as well. Why did the droids have to do this to his brothers? Nova opened the door to find the frigate still in the docking bay. All the clones all sighed in relief, they were going to survive! They opened the door to the frigate to see that it had been untouched waiting for its next user. The clones smiled they were going to survive this ordeal and get off this doomed ship... "Have you destroyed the ship yet?" croaked General Grievous to a hologram of Duel, a super tactical droid in charge of the fleet that was attacking the Destroyer. "We have just blew off the whole front of the cruiser. I believe that no clone will survive this battle, If there are any clones that my droids missed the explosion will finish them off" Duel recited in a bland, robotic voice. "If any clones survive or that blasted Jedi then I will disassemble you, piece by piece... personally. You understand?" "Roger Roger. "Good." Grievous muttered as the hologram of Duel vanished. Grievous needed to destroy that Jedi he needed a new lightsaber for his collection so he could show it off to his master, Tyranus. He knew that some clone or even the Jedi was going to survive they always did in every battle because of the inferior droids messing up everything. So to make sure that they were all dead this time he had put buzz droids with tracking devices on them into one of the boarding ships telling the droids to go and hide in escape pods, shuttles and anyhting that could fly. He glanced at the hologram that showed all the droids and their locations. To Grievous' dismay all but one of the droids was dead except one and that one was following a small group of clones towards a frigate, the last usable ship on the cruiser. Grievous laughed, a low croaking mechanical laugh that echoed around the entire droid command room. He needed to tell his master that everything is going as planned and that he would kill this Jedi scum... "Look at this ship, it's somehow in perfect condition!" "I see your excitement Nova, but you don't have to brag!" Duke joked. Fix was bringing some extra supplies onto the ship when he felt the explosion. This explosion was defiantly the biggest explosion on the ship so far and the grinding sound had came back again but it was much louder than the drills on the boarding ships. The whole ship lurched backwards sending the clones onto their backs. Fix had had it, they were not going to stay on this doomed ship any more. actually the whole front of the ship had just fallen off from the rest of the ship in a ball of inferno. They were about to close the doors to send the ship off when a voice that was not a clone's said "Are you going to forget us?" Fix stared it was the Jedi General who was in charge of this ship and behind him was his clone commando captain. The men, taken aback all stood at attention waiting to see what the General wanted. Duke's salute was sloppy while Nova's was the best. "At ease, gentlemen. We need to get of this damned ship now if you please." the Jedi responded with an urgency in his voice. The men quickly ran into the frigate, their only way off the destroyed ship. None of them noticed the buzz droid follow them into the frigate... As they flew out of the hangar they saw what had been happening to the ship. The ship had lost its entire front and its flaming carcass was sinking closer to Arora, a moon in the outer rim. Droid ships above were still bombarding the ship with lots of red bolts. But the Destroyer was not giving up with many ARC-170s still fighting the droid ships above. Then it happened there was a burst of flames from where the main reactor was and the bridge of the ship fell backwards and started to float off from the rest of the ship. As the frigate flew farther away, vulture droids, noticing what was going on started to blast at the frigate. One bolt shot from one of the droids was positioned correctly and hit the hyperdrive, activating it. The ship quickly started to bank downwards towards the input coordinates which was way in the unexplored regions. "Who turned on the hyperdrive?!" the commando yelled in desperation. "Turn it off!" The clones just shrugged not knowing how use hyperdrives at all because they had never been in a frigate before. The Jedi ran to the controls but it was too late the ship's engines had already started to rev up. Fix, right behind the commando bowed his head. They were going into the unexplored regions, a dark, dangerous place not known to the Republic. The clones were all shoved back when the ship zapped into hyperspace the ship disappearing into a flash of bright light... //-------------------------------------------------------// Chapter 2: The Landing //-------------------------------------------------------// Chapter 2: The Landing Chapter 2 "Twilight, Twilight! If you don't get up now you will be late for Rainbow's race!" yelled Spike from down in the kitchen. Twilight Sparkle groaned and stayed under the covers. Why did she have to go to one of Rainbow's races today But then she realized that Rainbow was her friend and she had to sacrifice for others especially one of her best friends. She knew that Rainbow had been training for this race for a while flying from Canterlot to Ponyville and back five times every morning just to train. As Twilight walked downstairs she saw Spike packing a bag of gems for the race. She also knew that if Dash won she would get the attention of the Wonderbolts, her idols. "Hey Twilight you ready?" Spike called to her. Without replying she walked out of the library to find her friends waiting for her minus Dash who had already gone. "Hey Twilight how's it going?" Fluttershy squeaked. "Howdy Twi." "Heeeeey Twilight we are going to Canterlot to see Rainbow Dash race. I'm soooooooooooooooooo excited!" Screamed Pinkie. "Darling, don't you want some sort of scarf up there? After all you are a princess!" squealed Rarity with a huge smile on her face "Oh my Princesses Celestia and Luna will be there as well. I have to get ready!" As Rarity ran off Twilight sighed, she wanted to see the race from close up in Cloudsdale but she had to watch the whole race from Celestia's castle with the rest of the elements of harmony. After everyone was packed (Rarity changed her outfit five times until she was forced by Applejack to leave) the elements made the walk to the train station to Canterlot. On the train the girls started to make bets on who would win. "I'm betting 20 bits that Dash is going to win!" Spike yelled. "Spike you don't even have your own money!" Twitlight chuckled to the baby dragon. "If somepony wins then I'm gonna throw the biggest party EVER!" Pinkie squealed. "I really hope that Rainbow wins she is always talking about joining the Wonderbolts" "Yeah I hope that she does win too Fluttershy" Twilight replied with a glum look on her face. Twilight watched as Ponyville moved farther away and Canterlot got closer. She looked into the sky did other beings exist away from Equestria? As if reading her mind Pinkie asked "Twi do you believe in aliens?" "I have to see them to believe in them, Pinkie" "Well I believe that they will come someday and I can throw them the biggest party ever!" "You definitely would Pinkie." For the rest of the train ride Twilight could not get aliens off her mind. She also could not get what Pinkie said out of her head. As the train arrived at Canterlot Princess Celestia greeted the elements herself followed by the royal guard. Twilight spotted her brother, Shining Armor leading the guard. Twilight waved and he winked back. "Welcome my little ponies!" "Princess Celestia are you ready to see the race?" "I am, lets go to the balcony to watch. My sister will arrive soon" The ponies all silently trotted through the royal palace towards the balcony until Pinkie broke the silence and asked a question to Princess Celestia. "Sooooooooo Princess Celestia do you believe in aliens?" "Pinkie!" Twilight growled under her breath. "It is alright my faithful student. It is a valid question." Twilight cheeks reddened to her teacher's reply. "So do you?" "In my entire time of being a Princess of Equestria I have never seen an alien or communicated with one before but I would like to believe that other life exists far away like the stars in the night sky but I do know we are not the only life out there." "See I told you, Twilight!" Twilight knew that the reason that Pinkie was talking so much about aliens was because she had a long conversation with Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle better known as the Cutie Mark Crusaders about a book about aliens they had read. She rolled her eyes she was the one who had lent the book to them in the first place so all this alien talk was her fault. Twilight did not want to admit this but what if aliens come and take over Equestria? Then her life would be turned upside down so secretly she was happy that no aliens had visited but if they did visit she would study them and ask them lots of questions and hopefully they would be friendly not hostile. As the ponies arrived at the balcony they were greeted by Princess Cadence, Shining Armor's wife. Cadence looked extremely excited for the race or was it that her husband was there as well. "Twilight! It is so good to see you again! I missed you! "I missed you too Cadence! how is protecting the Crystal Empire going?" Before Cadence could reply a guard burst through the doors to the balcony. "Princess Celestia we have found Brave Boulder." Celestia gasped in horror. "He is in critical condition and he wants to talk to you." I want the elements to see him because according to the last letter he sent me he had found proof of aliens. "I'm sorry my friends you do not know about the letter or Brave Boulder for that matter." "I sent Boulder to study and collect a chunk from a meteor that crashed a long time ago." Celestia explained to the bewilderment of the rest of the ponies walking next to her. "He sent a letter to me saying that he had stumbled on an alien craft and explored it." "What did he find?" "You should ask him when we see him. He will answer all your questions." As the group entered the throne room where Boulder was they all gasped in horror at what they saw. Boulder was lying on the ground in pain, a trail of blood leading to the entrance where he entered. There was also a small splatter of blood around him. Boulder was shivering as well which Twilight remembered that was that he was close to diying. "Boulder are you okay?" Celestia asked a hint of sadness in her voice. "Get the doctors! NOW!" she screamed at her guards. As the guards ran off Boulder groaned and, with some difficulty stood up. The ponies all gasped. Boulder had large claw marks all over his body many of them looked like they were bleeding a while ago some were still bleeding onto his blood soaked body and onto the ground. He was also missing a leg which made Rarity faint and Fluttershy look away. The leg looked like it was torn off not cut. "Hello Everypony!" Princess Luna said as she flew through the doors of the throne room. She fell silent as she saw Boulder. "What happen-" Twilight started until she was inturpted by Boulder "Attacked by a pack of dem' timber wolves, ruffed me up a little'" The doors slammed open to have Celestia's personal nurses and doctors run up to Boulder. As they give him medicine to stop the bleeding he told the ponies about his find. He told them about the offworldly vehicle he found with the odd cutie mark and the sneering white armored bodies inside. Pinkie smiled he had found actual proof of aliens! As the doctors wheeled Boulder to the room where he would stay he told them to look out for more of their kind looking for the lost ones. As the group returned to the balcony the conversation turned to aliens and Boulder's find. "I told you guys that aliens exist!" Pinkie Pie squeaked. "Well I for starters don' know if I believe em yet" Applejack remarked. "I still have to see it to believe it" Twilight said then nothing else. Celestia said nothing the whole walk back. Boulder had talked the aliens as being as tall as her sister and having advanced weapons and technology. As they approached the balcony they looked off to see Cloudsdale in the distance where Rainbow Dash would start the race. She would do three laps from Cloudsdale to Ponyville racing other Pegasuses. Twilight wondered how Dash was doing right now... Come on Rainbow Dash... If you win you will be on the Wonderbolts team and you will be shown as the best flyer in front of all of Equestria. Everyone will know who you are and your friends will be proud of you! You NEED to win! She could hear it now RD! RD! RD! chanting all around Equestria. "Hey Dash are you ready the race is about to start" a Pegasus pony serving a a referee yelled knocking Dash out of her thoughts. "Oh yeah real ready RD is always ready!" Dash replied with a large smile on her face. "Good because we are about to start" Dash looked around Cloudsdale, where the race started and ended. She also saw in the distance Canterlot and its large castle. Rainbow knew that her friends and the Princesses were waiting for her to fly over the castle because that was on the route. she wanted to spend time with her friends because she was always training and never had any time to see her friends. After the race Pinkie was going to throw a party and they would catch up then. But then she realized that she became a part of the Wonderbolts she would never have time to spend with her friends because they trained all the time. As Dash thought on that troubling thought she did not notice that the race was about to begin. She heard the count down 10...9...8. She stretched her wings one more time. 7...6...5. Dash calmed herself she was going to do great. 4...3...2...1. Boom! the referee shot some sort of firework. All the ponies in front of her sped off onto the track which was barriers which told them where to go. Dash wanting to woo the audience made a sonic boom as she flew onto the track. The crowd cheered and screamed in excitement. If only they knew what was happening above them... "What the hell is wrong with you troopers!" The commando yelled at the troopers. "You should all know how to use a hyperdrive, its in your training!" "Sorry man we have not had time to attend that training because we were attacked!" "Trooper! You will refer to me as commander only! You understand? Duke gulped and sat down, not speaking for a long time. "So commander...." Bolt stuttered. "My designation is CC-6735 or better known as Razer" "And I'm Master Shidu Serdar of Alderaan." As the troopers of Quasar squad introduced themselves including the new troopers that had teamed up with them on the Destroyer, Neo and Slip. They were interrupted when Razer yelled "We are coming out of hyperspace!" As the ship came out of hyperspace they instantly knew that something was off about the planet they had stopped in front of. "Look at that planet!" "It has a sun and a moon revolving around it!" "According to my holoprojector here suns are not supposed to revolve around planets but the other way around! This planet is one of a kind!" "Something is defiantly wrong with this system!" "Scan it Razer" Razer turned on the scanners on the ship to scan the planet they were in front of. "According to the scanners there seems to be lots of forests and full of life." The clones all fell silent as they heard the ping of the scanners. "According to the scanners there is a very faint Republic distress signal coming from a part of the planet!" "Well we should go and investigate to see if any of my brothers or Jedi need our help." "And also we have run out of fuel to make a jump to the nearest Republic outpost." Nova pointed out. "We might be stuck on this planet!" Groaned Neo. The clones agreed not because they wanted to because they had no where to go. The Destroyer was most likely destroyed and they would have to back to Kamino for a new assignment and the Kaminoians were very strict with clone troopers. Many clones were detained if they thought they were unfit. Some like 99 were put into janitorial service. They would be seen as defective because they ran away like cowherds. As the ship veered closer to the planet the clones noticed the hundreds of asteroids orbiting the planet. Razer tried to steer the ship from the asteroids and almost succeeded but one giant one hit the side of the ship. Fix, looking at the red flashing alert got a horrifying message on the console. "Commander! The stableizers have been knocked and are not working!" "Damn! Now we are going to crash on this planet!" "Maybe there will be lifeforms that will be able to fix our ship?" Serdar calmly said. "I don't know if there will be any ship left to fix after we land!" "Shut up Duke!" The entire cockpit groaned. The ship continued to increase speed as it entered the planet's atmosphere. The ship caught on fire as it broke the atmosphere. A huge jolt hit the cockpit and to Fix's surprise was the one of the three main engines falling off. The ship continued increasing speed. The flames were around the viewing window and Fix had to squint even with his glare reducing visor on. The black of space turned to blue as the ship entered the unknown planet. Razer and Serdar used most of their energy to steer the ship away from a huge cloud with what looked like buildings on it nearly hitting in in the process. The ship crashed on the edge of a dense forest made up of lots of tall trees. The clones all went flying as the ship hit the ground, destroying trees as it dragged on the ground. Fix got Slip slammed into his back as well as Rumble knocking him unconscious as his head hit the console with a loud Slam!. A Few Minutes Earlier Rainbow Dash was in the zone as she called it. She was flying at a fast speed and was totally focused with nothing distracting her, not even the cheering fans in the stands in Cloudsdale and Canterlot. She wanted to win to attract the attention of the Wonderbolts so badly she also wanted to impress her friends with her flying skills. She had waved to them twice on the last two laps. The final lap was coming up and she was in 3rd place. As she sped on she glanced at the sky. She saw a flaming trail high up. It was most likely Princess Luna and her meteorite falling magic. Dash decided in a quick second to fly close to the meteor to scare then please the audience with her recklessness. As she was flying on the track she saw that the meteor was falling much faster than she had seen and was almost at Cloudsdale. Rainbow increased her speed. As she neared the stands with all the fans she did not hear any cheering actually none. They were all looking at the meteor which was behind them. Rainbow started to get angry the stupid metor was more popular with the fans then she was! she sped over the finish line for the final lap.  She was watching the fans so she did not notice the meteor coming straight for her. Or at least that is what she thought the meteor was going straight for Cloudsdale and somehow swerved to move out of the way. The flaming meteor flew right in front of her almost catching her mane on fire! and stopping her in surprise. Then Rainbow saw something which scared her and made her not continue the race. The meteor was not a meteor but a ship. Pinkie was right aliens were coming! Rainbow recalled the Daring Do book where she fought aliens who took control of everypony's brains and shuddered that those aliens might be on that ship. Dash and the crowd watched silently as the ship crashed into Everfree forest right near Fluttershy's house. Rainbow gulped were the aliens going to take control of her brain? She flew towards Canterlot's castle to go see her friends. The race lay forgotten. "What in the hay was that thing! Did y'all see what I thought I saw?" Applejack yelled to the ponies in the room. "I saw a ship that was some how flying without any wings and everypony knows that is not possible!" "I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!" Pinkie sang as she bounced around the room. "Calm down, Darling it is not really a big deal" groaned Rarity. "Actually my little ponies it is quite a big deal. Aliens have never visited Equestria before and we need to start on good terms with them because they obviously have better technology then we do." Princess Celestia said in a calm voice. "Cadence if you will, please get Shining Armor and tell him to prepare the Royal Guard. Luna and I are going to go meet these aliens with the elements of harmony as well." "The ponies all had mixed reactions. Applejack had no emotion, Rarity was talking all about the fashion the aliens would have, Pinkie was jumping around singing that she was going to throw them a party, Fluttershy was hiding under the bed scared out of her mind. Twilight had mixed feelings about these aliens. She wanted to see their advanced technology but there was also the nagging thought that they would be hostile to Princesses Celestia and Luna. Twilight knew that if the aliens attacked Luna or Celestia or anyone it would lead to... war. War, that word was never used in Equestria anymore. People hated that word because with war came lots of death and destruction like the battle with Lord Tirek. As Twilight was contemplating on if she was excited or not Rainbow Dash came barreling towards them, stopping right in front of Celestia's horn. "Guys! Guys! Guys! You would never believe what I just saw!" Rainbow gasped while pointing at Everfree forest which had a large trail of black smoke coming from near Fluttershy's house. "We saw it too Rainbow." Fluttershy whispered from underneath the bed. "Yes and we were about to investigate that right now!" Princess Celestia commented, not at all surprised that rainbow was right in front of her. "The Guard is ready!" Cadence reported as she entered into the balcony room. "Ok it is set then!" Celestia said as the group walked to the main entrance. They had a lot of walking to do. Fix groaned and opened his eyes to find out that he was on the ground and nor in the ship any more. "Where am I?" he muttered while rubbing his head. "You saw us crash on this planet!" Serdar said with an annoyed tone in his voice. Fix took in his surroundings. They were in some sort of dense forest, it was around midday and this planet had inhabatents because of the buildings on the large cloud there was also some sort of crude path nearby. Slip, Duke and Rumble were patrolling the area while Razer, Neo and Bolt and Serdar were creating a fire and salvaging any leftover supplies on the ship. Nova was still unconscious. Fix decided that he would help salvage for supplies on the destroyed ship. Sparks were flying all over the dim halls of the ship. As he entered the ship he turned on the flashlight on his blaster. He entered the infirmary to find that the med droid had been destroyed its insides destroyed gruesomely. Then he heard some sort of odd droid chatter happening in another part of the ship. He crept in to see a buzz droid talking to some sort of hologram coming from its own eye. The hologram motioned to Fix saying that he was behind them. Then Fix noticed that the hologram was General Grievous. Before the droid could react Fix shot it killing it instantly causing the hologram of Grievous to shut off. Fix went over what he just saw. He had saw a buzz droid talking to Grievous about some plan. It could have had a tracking device on it. He decided to tell Razer about what he saw after he finished the lookout. As Fix exited the salvaged ship he saw that Nova had woken up and that the rest of the men were back at the campfire. Fix himself had found a few thermal detonators a DC-15A blaster rifle and some bacta patches, just in case. The clones were all talking among themselves trying to find a plan to escape back to the Republic. Rumble and Duke had found a treehouse that had lots of animals living in it. He had also found a book called The History of Equestria. What was Equestria? As Fix walked over he heard some sort of noise coming from in the forest's crude path causing the clones to fall silent. "Does everypony believe in aliens or you the only one Twilight?" The men cocked their weapons and hid into the shrubbery prepared for whatever horror was about to erupt from the path... "Does everypony believe in aliens or you the only one Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked loudly from above Twilight "Shh! The ship is right nearby the aliens could be near! The elements of harmony along with Princesses Luna and Celestia and four royal guards were going to investigate the alien ship. Most of the elements except for Fluttershy was excited to see these "aliens". As they approached the clearing they all gasped in horror at what they saw. They saw the ship flaming and sparking the flames all over the grass. The guards two which were pegasus ponies and two that were unicorn ponies held their spears tightly worried about what they were about to find. As they walked closer to the ship some creatures standing on two legs ran to them their long circular poles pointed at them. They screamed at the ponies to not move a muscle and to stay where they are or they will shoot. Celestia, not wanting to have a fight start said "Please we just want to know who are you and how you landed in Equestria?" One of the creatures a tall one with a braid of brown hair and wearing a robe with a hood jumped in front of them and took a metal cylinder and ignited it shooting a brilliant beam of green light and held it to the awed ponies the anger on his face was undeniable. "Commander Serdar please they just want to see what we are." yelled one of the soldiers from behind him. At this point the soldiers had came out of hiding and stood behind their commander. Serdar's face softened a little. Twilight studied the aliens in front of her. Many of them had the same sneering faces with blue markings on them. one of the faces looked different than all the others Two of them had green markings instead of blue. They had many black marks all over them making them look if they were in constant battle after battle. They were carrying advanced weapons for Equestria's weapons. The leader, Serdar looked very different than the others he had some sort of tight robe on and a cream colored face instead of bright white as the others. He had none of the weapons the rest of them had instead he had his cylinder thing... "Not now Fix they could be hostile" Serdar said, jostling Twilight out of her thoughts. Then, with a lout howl the attack happened a pack of timber wolves attacked the group standing in the clearing. Celestia and Luna created a magical barrier surrounding the ponies to protect them but leaving the aliens out. The aliens dove and started shooting blue bolts out of the long rods killing many of the wolves from far away. Some ran past the shots and tackled the soldiers. The robed alien took his cylinder and sliced many of the enemies with his green blade catching the wood they were made of on fire. Fluttershy stuttered a gasp they were killing the wolves. Once the last wolf had been destroyed the soldiers started to introduce themselves to the awed ponies. Twilight was extremely excited. This was a new age for Equestria with these aliens visiting! "General! We have found the planet that buzz droid 1765-b had landed on with the Jedi!" A droid commander said as he approached his general. "Good, Now we will crush these puny clones and that blasted Jedi into the ground!" Growled Grievous his yellow eyes reflecting the hunger in them. "Prepare your troops. We will leave in one rotation. Anything that stands in our way including natives on this far off planet will be destroyed!" Grievous laughed. He would have to report to his master on the plan and that everything was going exactly as planned...