Your Human And You: Feet First Into Hell

Maelstrom kept his eyes trained on the two gold-armored soldiers that were patrolling the grounds and laughing with each other. Right now, fire-team Nightmare were in the same bush behind him, waiting for the two to pass by. So far, they were disgusted with the downright shitty excuse for guards of their capital city. The ODST Sergeant had memorized the path that Princess Luna had shared with him, and saw that they were literally one turn away from being in the so called, "Royal Palace," wherein the ODSTs would meet this leader for whatever reason. If it was a trap, Maelstrom decided that they would spring it, and hold their leader hostage until either they agreed to free whatever Humans were on the planet, or until the UNSC came by and mopped the place up.

The two guards turned another corner and left the grassy area wide open and unwatched.

Maelstrom brought his hand up and motioned for the ODSTs to move forward.

In a second's notice, the seven troopers burst from the bushes. Maelstrom ducked underneath the massive window that let them see into the pristine castle, and waited for the rest of Nightmare to line up beneath the massive pane of glass. The ODST motioned upward to Blind before they slowly looked over the small barrier and into the hallway.

Nothing.

Maelstrom ducked back down and motioned towards the ground, where a large grate was left slightly ajar. Icepick and Black Eye removed the large lid before Maelstrom signaled his team to go down into it. First Melt went in, swept the immediate area, and then gave the "All-Clear". Sputnik followed right after, then in went Cowbell, Icepick, Black Eye, who handed the cover over to Maelstrom, Blind, and then the Sergeant himself. Once they were all underneath the ground, Maelstrom slid the cover back over the opening, and examined the tunnel. From what he had been told, this was part of an emergency escape system, should the premises come under attack and holding ground wasn't an option.

The ODSTs began slowly crawling through the tunnels, adjusting so that Maelstrom could head their trek through the decrepit system. They had quite a walk ahead of them.

\\\//////

Shining Armor watched with a furrowed brow as another dragonflame-magicutter was thrown aside, completely spent from attempting to cut through the armored barrier into the alien vessel. So far, they had used up 17 fully charged burners and haven't even cut halfway through the small doorway. Now was about the time that the Captain of the Royal Guard was beginning to understand the sheer weight against Equestria's abilities, now that it was being put to the test against an actual alien ship. If they were to fully assault Equis as it was, no one would stand a chance.

"Alright, pack it in for now," Shining Armor ordered.

The technicians sighed tiredly before packing up the magicutter and stepping away from the armored door. The Captain stared at the barrier, feeling a small sense of respect for whoever could craft such a sturdy ship. It was downright impenetrable.

\\\//////

"Looks like they're giving up," Lisa noted. "About time, too. It was starting to get even more pathetic."

"Lisa, are we any closer to breaking this jamming field?" Commander Mathias asked the A.I.

"Not yet. I can't get any kind of frequency from the field. It's as if the field doesn't exist on any kind of wavelength we can interpret, even though it's similar to Covenant equipment in form."

"Any ideas on what we can do about our guests?"

"Well, Plan A is to wait until Fire-team Nightmare reboots their communication devices so we can get them over here ASAP and clear them out, but we have no idea if they survived the emergency ejection, or if they're not already holed up with the locals. Plan B is to fire up the thrusters and, in the name of all things logical, burn those unicorns until they're nothing but jerky. That makes three things I've said on this planet that will inevitably get me deactivated."

"And Plan C?" Mathias asked.

"We wait until that one in the gold and purple armor inspects the elevator door by itself and ambush it. From what they've been discussing, and how it commands the rest, that one's the highest ranking officer present."

Mathias thought deeply on how each option would go. True, Plan A would have been their go-to option, but with too many unknowns, Fire-team Nightmare was out of the question. Plan B would be the quickest, and likely the first option that he would have gone for during the War, but in the long run, it would ruin any chance that the UNSC would have at interacting with this species in the future. Granted, yes, they were technologically stunted compared to the UNSC, but they were clearly intelligent, and spoke English. Clearly, there was an underlying necessity to look into this world's history.

Plan C, however...

"Keep watch on that one in purple and gold. I'm going to see if one of our officers wants to help accommodate our new guest."

"I'll ready the brig."

Mathias blinked once before shaking his head and sighing.

'This is an ONI vessel, of course there's a brig,' he thought to himself.