Run, keep moving, don’t stop or you’re dead. Black Hammer had been running for what felt like hours now; running from them. He knew they were after him but why? He had never seen creatures like that on the planet or any of the data bases he tended to review during his breaks. Where did they come from; and why were they killing everyone?

The day had started as any other had. Hammer had woken up to the sound of his dear wife, Bright Fire his partner in life and in work, preparing their meals for the day. Black Hammer was a fairly tall and well-built earthpony with a coat to match his namesake. Bright Fire on the other hand was slightly less muscled, being that her unicorn magic allowed her to do the heavier lifting without as much a strain on her body. Her coat had been a beautiful yellow like the center of a glowing campfire, though years of working over fires had darkened the color significantly, her mane though had remained the fiery red that Hammer had fallen in love with. They took their walk with the other workers from the living quarters on the top of the factory down to the work floors below. This plant had sprung up about fifty years ago around the end of the colonization period for the Equestrians. Here they constructed one of the newly discovered machines, the pict screen as they had found them to be called.

These screens and monitors had been very useful in the advancement of Equestrian communication. The citizens of Labarinthia had discovered that instead of traversing the extremely dangerous forests they could simply activate their monitors and converse with others on the other side of the planet from the safety of their home or, more often than not, their workplace. These pict screens could also be used to communicate with others on completely different planets. The Equestrians now had the ability to send messages to their home world and receive a response in a matter of minutes compared to the couple of months it had previously taken. But the amount of these screens were limited and as such factories had begun to spring up across the planet for mass production. To date only thirty of the original facilities remained operational, the rest falling into disrepair and being reclaimed by the carnivorous flora, due to the lack of new workers to keep the facilities operational. The remaining facilities were in slightly better shape; the workers from the closed factories assigned to maintenance for the remaining buildings.

After arriving on the work floor the pair checked in and began another day of hard work. While Bright worked with the molten product during the smelting and reforming of the metal, Hammer was in charge of the molding process. Throughout the day they would see each other, every so often and exchange smiles or a few words. Today was going as normal until lunch, Hammer went to his usual spot where he and his Bright ate together and waited for her to arrive. After a few minutes he decided to begin without her since these breaks were only just long enough to allow one to eat and return to the line.

Bright Fire was working hard over the smelting pots as usual and could not wait till it was time for a break. She had been counting down the minutes as she heated up the last batch for the morning when her advisor Steel Trap called out to her. Steel was an earth pony who got his name from not his ability to not talk but the way he talked. Steel had a habit of talking in an unnecessarily rough and fairly unpleasant way even in casual conversation. He had come to make use of this trait once he made it to a managerial position, using his “steely tongue” to re-enforce his position and to put a little fear into those that weren’t performing well; boosting their economic worth as they doubled their efforts in order to avoid another chew-out. It was these thoughts that filled Bright’s mind as Steel’s voice carried her name over the blaring alarms signaling lunch time. As she gathered her lunch pail, Steel made his way down to the production floor from his office up near the ceiling on one of the factories newly constructed hydrolifts; which made transporting the mass quantities of products much easier as they no longer required unicorns to levitate the tons of screens and other tech. Bright waited at the bottom of the lift as the doors opened and a group of ponies pushed a few carts full of raw material to the smelting stations, followed by Steel.

“Mrs. Fire, I need a word with you for a moment.”

“What is it sir? Were the materials not melted enough? I’ll crank up the heat before I head out sir just give me a moment and- “

“Hold a moment Mrs. Fire, I did not call you over here to critique your work this time.” Bright gave an internal sneer at that last remark. “I need you to find someone for me. My aid, Duster, has gone missing and we are not receiving any readings that he is even in the building anymore. He is carrying a message that must be delivered immediately. I know many of you working ponies have figured out ways to hide yourselves from our scans using your magic so you can laze about without notice. Since you are a fellow magic user and are currently on a break I am entrusting you with this task. If you find him cancel his spell and report his location to us, we’ll take it from there. You’ll be able to recognize him easily enough, his coat is all brown with an unkempt mane, and he will be wearing an outfit similar to mine as with all other aids’ outfits. Once you have located him feel free to return with your husband to your rooms and… take the second shift off.” Bright caught an anxious twitch in his eye as he offered up her reward. Whatever was in that message must indeed be urgent for him to offer such a great reward for its continued deliverance, though why he didn’t just use the pict screens she wasn’t sure nor did she feel like asking any questions about it; lest he change his mind.

“Sure thing Mr. Steel, I’ll get right on it.” With a shared nod Bright rushed off to find the missing courier.

Hammer had just finished the last of his meal as the alarms rang out again signaling for everyone to return to their stations. Bright had not shown up at all which concerned him as she had never missed their mid-day meeting, as it was the one time during work they could actually converse with one another. As Hammer returned to his area he noticed that Bright was not at her station either. A sense of dread began to set in as there were usually only two reasons someone would fail to be at their area. Option one was punishment was being dealt for a slip up, the second option made Hammer’s blood run cold, death. It was not unheard of for a smelter to loose footing and fall into a pot of the molten metal and Bright had lost a few good friends that way. The second alarm began to sound snapping Hammer out of his thoughts as the production line began to move once more. He could only hope she was in Steel’s office for something as Hammer set to the task of forming the metal for another screen.

Bright had finally reached the loading docks at the bottom of the facility and had begun her search again after failing in the storage rooms. This was the only way to access the outside of the factory and as such was another place she had heard of ponies hiding in an attempt to skip work, a foolish mistake if caught. Bright began to search the spaces between the crates of ore and in the other dark corners of the loading docks. As she neared one of the last docking areas she noticed a glimpse of a light behind a stack of containers. Assuming this was the bronze shoulder pad of the aid’s uniform she hurried over to the shadowed area readying her portable communicator to alert Steel. The next few moments were all a blur as Bright Fire stepped around the corner and into the shadows. Charging up her horn to cast some light on the area she soon wished she hadn’t. The light had only begun to shine as something sprung out from its hiding place and quickly moved towards her. The gentle illumination from her horn gave off just enough light to show the shadowed blue-masked face of someone as they sprang upon her, a green glow coming from where their eyes should be. Her attacker had dragged Bright into the shadows and silenced her before she had a chance to blink, a sharp pain shooting into her neck from something held in her attacker’s hand. As the world became distant and Bright was overcome with a sense of exhaustion, her eyes fluttering shut, she could faintly see the crumpled form of Duster propped up against the wall alongside another figure with the same mask and glowing eyes. Before giving into her desire for sleep Bright could make out her attacker communicating with someone through their helmet.

“Contact again, infiltration squad returning to base. Inform the Commissar…”

Author's Note

To those of you who have stuck around these past 2 years, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Ok so the reason this is so delayed was because college hit a lot harder than I had ever anticipated and I just lost the drive to write anymore. This past summer though has re-lit my passion for this story and I am already mostly done with chapter 3! Thank you to all the new readers as well, I hope you are enjoying my first fan fiction and will stay with this crazy adventure I have planned...

New edit I apologize deeply for the lack of content, this past fall I was diagnosed with cancer and have been battling it since. I hope to be feeling well enough soon to push out some more of the story for you all! My surgery went well and the tumor is gone but chemo will still put my behind my work, thank you all again for sticking with me and enjoying the story.