Colony
By Prancingfox
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“Once upon a time, in the magical void of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the worlds. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to light the systems with suns; the younger brought out the moons to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for the kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies.”
“But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful cycle, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moons to make way for the suns. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.”
“She vowed that she would shroud the sector in eternal darkness. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently into the darkness of the void.”
“The elder sister took on responsibility for both the suns and the moons, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.”
A young lavender unicorn tapped her hoof against her muzzle, deep in thought as she finished reading through the ancient history datapad she found buried under terabytes of information in the Old Equestrian History Archive.
“Hmm… Elements of Harmony. I know I heard of those before, but where?”
--- 1 ---
Somewhere in the far reaches of the sector…
Over a cold, desolate planet depraved of harmony…
Equestria, the realm of stars and planets ruled by the care and love of the ponies who inhabited that region of space. War and violence were a rarely heard issue in these worlds. Peace had reigned for so long in the sector that the only place you could find effective weapons of lethality was in a museum. Despite the differences in each of the pony races, mutual cooperation and benefits that worked so well for the past millenniums not only made their differences vanish and cultures intertwined as one, but all acts and evidence of xenophobia were forgotten and lost.
From the world that never sleeps, the city-planet of Manehatten was a model example of how far pony ingenuity had come since the dark days of generation ships and centuries worth of wait for terraforming. In the empty void, swirling amongst the stars, was the awe inspiring home of the pegasus nebula cloud city of Cloudsdale, a testament of pony conquest over nature and all of her elements. Backwater moon colonies like Ponyville showed the tenacity of equinity, overcoming all odds to survive in the face of danger due to the fact that it orbited the most dangerous planet known in all the sector, Everfree.
Then there was the crown jewel of it all, the heart and pride of all of Equestria, the capital of the gleaming kingdom, Canterlot. Placed in the very center of Equestrian territorial space, Canterlot was the primary hub of all trade in wealth, knowledge, and talent. Nobles oversaw the necessities of the kingdom while hardworking ponies provided the best service one could find in any sort of business planet side in the many streets and markets found across the magnificent city. But the true beauty of Canterlot was the Castle, home of the regal princesses who governed, protected, and nourished the interstellar nation in harmony. Princess Celestia, ruler of the suns and light, and Princess Luna, guardian of the dark void of space. Together, under their reign and leadership, Equestria prospered like no other, the one and only true power in all the sector in which others looked on towards and adored.
Yet all that had changed with the wedding of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Fleet Admiral Shining Armor, when the Changelings invaded, striking the very heart of Equestria itself.
That was why, for the first time in over a thousand years, that the pony fleets were recalled to their shipyards for retrofitting. For the first time, militias were being mobilized. For the first time, armies were being prepared and equipped for battle. For the first time, Equestria was going to war.
Punda Milia, home world of the zebras. Once, it was a beautiful world filled with tall savannah grass, golden plains that stretched across continents, and glistening blue lakes and rivers that snaked across the surface of the planet. Now the soil was dark and gray, the grasslands withering and dying, and the rivers drying up. Due to an ancient treaty between ponies and zebras long, long ago. Equestria was quick to render aid to their old allies when they heard reports of Punda Milia becoming infested with Changelings. And here they were now.
Commander Bright Fall stood on the hard pink purple tuft of nebula cloud that formed the hull, floors, bulk and walls of the starship as he rummaged through his locker. The brown gray unicorn wasted no time donning his saddle armor and helmet, only stopping briefly to check if the network connection was working proper with his visor visuals. He paused again as he looked at his locker door where he gently pressed a hoof against a picture of happy mare and foal, whispered a promise under his breath, before slamming the locker shut as he made his way over the armory.
All around him ponies were mounting up, preparing for the upcoming battle. There had been a disastrous mix-up with orders due to the influx of new and inexperienced recruits messing up the paper work. When the paper pushers heard that the fleet was heading out towards zebra territory, they commissioned the soldiers with savannah appropriate camouflage. Nopony took into account how much the color of the terrain changed in Changeling infested territory, as the previously light pigmentation of the planet was now nothing but black soot and ashes. This made their bright yellow camo stand out like a star in the night sky once their hooves touched down on the ground. Around Bright Fall, he could hear the dismissive grunts of ponies as they equipped themselves with their armor. While the ship’s tailors may have done what they could to darken the fabric, it wasn’t enough to get the shine off the metal components that made up for their protection.
Loading up at the armory, Bright Fall grabbed the various weapons that were given to him before packing them away in his saddle armor. Once all the canisters, clips, spell bombs and smokes were snuggled away in his pack, he hoofed over to the loading compartment where troops, transports, heavy armaments and loaders were waiting for orders. Upon his entrance, a squadron of unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies came to attention and saluted.
“Commander, sir!” A pegasus mare donned in her full orbital entry flight suit addressed him. Only her oxygen mask and goggles were unequipped, dangling from the side of her helmet as she reached forward to shake his hoof. “Lieutenant Thunder Cry, I’m leading my misfits under your command. We’ll be your air support for this operation.”
Bright Fall nodded and shook her hoof with a firm grasp. “Glad we can have you with us, lieutenant.”
Next up was a earth pony who stepped forward to shack his hoof. “Sergeant Rocky, sir. We’ll hold them critters down while you kick em.” The two stallions exchanged a chuckle before Bright Fall backed up a little to address his entire unit.
“Alright, ponies! Listen up! I’m sure Lily has briefed you all on the operation, so I’ll make this quick. Punda Milia is under Changeling occupation, and we’re here to save the Great Savannah! I’m sending you the data package now.” There was a brief pause as earth ponies lifted up their hooves to read the datapad attached to their armor, pegasi equipped their goggles to read the holo vision print running across their glasses, and unicorns read off their instructions from their visor visuals.
“The 226th will be touching down on Hoofbasa. Hoofbasa is divided onto two sections, old and new with the only access to either side being the bridge across the river that separates them. Reports show that the Changelings have heavily fortified and infested New Hoofbasa, and have possibly set up a lair underneath the city at the base of the space elevator.”
There were a few murmurs and whispered that started through the group but a quick stare from both the lieutenant and sergeant silenced their moans. Bright Fall continued.
“We’ll be landing in Old Hoofbasa. We’ll make shop at these coordinates and hold onto the bridge until the heavies start running in. After the 8th Arcane Engineers seal the bridge, we’re to escort the 110th Heavy Beasts into the heart of New Hoofbasa before we gut our way through the first hive hole we come across. We won’t stop till we find the Queen and keep her busy until support arrives to take her down. Any questions?” He took a quick glance around. One earth pony in the back raised her hoof. “What is it, private?”
“Well, sir… How exactly are we suppose to hold our own against a Changeling Queen?”
“Just treat her like any other Changeling, but remember, we’re just going to try to keep her busy, no kill her or subdue her. We have specialists for that.”
The mare didn’t seem very reassured, so Bright Fall attempted to bolster their confidence. “We are the OET! Orbital Entry Troopers! We do what other ponies cannot, we accomplish what no other species dare! We are the toughest, meanest, sons and daughters Equestria has to offer the universe! That stuff you read about the Canterlot incursion? Royal Guards are pushovers. WE, are the top of the cream, the embodiment of pain, the world of hurt that smacks down those that try to boot us! Are we mean, troopers?”
There was a good unison from the earth ponies as they stomped the nebula steel under their hooves. “WE ARE MEAN!”
“Are we not the sound of thunder?”
The pegasi snapped to attention and raised their wings sharply. “WE ARE THE THUNDER!”
“Are we not the spirit of justice?”
The unicorns lit up their horns and raised their heads as they roared. “NO! WE ARE VENGEANCE!”
“What are we?”
“MEAN!”
“What are we?”
“THUNDER!”
“What are we?”
“VENGEANCE!”
“Buck right you are. Now move it out, double time!”
There was a loud hooray before the pony races parted ways towards their separate stations while Bright Fall and the other unicorns around him headed towards a different section of the loading bay. After stepping through a hatchway, the door slammed shut behind them and sealed while red alarms started to blare overhead. The room they were in was filled with horizontal angled tubes, loaded with unicorns standing at the ready. Over on one side of the room was a window wall where pegasi operators were busy dialing in commands and inputting orders for launch.
Bright Fall quickly loaded himself up into a tube and watched as the glass door closed behind him. The noise of the alarm and the shouts and hoof steps echoing off the cloud metal were suddenly silenced before gradually increasing into muffles, the level of noise then staying where it was. A pegasus operator spoke over the speakers in Bright Fall’s tube. “Commander Bright Fall, 226th Orbital Entry Troopers. One moment sir, setting exit trajectory to 4Q… FJ… 15. Alright. Please place your hooves on the yellow… good, now just hold still.”
A machine descended from the ceiling, opening the top of the tube before a mechanical arm dropped down to attach something onto his back. Bright Fall felt heavier as a massive metal backpack was mounted onto the top of his saddle before being strapped into his armor. He grunted in discomfort but said nothing as the machine retracted and the glass tube closed up again. Once everything was done, there was nothing to do now but wait.
This was the part he hated most while in training. Watching from his horizontal tube, trying not to make eye contact with the other unicorns in their pods, fearing it might display nervousness or fear of what would happen next. Outside, the muffled noise of the blaring alarm was the only sound to keep him company apart from his apparently hard breathing.
No, quit the hyperventilation. It was bad for your body and bad for your mind while you were in the tube. Instead, he let his mind wander off to more pleasant times, times before the letter that showed up in his inbox one morning that changed his life forever.
He thought of his visit to Canterlot City, the magnificent city-continent that glittered like a gem from orbital view. He thought of his sister, working a glamorous life in the nebula cloud city of Los Pegasus, where everyday she met rich and famous ponies drinking away their worries at her bar. He thought his brother, spending each night and day at the office somewhere in Manehatten, trying to provide for his hospitalized wife and son. Poor Jr. He knew that his sister-in-law would be alright, broken bones were easy to fix with the modern medicine they had but he knew that his brother never could quite handle Jr. on his own.
His mind then turned towards Fillydelphia, a haven garden world that shared the same star system as Canterlot. The long lake beaches, the cultivated and park placed trees, the busy streets near the starport, the quiet hills away from the main city cluster. The miraculous shuttle crash in which nopony was injured, which was how he first met his future wife…
The red alarm lights outside suddenly switched from crimson to green while a buzzer sounded off inside his tube. “Attention, the order just came in, and we are ready for launch.” There was a pause over the speaker before the operator returned. “Celestia be with you.”
The tube lurched as the pink purple nebula floor opened up to reveal an empty cargo space underneath. The tubes were lowered by cranes until they were caught by mechanical pincers underneath. The cranes retreated and the floorboard closed overhead, leaving the unicorns in utter darkness with nothing but a faint, pink glow of the nebula metal material to keep them company until another red alarm light started to blare in the room.
“Depressurizing…”
The soft spoken and comforting voice of a Lily AI spoke into his com as the antigravity spell matrix kicked in, lifting the unicorns in their tubes as they started to float about.
“Please ready yourselves in the proper exit positioning procedures.”
Bright Fall floated back down onto the tube floor where he then lowered his entire body until he was laying on his stomach with his head tucked between his hooves. Outside, the pincers lifted up the tubes and carried them to various slots in the floor, stuffing them in like plugs to a hole. Once the antigravity was on, there really was no up or down on a nebula cloud, yet Bright Fall was very well aware that as of right now, he was facing the bottom hull of the ship.
“Green tubes across all boards. Sound off, please.”
Bright Fall took this time to report in with the rest of the unicorns in his unit as he activated the coms in his helmet.
“Commander Bright Fall, 226th. Horn-1, standing by.”
Over the speakers in his helmet, voices started to respond.
“Lieutenant Orange Bananas. Horn-2, standing by.”
“Sergeant Numb Caps. Horn-3, standing by.”
“Sergeant Stone Weight. Horn-4, standing by.”
“Corporal Twinkle. Horn-5, standing by.”
“Corporal Logic Totes. Horn-6…” There was a pause. “Tube is red, repeat, red tube! Faulty! Somepony fix this thing!”
Bright Fall muttered under his breath as the other unicorns carried on.
“Private Major Note. Horn-7, standing by.”
He continued to listen until that last unicorn, Horn-12, sounded off before speaking up again. “Alright. Fillies and gentlecolts, strap yourselves in, double check your readings and get ready for the flight of your life.”
“This is Horn-6, tube is green, standing by.”
“Attention,” The Lily AI returned to adress them. “Exit hatchway vaporizing in thirty seconds.”
This was it, life and death, the moment of truth. He could feel his heart beating so rapidly that he could imagine that the other ponies could hear it over coms. Breathe slowly… breathe slowly. From the newest of newbs to the hardest of veterans, every unicorn felt fear down in the very core of their heart, shacking down to their bones, ice tingling through their fur. The thought that once the cloud steel vaporized and there was nothing to separate the body from the cold empty of space, that death, the end of life and all her gifts, would be immediate and without warning, could often bring a lump to those with so much to lose back home. Disciplined and trained ponies felt nothing but peace, uncomfortable peace as it may be, as they accepted that once they went in that tube, they may as well be dead already.
“Twenty.”
The tube around him began to glow a golden yellow as the exosphere shield protection bubble encased in his newly equipped backpack started to kick into gear. His saddle started to heat up and he was aware of how hot the tube was becoming as the electrical and magical energies roared to life, creating a oval bubble around his form. Still laying on his stomach, Bright Fall jokingly thought to himself that he must look like a heavily armored fetus inside a transparent egg.
“Fifteen.”
Knowing that were wasn’t much time left, he turned his thoughts back to home, thinking back to the quite green hills, the bustling markets, the busy starport, the rolling water on the beaches.
“Ten.”
How the sun looked as it rose over the horizon.
"Nine."
The three moons that orbited the planet.
“Eight.”
The friendly ponies with bright smiles on their faces.
“Seven.”
The laughing foals as they ran through the plazas and streets.
“Six.”
The swirl of falling stars in the night sky.
“Five.”
The old transport skyships that sailed with the winds.
“Four.”
The ceramic brick villa house that blended with the gardens and trees.
“Three.”
The happy mare and filly waiting for him at the door.
“Two.”
The look on her face as she saw the letter in his hoof.
“One.”
The smell of her mane on the last night they spent together.
“Launch.”
All in a instant, the pink purple nebula steel in front of him dissipated, he was fired from his tube, and he was flying through space like a bullet out of a gun.
Silence.
There was only silence as he flew through the cold void. Headfirst like a dive-bombing eagle, he could see the spherical globe of Punda Milia, its poles white with a tint of ice while the rest was surrounded with either a brown dirt or yellow grass color. That was only for the poles. Everything from there to the equator was gray and black ashes, dried up canals and dwindling lakes. Dark clouds gathered and were sweeping the planet, but Bright Fall’s visor visuals showed that his point of entry was clear. Old Hoofbasa, recognizable due to the space elevator just across the river. Only three hundred kilometers away.
Looking around him by only moving his eyes, he could see at least a thousand unicorns, not just from his unit, diving through space like he was, zipping away from the nebula cloud fleet hanging in high orbit. There was no noise as they fell, just silence, nothing but the sound of silence and his own breathing in the safety of the exosphere shield protection bubble that surrounded him.
In his visor visual, the words, Thermosphere, and a rapidly decelerating number countdown showed where he was in the atmosphere and how far away he was from the target. Switching over to channel coms with his unit, he began to relay instructions.
“226th, once we cross two hundred kilometers, start charging up a shield spell.” Bright Fall was aware of how odd it sounded to hear only his voice and absolutely nothing else in the vacuum of space. “When we hit seventy five, discharge your magic directly behind you. We’ll create a bubble over the city. It’ll only last for a few minutes, but it should buy the transports enough time to get in.”
He started to look around again, noticing that the faint egg shaped glow that surrounded each unicorn was becoming more and more visible, the golden rays getting brighter as they neared the planet. Very soon his own exo shield started to glow in intensity as well. His visor visual read nearly two hundred kilometers.
“Shields!”
As he channeled magic into his horn, the unicorns in his unit did the same, as well as every other unicorn in the orbital entry drop as they received similar orders from their commanders. Casting a spell was as simple as exerting strength and stamina into arcane energy. Once you conjured up what you wanted to do, the spell would be cast shortly after the horn warmed up. However, if one wanted to increase the intensity of the same spell, then the horn would need to charge much longer, slowly yet surely drawing up the user’s strength. That was what they were all doing right now, charging up for a massive spell.
They approached the planet far faster then he imagined, already Bright Fall was reading that they were at a hundred kilometers from their target. The space elevator was coming into view more clearly now. Savannah worlds never had the luxury of magic at their disposal, so instead they actually had to build their spacefaring industries with hard materials and inventiveness.
Coming close to seventy kilometers, Bright Fall shouted into his transceiver. “Fire! Fire the spell now!” After that he released the magical holdup in his horn as a gust of strength left him with the spell. The unicorns around him did exactly the same. Wanting to catch a glimpse of the sight, Bright Fall opened up his rear view helmet camera and watched on his visor visual as a massive multicolor explosion illuminated the space behind them as a whirlpool of magic contorted and stretched before flashing into a massive aurora, the sparkly lights growing larger and larger as the aurora field began to expand into a massive dome.
“Reentering atmosphere.”
Bright Fall barely registered the warning from Lily before his golden egg shield started to flare and trail like a falling star. Slowly, very slowly, noise started to return to his ears as they descended closer and closer through the mesosphere. He braced himself for the gut wrenching feeling that would come next as the faint whistling wind sound gradually began to grow into an unbearable roar of continuous thunder screaming into his brain as he became fully enclosed in a shiny oval orb, the exo shield growing hotter on his saddle as it worked hard to prevent him from burning up.
“This is Horn-6, my entry’s a little shaky.”
Bright Fall frowned. He didn’t like the sound of that, not one bit. Switching over his visor visual to show his unit’s vitals, he saw that everypony’s heartbeats were heavily accelerated. That didn’t surprise him, he felt as if his own heart was caught in his throat. Corporal Logic Totes’, however, was running at galloping speeds.
“Its… Its… getting hot in here, commander!” The unicorn’s voice was beginning to stutter, his voice was full of dread and fear.
“Start charging up for the landfall spell, that should ease up your descent!”
“I… I can’t sir… Its… I’m burning up! I’MBURNING…”
Static, then a flat line on his visor visuals. Nopony else in his unit spoke up, but they all knew. There was nothing to be said.
“Landfall imminent, brace for impact.”
Brushing aside thoughts of death, he quickly reviewed the map layout of the city below him. There it was on his helmet screen, the two Hoofbasa cities. He couldn’t see a single thing outside the golden fire that surrounded his shieldings, so he was relying on satellite streaming coming from the nebula cruiser that he launched from. His objective was in a place called Gazelle Hotel, situated near the riverfront of Old Hoofbasa. Much to his surprise, the stream now showed a Changeling gun battery sitting right on top of the hotel. The contraption of greenish goo held together by its black carapace shell mixed in with the ruins and debris it stood upon was already firing mucus missiles at the aurora shield that the orbital entry unicorns left behind.
“Charge up your landfall spells everypony, and follow me in!”
A sudden shift in movement and Bright Fall’s exo shield made a changed of course to make direct hard contact with the gun battery. His horn lit up in a sapphire blue aura as he began to charge another spell. Small, green explosions of smaller batteries lit up around him, rattling and shacking him up a bit. They were coming in too hard and too fast for the hostiles to take accurate aim though, the deadly speed at which they were coming in was their saving grace.
“Sir,” Sergeant Numb Caps spoke up over his coms. “Are we going to crash through the gun battery?”
For the first time that day, Commander Bright Fall grinned as his golden shielding exploded into a blinding blue comet, matching the color of his magic, as it descended at an alarming speed for the last few kilometers over the city before crashing headfirst, with the strength of a buck of an angry goddess, into the black carapace covering of the battery.
Ten comets of various magical colors followed him in right after, punching holes through the gun until it resembled nothing but Swiss cheese. All over the city, hundreds of similar multicolored falling stars crashed straight in the midst of enemy positions, creating chaos and confusion amongst the enemy ranks and batteries.
The battle had just begun.
