Chapters Prologue part 2: The Warning
"Sir, initiating HS-HM jump now," a young voice called through Admiral Bennet's earpiece.
"Great, tell everyone to get to their stations," he responded to the pilot, Lieutenant Bridger.
"Yes sir," the chipper voice responded.
The Admiral then began to follow his own order, heading up the short flight of stairs to the command bridge, letting those he passed know of the upcoming jump. It was without a doubt that he was worried about the upcoming events, being the Admiral of the first IMC armada to make a jump of this magnitude. The plan was to jump back over 1000 years, and all the way to the Earth, his home world, all the way from Outpost 468 on the outer edges of the Frontier. The journey would cover an impressive distance of 2.5 million lightyears, however it would only take them a surprisingly short 3 seconds.
As the Admiral reached his station, he stood and paced towards the huge dynamic display towards the front of the bridge. The screen itself acted like a window, with high resolution cameras on the outside of the bridge relaying an image through the armour plated shell to the inside, giving it an extremely real appearance. It was as he reached this position that the Admiral felt the effects of the HS-HM drive activating.
He reeled back for a moment and closed his eyes, experiencing what can only be described as the most intense headache to ever have existed. In the time it took his mind to register the effects, they were already fading, much to his relief. What gave him an even bigger surprise however, was the beautiful sight before him: Earth.
He had heard tales as a child of a world of unrivalled beauty, world that could only be described as fiction where he came from, in a time of destruction and devastation. The sight before him made all his dreams jump into the realm of reality.
Through his earpiece he could hear various cheers of excitement and congratulations for the scientific and engineering accomplishment they had partaken in, then after a couple of minutes silence reigned. It was at this point that the Admiral realised that his crew was waiting for him to make a speech.
He stepped up to the bridge controls and pressed the speaker button before announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen of the IMC Armada Juliet, we have done it. Before us is a world destined to be ravaged by the fires of war, and it is our task to ensure this does not happen. If any of the people of this time question as to how or why you are here, let them know we mean no harm. In 10 minutes I want a team of low-tech soldiers aboard a dropship in the hanger of the IMC Industrious, and we will then head to the surface and make contact"
Once he had finished his announcement, he could hear chattering amongst the bridge staff, before he began his journey to the hangar bays. Along the way he made sure to congratulate as many of the staff involved as possible, and in turn he received congratulations himself.
4 minutes and an otherwise uneventful walk later, he found himself in the hangar bay of the IMC Industious, the flagship of the Juliet Armada. The hangar was a single huge, 5 story tall room, that extended forwards 500 meres, and had a width of approximately 300 metres. It was the largest ship the IMC had ever constructed, and thus required an appropriately sized hangar. Along the walls to the left and right were row upon row of dropships and Hornet fighters.
After pausing momentarily to take in the scale of the familiar hangar, the Admiral approached a lone transport waiting in the centre of the hangar bay, surrounded by Spectres and lightly armoured Spec Ops troops. As he got nearer, a green Spectre walked along with him, briefing him about the equipment of the soldiers, and what sort of "welcome" to expect once they reach the surface.
"We are expecting to come into contact with the Terrans as soon as we breach the atmosphere, they are yet to become familiar with fast space travel, and such a sudden arrival of force may cause a global response," the robotic voice spoke.
"Noted, and can you at least stop acting like the people of Earth are an alien race, just because Earth has been destroyed for over 30 years in our timeline" he responded bitterly.
"Affirmative. Your transport and squad are ready. Your location of touchdown will be on the premises of the President of the United States of America. Expect to be detained shortly after arrival" the emotionless voice stated. "It would be wise to step out of the craft with your hands raised, and to leave your weapons untouched. Once detained, show them the footage and information on one of your Personal Projection Devices. It will become clear to them what must be done"
"Thanks for the heads up, but I wasn't exactly planning on landing 'guns blazing'. If we do not return within three Earth days, instruct the Armada to return home. Is that understood?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Yes sir. Lift-off will be in 1 minute"
Once the Admiral was inside the craft, an orange Spectre slid the door closed behind him. He took a seat next to the squad leader, and relayed the information from the green Spectre to him.
"Sounds like we sure were paranoid 1500 years ago" He spoke with a gruff voice that told of years in combat.
"Unfortunately so" He wanted to continue his conversation with the squad leader, but he was interrupted as the pilot Spectre, Bravo One Two (inventively nicknamed BOT), turned around and said in a slightly chipper tone "Taking off in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1". He rather aggressively lifted the dropship off the deck, and proceeded to fly out the pressure shield at the far end of the hangar, into the empty realm of space.
Admiral Bennet heard the unmistakable whine of the light drive powering up, before seemingly teleporting through the Earth's atmosphere and reappearing above a large city. He heard one of the five soldiers mutter something about the "dark ages", before his squadmate elbowed him in the side, silencing him. If he had to say so, he rather envied the people of this time, living in relative peace, and not having to worry about resource shortages and constant Militia attacks.
His train of thought was suddenly interrupted as he heard the unmistakable roar of a jet engine very close by, and as he looked out of the other door he saw an F-22 fighter jet alongside them. He made sure that all those involved in this mission, including himself, knew as much as they could about the time period they were jumping into, including the technologies around at the time. As he thought this, he saw the pilot of the jet pointing towards the ground, and heard BOT speaking to him over the radio.
"Admiral, the pilot wishes to speak with you" BOT whined from the front.
"Alright, patch him through"
"Sir, this is restricted airspace, and your craft is unrecognised. Land immediately or we will open fire" he heard the pilot say through his earpiece.
"We can assure you that we mean no harm, and we wish to speak with your President. The matter is of extreme importance, and relates to the Armada currently in orbit of Earth"
There was a long pause before the pilot spoke again, "I have been adivsed to allow you to land outside the gates to the White House. A road block has been set up to allow this. Once you have landed you are to step out of your craft with your hands up, and any weapons are to be placed on the ground. Am I understood?" he sounded unsure himself, but the Admiral knew best the dangers of letting in unregistered craft to your airspace. Outposts had been completely lost in the past due to circumstances such as this.
"We understand, landing now" BOT spoke up again.
The dropship began to slow, as the doors slid open and revealed a huge traffic pileup, caused by the massive amount of military hardware blocking the roads. Once the dropship was on the ground, the Admiral followed after two soldiers and stepped out of the craft, followed by the other three men. As the craft powered down, they placed their sidearms on the ground and raised their hands.
As some American soldiers approached them with their weapons raised, BOT stepped down and proclaimed, "What'd I miss?". The sudden appearance of a robot seemed to startle the soldiers slightly, but they continued forward nonetheless. Once they reached the 6 men and the Spectre, they proceeded to handcuff them, and power down BOT with the instruction of the Admiral.
The next 10 minutes went by in a blur for the Admiral, he remembered stepping into an APC, along with the other men, and being driven up to the White House. After this they were taken to a large board room, where the Joint Chiefs of Staff sat, with five or six heavily armed soldiers stood at the end of the room.
Once BOT was brought in, he powered back up, and projected a display onto the large array of screens at the nearest end of the room. From here BOT continued to explain the situation, as well as why they are here, and what needs to be done. The Chiefs of Staff were hesitant to believe that they were originally from Earth, and had been given approval by the president of the year 3475 , until BOT provided all the necessary documentation and video proof as to the actuality of the authority.
It was agreed that action had to be taken, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff opened up a video conference with the other NATO leaders. After a further 30 minutes of discussion, an alliance between NATO and the IMC was formed. The alliance was to be named the "Inter Spatial Earth Conglomerate".
Once the conference had finished, BOT informed the Admiral that they were now free to return to the Armada. They boarded the dropship, and jumped back into orbit before landing aboard the Industrious.
Shortly after stepping out of the craft, red warning lights began to flash and a loud siren briefly chirped. "Warning, Militia presence inbound. Warning, Militia presence inbound. Man stations and prepare for defensive manoeuvres" a female voice spoke out over the loud speakers. A constant clunking sound could be heard accompanying the klaxon, as Spectres dashed about to man positions.
The Admiral was shocked out of his daze by a soldier grazing past him, before the realisation struck him, "They've found us"
Author's Note
Hey guys! Longer chapter this time, I promise there will be ponies soon!
Prologue part 3: Into the Void
The klaxon continued to whine for a further few seconds, before abruptly stopping.
The green Spectre approached Admiral Bennet and stated, "Sir, we have picked up Militia movement on the outer edges of this solar system, and they appear to number at least five times the size of our Armada, totalling around 120 radar signatures. However, they appear to be moving away from us. What are your orders, sir?"
"That is some odd behaviour. They must have followed us here, yet they are heading away? Order the Armada to hold, we will wait them out" he responded in a croaky voice. 'I'm getting too old for this...' he thought to himself.
"Affirmative" the robot responded, before running off, presumably to the communications room.
The next week was spent awaiting the Militia's next move, whilst receiving reinforcements and loading up soldiers and equipment from Earth. It was during this period that 10 new ships warped in from 3475, making the Armada now number 35 ships.
NATO had supplied huge quantities of weapons, soldiers, tanks, aircraft, and even naval ships to the Armada, including an Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carrier, the latest carrier of the time, which had easily been dwarfed by the IMC Industrious, where it had been stored.
To begin with, the crews of the Armada had wondered as to why so much military hardware was being taken, especially the battleships, destroyers, and aircraft carriers, until it was revealed that the Militia were already powering up to make another jump, only this time, it would truly be the biggest jump to ever be attempted. They weren't just trying to jump through time and space, they were trying to jump into another dimension . This was, of course, theorised, mainly due to the white-hole level of energy being built up in their capital ship, which seemed to have been designed only for this purpose.
Admiral Dave Bennet of the IMC Industrious, was awoken from his sleep by a tapping at his door. After groggily rolling out of bed, he proceeded to drag himself to the door, and open it with a swipe of his hand. On the other side stood the ship's lead pilot, Lieutenant John Bridger, with a worried look on his face.
"Admiral, we have a situation developing", he spoke with what was quite clearly a worried tone. The Admiral put two and two together, and left his room to follow the pilot.
Upon reaching the bridge, he saw the "situation" that Bridger spoke of; a massive blue energy field had opened up in from of the Militia fleet, with a huge beam of energy directed at its centre from the Militia flagship. As the Admiral watched, he saw ships jump into it, one by one, until the only thing that remained was the flagship. It ceased firing it's beam, before proceeding to jump through the anomaly. Before his eyes, the Admiral saw the energy field begin to close, very slowly, as if dying off now that its source had been removed.
The Admiral took all of this in before saying in a hurried tone, "notify NATO that we need to mobilise, NOW!"
The pilot saluted quickly, then called over a Spectre, who took the order and transmitted it immediately. There was a pause of about 30 seconds, before the Spectre nodded confirmation to the Admiral. "Calling all ships of the ISEC Alpha Armada, the Militia have made a jump through some form of wormhole. We must pursue them, and destroy or capture the ship that allowed them to do this. We have no idea about the kind of potential that thing has, whether for good or bad. On my mark, all ships are to initiate a jump through the portal. Coordinates and timelines are being transmitted now," he paused until the display in front of him turned green, "Warp in 3, 2, 1, mark!"
He saw the other Armada ships jump first, being smaller than the Industrious, and leave a slight blue trail behind them, before feeling the headache kick in for a millisecond as they accelerated into the portal. As they travelled through the portal itself, time seemed to slow down substantially, suggesting the portal negated the effects of their HS-HM drives, but this thought was only momentary, as 10 seconds later they emerged on the other side, in what can only be described as a surreal environment.
The location they ended up in was a solar system, not dissimilar to Sol, but with only a singular planet. This planet looked identical to Earth, being roughly the same size, and having only one moon. But the strangest thing in this solar system was the lack of Militia. They were nowhere to be found, and didn't even show up on radar.
"Sir, we are scanned the planet for life, and there is a lot of it, however it isn't even remotely human" a technician called out from behind the Admiral.
"Right, jump us into orbit of the planet, and stand by for Titanfall" he responded, grim determination in his voice.
"Yes sir"
Author's Note
Hi guys, I know these chapters have been fairly short, but my overall plan is to make them longer once the real action starts, these are kind of to set the ideas for the story, and like I said, they are very predictable at the moment, not just because of the description, but also in general, I have a very predictable imagination. But meh.
Criticism appreciated, as well as suggestions, see you guys next time!
Chapter 1: Lights in the sky
Meetings were never Princess Celestia's strong point. When she was truly honest, she had the attention span of a teenager, and didn't care for formality when it really came to it. Sure, she enjoyed being treated like a god , but if she had to pay for it with paperwork and meetings , she would most definitely give up her role. However, there was a time and place for thinking such thoughts, and now was assuredly not one of those times. Her advisors had called a meeting to discuss the matter of a magical disturbance that had occurred far up in the sky a few hours ago, and no-one could explain what it was.
"I think Discord's at it again"
"He can't have created a disturbance such as this, it's impossible,"
"It's those damn griffins I tell you"
"It must be aliens,"
"ENOUGH!" Celestia boomed in the Royal Canterlot Voice that everypony had in their nature to fear. She smirked slightly at the fearful silence that befell after her outburst, but it quickly fell as she decided to get back to matters at hand. "Sitting here arguing with one another isn't going to get us any closer to solving this. I strongly suggest that we leave the arguing for later, and instead remain studying this phenomenon, until something comes of it. Return home everypony"
The nobles and scientists at the table began to rapidly disperse, some muttering to each other as they left. After they had all left, Shining Armour, Captain of the Guard, can running into the room, shouting "Princess, the anomaly has started creating strange glowing objects, we have no idea what they are,"
Surprised, Celestia briefly stopped to try and figure out what it could be, but instead snapped out of her daze and teleported up to her room in a flash, where she could get a good view of the night sky. Sure enough, there were glowing orbs that looked different from the sun, moon and stars, streaking across the sky, and abruptly coming to a halt almost in a diamond pattern. The orbs came to a halt near Canterlot, and stayed there without moving.
Suddenly, without warning, a flaming object descended from one of the orbs at speeds that Rainbow Dash would struggle to beat, before slamming into a field to the south of Canterlot. The object appeared to cause little disturbance, aside from its fiery entry. Celestia wanted to get a closer look, so she teleported to an adjacent field, before flying up 100ft and looking down upon the object. It appeared to be a tall hexagon shape, about two metres tall. As she watched, the sides slid open, and a shining being stepped out, with glowing yellow eyes, and a stubby snout. . The bipedal creature looked around for a second or two, before motioning with its front legs back into the hexagon, only for four more creatures to emerge. Celestia began to lose focus, such strange creatures had never been seen or mentioned before, and not to mention how evil they looked!
As Celestia snapped back to reality, she accidentally beat her wings a bit too much, causing a very audible fwooshing noise. The leading creature snapped its head towards Celestia and stared at her with cold, unfeeling eyes. Both the creature and Celestia remained in that position, unmoving, until the emotionless creature announce in a very loud, mechanical voice, "Scan complete, species unrecognised. Further research necessary". Celestia had to pick her jaw up off the floor, before seeing the being place the brown thing it was carrying in it's claws onto it's back, and then begin to slowly walk towards Celestia. She began to panic, logic not coming to her quickly, and seeing the creature leap into the air at least 60 feet, only to keep flying upwards. This left Celestia speechless, as the creature seemed to have no logical or magical way of flying. Despite this however, it came up to Celestia's level in the air and paused.
The creature resumed where it had previously left off, staring straight into Celestia's very soul. She almost wanted to teleport away, but curiosity got the better of her, "How can you speak Equestrian?" she enquired quietly to the beast. The being seemed shocked at her speech, and flew backwards a few feet before taking the brown stick from its back again and pointing it straight at Celestia. This caught Celestia by surprise, but she resolved to remain peaceful, and resume communications with the creature.
The beast only responded after a few seconds, clearly deciding that she wasn't a threat. It then proceeded to raise a claw to its head, and say in a slightly hushed, but still emotionless tone, "being is capable of communication with English language. Orders?". It paused, and Celestia wondered if it was speaking to her, but her train of thoughts was interrupted when the best said, "understood" before increasing in volume "suggestion: reach ground level and prepare for Titanfall". She was surprised to say the least, but complied and landed near the other four creatures, who completely ignored here and continued standing, scanning the area.
It was at this point that she realised she had no idea what she was waiting for, until she looked up and saw another flaming object soaring towards the field she first landed in. She could hear the object burning up as it approached, but what shocked her the most was the object itself. A huge beast descended from above and landed with a huge thud . This new creature looked very similar to the first five, but about four times the size . It also landed with one claw on the ground, and it was kneeling, producing some form of magical field around it.
It made a strange whirring sound, then picked itself up from the ground. In both it's claws it held a much larger version of the sticks the first five things had, and she was beginning to wonder about the purpose of them. All of a sudden, the creature's chest opened up, which made Celestia wince at first, but she relaxed a tiny amount when a smaller creature leaped out of the machine and landed in front of her. She noticed that this creature moved much more fluidly and naturally , but still possessed those strange, soulless eyes, that looked much like the changeling's.
The creature suddenly spoke out, in a low, metallic voice, "So, I hear you speak English?"
Celestia's eyes widened in surprise, this being the first time one of the creatures had directly addressed her, "I do not know of this English you speak of, but I do speak Equestrian ", she lowered her horn and put on an aggressive stance, in a hope to intimidate the creature. She dearly hoped that the larger creature was a machine of some sorts, and now that the driver was no longer in control, it didn't pose a threat. However, the creature in front of her look at its front leg, and pushed his right claw on it a couple of times, causing the monstrosity behind him to close and then stand up, before lumbering towards the smaller creature, whom she presumed was it's master. This shocked her, yet she was still determined that the beast must be a machine, yet how was this possible? She decided to enquire as such, "What business do you have here in the land of Equestria!?"
The small creature responded by placing a claw on its face, and lifting it's head off ! She began to panic, wondering how all these things were possible, but her panic was only temporary, as she saw that the 'head', was in fact a helmet. The exposed being still looked very strange to Celestia, but at least it was natural . It looked at her curiously, before speaking in a normal voice, rather than the one that she assumed was altered by it's helmet, "We have very important matters to discuss, and I am assuming you are wondering what we are?" it asked while motioning it's claw around at the other creatures around it, to which Celestia responded with a short nod. It pointed to itself and said "We are humans", it then motioned at the beast behind it "those are Titans, we control them, but if we don't want to directly, they can control themselves", it then proceeded to point at the other five beings, who perked up when it pointed at them "they are Spectres, they are machines, but they control themselves with an Artificial Intelligence. They do what we tell them to do without fail". The creature stood tall at about the same height as Celestia, and had a content look upon it's face before asking, "and what are you?"
Celestia had to shake herself out of her daze, before responding, "I am Princess Celestia, I am an Alicorn from the species of ponies".
It nodded in response, before asking, "I'm going to guess you are the leader here, being a Princess and all."
"I rule in joint with my sister, Princess Luna" Celestia responded. She wasn't sure of how much to tell this human , but it seemed friendly.
It nodded again before saying, "We will be setting up camp here for the night, if that is acceptable, and then my leaders would like to meet with you tomorrow"
Celestia wondered as to why this creature was being so peaceful, when it outnumbered her so much with it's minions , (who she presumed were quite strong), and it could easily have killed her already. "That is agreeable. We shall meet here tomorrow at midday. Can you make sure not to bring any of these other machines with you though, they are imposing and I am unaware of their power"
The creature thought for a moment, before replying with a simple, "yep".
Celestia teleported back to her castle with the next day in mind, and filled in her sister over what she saw, before heading to bed. 'Tomorrow will be a long day'.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading guys, this chapter has been much longer (apart from the part 2 prologue, but noone has to know about that so ssshhh). Yes, I know my writing is pretty crap, but suggestions would be nice! Don't expect to see updates too regularly to begin with, (exams and all that jazz), but after Christmas expect some more frequent updates! Thanks, see you next time!
The next morning, Princess Celestia awoke to a roar that would rival Tirek himself.
She ran over to her balcony and threw open the doors, and the (imagine they are white and blue instead of orange) sight before her both amazed and frightened her. Huge monsters were breaking through the clouds, with thousands of smaller creatures following them. The roar was heard again as another one of the smaller creatures flew over her head, barely missing the spire of her tower. She tried to grab the thing with her magic, but it somehow went unaffected.
She looked down upon Canterlot, and saw what appeared to be the entire population standing in the streets, gazing up in fear. She could see pegasi guards in the sky, trying to get the creatures to land, but failing. A guard narrowly avoided being hit by one of the flaming meteorites, which landed near the one from last night.
Quickly realising that something must be done about this, Celestia teleported to the throne room, to be greeted by hundreds of worried ponies seeking her council. She walked up to her throne slowly, to give the appearance that she was calm. Upon reaching the throne, the ponies went silent and bowed to her. "Rise my loyal subjects. I can understand that you are all very worried at the moment, but I assure you there is nothing to fea-" She was cut off by an explosion that shook the ground itself, and any unsecured items fell over and broke.
Once the shaking died down, Celestia opened her mouth to speak again, but was interrupted once again as a large pointed object smashed through the roof of the castle behind her, impacting the floor and coming to a rest. She quickly recognised it as one of the pods from yesterday, however this time the Spectres that came out were coloured orange, and had pointed muzzles instead of the flat muzzled ones from before. The leader looked at her silently its head quickly juddering about, with sparks flying from it's torso every few seconds.
She was considering whether or not to say anything, when it spoke up, "Everyone get on the ground and you will not be harmed". A few seconds went by, nopony in the room dared to move. "You have three seconds. Three. Two. One" She didn't previously see how these machines could harm them, but at this point she realised her underestimation came at a cost. The four Spectres took the sticks off of their backs and pointed them at Celestia. The end of the leader's stick exploded, and Celestia instantly felt a huge pain in her front right leg. She recoiled in pain, as guards rushed to put a shield up in front of her. Looking down at her leg, all she saw was a small hole, and a lot of blood.
She picked up the leading machine in her magic and boomed "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?". She was answered with silence, followed by the other three Spectres operation their weapons as well, only this time there was a constant rattle as their weapons went off.
What followed next surprised Celestia even more. A large stain-glass window caved inwards, and a creature she recognised as a human jumped through the window, a small black L shaped object in it's claw. It pointed this object at the four assailants, and eight very rapid explosions came from it. The four Spectres dropped to the floor, a mass of sparks, and clearly dead or knocked unconscious.
It ran over to Celestia and shouted over the explosions nearby, "We have to get to the meeting point! Some of our enemies are here, but we will get rid of them. Are these ponies safe here?" She looked to her guards, who nodded in reassurance, before she turned back to the human who saw their response and spoke up quickly, "we need you to come in our transport, we will get there much quicker and we can treat your wound".
She looked apprehensively at the human before following him to the window, "where is this transport of yours?". As she finished speaking, another large black metal beast flew in from the right and stopped directly in front of the window in an instant. The side slid open, and she saw two more humans, both without their helmets, and a very different Spectre . The human who was with her leaped in, and she cautiously flew into it. The second she was in, the side slid shut behind her. She could feel the machine lift upwards, before shooting forwards. She looked out of the window and saw they were flying very fast. She doubted she could even fly half as fast as this machine. What stopped her train of thoughts however, was the sight before her. A huge battle was taking place between the beasts in the sky. The huge machines (she had learned to assume as such) that she saw breaking through the clouds earlier were now engaged in combat with a single machine over Canterlot, and were clearly beating it. The lone ship didn't stand a chance against the hundreds that were high above, raining down fire and magical beams. She also saw many more of the ships she was in now deploying their troops in the streets of Canterlot, who went on to usher the ponies to safety, defeating any orange Spectres that came their way. She also noticed many Titans firing strange arrows up at the ship, which then exploded upon impact.
Suddenly, the battle stopped, and the ship began to move away. The human next to her spoke up, "They have surrendered, and will now leave Canterlot be". She saw some other airborne machines , also orange coloured, moved up to it, before flying inside. The large ship pointed diagonally up, before the rear end lit up, and it sped off into the sky, leaving an orange trail behind it, much alike to Rainbow Dash after performing a "Rainboom".
The flying machine soon landed on the grass, and once again the door slid open. She limped out, and before long humans without armour and with red crosses on their arms came over and led her to a tent with another large red cross on it . She laid down on one of the beds inside, with her right leg resting in front of her. One of the staff came over to her, and told her "this may sting a bit" before proceeding to dab at her wound with a wet cloth, causing it to sting.
It was at this moment that Celestia realised she could have used magic to heal the wound. However, she was glad that she didn't because the human then took out a pair of tweezers, and removed a small chunk of metal from her wound. She then used magic to close up the wound and get rid of the blood, leaving the human completely shocked at such a speedy recovery. It then spoke up, "wow, that was unnaturally fast healing. You guys magical or something?"
To which Celestia replied "Yes". The human went back to being shocked, as Celestia stood back up, "where is your leader?"
"He should be in the second tent on the right" the human then stepped out of the entrance to the tent, Celestia in tow, and walked on into the aforementioned tent.
Before her, she saw a wall of pictures. Moving pictures, that had depictions of humans in them, looking out of the picture and towards another human that was in front of each image. She was lead to a large conference table, with a single human sitting at the end. She presumed he was their leader, being the only one at the table. She took a seat opposite him, and he began to talk, "Greetings, Princess Celestia, I am Admiral Dave Bennet of the IMC Industrious. We are extremely sorry for the violence today, and intruding in the first place, but let me explain."
As he began explaining to the Princess about their predicament, he saw a large red blip on a map display behind Celestia. He recognised the area as the deployment zone of the ISEC First Navy. He heard communications officers behind him talking about 'air support' and 'relief', and began to get worried. Five minutes later, the red blip disappeared and became green, relieving him of his worries.
Thirty minutes earlier
The HMS Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the ISEC First Navy fell into formation (replace the front aircraft carrier with the Queen Elizabeth, and add about 50 more ships) , and began to head west, closer to land.
Once the fleet began moving, they picked something up on radar, which rapidly became visible to the naked eye. Amassed on the horizon were birds. Thousands of them. They were flying straight at the fleet, and as they neared, the Spectres on board performed scans and discovered them to be griffins, creatures of legend from Earth. Highly magnified images showed them to be armed each with a crossbow and sword, and sometimes multiple of each.
Spectres scrambled about the deck, preparing for the griffins. All aircraft were moved to below decks, and it was decided that the Spectres would deal with them, being able to take many more crossbow hits than humans, as well as dismemberment.
As they approached, the griffins noticed that the strange metal objects they saw were boats. Huge boats, and hundreds of them. They looked unarmed, but flew flags the griffins had never seen before. The group of leaders and their heavily armoured guards landed on the deck, and saw no signs of life. This boat was something entirely new to them, as it appeared to be powered by something other than wind, but it wasn't magic, because there was no detectable traces in the air, and combined with the fact that magic users would have detected their presence easily, they assumed it wasn't magical.
What they didn't see were the guns of the nearby thirty-odd battleships and cruisers that were now pointing at the other still-airborne griffins. So far, their plan to ambush the griffins was working. A lone MRVN walked out onto the deck, clearly scaring the griffins nearest to it, but it kept walking up to the leader. He stopped and began talking, "Hello, and welcome aboard the HMS Queen Elizabeth, how can I help you?"
The griffin leader quickly recovered from the sight of the robot, and replied "Where is the crew of this ship, creature, are you the only one?"
To which it replied, "The crew are currently waiting for you to either drop your weapons and surrender, or prepare to die", in a completely monotone voice.
Several griffins started outright laughing, while the leader and his guards watched in fear as a large metal machine turned towards them, as a pole sticking out of the front of it began to spin. He put on a face of determination as he responded, "we will not surrender without a fight".
"So be it"
The battleships all simultaneously opened fire, annihilating the griffins in the sky as they tried to flee, however the hundred-or-so griffins aboard the aircraft carrier were safe, due to the risk of damage from friendly guns. The large metal machine with the spinning pole made a huge continuous whirring sound as the griffins at the rear of the group were turned into a fine red mist, along with a few stray feathers. The surviving griffins made a mad run to get inside the ship, where at the entrance they were met by another metal beast, however this one was about fifteen feet tall. It stepped on a griffin, before punching another, making a sickening crunch as its fist went straight through the griffin onto the flight deck.
The remaining thirty griffins took flight, dodging and weaving in an attempt to escape unharmed, however all but five of them were torn out of the sky and killed. The survivors kept flying for about five minutes, until they returned to their flock of 100,000 griffins. "They are hostile, and have killed all but the five of us" spoke the leader of the reconnaissance group to the leader of the combat group.
"Good, now we have reason to kill them" spoke the higher ranking leader, with a cold blood-lust present in his voice. "Flock, attack!"
Back at the carrier, Spectres began preparing defences for the oncoming horde of griffins. A flight of five F-35s took off vertically, to try and deter the oncoming force. They sped off, opening up their weapon compartments, ready to let rip with their 30mm anti-aircraft cannons and AIM-9 Sidewinders. As soon as they were in firing range, they started tearing up the griffins, killing about 70 before being shot down themselves. What had happened was that the griffins, in their blind panic, had fired flaming arrows into the engines of the F-35s, essentially disabling them. As the pilots ejected, they activated their distress beacons for the helicopter pick-up later.
Once the horde of griffins reached the fleet, they began to circle ships, rendering cannons useless against them, as well as the C-RAM Phalanx systems, due to there being too many targets. The crews of every ship were left to hand-to-hand combat and handheld weapons to defend. They sent out a request for air support and waited.
The griffins suddenly stopped circling when the IMC Industrious and seventeen cruisers (the spaceship kind) jumped in.
Author's Note
Hi guys, thanks for reading! Sorry for taking so long to release just one chapter, but like I said I got other things to be doing right now. Thanks for your patience, hopefully there should be another chapter by the weekend. Constructive criticism is welcome, as well as suggestions! See you guys next time
Sidenote: I think this goes quite well with the griffins getting torn to shit
Prologue part 1: A step forwards
Galactic travel was seen as a great step forward in humanity's search for newer and better technology, opening up access to thousands of worlds outside of our own.
Some people didn't agree with this idea, instead seeing only greed; scouring the stars for resources, and domination. One such group was the Militia, rising out of the ashes of barren planets, made so by the exploitation of the IMC.
It was these two factions that left rich, beautiful and habitable worlds a wasteland, devoid of all life and cursed to never sustain such wonders again. With the galaxy in the grips of war, the Core Worlds, consisting of the Sol System and it's closest neighbors, devoted huge amounts of money and resources to finding a way to fix these problems. This struggle lasted for almost 4 generations, until the breakthrough was made. In the year 3475, scientists at Hammond Robotics, the very company often sited to be one of the primary causes of the war, developed a way of time manipulation through "High Speed - High Mass" intergalactic travel.
The methods in HS-HM travel were often debated, primarily because of the implications of such devices. They left a physical rip in the fabric of space, not dissimilar to that of a black hole.
It was using this technology that would change the concept of warfare forever, for it allowed traveling to separate realities, although such findings could never be analysed, for it was a one way journey through the rip.
Author's Note
Hey everyone, sorry this chapter was (extremely) short, but I was just hoping it would help set the scene a bit more. See you guys in the next chapter!
