Ascend

"Cover Me!!!", Skyler screamed into her helmet as she jumped their cover and ran towards the squad of humans.

They wore white-ish armor plating that covered their entire body and a single wide visor covered their faces. behind them was a Chimera-class battletank, its chunky structure gliding about two feet above the ground.

"I've got you Sky!", George said as the large stallion stood up from behind his cover and began to open fire with his minigun, the almost white magic-coated projectiles streaking towards the group of alien soldiers. Now, with the humans running for cover, Sky continued to gallop towards the tank. Just before she ran into it, the smaller pony fell on her side and slid the rest of the way beneath the behemoth of a war machine.

None of the humans noticed her quickly slap a magi-charge to the belly of the tank before darting out and away from the group.

Instead, they laughed as they watched the ponies ran, mockingly shooting at them while purposefully missing their target.

"Yeah! Run you motherfu-"

Then suddenly their tank burst open and erupted into flames, sending them into a disarray and flinging them in all directions. The next thing the bipeds saw was the form of the largest pony returning to gallop back at them, the multi-barreled gattling gun on its back beginning to rotate as its projectiles were magically teleported directly from the pony's saddlebags, and into the weapon itself.

It was also the last thing they saw.

Thwack!

"NOT SO TALKATIVE NOW ARE YA?!"

Thwack!

"HOW DOES IT FEEL NOW?!"

Thwack! Thwack!

"I SAID-", Skyler's "interrogation" was finally stopped by Fox, the red-orange unicorn mare had caught her hoof and was slowly shaking her head as she looked back at their captive.

The new prisoner was a human, specifically the one that yelled taunts at them during the ambush with the Chimera. His face was black and blue with bruises and his nose was bleeding, there was a tired, glazed over look in his eyes. "I think you should give it a rest", Fox said sternly,"If you kill it, we won't get any information whatsoever".

The human captive only groaned in response.

Skyler grumbled as she glared at the human before yanking her bloodied hoof back out of Fox's grasp, "Fine, I'll go take watch at the entrance", she said through her teeth before turning and stomping away, grabbing up her rifle on her way.

The ponies had temporarily set up camp in a nearby cave, its red sandstone walls giving them shelter from the harsh sandstorms of the partially habitable surface of Mars, as the humans called it. The human that they caught was actually a technician, he had just lifted the opening at the front of the tank and was the one yelling insults before bailing when he heard the soft ping of the charge being set by Skyler.

Fox watched Skyler leave, her emerald eyes squinted at the mare's backside in annoyance.

"Don't be too hard on her Fox", rumbled George off to the side, his hooves busy rubbing a stained rag up and down the many barrels of his minigun. "You know as well as I do that she was close to Titan before he... Passed", he paused for a moment before lifting his gaze to the mare in front of him, "Sky'll get better once we get rid of the human, don't worry", the large earthpony then returned to his weapon, scrubbing at it to rid the mechanisms of as much dust and grime as he could.

Fox sighed heavily before casting a glance at the cave entrance, looking at the shadowy silhouette of Skyler against the darkening night sky,"I hope your right G", she said, silently wondering if Titan's transmission, his last words, had reached their destination, and that this nightmare of a life would soon come to an end.

"So what should we do?", one said.

"Should we send a reply?", asked another

"How do we know its not a trap?", inquired a third

"HEY!", a single voice rang out over the others, causing a silence to drift over the group of ponies now gathered in the bridge of the Newmoon. Forge and Starlight stood on the raised platform that surrounded the central console, breathing heavily as he looked around at his crew-mates. "One. At. A. Time. Please! I don't know about you guys but, my post-stasis head is NOT happy with more than one conversation", He once again scanned the small crowd, making sure he had their attention before continuing,"You've probably already heard about the transmission that Starlight here came across while doing her shift here in the bridge. For the few of you who haven't however, here's the jist' of it. The transmission we found is a distress signal, apparently from a soldier of the Lunar Armada itself. The guy didn't say much, but it was made pretty clear that they were desperate to get out of there, seemingly by any means necessary", the unicorn stallion paused for a moment, letting a soft chattering to fill the room as the crew worked out their options. Soon, Forge cleared his throat letting the room fall silent again before continuing, "Our options are quite obvious. We could simply ignore it. Erase the message from the ship's memory and go back to the pods to forget it ever happened", he paused for a bit to let it sink in, "Or... We could go to help. We've managed to trace the signal to the planet Saram, which happens to look uninhabited according to the ships archives. This planet is actually not far from our current location as it is now in the nexe sector over in the Sol system", he looked around at the crew once more, staring deeply into the eyes of each and every member onboard, "However we must act quickly. We will be closest to the planet in only a few more hours, so if we decide to go and give them what help we can, we must start the journey soon..."