A United Land

"Do not touch anything unnecessarily. Beware of pretty girls in dance halls and parks who may be spies, as well as bicycles, revolvers, uniforms, arms, dead horses, and men lying on roads -- they are not there accidentally."

                                                       -Soviet infantry manual, issued in the 1930's

        Ace sat over the plans of the secret project. Giant flying metal ships, with designs like the Griffins. Catamaran flat tops to carry Spitefuls. Light escort destroyers to buck with the enemy's brains.

       Yes, it was all to plan.

       Rainbow came in. "Ace, I'm your new commander."

       "Buck me."

       "Listen to me. We're gonna have to work together to be able to live through this."

       "I don't want to work with you."

       "Why?"

       "You're a self centered, ego inflated, glory grabbing asshole that has no concern for the main cause."

        Rainbow looked at him in pure shock, then anger. Taking out a gun, she cocked it and pointed it at Ace.

        "Go ahead. It'll only be your own loss in the future."

        *bang!*

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      Ace slowly awakened.

     Looking around the room, he realized this was no hospital. Before he could register what was going in, Nyx walked in.

     "Ace, thank Celestia you're awake. I was up all last night worrying about you."

     "Speaking of last night, that shot was fatal. Why am I not dead? Oh, and why is music in my voice?"

     Nyx ripped off the covers. Ace inspected his body. He was completely white, black pads under his hooves. Looking into a mirror, he had white eyes with a red dot in the middle. Two white metal plates on each eye acted to give him expressions, which helped a lot due to the fact he didn't have any mouth.

    Strangely enough, his hair had color, which he didn't complain. Oh his flanks were grates that seemed to be sucking, then expelling air.

     "Dr. Hooves?"

     "Yup!"

     "Boosters in my hind hooves and ion cannons in my fore hooves?"

     "Yup!"

     "Why is my life always so bucked up?"

     "Well, you are a homeless colt who makes machines that can do the impossible."

     "Point taken and noted."

     "Yeah, you better make a note if that."

     "Sure." Ace took a notepad, wrote something down, and showed it to Nyx:

     'Of that.'

     "You can be very literal minded, you know that?"

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      Ace, after thanking the doctor, had decided to experiment with the general populace. He was sure that he had gone on a downhill streak, especially judging from the expressions he was receiving. Or maybe it was because he had forgiven Dash.

      His career destroyed, he was sure that he was not really going to do shit. So, after a talk with Nyx, he decided to just fly off into the sunset, and to Tartarus of where he ended up.

     Flying higher and higher, he soon found himself in outer space. To Tartarus with that too.

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    William Adama eyed Saul Tigh carefully. "A DRADIS contact?"

    "Yeah." The old Colonel nodded. "A robot...winged horse."

    "A Pegasus?"

   "Yessir."

   "From the planet below?"

    "Yessir."

    "Launch two vipers, escort it into the landing bays. If it tries anything, shoot it down."

     "Yessir."

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       Ace had check all his systems before he left; there was an additional 4 guns in his wings, and another two that sprouted out in pods from his back.

       Loading up as much ammo as the holds would allow, he was increasingly worried that he was being watched by somepony...or something.

      As he passed the curve of the planet at Mach 25, he suddenly noticed a small fleet of ships were also in orbit. Rushing forward, he began to get nearer and nearer to the mismatched group. The largest ship, with a striking resemblance to an alligator, suddenly shot out two jets from what appeared to be areas to land.

     'An ingenious idea, actually.' Ace thought. The two white jets, showing themselves to have red stripes, escorted him to the massive ship, landing in the right pod. Getting on an elevator to the hanger, he noticed that the pilots were bipedal beings.

     'Well. Here goes nothing.'

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     Diplomacy had always been Celestia's strong point. Until things went extraterrestrial. She had nearly had a heart attack when Colonial One had landed on one of her gardens; she thought that her beautiful flowers had been crushed under the landing pads of the government ship.

     But, after a little time, the situations of the two parties had been sorted out, and how Equestria should handle the visitors was soon put on the table.

     "Princess." Adama spoke up. "If we nuke those...changelings and give you the plans of Valkyrie and Mercury class Battlestars, will you help us?"

     Ace looked at Celestia pleadingly. "Princess, this is the extinction of an entire sapient species here! What happened to 'for those who need help, Equestria will open it's arms?' We're the Land of Friendship and Harmony, remember?"

     "Fine! Alright, just nuke Crissy to next Sunday and give us the plans, we'll help you!"

      Everyone was taken back by the sudden outburst, and at that, Ace quickly pushed the humans back onto Colonial One.

     "Ciao, hasta lavista, zai ziang, bye bye!"

     Then he went back to the meeting room.

     "Princess."

     The alicorn acknowledged him with a nod, but kept on tapping the table in deep thought.

     "Why?" She finally asked. "Why are you so willing to help them?"

     "It's my duty as an Equestrian citizen."

     "The enemy were fighting can decimate whole cities in one go!"

     "So can the humans were fighting with."

      "Still, think about the ponies that will die because of this!"

      Ace gave the alicorn a hard look. Or tried to, at least. "You don't know how many are suffering out in trenches now. What difference will it make? We take out some permanent enemies, and we take our first steps into the stars." It was hard to detect emotion from his "mismatched" voice, but Celestia was pretty sure he was angry.

      The backdrop of his eyes turned black, and the gun pods sprouted from his back.

     "You still can say no. But I will leave with the humans. That is all, your highness." He practically spat.

     Celestia looked at his retreating figure. "You're a sneaky one, aren't you?" She whispered.