Can't Take the Stars From Us

Chapters

Waking Terror
Homage
Lexeme
New Friends, New Enemies
Red Forest

Waking Terror

Something was off.

Volkenstein felt his eyes snap open of their own accord, accompanied by a weighty and disturbing sensation of nausea. It felt as if someone had strapped him into a merry-go-round and thrown it off a cliff. Definitely not how you usually wake up.

There was no grogginess, nor any sort of heavy handed morning blues, just a gut wrenching sickness. Blinking a few times and steadying his strangely laboured breathing, the young man took a brief look around.

This wasn’t his room.

Where plastered walls and mellow paint should have been, there was only seamless metallic surfaces. Atop those imposing and spotless panes there was a fine spread of pipes, valves, and bolts. Conflicting with the utilitarian feeling of the room was the sensation of fine cotton beneath his hands, alongside a heavenly well-fluffed pillow against his head.

Rather than spend his time admiring the quality of the bedding, Volk swung around so that his legs were dangling off the bed. Looking over at the other side of the room proper, he noticed a fine seam indented into the opposite wall. He presumed that was the door. Looking down at himself, the confused Briton noticed his common clothes were still there. At least he had something familiar besides his own skin.

Sweat slid off his brow. His chest felt tight and uneasy.

“Where am I?” he wondered aloud. Encroaching panic set in on him as he vainly attempted to remember how he came to be here. Standing and walking over to the opposing wall, he jumped back in shock as part of it slid open before him. Before he left, however, the unnerved Irishman noticed something odd. Picking up a thin metal slate and turning to leave once more, he was surprised as it suddenly turned on.

‘Locate your Captain’ was the message running across the top of the screen, with a map beneath it. Looking both ways as he exited the small room, a chill ran up his spine. The hallway looked as if it stretched on infinitely... and nobody was using it.

The sound of his footsteps ringing out down the corridor was maddening; a steady beat with no end it seemed. Sharp clapping almost, a discordant crowd of spectators watching from afar. Where am I? The clapping became a steady roar as Volk started to pick up the pace. Where am I? His breath became heavier as his pupils shrank and his walking pace became a panicked jog. Where am I? Adrenaline burned down his veins as the seemingly unending white hall, white lights, and continuous sound of him and him alone began to erode his state of mind.

Where is everyone‽

“You have arrived,” Volk read softly aloud from his tablet. He stopped dead in his tracks, taking deep breaths at the interruption to his silent torment. Taking a glance back down, he noticed the tablet now displayed an arrow pointing to his left.

He turned his head, and saw a door much like the one that sealed his room. Gulping—and taking a few more shaky breaths—he approached. With a gentle hiss and whoosh, the door slid aside, beckoning him inside. Steeling himself the best he could, he entered.

It felt as if he’d stepped into an open-air plaza. Rising up and up went a series of columns and stairways, with rows of seats filling the mighty space from top-to-bottom. The huge space was barely filled, with people who were just as lost as Volkenstein was sitting around in disarray. His confusion and alarm lessened slightly as he saw one or two familiar faces.

Looking around briefly he made his way over to a nearby chair, and sat down in the cold, hard leather. He looked at the tablet again and the only thing displayed there was 'Waiting for group'. As Volkenstein scooted against the back of the chair, the screen changed. Now it read 'Preparing’.

Whatever conversations had filled the ghastly air died down as the lights dimmed, and the ceiling slid open ever so slightly to reveal a small sphere. As it began to spin, a holographic projection was cast into the middle of the cavernous space, and all eyes were upon it. However, whatever it was meant to be was... lost. The projection was merely a mess of glitching shapes and endlessly repeating startup symbols.

“Greetings to you all, Children of Gaia,” came a booming and distinctively male voice. “It is of bitter regret that we can no longer meet in person as first intended... and this recording will have to suffice.” Volk felt much calmer hearing that for some reason. He relaxed his shoulders.

“Had things gone as planned, we would have briefed you personally. However, preparations took too long, and the final stages have begun.” A brief glimpse of an arm waving dismissively came through in the projection, before returning to the jumbled and chaotic mess. “You have been chosen to take part in a journey. It will will test not only you, but the rest of humanity as a whole.”

Some hushed conversation resumed, albeit barely, as if speech would cause the projection to disappear. “I have searched for more time than I care to admit, my fellows leaving the hopeless work to me. However in the end I found you amongst the many other candidates, a perfect match for our ambition.”

As if the recording was actually a transmission, it seemed to pick up on the general mood. “I understand, however, that most of you will imagine this too great a task, but I believe in you. I believe in your species, humans. This is an unfair thing to ask, and I’m sorry, but I expect you will find unfathomable wisdom, bravery and talent in each and every one of yourselves; you just have to look hard enough.”

Gentle, yet bitter laughter echoed from the recording. “I must admit, I have sent this message in a hurry, and I do not know if it will be received properly. My equipment here is... less than suitable.” His laughter turned of a more melancholy kind. “Then again, you may herald my current setup as a technological feat.” The laughter stopped. “But I’m sure you’ll do wonderful things with what I’ve left you. Humanity always have.”

Each and every tablet in the room lit up with a diagram suddenly. “I have left the base you are currently within, long since forgotten by my own kind, to you. I was unable to arrive and will be still; due to unforeseen circumstances, so rest assured that you will be safe there.” The speaker took in a deep breath, as if steadying himself, and continued. “For now.”

“Sons and Daughters of Gaia, you will not be alone.” Part of the base diagram lit up suddenly. “I have left to you the resources to achieve the first of your goals, and something more precious...” Volk’s tablet now showed some kind of mechanical cross section, as he assumed the other’s did, too. “On your journey you will encounter many new species. I have left to you one that we made ourselves; the Meld.” New information was divulged upon the tablets as the hologram continued. “They will help you achieve your greatest goals. Treat them well.”

Before Volkenstein even had time to process all the new information, his tablet then showed him a galax- no, a universal map. “My people have not been everywhere, but our influence spread wide, and we know of many others. There is no doubt you will find new species as you travel the stars. I know that you will do what is right when the time comes.”

Then, just as the mood of the room seemed to have mellowed, a new development arrived. “Humans, do not search for us, do not search for me.” These words were absolute. “Any attempts to contact us, to find us, will be in vain.” The voice echoing throughout the chamber became a low, more subdued tone. “We have fought an unimaginable darkness with great ferocity and extreme prejudice, but ultimately we have failed. It is up to you to stop them, and I have unwavering faith in you.” The projection began to still. “I sincerely hope you... escape the horror they have inflicted upon us.”

Somewhere, far off it seemed, the sound of a deep and low rumble became background noise. The speaker seemingly paid no mind. “In return for the burden I have placed upon you, I have gifted you libraries and creations of Humanity.” Confusion over the last word was, apparently, shared throughout the room. “I cannot make use of this knowledge, for it is intended for you and you alone. Alongside these libraries are some of our own. I hope the knowledge of my people—the Wripeks—serves you well.”

Splintering steel and the shuddering of foundations boomed throughout the room, and in the final moments of the recording, a silhouette could be made out. “It is my end, unfortunately,” said the vigil. “My time is up, and yours has just begun; yet upon this eve, I have only one thing to say.” As the hologram turned to look at something, even with its distortion, a definite smile could be seen. “Nuts!”

It cut out.

Suddenly, a thousand voices called out with a mixed tidal wave of anger, sadness, confusion, and pure terror. Discord ruled in the courtroom as the so called ‘chosen’ devolved into disarray and bickering.

Volk sat back in his seat, somewhat thankful he was far away from others. His mind was racing at an insane pace as it tried to piece together what had just occurred. Children of Gaia? Holograms? The death of some alien civilization? This has to be some kind of joke...

But it wasn’t a joke; it was far too real to be any kind of conceivable trick. In fact, every cell in his body felt as if it were screaming at him to curl up somewhere and hide. However, he couldn’t hide. He had no right to hide. Even then, even when he knew exactly why he was here, his arms still shook and his teeth still chattered.

Whilst the young Irishman had been focusing on himself, an entirely new kind of row had broken out in one of the upper segments of the room. Somewhere far above him two men had gotten into an argument, and it didn’t look to be good. From the way everyone else was staring, they’d also realized this.

One of them was red haired with a pair of well made glasses set on his nose, his all-round form seemingly normal compared to the other before him. He was wearing a creased shirt and a set of navy blue jeans. Just to the right of him, however, was a rather pugnacious and stocky man, who towered just slightly above him; with dark brown hair.

Before Volkenstein could even comprehend why they were at one-another's throats, the latter lashed out. The strike was so fast you’d have missed it if you blinked. He brought his shoulder and jab hand backwards simultaneously whilst throwing his dominant hand forwards, pushing off his back foot and twisting his hips. The dynamite straight collided with the well dressed smart’s face, slugging him right in the cheek.

Just as the redhead readied himself for another blow, a resounding below hurtled across the entire room. “Stop this incessant fighting at once, you idiots!” Both men stopped mid-action to look over at the shout which had pierced the commotion, and likewise, many others quietened down. “We have a situation on our hands, and it’s time we got to grips with it. I want all captains to report to stay in this room with me. Everyone else, I recommend you get to know one another.”

“It’s going to be a long day.”

“Now that we're assembled, we can try to make some sense as to what the hell's going on here. But first, introductions. I'm John Hood.”

The speaker adjusted his shirt and jacket. He looked to the young man on his left, who was of mixed arabic-asian origins wearing a simple red baseball cap and rectangular lens shaped glasses. Having been shoved into the spotlight, he shyly waved in greeting.

“Uh, hi. My name’s Mel,” he said with a nervous smile.

He scratched behind his head in awkwardness before he said, “But, uh... if I had to make a guess from Hood here then you all know me better as War King.” There was a long silence between everyone in the hall. Mel began to sweat, biting his lips hoping his little theory paid off. “With—you know—a seventy-six...?”

“How come he’s the only one wearing a damn hat?”

As he caught the voice who spoke his name, Mel turned toward the speaker and found himself making eye contact with a brute of a man; one of the perpetrators of the fight mere minutes ago. If he had not been smiling ever so slightly, the overwhelmingly unenthusiastic baseball fan would have assumed he was pissed.

Mel fliched at the sight of the large man but stood firm soon after. He scratched behind his neck with a lax expression plastered across his features. “I always wear my lucky cap.” He adjusted his mentioned baseball cap. “Caps are neat,” he replied flatly.

“I’d rather wear a beanie, saves your ears falling off when winter skullfucks you.” He looked Mel over slowly, nodding to himself as if some kind of mental checklist was being ticked off. “Well, you’re not as bad as I thought you’d be. I’m Hauler.”

Nobody said anything.

Unfortunately for our gullible friend the name had not ring any bells in his mind, and as he checked to see if anyone else knew, he found himself alone. “Er, sorry, I’m not sure who﹘.”

Burly Mc Pick-a-Fight shook his head in his hands, letting out a frustrated groan as he balled up his fists. “Oh come on!” he practically shouted. “Are you kidding me? We just got brought to some fucking alien base, with... things! How can you not recall my name?” He leered around at the other members of the meeting. “Does anybody know me‽”

A couple people nodded, and one even went so far as to give a thumbs up, but the majority starred the capricious captain down like a mut. Mel felt uncomfortable just watching the flip-flopping state of mind, let alone talking to him. “Err, no sorry, I got nothing.”

“Right, okay...” He trailed off and rubbed his stubble in mild anger, staring at Mel the entire time. “Alright, you probably know me by Two-D, then.” As he said the name the room lit up with a chorus of ‘oh’s and ‘ah’s. 2D just sat, leaning over the edge of his seat, utterly unamused.

Mel blinked profusely, eyes wide open upon realising who the man in front of him was like it was a grand revelation. “Two-D? Two-D-kun‽” He flipped his headwear and placed it on his lap. “Oh crud. I’m real sorry, man. I didn’t know it was you!”

The stocky inboxer, now revealed to be 2D, looked as if he was resisting the urge to flip Mel off. Instead he just nodded and kicked back in his seat, preparing to play the outburst off. “Just call me Edd.” Letting his chin rest on his chest and closing his eyes, the argumentative loudmouth excluded from the discussion.

When the conversation between the two ended, an older woman in her late 20s leaned forward on her seat and scratched her chin. She was judging them quietly while the two young men—though it was hard to call this Mel a man to begin with considering that he looked like hadn’t pass his teen-years yet—were talking with each other.

She really had only one thing to say as that point. “Who are you people? Really?”

“They’re a bunch of pricks who call themselves the ‘Old Guard’,” said one of the captains near the far end of the room. His chrome dome and old-man stare met numerous glares, and the room was very quiet for a short time.

“He’s right. We are assholes, after all.” An interloping voice called out from above the ground floor, belonging to a rather young man leaning over the edge. All the Old Guard members present immediately recognized him as Kelly, since he was a beaner who looked mashed off his face on drugs.

Murmurs of agreement passed through the gathered attendants, but the woman who’d pressed the matter was still unsatisfied. “That doesn’t tell me anything! From the sounds of things, you’re just some circlejerk that’s outstayed its due.”

An awkward cough was the only response.

Hood looked over at Mel for assistance, but realized he was on his own for this one. “Well, I suppose you could say that...” he said with a nervous chuckle. “But, then again, the Old Guard is a very tight knit group.”

“That doesn’t exactly mean anythin’ though, does it?” a short and lanky caucasian man asked. “Plenty people know other people. It’s a fact a’ life.” Heads nodded in agreement.

Before Hood could say anything in response, a rather rugged looking blond man stood up from his seat, his imposing six-foot-five stature calling all eyes upon him. “I’m Grey,” he said bluntly, starring the women down. “I’ll tell you exactly why the Old Guard is important, so pay attention.”

His gaze swept across the room, picking out faces he thought he recognized, but ultimately stopping back at Hood. “Everyone in here is from Humans are Superior, yeah?” Everyone nodded. “Okay, now how many of you chucklefucks know more than two people in this group, right here, right now?”

Silence, accompanied by a few raised hands.

“Alright. How many of you know and talk to more than five people in this group?” One hand. “Okay, fantastic you’re doing great, shitheads; now how many of you are Old Guard?” A majority of hands were raised, alongside some eyebrows.

“I think I’ll leave it there, then.” He sat himself back down and turned to glare at Edd, who was laughing to himself. Hood ignored them and clapped his hands together. “As you can see, then, a large amount of the chosen captains are Old Guard.” He gave a light, but weary smile. “That doesn’t make them better than anyone else, but it most certainly means they know one another better.”

Once again, agreement resounded throughout the room. It was an undeniable fact that familiarity was a good thing, especially in this kind of situation. “I think, for now, we should all get to know one another a little bit.”

And so the round of introductions went around the room, having been made even emptier than before. Many captains present were lost in thought, and so it went on that captains barely heard each other, and kept quiet.

Finally-

"Alright. Thank you all for being patient. Now, who has an idea where to begin?"

A dirty blonde man wearing a cotton jacket and square glasses with rounded corners, who had previously introduced himself as Tyrannosaurus Tux, spoke up. Normally nobody would have paid attention, but since everyone had been ripped from their daily lives, pettiness was being put aside for now.

“The uh... messenger referenced that we now possess a base, and that remaining here isn't a safe option.” Tux adjusted his jacket slightly. “It’s nice and all, but if we can’t stay here, then we may have a problem.”

Hood scratched his chin, contemplating the ominous words of the alien. It was terrifying to think of the ramifications of those words, let alone those of their actions to come. “It seems that they knew that whatever destroyed them will eventually come for us.” He did not let his fear show.

A chorus of agreement sounded.

Tux snapped his fingers. “How's about we use what's stored in the databanks to form a plan. I'll see about these 'gifts' the alien apparently got for us, and maybe see if there's a catalogue. Whoever wants to help with they can come with me.”

The well dressed Fresh Prince of the Cretaceous Period departed the room, with a few people following him. John Hood stood up and took in a deep breath, then released it.

“While he does that, I'll look around the perimeter of the base. We need to know what's around our immediate surroundings. Red, War, have a look at the databanks. They may reveal who our immediate neighbors are.”

Another man with cropped brown hair and a pointed chin stood up, who Hood remembered was called Novo and pointed behind his shoulder with a thumb.

“And while you do that, I'll take who's interested and make sure our little base is secure. Want to make sure no space rats are in our cupboards.”

He chuckled weakly, and a few others also laughed. With the departure of Hood and Novo with their respective entourage, it was only Red and Mel left with even fewer others in the place. They found a console and set to work.

“Wait... there; that solar system. Bring it up on the viewer.”

With a few clicking of keys, the holographic view in the room flickered and changed, until it displayed a new solar system. “What are we looking for, again?”

The redhead, cradling his face with an icepack, pointed at the hologram. “We’re looking for systems that could hold these enemies that the message hologram referenced, or even possible allies.” Despite the slight discolouration in his features, he was as sharp as ever.

The man at the console bit his lower lip, then turned to look at the fellow who was caught cold. “Do you think that... no, nevermind.”

A dubious look was shared. They then refocused on the display. It showed a star system like most others, with planets and planetoids. The search had proven to only yield dry worlds so far, and the curious spirit of those assembled there waned. Suddenly, Red noticed something and had to point it out.

“Hey, what's that 'PRIORITY' system at the top there?” Icepack and glasses pointed over at a highlighted system with a notice plastered across it. Numerous glyphs were associated with it, including one rather large ominous one.

“This one?” Clad in crimson cap and casual clothes, Mel hastily focused the terminal over the aforementioned system.

“Yeah, bring that one up.” He tapped his foot in an impatient manner as the seconds dragged on.

A pair of white holographic icons circled around the system for a few seconds before slamming together and disappearing, pulling the cosmic map into full view. At that moment, all voices in the room went silent. Even as the computer began to show orbits and previous flight paths, disbelief permeated the air.

There was a star orbiting a planet.

Everyone went pale, and stole looks at one another. The apprehension and tension in the room was almost unreal. Mel finally called out, “Hood needs to see this!”

His footsteps flung themselves throughout the area as he dashed out the door, leaving the remaining party to argue about this discovery.

“Novo! Novo!” Mel bounded into a room that could only be an armory, with men trying on dark-colored vests of different sizes. They also were inspecting an array of strange weapons on tables, which had a make that the messenger didn’t recognize. Novo strode up to Mel, wearing one of the vests and a grey cap to boot, smiling.

“What do you think, War? We got some fancy alien guns here.” He pointed over to a man who’d introduced himself as Bastion, who was carefully checking over a weapon. “We even have a few huge things... and I’m not sure what they’ll shoot.”

Novo gestured to a device that one of the men was trying on. Consisting of a backpack that looked to be a portable generator, with spasmically blinking lights and buttons. It was attached by a chord to something that could only be described as a narrow flashlight. The man finished putting on the pack and thumbed a button on the device. A white narrow beam of light shot out from the tip and slammed into the ceiling, causing sparks to fly, and everyone to duck for cover.

“Fucks sake, Kelly! You trying to decapitate someone?”

Mel used the ensuing chaos as Edd started roaring at Kelly as an opportunity to slip out of the armory. As he began to walk down the hallway he could hear the sound of more sparks, and the loud bellowing of Novo losing his temper.

It was probably best to tell them about the ponies after they’d stopped fighting amongst themselves, he decided.

A somewhat disgruntled messenger, having run quite a distance, took a moment to catch his breath. After he inhaled and exhaled a couple times, he noticed the sound of banging and machinery. Taking a right, the hallway opened up to a cavernous room, filled with row upon row of automated robotic arms, carrying an array of building materials different places.

The room was also full of conveyor belts, being operated by machines and more robotic arms. They were all hard at work producing containers. One such can made it’s way to the end of a conveyor belt, where it was picked up by none other than Tux. He inspected the glowing orange goo inside by holding the can up to the light.

“This is what they were talking about earlier, this stuff. They call it Meld, and they’re nanomachines that I suspect can have very many applications in both industry and medicine, though they’re inert right now.” Tux turned to grin at Mel.

“You’re inert.”

Everyone stared at the source of the tinny voice. The canister. Tux chewed the inside of his cheek, and inspected the canister some more, while War eventually drifted off to look at the machinery.

He took it all in a little slowly, eyes running across the length of the room and peering through the clutter. After a moment he noticed all the people gawking over consoles and the machinery.

“Pretty awesome stuff, wouldn’t you say?” Now well dressed up in some proper workers clothes he’d found somewhere, the well spoken engineer turned his attention to the room proper. “Imagine what we can do with this technology alone.”

Mel shook his head and walked up to Tux, grasping his shoulder and spinning him back around lightly. “Tux, Something’s going on,” he said with mild discomfort. “I need to speak with Hood. Where is he?”

Tux looked his friend up and down inquisitively. “Don’t you have your tablet?” he asked with a hint of amusement. A satisfyingly loud slap could be heard as Mel berated himself physically, skewing his hat.

“Must’ve left it in the briefing room.” Turning to look the huge room over with an embarrassed smile, he idly crossed his arms. “Don’t suppose you know the way through this maze?”

Tux withdrew his from a nearby tabletop, already cluttered with sketches and spare parts, and handed it to Mel. “Here, use mine.” He smirked as his friend stared at it blankly. “Just tell it to locate John Hood, and it’ll do that for you. What didja want to tell him, anyway?”

Mel tapped furiously on the screen to input his command. “You should go to the briefing room and see it for yourself.” A sigil he’d never seen before appeared on the slate, before dissolving into an interface. “Locate John Hood.” Fast as lightning the interface swapped over to a birdseye map, plotting the fastest course to Hood’s tablet.

Tux set the canister down and made a crossed wrists signal to one of the nearby onlookers, who replied with a simple thumbs up. “Alright. Let’s go.”

The crimson capped busybody didn’t question it, and they left the area. A fork in the corridor appeared and they split up. Mel hurriedly went to find John, whilst Tux walked calmly to the briefing room.

“John!” Mel finally found John gazing out of a window to the outside. Walking up to John to see what he was looking at, he looked in wonderment at the mesmerizing sight.

The world outside was dead. Moon-like pastel grey rock was all to see, not even stretching to a horizon; barely illuminated by the light of the room they were in. Far off in the distance, vibrant and intense stars burned with passion, but this place was dead. The world remained unmoving, hauntingly beautiful in its stillness.

“Whoa...”

“Indeed. However, this just emphasises on how much we need to get out of here. There’s nothing here for us, except rocks. We need to have Tux fire up those factories and build us some ships. We need to find us a better home.”

With that, John Hood walked off, leaving War to gaze upon the landscape.

“Ponies‽”

Needless to say, pandemonium ensued. Nobody sat down anymore, and many were in each other’s faces.

“This... this is insane!”

Red, like many, were clutching his head, still finding it difficult to believe what their eyes are seeing. Volk, likewise, was also staring blankly at the display. The room was set afire with panic and outrage. It became hard to discern who was arguing with who, and the fever of emotion reached a high pitch, with many looking ready to lash out.

A shot rang out, and Hood dropped the pistol he was holding in alarm. He muttered, “Um,” and everyone stared at him in dead silence, a very real sense of awkwardness and tension in the air as it rang in their ears. He then looked across everybody and said, “I didn’t think it would be this deafening, but uh... now that I’ve got your attention...

We need to focus. The stakes are too high. I looked around, and I can’t see the smoke and mirrors. I can’t see the man behind the curtains. Ladies and Gentlemen...

This is real. It’s as real as it’s gonna get. Tux, fire up the foundry. We need to get to Haycate.”

Homage

The sliding metallic doors opened with a swoosh, revealing our band of recently chosen captains. The lot of them still wore the same garments they had before with the exception of pistols within their holsters, all of which was strapped on various parts of their frame.

“We’re seriously going to do this?”

Hood looked fixedly at the shipyard in front of him with a cold demeanor. “Yes Sato, as much as mind-blowing as it sounds to all of us, we’re going to build ourselves starships.”

“My name’s Edwin,” he snarled.

Hood shrugged and walked on, leaving the disgruntled man to fume. Edwin murmured a curse under his breath as the rest of the captains slipped by him, their mouths agape at the sight in front of them.

Metallic cargo boxes of various shape and sizes were scattered all over the place, their contents inside waiting to be discovered. Large shipping containers stacked upon on one another and forming long and windy mazes. To top it all off, there stood massive gantry cranes all ready to be used in assisting the construction of starships.

“What the fuck is all this?” Grey said as he hopped up onto one of the containers. “Do you think there’s any guns in here? I hope so! Let’s see mor﹘”

“Grey, cut it out,” Seal said simply. Making his way over to the container and looking around briefly, he picked up a crowbar and jammed it into the thin opening. After a couple minutes and a red face, Seal put the tool down and noticed there was a latch.

Flipping it with a simple click, the entire container hissed as a seal was released, and easily rolled open. As the container opened it revealed its secrets to all in attendance. Tightly packed into the metal space were numerous canisters that steadily hummed.

“They look like fusion coils from Halo,” Kain said suddenly. Agreement was shared in a mumbled fashion amongst everyone.

“Templar, right?” Seal said with a small smile. “Help me carry one of those things down, will you?” Kain nodded and moved to join the more aquatic member of the captain circle. “Edwin!” Seal shouted as he began to heft one of the canisters. “Go do something useful!”

“Like what?!” he shouted back. Before Seal could reply however, Kain stumbled and nearly dropped the canister, and they began to bicker.

Someone grabbed Edwin and began to pull him along without his consent, and he shoved them back. “You hit like a girl,” said a deep voice from behind him. “Good thing that you sound like one, too.”

“Shut up, Two-D.” The disgruntled captain began to walk off, but hesitated as Edd grabbed his shoulder. Breathing in and back out again, he turned to face his fellow. “Yeah?”

“I saw something I wanna check out, but I’m no good with computers. I need you to help me out.” Edd then turned and began to walk off, not giving Edwin a chance to counter.

Walking up besides the muscular man, Edwin noticed he was in dire need of a shower. “When was the last time you washed, man?” 2D looked down at him with a mixture of surprise and humour.

“I was working on restoring something when we got brought here. I smell like shit because I was cramped up beneath a tank chassis with a blowtorch getting me hot and sweaty.” Edwin grunted and tried to forget the picture in his mind, deciding not to bring it up again.

They arrived at the aforementioned computer and Edwin sat down, gulping slightly and preparing himself. “What do you want me to do, Two-D? I’m not exactly a wizard with computers myself.”

“Just push something,” the man behind him said.

“Push what though?”

Edd sighed and pushed one of the buttons on the machine’s surface. “Anything,” he said with a sigh. Suddenly a siren rang out across the entire yard as orange lights began to flash and machinery started up.

“Sato!” Hood bellowed from across the platform. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Oh shit, he’s real mad now,” Edwin said with a mixture of fear and hilarity. Snickering slightly, he turned to 2D. “How are you going to turn it off?”

“Uh... like this,” he said as he pressed another button. All the lights went out save the warning lights. “Shit, no, okay this one.” In the darkness the sound of a loud crash could be heard. “Fuck, um, maybe...” The lights switched back on to reveal a very angry Hood and a fully functional drydock.

He cracked his knuckles and stared 2D down. “You’re lucky you did something useful. Start moving the canisters before I backhand your sorry ass.” Edd saluted the man and clacked his heels together.

“Aye, sir,” he said before walking off.

Hood pushed Edwin out of his seat and flexed his hands. “Not too shabby... looks like an overview terminal for the shipyard.” Scanning his eyes over the numerous keys with alien glyphs and looking over his shoulder, he was surprised to see someone new.

He went back to work. “Captain Taylor, I’m surprised to see you up here. I thought you’d be helping Edd with the manual labour. You two seemed close at the meeting.” Pressing down on a couple more keys, Hood was rewarded with a schematic planning menu.

“That faggot brought it upon himself,” Joe said with a straight face. “Maybe if he didn’t act like a fucking retard he’d have first pick at ship parts.”

Turning back to face the rather peculiar captain, Hood got a good look at him for the first time. He was a rather tall and lanky ginger man with fairly pale skin. “What are you implying?” the seated man inquired.

“I’d like you to build my ship first,” he said simply. “Or rather, I’d like you to allow me to design and build my ship first.” He grinned. “I have good reasons behind this, y’know.”

“Oh?” Hood crossed his arms and looked on at the other captains, all of whom were moving the canisters with fairly good care. “Let’s hear them then.”

Walking over and sitting down besides his superior, Joe pointed over at the shipyard. “We’re only on the opening platform. Far over there is a large crevice, I’d imagine, that helps facilitate ship construction. There’s bound to be plenty of supplies around.”

“Go on,” the man at the terminal said.

“Better still, I don’t want anything too complicated. I spoke with everyone else and they’ve all got fairly complex ideas for their ships. Worse still, even if smaller ones are faster to build, fine tuning them will take much much longer.” Hood nodded in agreement. “I just want a big ship that fires missiles.”

Hood stopped nodding and whistled. “How big do you want it?” Joe spread his arms out but his joke didn’t seem to go over well. “No, seriously, what kind of size are we talking about here?”

“About a kilometre I’d say.” The lanky ginger man tugged at his jeans slightly. “Feels kind of weird being on some space station. I wish I’d brought my nexus.”

“About a kilo— your nexus?” Hood sighed and stood up from the computer. “Fine, design the ship and then punch it in. It doesn’t look to be too hard honestly. We’ll load the canisters in by hand until we find a better method.”

Joe nodded and sat down, getting to work.

“Cheers,” he said.

“You built this?” Tux said with mild amazement as he stared down at the massive vessel. “You built this without me?” This time he spoke with mild annoyment.

Red straightened his glasses and pointed an accusator finger at Hood. “You didn’t even tell us the shipyard was working! I should have had my team down there the moment we realized it was functional.”

“Your team?” Hood said with air quotes following suit. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, you two. Novo is already gathering some men together to form a skeleton crew.” He looked down at the ship. “If you want to blame anyone, blame Sato and Two-D. They’re the ones who turned the console on.”

Tux crossed his arms. “You’re the one who figured out how to use it.”

“Yes, but I’m not the one who designed the ship.” Looking down from the planning room and towards the shipyard, Hood shrugged. “The guy who made this ship seems to intend it only for support duties. It’s made to fire missiles and that’s about it.”

Walking away from the window and over towards one of the consoles in the room, Red began to flick through numerous files. “I’ve had my like-minded helpers wire the computer down in the shipyard to this one.” He looked over at Tux. “From now on, all production will be handled here and unless authorised by us three, it won’t go ahead.”

“That sounds like a perfectly sound idea to me,” Tux said with a slight sniff. “Still, this ship will be a good way to see what is and isn’t a good idea.”

“It’s airtight.” Hood checked his tablet for a few moments before the silence in the room prompted him to continue. “The shipyard seems to handle most of the fine details by itself, such as pressurization, nitrogen-oxygen systems, circuitry, etcetera.”

“Really now? I’m surprised,” straight shirt and glasses looked over the console before him. “I’d love to see if it could be used as a general purpose fabricator. But downscaling the process would take a long time.”

Tux tapped away on his tablet and allowed the conversation to flow for a short while, his attention focused on the production facilities rather than whatever debate was going on. “I’d like to have a mobile shipyard,” he said flatly.

Wake up at what would be considered 7am UTC, eat breakfast in the mess hall and discuss the disturbing lack of dreams. At 9am, get dressed and ready for training. 10am-5pm consists of training, whether it’s piloting, strategy, marksmanship, or physical training. 6pm is shower time, with 7-10pm being freetime. 11pm is lights out.

This had been the routine for the past three months.

At first everyone had complained about the fact that it was too hardcore, and how it really wasn’t that big of a deal or even a necessity. But once rank had been established and Novo had armed his security detail, everyone fell in line.

Eventually though people got used to it. Whether it was Grey telling everyone how he’d had it worse in the navy, or 2D rattling on about his chally, somehow everyone got used to pseudo military life. Then again—with them being the only example of humanity in the universe—it wasn’t pseudo at all.

Even if the constant encouragement and mockery hadn’t been taking place, it’s likely everyone would have slipped into a routine regardless. The bigger news was how nobody was dreaming. At first it had been assumed as a result of stress of some kind, but as time went on, everyone realized it was something else.

Ship building had been continuing at a steady pace, with fine-tuning and the organization of security details being sorted out on a ship-by-ship basis. Those who hadn’t been selected as captains became crew, and the more exemplary captains became leaders. Of course, only time would tell if they were capable or not.

One of the interesting aspects of the shipbuilding process was all the readily available components. Most interestingly is that some had outlandish descriptions or intended purposes, and one such device was a psi-array. Everyone theorised that it was a super-computer that piggybacked off your brain, but when someone was plugged in, they just fell unconscious. That was the first and last time anyone dreamed for those three months.

Red and his merry band of researchers, meanwhile, were already at work cracking the secrets that the Wripeks had left behind. They had previously gathered everyone who spoke multiple languages and attempted to translate the alien language, with minor success. After trial and error, however, they found their own version of the rosetta stone.

Buried beneath the immense library of knowledge was a text with a garbage title and numerous corruptions—but at its core, an irreplaceable insight into the alien language itself. Having been translated into both English and another language, the text helped further the understanding of the Wripek’s glyphs. Enough so that their computers became significantly less difficult to use.

Training began to set in after about a month. Everyone saluted a superior upon sight, kept their clothes relatively clean, and knew how to handle themselves. If everyone hadn’t already been united, the training would have done it for them.

Not everyone agreed with the ordeal, though. Some pockets of resistance cropped up here and there. And when talking wasn’t enough, security dealt with them. Everyone was walking a fine line. The base began to feel cramped and the pure air became stale.

When the time came to move out, nobody wanted to stay behind.

“This is Captain Gerald aboard the HMS Leviathan. I have alongside me the Haida, USS Yorktown, and the Saint’s Pride.” Sitting amongst his finery with an exquisite brandy in hand, Gerald smiled to himself. “We are combat ready.”

The hail came in in an orderly fashion. “Roger that, eh.” Pat sat back in her chair at watched as her deckhands went about their business. “This is Commodore Pat, eh. My part of the fleet will be jumping for darkspace, eh.”

“Roger that, Pat,” 2D called over the line. “Me and mine will make to jump three minutes after you and provide support.” Rolling his shoulders and looking at the photo he’d luckily had in his wallet, Edd looked over his frigate’s controls once more. He was both the captain and pilot of this ship. “I doubt the Envoy will give us much trouble.”

The commanding woman known as Pat used her tablet to examine the status of her ship’s bulkheads. “You never know, eh!” she said over the comms. “Could be worse than Red said, eh.”

“I wouldn’t doubt the egghea﹘”

“I hate to interrupt,” Tux said flatly, “but the Industrious is going to make ready for the Hayca System's outer asteroid belt the moment both defense fleets are away.” Even with his ship’s engines online, the dull clanging of machinery was still present in Tux’s ship.

The first detachment of the Defense Fleet jumped and left 2D and his motley crew of accompanying ships in wait. “I’ll jump in with you, as planned, Commodore,” Novogorske said over the line. “If we run into nothing, great... If not, then the backup has a few more operable guns.”

“And you’ll be buying us in the Exploration Fleet time to do what we do best.” Hood was sat with his fingers tapping away anxiously. “I’m just concerned about these FTL drives of ours.”

Red interjected, “Like I’ve told you numerous times, the testing had no side effects. While not perfect, these drives are a fantastic place to start out in the grand scheme of things.”

“Are all the security chiefs aboard? I feel like we should have asked that sooner.” Captain Merchant was sat idly twiddling his thumbs as the Exploration Fleet waited for the go ahead.

“Don’t worry, I crunched the numbers for the Defense Fleet,” Novogorske replied.

“Everyone beneath me has their chief aboard. Don’t worry, man.” 2D flipped a couple switches in his ship and prepared to jump. “Anyhow, I’ll see you later guys. If you find anything interesting, be sure to let us know.” There was a few scant seconds as the second half of the Defense Fleet began to move forward—albeit faster than the former half—and then they disappeared from sensors.

Silence reigned over the fleet for a few more moments, before Tux chimed in again. “To my knowledge, all security chiefs for the Support Fleet are aboard on their respective ships.”

“I’ve just sent a roll call out, so I’ll get back to you on the Exploratio﹘ No, nevermind, they’re all aboard here, too.” John pulled his tablet up and started checking through their mission objectives again.

“Okay, thanks sir.” With that, Captain Merchant closed the channel.

Red looked up at the projection aboard his vessel and grimaced. “The real question we should be asking ourselves is if we copied all the data properly before we left.”

“Didn’t you take the archives from the base directly and put them in your own ship?” Edwin asked with a mild tone of annoyance. “No idea what you’re complaining about.”

“Sato, if we lose that information we’re going to be at a serious disadvantage from the get-go.” Red caught himself jittering and stopped.

Edwin just snickered, which was audible over the channel. “Oh yeah? Why don’t we start asking if we got all the cargo. Or, better yet, how is the bomb timer doing?”

“Both of you, that’s enough,” Hood said with a sigh. Just as he began to speak again, the Industrious jumped away, leaving the Exploration Fleet alone. “We’ve got a mission to do. We’re military now. Pack up your personal issues and get along, for God’s sake, because we’re going into the unknown.”

“It’s our job now.”

Lexeme

Three commanding figures were clustered around the brightly illuminated holographic table, showing a star system and all of its planetary bodies. The trio observed the projection, waiting for someone, anyone to make the first move. Suddenly, one of the figures brought out his arms above the glossy glass and stretched them wide, causing the hologram to zoom in; onto Haycate and it’s orbiting satellite.

“So, as I said in our last briefing, I’ve sent detachments here, here, and here.” Classy pointed at three corresponding locations on the hologlobe. “As you asked, I’ve had them split up and search their immediate areas.”

Hood gazed over the planet with an attentive eye. “But they strayed off their given routes, anyway?” Creases furrowed his brow. “I can understand the temptation to explore, but surely this will cause problems.”

“I’m less worried about whether anything saw them, and more concerned about what they found.” Red pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Not to diminish the threat of being sighted by an unknown force, but what resources have we seen?”

“I’m in agreement with Red; for once,” Tux said over the radio. “I’m more interested in what we found than what they found.” Hood shuffled in place slightly.

Classy cast his eyes over those in attendance, even looking over towards the intercom from which Tux’s voice was projecting. “Well, if you’re done, I’ll continue.” Sweeping his hand to the right, he rotated the planetoid leftwards until the hologlobe showed a picturesque mountain range.

“This is Canterlot,” he said with a grunt. “As we expected from our aerial observations, it’s woefully underprotected.” Turning and looking both Redshirt and John in the eye, he snickered. “We could take it within a day with the away team alone.”

“We’re not invading them, Classy.” Hood starred his subordinate down, the air between them rife with supposed tension. “This is peaceful expedition, not the pretense to a planetary occupation!”

Classy turned to face the projection once more. “Of course it is, sir. Of course it is...” Those last words dripped with venom as he brought his attention back towards the globe. “Well, anyhow, our scouts have reported large deposits of silicon, titanium, and gold; amongst numerous others.”

A singular note droned throughout the room as Tux whistled. “That sounds pretty good. How long until we can tap it?”

“Before we even start mining their planet dry, we need permission from the natives.” Walking over by Classy and drawing both his hands outwards, Red zoomed in on the grand city. “Your team should make their landing here.” Pointing at a small pavillion, he grinned. “It’ll be a tight fit, but you should make a good impression.”

“The entire airspace is filled with hot air balloons, though,” Hood said with a grimace. “We even had to wait for them to disperse before we could get the geographical data.” Looking over at Classy, the stern man rubbed his chin in thought. “Would they cause you any problems on the way down?”

Flexing his neck and popping the joints, Classy grinned. “You mentioned a ‘show of force’ yesterday, right?” Imitating a firing posture, he pretended to fire a gun. “Shoot couple of them down and those ponies will scatter like frightened ants.”

“No.” Speaking up from the intercom, Tux snuffed the thought. “We should keep our cards held close to our chests for now. Force will not be necessary.”

Red sighed dejectedly. “Life’s never that easy.”

From above the heavens came a mighty roar, like the sound of plummeting stars. All across the city, and even farther out to the hamlets cusped in the mountain shadow, eyes turned skyward. At first it wasn’t such a worry. Another sonic rainboom? Somepony’s failed spell? Maybe even somedrake with indigestion.

With each passing second the sound grew louder and louder; eyes, wider and wider. Suddenly everypony realized it wasn’t something normal, something ‘natural’. Ponies began to head for indoors the moment a blazing streak of passionate orange and infernus red thundered pierced the clouds.

In between all that flame and fury was a large black object, with small flaps and sharp edges across it. It looked almost like some kind of flying shark. But then, it also looked like one of the minotaur’s old airship designs. Unlike the oaken and hearty ships of yore, however, this thing radiated nothing but the crimson aura of doom.

Then it howled. With that bowel shaking howl of savagery came a mass panic, as ponies began to flee rather than make their way to cover. Rippling throughout the streets, the roads, the plains; a hot fear of the unknown spread like plague.

Soaring down from the clouds and shattering the peaceful dusk sky into terror incarnate, the horrifying invader tore a path straight towards Canterlot. Across the entire country, for a few brief seconds, the horizon shone with the beauty of a dying star; the harbinger of the new dawn leaving a golden trail in its wake.

Slipping down low to the ground with a speed that flew before sound, the vessel passed forests and fields; only for them to rip apart. Its roaring howl died down as it closed in on Canterlot, slowing down significantly... and allowing sound to catch up.

The roaring beast continued to approach like a vulture, slowly circling the beautiful city as if it was in search of carrion. Gouts of flame shot from the tail of the shark-bird as it descended toward an empty section of the pavilion. As the flames from the tail seemed to die, the creature came to a stop almost thirty hooves above the empty patch.

New flames shot out from the stomach of the shark-bird as it slowly descended straight down. With a gentleness that belies it’s large bulk, it landed with a grating thud. Small scorch marks formed from where the jets of flames once protruded.

With a shuddering sigh the side of the object slid open, and a ramp protruded from somewhere inside. Blackness enveloped what was within, until bright red shone from behind numerous giants. Their strides were heavy, making the ground quake, and they were utterly silent.

Nopony said a word, nopony dared breathe.

They stood within the mist with their faces of iron and coldness. Sharpness and uniformity made up their bodies, glowing veins of starlight ran through them like poison.

The iron giants could be mistaken for golems, almost all of them perfectly identical to each other, faceless and emotionless, standing there as if waiting for a command from some invisible master. Everypony waited for something, anything to happen; the iron giants gazing down at them, sizing them up maybe. One suddenly lurched forward, its metal feet thumping against the ground like a wardrum, taking several large steps ahead of the group.

Nearby guards sprung into action, leaping to the defence of the gathered crowd; spears at the ready as the metal beast slowly stopped. It gazed down at them with its soulless glowing eyes, no doubt seeing if it could kill them with a malice filled glance alone. But from its emotionless gaze, it seemed as if hate was beyond it.

A long silence permeated the air; thick with fear and anticipation. It stood there unmoving, the guards resolve standing firm. Soon, however, doubt creeped up on them. Its ghastly metal body shone menacingly in the fading dusk, almost mocking their spears, daring them to make a foolish attack. The crowd became restless and sporadic.

What stood before them was not rational, not natural, and death should have been forthcoming. It became so tense that the prospect of death became appealing, the silence gnawing away at them.

When it suddenly and quickly raised its hand up, it would be forgiven if a few ponies—and at least one guard—fainted, as some terrible warbled screeching emanated from its seamless head.

The speech that suddenly rolled forth from the towering iron giant was as sinister as its appearance; with broken syllables and sneering punctuating every dark word spoken. It communicated with the voice of a machine, further adding to the terror. It outstretched its arms, in a futile gesture to placate the ponies as the voice box of the damned spewed forth such black tongues.

It paused. It noticed the fear it was generating in the gathered crowd. It took a moment to itself, as if to contemplate something, then it ripped out a segment of it’s iron neck. Sparkling, the now useless component clattered on the ground after the bipedal golem threw it.

It then grasped both sides of its head, and with a hiss and a click, it slid off, revealing an inner cranium that wasn’t machine at all. It was the face of something living. Everypony gasped as they realized that this was a creature inside of a mass of armor, not just a possessed automaton.

Now, the speech that was coming from the pale alien was significantly less sinister, but every time he opened his mouth to attempt to communicate, he would bare his sharp teeth; and everypony there knew that things with sharp teeth were to be feared, and backed away. They were now to never let it out of their sight, afraid that he might come upon them if they so much as looked elsewhere. The alien looked around again, stopping whatever speech he was making, and put his face into his mitts.

Sunlight streamed into the room, reflecting off of the calcite crystals in the massive marble pillars. The reflected light was briefly refracted by a thin sheet of glass before landing on the rich, arch shaped, mahogany conference table that dominated the room. The light also shone on the room's occupants, with ponies on one side of the table, and the off-worlders on the other.

The first alien was now accompanied by others of its kind, who were obviously its bodyguard, with less ornate and more plain armor. The alien leader had put back on its helm, but Twilight still lingered on what she saw of the face.

It was not unlike that of a pony. Judging by the leader’s face, it was very flat compared to nearly every being on the planet. And its clean, jet-black mane and eyebrows were the only features covering the figure’s hairless pinkish-pale skin. These weren’t creatures made of iron, but were creatures that wore iron like the guard ponies wore gold. Why are they here, and what did they hope to accomplish?

The tense silence was finally broken when horrifying sound came out of its mouth; one that seemed to promise a long agonizing demise. It was followed by a sharp stuttering noise which tone could be equated to someone’s angry ranting, or that’s at least what everypony present in the room was hoping.

Rambling and drawn out eldritch schpeel continued to drip from the creature’s lips, his arms moving around constantly; punctuating points that simply weren’t heard. Everything he might have said, have wanted to say, was falling on deaf ears.

Twilight didn’t like that. Everypo﹘ everybody, should be allowed to say what they want and have other poni﹘ people, listen to them. Casting her mind out to the ethereal and reigning in her deepest emotion, she captured the essence of understanding, and projected her image towards the creature.

Of course, they didn’t see that. They saw a purple flash and something hit their leader, causing him to slump.

Immediately, as if someone had flicked a switch, the mood in the room changed. Every biped behind the one collapsed on the table turned to look at Twilight in unison. Their arms moved to their weapons, and the hulking devices were pointed at everything breathing in the area.

The regal solar monarch felt her heart strain as one of the hulking machines turned to look straight at her, and watched with horror as her guards shrunk back. Their weapons were held high but their heads bowed like that of slaves.

Worse still, Twilight was practically hyperventilating besides her as the ramifications of her actions unfolded before her. Low hissing shuddered throughout the air as canisters that some of the bipeds wore slid open, revealing a ghastly pale yellow glow; a sea of stars.

Princess Luna was less scared than she was amazed, her wide eyes and slackjaw slowly becoming a gently sloping smile. Decompressions then permeated the room as metal clamps unlocked across their arms, the large machines glowing with a vibrant and powerful energy.

Unbeknownst to the ponies, who believed the giants before them needed time and preparation to strike; the only thing stopping the away team from repainting the room viscera red was the fact that Classy still had a heartbeat.

Celestia realized that things would only go from bad to worse, and attempted to halt their aggression. However, her words meant nothing to them, as one lowered its weapon and carefully edged forwards.

The utterly alien glowing lines that seemed to surround certain parts of the giant’s suit dimmed ever so subtly as it knelt down besides their ‘leader’. It first grabbed what Celestia supposed was the thing’s shoulder, shaking it gently; then roughly, then forcefully. The first, angry alien waved off the unarmed alien grabbing at him, and said, “CONSEQUENCE SEEMS TIME CONSTRAINT OF THE MOMENT.”

Everypony looked at each other, confused at the strange lines the alien now was saying. Twilight facedesked, the sound echoing in the castle hallways. She then groaned. The alien continued by saying, “THIS IS THE FUCK,” clearly confused at the turn of events.

Twilight then raised her head and started lamenting, saying, “So what if I never had the chance to practice that spell, knowing that someday I would need to use it, but no, I just never went abroad or just set time aside to set up practice te﹘”

The alien looked directly at Twilight and snapped their fingers. “UNDERSTANDING TAKES THE COURSE,” It said, almost as if in understanding. At this, the nervousness of alot of ponies present eased somewhat, though the guards still eyed the weapons of the alien bodyguard. Twilight gasped, and asked it, “You can understand me?” At the nod of its head, she giggled, and giddily clapped her forehooves together.

“Good! I say we let cooler heads prevail and let’s adjourn so we can get a linguistics expert in here so that there won’t be any more miscommunication!”

The silence in the room was then deafening, and more than one person in the room was impressed at the turnaround that the Princess of Friendship managed. Awkwardness reigned in the room for a time, then the occupants stirred, starting with the alien leader.

The alien leader relayed the message to his entourage, and they nodded their heads in unison. They got up, and the more seasoned guards made to escort them back to their ship when Twilight jumped in front of them, with an interruption.

“Wait, what’s your name?”

The alien leader regarded Twilight as he towered above her, and answered,

“ASS CLASS.”

Everypony present in the room waited until the aliens had departed before snickering and laughing.

After everypony in the room had regained their bearing, a new period of silent wondering began while the appropriate staff and experts were summoned, until...

“Here I am.”

The group turned their heads to see a lone brown stallion with a grey beard in a navy jacket trotting up to the conference table.

“I am Lexiograph. How can I be of assis﹘”

“Discord, that didn’t work the first time.”

Lexiograph gasped, then groaned, pawing at the ground. He then saw everypony’s unamused expressions, then sighed.

“You ponies are never fun.”

One flash of light later, and the pony was replaced by a draconequus. An annoyed draconequus.

“First, we can't have our little games. Then, we can't be a part of your little proceedings. Not that I would want to, of course. Our space-bound guests are oh so boring.”

Discord then made a show of half-heartedly inspecting the claws of his talon-hand. Celestia, with an unamused expression, sighed and shook her head.

“Discord, this is no time to﹘”

“Of course it isn't. I can see that this is something very serious, Celestia, which is why I'm offering my services as a translator to you.”

“You can't be seriou﹘”

Discord then threw his arms wide, asking the crowd of ponies gathered there questions in Prench, Germaneian, Zebrican, Old Grifficon, and many other obscure and even several long-dead languages.

Everypony in the room stood with gaping mouths at the display.

“You forget, Celestia. I was there when the omniglot spell was devised. Take me to their leader.”

It was a somber procession of Equestria's leaders, guard ponies, and an avatar of chaos which was leading the group. The hallways echoed their footfalls, punctuating the eerie silence that reigned in the castle. Eventually, the interiors and the ceiling of the castle gave way to overcast sky, casting grey light on the interstellar craft, which sat unmoving in the courtyard, cleared of all ponies save a perimeter of guards.

Apprehension suddenly gripped the hearts of the previously curious bunch. Even Discord felt a pang of doubt and fear clawing at his otherwise carefree self.

Their advance halted when whooshing air and the spinning of motors signaled the opening of the doors of the transport, with a being charging from inside the craft. Instantly, the situation became tense as guards raised their spears and leveled them at the screaming thing. It however halted and continued to shout into something in its right hand, eventually looking into the clouds and holding his gaze there.

Discord got naturally curious, and crept up behind it, despite the protests of the Princesses and others gathered there. Discord then conjured up a radio set and a tennis racquet, holding the radio under one arm while plugging the racquet into the radio. He then put on a set of earphones and waved the racquet behind the head of the alien, who hadn't noticed Discord. He then adjusted some knobs on the radio, muttering, "We just gotta get the right frequency, and..."

The meaning behind the irate one's words suddenly became instantly clear. "What the FUCK are you doing?!"

The outburst shocked everypony into silence. Incredibly, the device the alien was holding buzzed, and it also spoke. “Look. I accidently sent out all of the shuttles, and…”

“Dude!” the alien’s voice echoed throughout the castle. “You entrusted me to conduct the negotiations, you DICKCHEESE!”

Rarity covered Pinkie Pie's ears with her forehooves.

“We realized they might ask to see a higher ranking official, so…”

“Then wait for an available transport, sir.”

“...I'm already halfway down.”

The alien dropped the communications device. "You've got to be shitting me."

That's when a speck fell through the clouds. The tinny voice was still audible amidst the grass when it buzzed, “Deploying smoke and chute.”

A bright green-yellow line soon trailed behind the falling object. The speck soon slowed, and it grew. It soon became obvious that this was also one of the aliens, parachuting into Canterlot. The device on the ground squawked, “Signal flare, Classy.”

The alien numbly responded, “Uh. Sure thing, Admiral.”

He then threw something on the ground that itself spewed very visible bright red smoke. With that, the parachutist made its way to the courtyard.

The flare eventually burned out but the alien admiral had already arrived, flaring its parachute shortly before making a running landing. Motors whirred, and the parachute slowly retracted back into the armor of the aliens suit, itself equally as feature-hiding and imposing as Classy's was.

Discord levitated behind the admiral and held up a big card that read 9. The admiral, not noticing the display behind him, rolled his shoulders and said, "Well, that was fun."

New Friends, New Enemies

To say Canterlot Castle was bustling with activity was a grave understatement. There had been no prior warning, and the staff had gone into a veritable panic, having received only a day’s notice to prepare. They had no plan or organization for setting up such an assembly—they were simply overwhelmed when nearly every leader from various parts of Haycate had been summoned by the Princess of the Sun herself. Towering stacks of documents had to be signed, additional guards were installed around the castle—statue-esque and intimidating, refreshments and beverages were prepared to be given to the delegates. Food items were prepared en masse, causing agonizing stress to the kitchen staff. Massive embroidered tables of oakwood were set up facing each other, while a seat sat in between them. It was the seat in which the alien would sit, and they had taken extra care that it was cushioned and elegant. In all, much blood and sweat had to be shed to prepare for this defining event.

It was in the conference room of the Canterlot Castle where the assembly of the leaders of Haycate met, having been summoned by Celestia due to aliens visiting and wishing to warn them of something. The room itself was, like all things in Canterlot, grand. Marble pillars reached up to a titanic ceiling that was high up enough to seem distant and unreachable. Mosaics and paintings decorated the ceiling, detailing Haycate’s history and giving an almost cathedral like quality to the room. The marble itself reflected the sun’s light, illuminating the room and creating an almost radiant atmosphere, like one was in a heavenly sanctuary. It was a masterpiece of design and engineering, and it said much that the representatives gathered there couldn’t care less about its beauty in the face of recent developments.

Most of the gathered representatives were skeptical with regards to the idea of aliens. It did, after all, seem far fetched that beings from the stars would visit them, if such things even existed. Many had laughed when they were called to Canterlot, believing it to be a trap made by the Regal Sisters to end their lives. But it was unlike Celestia to make up such things. If it was indeed a trap, many dignitaries doubted that she would have gone to such lengths to fabricate claims of alien contact. Even they had to admit that Celestia was not stupid.

The alien in question sat at one of the ends of the long tables, his face and mane being the only visible organic component of his body. His hair was sandy blonde, his eyes a blue colouration. The suit was form fitting and patterned with various blues, greys and whites, disruptive in its appearance. As the dignitaries and the representatives filed in, it remained silent, only observing with a hawk-like eye, looking for any sign of malice or guile. The gaze bored down on the assembly, even unnerving the Princesses, hosts of this little meeting. It was the gaze of one who had seen many horrors, and it made plainly clear that it had borne witness to things beyond their most horrifying night terrors, things that would make them weep blood.

The seated alien was flanked on both sides by two others, armed and armored for any conflict that could arise. The armour itself was utterly alien in its appearance. Matte and ebony, it seemed to absorb light like some devouring creature subsisting on the flames. The armour pieces were not bulky, but gave off a sensation of buzzing energy and inherent threat. The guards’ faces were hidden behind full helmets. Reflective eye lenses allowed the dignitaries of Haycate to see only themselves, giving a feeling of foreboding mystery to the bipeds. The armour gave a sense of total emotionlessness and detachment. The dignitaries couldn’t say they enjoyed it when the lenses settled upon them. It was almost as if they were being watched by monsters of the night that never blinked and always judged, finding all they saw wanting. The weapons themselves were odd. There were no blades, but rather cylinders mounted to boxy bodies that exuded structural efficiency and mathematical precision. There were no discrepancies between the two weapons, and Celestia realized, with a start, that they had been mass produced. It was the only explanation. Otherwise, there would have been at least some minute differences between them. The dignitaries did not know what the weapons were capable of, and they had no desire to find out.

This wasn’t to say that the other dignitaries came unescorted. Far from it. Celestia was flanked by a squad of her famous golden armoured Royal Guard, their faces expressionless, spears held in outstretched hooves. The Minotaurs had the Praetorians with their bulky iron armour and brutal warhammers. The Griffons, naturally came in attendance with the Valhallans, their steel armour glinting in the sun, wingblades sheathed, but ready to be used at any moment. Swords at their sides were ready to be drawn by talons reinforced by metallic coverings. A whole host of other species had gathered with their honour guards, each more outlandish and awe inspiring than the last, but the new guests stole the overall spotlight.

Finally, after all the seats had been taken, the alien stood and spoke, voice clear. “Before we begin, I’d like to introduce myself. I am Admiral Tyrannosaurus Tux of the Human Flotilla."

“So you are called Humans?”

Everyone turned to regard the one who had addressed the alien. It was one Rehua of the Iron Horns, high-ranking Minotaurs who served as leaders in battle and commerce. He was well suited for being a representative of his race, as he wore many steel and gold trinkets and an iron breastplate of fine craftsmanship. He possessed both the strength and intelligence that his job required, and he never ceased to demonstrate his ability, both on and off the battlefield.

“Yes, and you are all in grave danger,” Tux answered.

Celestia, with a contemplative gaze, cut in by saying, “Danger from what, exactly?”

“The Tal'zarians.” Seeing the confusion of everyone present, Tux continued. “From what we've gathered from the databanks and initial encounters, the Tal'zarians are a race of bigfin squid-like creatures.”

Tux tossed a metal disc onto the middle of the table. The non-human guards tensed as a beam of light shot forth from the disk, preparing for a battle against whatever horror the humans were unleashing. They relaxed only when an image materialized out of thin air to the gaping shock and awe of all gathered. The display in question showed a creature more at home in the deep sea than in space. It had a small, round body with sickly skin and bulging veins that spiderwebbed away from it's hoof-ball sized onyx, oval eyes. The eyes sat above a mouth that seemed to quiver uncontrollably. The body sat on four spindly, stick-thin legs that made it tower above anything else in the room, if it were it actually present. Several delegates would later wonder how such thin legs were even capable of supporting its body, or how they curved with such disturbingly alien grace without breaking.

“The Tal'zarians possess incredible psionic powers that have allowed them to command space-faring constructs of organic materials, even achieving faster-than-light speed, like us.”

Some gasps were heard. Faster than light? Twilight had to investigate this. She prepared an onslaught of questions. Celestia rested a hoof on Twilight's shoulders. Twilight looked up, meeting Celestia's face, which wordlessly expressed a request that Twilight wait for a more appropriate time to voice her questions and concerns. Twilight understood, and then smiled at her former mentor. Celestia smiled back, released Twilight, and the both of them turned back to the proceedings.

Luna spoke up, “Prithee, Admiral. How canst thou exceed the speed of light?”

Tux drew in a long breath as if considering the wisdom of disclosing such information before he finally said, “Our engines harness the power of combining matter and antimatter. They reject each other utterly, thus creating a reactive process which generates more energy than a sun for our ships. We use that energy move us forward.”

The casual nature of the explanation given by Tux shocked the entire assembly into silence. Never before in the history of Haycate had anyone ever dared to dream of matching the speed of light by natural or artificial means. The scientific concepts and principals were there, but they had thought it utterly impossible. They had barely even broken the sound barrier, and there was only one individual remotely capable of that. It came like a punch in the gut that not only these visitors from the stars could break the supposed barriers of reality, but another entirely organic species could as well.

Rehua inhaled, then asked Tux, “How does a grown vessel go past the speed of light, then?”

Tux made a face, looked to the side, and shrugged. “We have no idea, but it’s expected that we’ll find out eventually. All we know is that they cannot do heavy labor, so they psionically enslave any race they've come across, to alter them and make them totally subservient to their whim. That extends from their ships to the crews running them and even their soldiers.”

There was a click, and a row of hardy, stumpy creatures with powerful legs and tiers of devilishly sharp teeth that had been clearly designed to tear replaced the image of the Tal'zarian. Their backs bore large holes, opened disturbingly like widened jaws, screaming for mercy that would never come. The faces of these subservient races resembled anglerfish, frilled sharks, and even lumpfish. Their eyes were dull, lifeless, bleached, almost as if they were rotting.

“The servants of the Tal'zarians have had their souls stripped away from them, turning them into little obedient machines, little more than mindless drones. These ones in particular, we call the ‘Piceservus’. They are the Tal’zarian standard infantry. We don’t believe the holes on their back are natural, since the unaltered samples that we have by some miracle obtained do not have them. Regardless, the holes emit acid, which chews through flesh and bone. Needless to say, it’s agonizing.”

Tux paused.

“I should know,” Celestia swore she heard him mutter under his breath as he flexed his right hand.

Click.

The next image was of a Piceservus, cut open at the belly. Leading from its belly to the gaping hole in its back was a biological, but nevertheless foreign tube. It was ridged and discolored, an unhealthy necrotic black. It had been seemingly grafted on without care for the subject so that the ridges had torn open the piceservus’s internal organs. The stomach itself had been partially melted through, as if the acids were unnaturally strong. The intent of the pipe itself was nauseatingly clear and terrifying.

“Believe it or not, the Piceservus weren’t always fishlike. They were amphibians. What you see before you is the result of Tal’zarian biological engineering. Let us merely say that it is not pretty.”

Tux paused.

“Even the acid is not naturally produced by this species, considering that it’s fluoroantimonic acid.”

Some confused blinks. The more scientifically minded in the audience blanched at the name.

“You need only know that it burns through everything. We don’t know how, but the Tal’zarians somehow trigger the rapid production of this acid. It is, of course, at the expense of the individual. The acid, naturally, chews through their own stomach, and renders them incapable of life within minutes. However, the Tal’zarians mass produce life, so they hardly care. Clearly, these piceservus are fodder with a life expectancy of one engagement.”

General shock and disgust rippled through the audience at such a blithe waste of life.

Another click, and the expectation for further horror was exceeded yet again as the device now displayed a barge of flesh and eyes, suspended above the table. Keratin stalagmites towered on the top of the barge, giving it the look of a cathedral, or a temple, on top of a diseased whale shark, with it’s dorsal fin removed in favor of more spires. The creature was covered in strangely shaped and disgustingly biological holes. Even though the image was still, all in attendance could almost be forgiven for believing that the orifices were pulsating with some strange, abominable mockery of life. Some of the flesh apertures were open wide enough to reveal spines, cruelly hooked at the ends. The walls of foetid flesh were coated with mucus, or some similar form of viscous fluid. The glistening membrane had the appearance and texture of rancid meat, and the very appearance of it filled the audience with a near uncontrollable desire to vomit the contents of their stomachs out. Even the humans, who had seen such images countless times, winced at the sheer organic horror that was displayed before them. The creature was a violation of nature, a creation of twisted minds, all malformed and warped.

“When we first opened negotiations with them, their only demands were that we surrendered our will and our bodies to them for their glory.” Tux snorted. “When we refused, they attacked us with these.”

The device clicked yet again, displaying what looked vaguely like a pale lamprey, with scarred flesh around its face and whited out eyes. Its flesh was pale, bloodless, devoid of any life. It was hard to tell if that was how the creature normally was, or if that was merely because of the gaping hole that had been blown in its back with what must have been tremendous heat, judging by the extensive cauterization of the flesh around the injury. The creature itself had a maw filled with rows of long, sharp, serrated teeth. The creature was massive, and by the estimates of many in attendance, could hold at least fifteen ponies. The interior was not visible, and the delegates suspected that if anything, it was a mercy that they had not yet seen it.

“We've taken to calling these Boarding Lampreys, since these bite into the hulls of our ships, then vomit attackers and toxins inside.”

The audience flinched as the image shifted to one of a metallic interior structure, torn apart from the outside, a boarding lamprey’s teeth clearly embedded clean through the walls. Blood and gore coated the ceiling, walls and floor, while body parts lay discarded about. Several of the stubby legged anglerfish lay scattered about, some blown clean in half.

One human was pinned to a wall by a massive crab like creature with four eyes, long, multi-hinged, spindly legs that were turned in such a way as to enable forward movement, and a massive drill-esque maw filled with teeth that those in observance had no trouble imagining as oscillating. The human in question had been speared through the throat with a massive pincer tip. Even in the image, his lifeless eyes remained wide in pain and terror, and dried blood patterns revealed that his vitae had flowed from his gaping mouth and down his neck. The crab like creature had had three of its six legs blown off, and a hole in it carapace surrounded by numerous puncture wounds suggested the application of tremendous force. There was thick, white fluid coating the area around the creature, which the audience automatically assumed to be its blood.

“That crab creature that you see is a support unit that often comes with a full squad of the piceservus. We call them ‘nequaquam’. Their heavy carapaces ensure that they cannot be eliminated with standard ballistic weapons, necessitating the deployment of heavy weapons, or directed energy munitions.”

The scientists in the group nodded to themselves in understanding.The other politicians glanced about in confusion.

“They spear prey with their pincers, and drag them in close to their proboscis. The proboscis whirrs about at unnatural speeds and drills its way through the subject, pulverizing meat and bone. Through some process that’s beyond even our understanding, they use the nutrients in the meat to literally grow back damaged parts of their bodies. Of course, this ability means that they posses an overactive metabolism.

“They starve after a half hour without food. If the boarding pod interiors show us anything, it’s that this puts them into a veritable feeding frenzy. Parts of the lampreys have been literally eaten away in many engagements, and often, half of the Pieceservus casualties are from being fed on by the nequaquam. Regardless, they are a nightmare in battle. Not to mention the fact their jaws can drill through solid metal. They’ve gone through our bulkheads a number of times, making them perfectly designed spearhead troops.”

Click.

The image shifted to precisely what Tux had described. The chewed up meat and mutilated flesh that adorned the image caused several representatives to keel over in an attempt to hold back the bile that threatened to eject itself from their bodies. Behind their visors, the human guards gave no visible response. Celestia had to wonder how many times they had seen such scenes.

Click.

Once again, one of the Tal’zarians’ fleshy barges appeared. After the horror of seeing the inside of a lamprey, the delegates thought it a mercy.

“In turn, the spines that you see on the…” Tux hesitated, “...‘vessel’ are no joke either. There are two varieties, the first being the the harpoon spine. Through muscle contractions, the barge launches them towards our ships. The spines penetrate the armour, and dig deeply in. The spine then draws inwards on tendons. The ship is either dragged towards the enemy, or disemboweled utterly and exposed to space. Neither fate is pleasant.

“Of course, these spines have limited range. That’s where the penetrators come in. Rather than being hooked, these spines are straight, to allow them to pass through a ship and destroy any vital components in the way. These spines are able to travel further since more pressure can be applied to them. They disable the ship, the Tal close in for the kill. It’s a nightmare.”

The display clicked off, and the captive audience turned again to Tux.

"These Tal'zarian warships number in the thousands, while we only have a dozen ships fighting them right now, buying time for the rest of us.”

Rehua cut in by saying, “Excuse me, but time for what?”

“Time to evacuate the planet."

To say the other occupants of the room overreacted would be an understatement. More than one representative stood up, each raising their voices. Each trying to be overheard above the rest, each drowning out the others until the room dissolved into chaos, each vying for attention from Tux as they shouted at each other and at Tux.

“Evacuate the planet, are you mad?”

“We have homes, families, you expect us to abandon them?”

“How do we know to trust you? How can we expect you not to enslave us?”

“And how do you know that we will share the same fate as those creatures? Perhaps both they and you deserve what has happened!”

Celestia was practically the only other individual to not have reacted in the same manner as everyone else in the room. Instead, she regarded Tux with a calm analyzing eye, trying to gaze into his soul and glean the authenticity of what he had said. Tux, once again, gazed back. Celestia saw much in his eyes once again. Pain, death, carnage, horror. But she did not see malice.

Finally, Rehua pounded a heavy metal gauntlet on the table, cracking the wood. “Enough!” bellowed Rehua. “We do not have time for petty bickering as these… flying squid things, approach us.” He soon stands up, looking Tux dead in the eyes before turning to the other delegates.

“These… Humans are giving their lives to protect us, and I for one put my trust in them.”

Even Tux was confused by the sudden vote of confidence, Rehua returning his gaze to him “But know this, Human. If you mislead us and harm comes to my people, I will personally snap your spine over my knee, understood?”

One of the human guards chuckled, as if the threat was an absurdity. The sound was distorted and warped by his helmet’s speakers into an almost growl like sound. Several of the delegates flinched.

“...Wait, what?” Tux blurted out, the last part of the statement catching him off guard, Rehua merely maintained eye contact, the delegation rather silent then.

“I was fully expecting a lot more resistance to this idea.” Tux said once more, looking away to the other delegates, who were still rather unconvinced but mildly cowed by Rehua’s outburst for the moment.

“Well... You have an air of brutal honesty about you. I like that in a political leader.” Rehua said. Tux chuckled momentarily, Rehua cracked a smirk as he sat back down, slumping back in his chair and armour clanking as he did so, “I will let my people know to ready themselves for evacuation, you let your people know the Minotaurs stand with you, even if... others do not.”

“I﹘ thank you, ambassador,” said Tux as he recomposed himself. “As for evidence, we anticipated your disbelief.”

Tux cleared his throat, and fiddled with his remote control.

“Well then, the starships Ethereal Solace and Marianna have set up a chain of modified sensor probes to relay live sensor and communications data from the Defense Fleet. The transmission should be coming in... now.”

Borealia was the thirteenth battle since the start of the week. Ten minutes in and the space around the nearest star was already cluttered with debris, lasers and accelerated rounds cutting swaths through the void. Flashes of light flared through the emptiness, and blinding flashes of nuclear detonations expanded and burned out in the airless space.

A round skipped through the shield of the HMS Leviathan, wounding the mighty vessel gravely down her starboard. Impacting down amidship and splintering off, it veered into the hull and snapped it like fine chalk. The hole torn in the ship began venting people, screaming as they were pulled out of the ship by explosive decompression, and killed in agony. It was a full five seconds before the breached section was sealed off by crew preservation systems.

Somewhere far below him, Gerald felt a thunderous explosion. Lights flashed and sirens blared as he turned to face his XO. The lights flickered for a moment, and the ship trembled as if it was held in the fist of some angry deity.

“What in God’s name is going on?” he said with steel in his voice. “Our shields were raised, and we’re still on our flanking course.”

“We can’t track its trajectory, sir,” said one of the deckhands. The room entered a mild panic as the lights continued to flash erratically. “I need a damage control team down to deck thirty nine! Fires are spreading all across the gangway.”

Pushing one of his crewmates aside, Damocles brought up a diagram of the ship. Aghast, the commander smacked the machine in frustration. “That thing only scratched us and it’s already splintered some of the pressure seals. We can’t take another, no way.”

Nelson moved from his position in the captain’s chair and turned on the intercom, broadcasting his voice throughout the many halls. “Attention all hands, prepare for immediate combat; we’ve been spotted.”

“Make heading for the Ironclad, we’re going to double up!” said the captain as he turned the intercom off again. “What condition is our fellow in as of now?”

“The Ironclad has broken away and is currently engaged in a skirmish with a break-off sect of the enemy fleet. There are currently five leviathans up against it, and it’s taken heavy damage from spines. The presence of boarding lampreys has already been noted.”

Borealia II was an ugly desert world. Blasted by dust storms and charged with solar radiation, it was doubtful that it would ever be habitable. It was merely a whitish-yellow scar in the black void, a hellpit in which it would take less than five seconds for a man to boil away to nothingness. Those who watched the video feed found beauty in the harshness. The humans saw only death. Over this world, colossal forms were locked in a blistering game of wits and systematic mass destruction.

Ironclad was a ship that looked like a cathedral with cannons mounted to it. It’s bridge was a like a spire, and nearly every square inch of it was covered in gold finery, double headed eagles, skulls and other symbols of loyalty and faith. Its angular prow was a bastion, the ship itself a seemingly impregnable fortress. Grey and blocky, it seemed to radiate power. The Haycatians, having never seen a human capital ship gaped at the sight.

Circling it, like predators in the sea were a series of fleshy leviathans. Dwarfing the Ironclad, they were nightmares made incarnate, their massive eyes tracking back and forth across the ship, gaping maws opening and closing rhythmically. Moving, they were even more horrible. The orifices that were so disgusting to those gathered pulsed with a vile mockery of life, slimy membrane glistening in the blazing light of the nearby star.

A message blared through the comm, “Incoming transmission, Admiral.”

“Put it through,” Tux replied.

There was a sudden screeching hiss that seemed to pierce the mind and not so much the ears. It didn’t take long for the audience to realize that it was, in fact, piercing their minds, as they clawed their heads to remove the voices.

“Submit,” the voice was deep and grating, “For the glory of the Tal’zarians, submit. For the glory of Moros, submit. We shall devour you as Moros devours the stars. You, being our feast, shall be honoured.”

The gathered Haycatians were surprised and shocked that the humans seemed to ignore most of the effects of the Tal'zarians when they gave an immediate answer:

“No.”

The answer had been the same over thirty-nine separate engagements.

The voice hissed and receded.

In unison, the leviathans seemed to shudder. Ivory spines shot forth from their now rapidly twitching orifices, attempting to strike the distant battleship. The audience counted three near hits in thirty seconds. The Ironclad turned so that the starboard broadside cannons could come to bear. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Aquamarine beams of what looked like light shot forth from the ship in a blinding display of terrifying power. The screen was briefly overwhelmed by the intensity of the display, and the audience had to screw their eyes shut. The silence was deafening.

When they opened their eyes, they found that the broadside had bored a massive gash in the side of one of the leviathans. The battleship dived in an almost graceful fashion, a spine coming dangerously close to striking it. The prow was brought to bear, and what looked to the Haycatians like several pulses of fire leapt forth, the trail abortive in the airless void. The humans watched as what they recognized as nuclear missiles traveled straight through the rent in the leviathan and detonated in a blinding corona of whiteness.

The leviathan shuddered as it was torn apart from the inside. Flesh and massive frozen droplets of gore flew outwards in a sickeningly beautiful fashion. The flesh barge’s heart ceased to beat, and it slowly began to plummet to the planet below, its exposed innards beginning to melt and bubble under the sun’s intense heat.

The audience collectively gasped in horror at the display.

A spine struck the ship, crimson tendons stretched taut. A sphere of golden energy flared up, vaporizing the spine. Another spine struck from the opposite direction, causing the shields to flicker.

Tux winced, knowing full well the implications.

“Get outta there, Selene,” he commanded.

“Oh, be quiet, you top hat wearing dinosaur,” came the slurred reply.

There was the sound of someone drinking out of a metallic object on the other end before the transmission cut off.

The Ironclad fired off another broadside. Another leviathan shuddered as a cauterized wound appeared where the beams of light had struck. The spearing brightness punched straight through the meat battleship, vaporizing thousands of crew that were within, and carving the thing nearly in half. It drifted, vomiting dead bodies into the unending blackness.

A third spine. The golden sphere flickered once more and died, leaving afterimages in the eyes of the audience.

Tux clenched his fists.

"Captain Selene! Retreat now!"

There was no response.

The Ironclad closed in. Streams of blue fire now poured forth from it, the ionized gas of plasma fire scorching away the chitin armour of the enemy ships. Withering whips of crimson-yellow fire sprayed out from the ship as ballistic weapons opened up. Another pulse of fire shot forth from the ship. This one missed, striking the planet, and causing a massive hole to open in its surface, forming a gaping chasm that would remain there until the star died.

A fourth spine, this one was a harpoon. It punched straight through the armour, penetrating the Ironclad amidships. The tendons began to pull back, dragging the Ironclad in. The armour buckled. A gaping jagged hole opened in the ship. Celestia felt her stomach turn as bodies began to fly rapidly out of the wound like droplets of black blood. Several of them were clawing at their throats. She clenched her eyes as a torso floated about. She saw the dangling intestines clearly, motionless in the void. Was this what the humans had to deal with daily?

The second harpoon and fifth spine overall was far more forceful. It penetrated through the port and vacated the starboard, puncturing the reactors in the process. Unseen by the eyes of the delegates, several died almost immediately from an intense burst of gamma radiation. This spine held fast, and the Ironclad was slowly drawn in. Hundred of lampreys were vomited forth, teeth extended for the kill. A total of three thousand boarders were in the lampreys. Half were devoured en route. Several died as fluoroantimonic acid chewed through their internal organs and the caustic fluids destroyed their insides leaving them to drown on liquified flesh. The remainder, however, were more than adequate.

The Ironclad was now dark and adrift, devoid of power. Life support systems were failing, and radiation was leaking throughout the ship. The combat was nightmarish and brutally short. The piceservus swarmed over each other, their reprogrammed minds sending them into a frenzy. Screaming filled the halls as acid was sprayed about, melting steel and flesh. Bullets ricocheted from nequaquam carapaces and into bulkheads. The giant crab creatures in question scuttled about in their frenzy. One crewman was cut in half by a pincer that tightened around his torso. His internal organs spilled out as the proboscis drilled him. Another cried out in agony as his face and half his skull was sloughed away by a seemingly random burst of acidic fire. The piceservus screamed in pain continually as the acid chewed through them. Several died horribly as bullets pierced their stomachs, sending waves of corrosive fluid gushing through them, and melting them from the inside out.

Nearly every corridor of the ship was awash with gore.

On the bridge, Selene put down her flask as the whirring teeth bit through the door. She drew her service pistol in a single fluid motion, and aimed towards the entrance alongside the rest of her command staff. The door buckled. Selene fired. Next to her, the executive officer finally stopped screaming as the acid reached his heart. The rest of the staff was already dead, their crimson vitae painting the bridge in pseudo-artistic form. Selene was the only one left. They had deliberately avoided killing her.

“Fuck this,” she muttered, “it’s the worst party I’ve ever been to.”

Reaching down and taking one final swig from her flask, Selene raised the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked empty. The enemy swarmed forwards.

“Well,” she slurred, “shit.”

The boarding action was unseen by the audience, but as the spines began to withdraw from the Ironclad, they knew it was over.

Tux closed the feed.

Red Forest

Near the edge of the murky forest which was the Everfree, a number of shadowy bipedal forms sat next to the rotten, woodland trees—some even laid on the dry but vegetation-filled floor. Watching, waiting.

“This sucks,” a voice whispered from within the foliage. As he said so, the ghostly figure angled himself from his prone position away from his suppressed marksman rifle and toward his intended recipient, causing him to scratch his ceramic plates against the forest floor and evidently garnering more dirt and grime onto his black suit.

“Sure does,” another voice nonchalantly replied back. However, he did not bother to return the gesture and instead continued to watch over the town through the lenses of his binoculars.

The forest heat had become a nuisance after they had landed and hidden themselves within the Everfree. For Mel more so, as he had donned a combination of a simple black light ballistic vest over his olive wooly pull-on sweater. But other than that, he was rather comfortable wearing dull brown combats which covered his lower body and a rather questionably bright red baseball cap.

People would normally question why he still wore the thing after many months, that is, under normal circumstances. The position these people were in, however, was not a normal one—not after all the sacrifices they had been through.

“Sure does, sir,” he repeated, emphasizing the words sir as best he could. After he said it, though, he could see his superior shudder. He did not know what that meant, but at least he knew it was something. It was not like he wanted to become a nuisance. All he wanted was to bring up small talk with his higher-up, get to know him better and hopefully cure humanity's most well-known mental illness: boredom.

“Any word from the Chief?” he continued.

In response, Mel sighed. “Classy’s complaining about Tux ruining his op.” He continued to observe the little hamlet as he said this.

“Admiral Tux?”

“Yeah, he’s planetside.”

“He’s here?” he whispered loudly this time, frankly surprised by the turn of events. “Wasn’t he supposed to stay on board his ship and assist us with the mission?”

“He, uh...” he paused for a moment before placing down his binoculars and turning toward him “...practically went rogue and jumped off from orbit, abandoning our initial plan and jeopardizing the entire operation.”

“And we didn’t?” Bastion said with a raised eyebrow.

“No Bastion, we haven’t gone rogue—” Mel bit his tongue, stopping himself from continuing. “Yet” is what he would have kept on saying, doubt crawling up the back of his mind. But he knew this wasn’t the time nor the place to say those things—think about those things.

“Us and everyone else who hasn’t wandered off to God-knows-where know what’s at stake. That especially goes for you, Bastion.” Mel couldn’t help but beam back at him.

Bastion returned the smile with his own. “Thanks, glad to be on board with you, sir.” He then returned to his former position and continued to scan the town. “What are we going to do with the ones who went AWOL?”

“I—” He hesitated to answer the question. All could say was, “... We’ll think of something.”

Angry, a few would have said. Outright furious, most would have agreed. But that wasn’t enough to describe the pent-up fury Classy had gathered within him. No, only the words he was uttering at the moment would have given at least a broad description of how he was feeling right now.

“That fucker took my job!” Classy shouted loud enough to be heard throughout Canterlot Castle. “It was supposed to be our mission, not his!”

Most of those in attendance, who were either standing around in the hall or just sitting on the floor, agreed with a simple nod or grunts of acknowledgement. Only some of them stayed silent. The Royal Guards who stood post near them wisely avoided interfering, choosing instead to take great interest in empty, crimson carpeted hall in front of them. Classy was totally oblivious to this and everything around him.

“Not only that, he just walked right in and turned into Mister Exposition, showing off like the dumbfuck he is.” Classy began to pace between the hall he was in, the sound of thunderous metal feet pounding against the hard marble floor echoing throughout the castle. “By the end of the whole thing, he’s already kissing those hairy Minotaur asses, agreeing to give them fucking military secrets! Right down to our goddamn tech! What a fucking shittard!”

“Sir?” one of his men asked as Classy passed him.

Classy suddenly made a complete one-eighty and went straight up to the man. “What?!” he shouted into the poor sap’s face.

“You forgot to mute your helmet’s speaker, sir.”

Classy gave out a long, exasperated sigh. “It seems so, Petty Officer.” And so, he continued to pace back and forth between the hall. At least, that was what he meant to do until the petty officer spoke up again.

“Uh, Chief, I’m a sergeant.”

When Classy did another one-eighty spin in cumbersome power armor, making it his second whirl in less than a minute, he would have been considered for a ribbon in a ballerina competition. “Come by that again?”

“I’m a sergeant, a noncommissioned officer of the fleet’s Security Forces.” He paused. “Well, that’s what they told me, anyways.” That last statement was more of a comment to himself than to Classy.

Before Classy could respond, one of his men rebutted, “Security Forces? Don’t you mean Security Teams?”

“I know what I said,” retorted the Sergeant.

“Fuck, can someone show where the STs are at then?” said another as he stood up. “I think I'm in the wrong unit.”

Then a new voice was added into the fray. “Oh sit down, you! There’s no need for that.” She pulled him down. “Clearly the sergeant knows we’re SF. Right, Sarge?”

“How in the hell do you know he’s a sergeant anyways?!” someone else spoke up before the sergeant could reply.

And this when on and on, people asserting themselves left to right. Some of them stayed away from the squabble, however, not wanting to add more fuel into the fire. But eventually things went out of hand when even the previously stoic, unmoving Royal Guards were somehow sucked into the argument.

However, unbeknownst to them, Classy stood there, watching the growing uneasiness of the ponies as the arguments continued. He watched as civilians and guards alike became anxious and nervous, most of them backing off further and taking a lower stance, eyes flicking about in a fashion similar to cornered prey. This ultimately disrupted the evacuation, which was unacceptable. If Classy only had to have one job, then dammit, he was going to do it. Finally, Classy turned his external speaker back on and bellowed, “Stop fucking arguing, you fucking idiots!”

That seemed to have gotten the attention of both the Security Forces and the Security Teams, so he continued, “ We’re here to do a job, not argue like fucking children! Get! Them! On! The! SHUTTLES!”

Classy turned to the stunned crowd of humans and ponies, and threw his arms up in the air.

“FUCK!”

Crowds. It was always the crowds that set Martian on edge. Before he had been military, he might not have minded crowds so much, but now?

It was not merely that it represented a gathered mass of individuals, or the fact that the more parts there were to a crowd, the less easily controlled it was and the more unruly it could easily become. Nor was it that if there was someone who meant harm, that crowds could make a serviceable cover, either.

It was all of those things and more, but Martian had a job to do. Ever since the Summit of Haycate at Canterlot (which he suspected would be the last political function in Canterlot ever), the evacuations of Haycate had begun in proper. He had been deployed to Ponyville, the first stop and the comparatively least-populated town in Equestria to be evacuated.

Now, if only the Guards would make the civilians move faster.

“Move along, now.”

Droning on like that the past few hours, the Royal Guardsponies assigned to Martian’s detachment of lightly armed and armored security personnel almost mimicked the monotonous roar of the engines as the shuttles arrived empty and departed full. Martian looked about the crowd of uneasy ponies with what little possessions they had on their backs. They all looked to the guards, and to the humans, including Martian. Their eyes begged and asked, yet he hadn’t any answer for any of their unspoken questions.

“Keep going.”

The whole affair was sombre, and the slow pace of the crowds into lines and onto the shuttles felt almost unreal to Martian. He knew more than many here about the importance of expediency: every second wasted was another human ship that could be lost, more time for the hunger of the Tal’zarians to near Haycate and the populations that the Human Flotilla sought ever to protect.

“Move along, now.”

Rechecking his weapon, Martian sought to break the monotony of the operation. He tapped the side of his armored helmet to double-check that his comms were still working and got nothing but clear airwaves. He almost knew what to make of that. On one hand, it could mean that all was proceeding according to plan and according to schedule. On another, it could mean that more of the Human Flotilla was lost than was acceptable and that the Tal’zarians were bearing down on this defenseless world. Shaking off this sense of dread, Martian rescanned the crowd for any sign of trouble. But as usual, the ponies were all too scared of the humans and the Royal Guard to try anything defiant.

“Keep moving. Don’t hold up the crowd.”

Martian adjusted the kevlar plates on his shoulders and back. How much longer was this going to take? Surely, there must have been something to break up the maddening stillness and the almost funeral-like procession. Martian didn’t like that such an air of uneasiness existed. From ponies to humans to cattle, a crowd set on edge could turn dangerous on the flip of a coin.

The town of Griffonia was buzzing with defiant energy. As Classy strode from his gunship, crimson armour glinting in the wan light of the sun, beam-katana swinging from his belt, he was struck full force by the roar of the crowd. Through his black face mask, he glowered at all those gathered. For the most part, they glowered back despite their inability to see his face, but those at the front of the line shrank back from the howling madness that his mask seemed to exude even through the armour. His darkened visual sensors seemed to give off blackness and emptiness, and they were terrifying to behold, precisely what Classy was going for.

“Status report,” Classy said.

“Well, sir,” his sergeant replied, “they are not only refusing to get on the evac ships, but they also came out with pikes, and are threatening to use force against us.”

Classy guffawed. When the sergeant failed to respond similarly, Classy turned to look at him, his recessed optical sensors seeming to swallow the light.

“Fucking…” Classy groaned. “You serious?”

The sergeant nodded.

He opened a bead to Tux.

“Tux, this is Shogun. The evacuation of the griffons has hit a snag. The fucking civilians are refusing to board the evac ships.”

There was a brief pause before Tux responded, “Admiral Tux to Security Chief Classy. You are hereby authorized to escalate area control. Get those civvies in the ships.”

“You’re not going to fucking bitch about it if I use my brand of intimidation tactics? Because I’m going to use my brand of intimidation tactics.”

There was another pause.

“Fine, you’re authorized. Minimize casualties. Tux out.”

“That’s what I fucking thought,” Classy muttered, resolving to bring up the ridiculousness of placing a support admiral in charge of ground operations.

Classy muted his comm and turned back to his sergeant.

“Fuck it,” Classy growled as he racked the action of his carbine. “We’ll have to show these fuckheads that if they can’t get through us, they’ll never get through the Tal. And there’s no way I’m going to lose to a bunch of pricks with pikes today. Let’s show them our boomsticks.”

The meaning of Classy’s statement was not lost on the rest of his squad. As one, they all racked the actions on their own weapons, the synchronized movements creating a miasma of clacking noises from both the weapons and the Japanese-style armour that the squad donned. The griffons quieted down and gazed at the humans, small inklings of fear showing in their faces. In quick, disciplined movements, the squad took up firing positions in front of the crowd, power armour buzzing with each movement, hardened plates clattering together.

The crowd roared again.

“We don’t care what you do, we won’t let our children go with monsters!”

“We will never submit to slavers!”

“You don’t have the right to do this!”

A squad of griffons in plate armour took up positions in front of the crowd, pikes lowered towards Classy and his comrades, attempting to look intimidating. In front of the towering, armoured humans, they were anything but. They still had that glint of defiance in their eyes, despite staring into what to them must have seemed like an empty, malevolent void. Classy was almost impressed.

“Go, now,” a golden armoured griffon, clearly an officer tried, rather unconvincingly, to order the humans to do.

Classy raised his carbine and emptied a clip into the air. The rest of his squad did the same. The thunderous roar of the weapons nearly deafened the crowd and sent them sprawling in panic to the ground, foreclaws clamped firmly over their tiny avian ears. Classy and his squad ejected their magazines, slamming home fresh ones. They racked the actions back and forward again, chambering fresh rounds. Classy tapped the side of his kabuto, amplifying his voice tenfold.

“Alright, listen up, and listen good! This fucking magnificent beauty in my hands here has the capability to not only fucking kill every single one of you assholes in under half a minute, but also at a distance which would render your own fucking piece of shit weapons worthless.” He raised his rifle and fired another burst into the air. “You fuckers hear me?! Worthless!”

After a few shrieks and yelps from the griffons, Classy continued. “And guess what? We’ve just wasted precious fucking ammunition for these fine motherfucking weapons of destruction just to calm you chucklefucks down. Why? Because we found shit for brains on this fucking rock with value, worthy even.”

Pausing, Classy then strapped his weapon onto his back, turned his back to them and started to walk back to the shuttle. “Worthy to wield such fucking glorious technology in your grasp and using them against the fucking forces of evil. Be it as fucking soldiers or pilots, workers or scientists, it doesn’t fucking matter as long as you’re fucking standing.”

The security personnel moved aside for Classy as he walked on through. “Personally, I don’t give two fucking shits about any of you, but it seems you’ve got the entire fucking fleet’s attention somehow. Congrats, you goddamn cunts.”

Classy then stopped beside the shuttle and pounded on its metallic door with a balled fist. On cue, the large doors opened with a hiss and revealed itself for all to see.

“So what is going to be, fucktards? Do any of you fucks have what it fucking takes to be fucking worthy, you imbecilic shitfaces?” Classy said in a rather mocking tone. And quickly as that, it turned into something more sinister. “Or would you rather die here on this goddamn fucking shit-stain of a planet?”

The crowd whimpered. Classy sighed.

“Fucking...”

The machine strained, hydraulics working as it pulled up the glowing crystal topiary. The Tree had been firmly anchored into the earth, through methods almost supernatural, as if it had been placed there, machined into place. As it was, it took a total of fifteen minutes for the machine to fully uproot the Artifact. As the tree left the ground, a singular, lonesome howl sounded, echoing slightly as it entered the cavern. The security personnel tensed, preparing for the worst as they emerged from the cave, the excavator loitering behind them.

The forest was conscious, they had been told, of the Tree’s presence. It hated the Tree of Harmony. The Tree enslaved it, bound it, and rendered it inert. The Tree forced acquiescence on the forest, pressured it to go against nature itself. Now that the Tree was vulnerable, the forest would waste no time in attempting to devour it. Mel craned his neck, scanning the dense treeline for any sign of movement. The brush ahead rustled.

“Safeties off,” Mel whispered into his comms as he leveled his weapon, racking back the action.

The movement sensor displayed on his helmet was now declaring multiple contacts, pinging violently in the stillness. Crimson movement icons, representing targets not flagged with IFF signatures, flooded the localized radar. Damn, what he would give for the APC at this moment. From what he had heard from the locals with regards to the forest, it was not a thing to be trifled with. Violent and deadly, Mel suspected that only Australia could compare in terms of sheer horror to the stories he had heard out of the Everfree. It was too bad, in hindsight, that the excavator took up all the space on the VTOL.

The rustling stopped, though the radar was still picking up slight blurs of movement.

Ping. Ping. Ping. The sensor beeped incessantly. There was a brief pause. This was it; it was coming. Surely, this was the wildlife tensing before the charge. The underbrush suddenly exploded into a violent cacophony of roaring and the thunderous sound of a stampede. Through the greyish lenses of his helmet, Mel saw a veritable wall of monstrous hybrids barrelling towards his squad. They were grotesque in their bastardization of Terran animals, and Mel was once again struck by the miraculous nature of this world’s flora and fauna.

Leading the horde was a vanguard of manticores, stingers held at the ready. Mel did not want to be on the receiving end of that cruel-looking barb, which glistened in the sun with venom. Considering the deathworld-esque nature of this forest, it was safe to say that at best, the venom would incapacitate him. The stinger looked as though it could penetrate his armour. He wanted those monsters nowhere near himself or the squad.

“Open fire!” Mel called into the comm.

Next to him, Bastion depressed the trigger on his shotgun. A spray of pellets peppered the first of the manticores, penetrating its shoulders and blowing an eye out of its socket in a crimson spray of blood and ichor. The creature growled in inarticulate pain and quickly lost momentum, the sudden blinding agony that afflicted it toppling it to the ground. It tried to struggle to its feet; a quick round through the head from Mel’s assault rifle put an end to that. Its brains splattered violently against the green grass, tinting the earth a sickening greyish-pink.

As one, the squad opened fire against the creatures of the forest. Another manticore fell as a round took it through the throat, ricocheting against the spine and deflecting out the back of the skull in a burst of ivory bone and reddish gristle. A wall of creatures behind the manticores toppled as the withering fire found its mark. With how closely packed the targets were, the squad didn’t even need to aim.

A group of wolves that appeared to be constructed of timber tried to attack on the flanks, displaying malignant intelligence that Mel couldn’t believe he was witnessing in animals.

“Right flank, damn it! On the right!” he cried as he waved with his free hand.

Mel turned and sprayed a burst of automatic fire into the creatures. The rifle bucked against his shoulder, but the Timberwolves seemed to ignore the bullets impacting them. The weapon clicked dry. Discarding the magazine, Mel slammed a fresh one home. This time, he focused in on one of the Timberwolves’ joints, firing bursts into the articulation between the wood that seemed to form its body. This had greater effect. The wood shattered, and the timberwolf clattered helplessly to the ground, stripped of its legs. Soon, it was also stripped of its life, sap-like blood draining from its body. The greenish light that glowed hellishly where its eyes should have been faded. Taking note of this, the squad pounded accurate automatic fire into the creatures, destroying them with shocking rapidity.

Mel saw no way out of the enclosure except through the forest life. But these creatures were too thick in number for the excavator to safely pass through. He reached to his belt, grabbing a grenade. His armour, detecting the weapon that he held in his hand, calculated the trajectory of the throw based on the angle of his arm. Mel pulled the pin. Allowing the explosive to cook off briefly, he lobbed it into the heart of the swarm.

The grenade exploded, sending body parts flying in all directions. Shrapnel fragments punctured arteries, split limbs and penetrated organs. The outskirts of the swarm had been protected from the worst of the blast by the bodies of their compatriots, but sprayed by the organic matter of their fellows and shocked by the crumping thud of the detonation, their animal instincts took over, and they fled into the forest. Mel sighed, discharging his magazine and checking to see if it had any rounds left. The magazine had less than half of its nominal thirty rounds left. Mel replaced the magazine.

He prepared to signal the excavator forward, only for the forest to explode once more into activity. Next to him, Bastion groaned as he loaded shells into his shotgun.

He then muttered quietly, “Wave two...”

Ponyville was a den of chattering activity, even as evacuation procedures continued. Armed humans guarded a series of shuttles that had been lined up neatly in the town square. Every now and then, a shuttle’s engines would roar as it lifted up in a cloud of smoke and dust, seemingly by magic to the native inhabitants, and launched off into the air, to disappear into the clouds and past the mesosphere. Clad in camouflage fatigues and hardened combat vests, the security personnel were easily distinguishable as Martian’s band of misfits. Rowdy, independent, and somewhat rude outside of an official status, they were nevertheless dependable, loyal, and above all, efficient.

Martian himself did not much like the fleet’s policy of only “taking the useful ones and their families”. He found it cold, murderous, and ultimately, detestable, even though he understood the rationale. Martian would have argued the point against the admirals if he had thought there was any point. He saw none. The Admirals were very clear that only those capable of helping the fleet function, or those who would maintain native culture, would be brought aboard. To debate the point with them would only serve to delay the Armada.

Thus, it became Martian’s unsavory duty to reject families that had no members of value to the fleet. Knowing that he was effectively consigning them to death, there was an almost riotous mood in Ponyville, which had become a central hub for the evacuation. Next to him, Princess Twilight Sparkle attempted to placate the crowd.

“Please,” she pleaded, “Don’t do this! Give the humans a chance. They’re doing everything they can.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Princess!” came the shouted reply, alongside some hurled debris. “You’re going with them. Not here to die with us.”

Hearing this, the crowd roared and attempted to force its way into the shuttles. The Guard tensed, bracing their spears against the ground. Martian growled to himself. He understood the sentiment. He even agreed with it. But it made his job no easier, and he had no desire to deal with any more of the crowd’s anger. By force of habit, he ran his finger over the scar tissue that lay over his right eyebrow. A Neq had struck a glancing blow to his face during a Tal boarding operation. Martian had barely escaped with his life by emptying a sub-machinegun clip into the crab demon’s weak under-carapace. The wound was still deep enough to deprive the scarred area of feeling. It also left that eyebrow capable of only limited movement.

“Alright,” he shouted, voice tinged slightly with ebonics, “This is getting ridiculous. Stand down.”

The crowd was briefly brought to stillness by the sight of the black human towering over them, a stubby malformed box with cylinders and rectangles coming off of it clutched in his hands. While he seemed shorter than many others, that made no a speck of difference to a pony. He was still taller than them by far. The momentary trepidation was short-lived, however, as the crowd once again began to respond with anger.

“What right have you to play God with our lives?” A muscle-bound construction worker cried from the back of the mob.

“Listen,” Martian snapped, “We don’t have much of a choice in doing this. The fleet needs those that can help it. I’m gonna be honest with you, if we don’t do this, many more will die. More than we are sacrificing now.”

“You liars!” one of them screamed. “You’re not here to save our lives at all! You’re here to take the most important parts of our society for yourselves!”

Martian sighed and rubbed his forehead.

The crowd rushed forward again, only to be stunned to silence by inconceivably loud banging noises. The loud cracking sounds were interspersed with a throaty roaring sound that Martian identified as a light machine gun. Heavy thudding added to the cacophony, marking the usage of a shotgun. A massive blast and the sound of animal screams sounded, before silence fell again. Martian’s mind immediately went to the task team in the Everfree.

“Son of a bitch,” he snapped, opening a comm feed to Mel. “War King, do you hear me?”

Martian still wasn’t quite used to callsign usage, but he was beginning to get the gist of it. In fact, he preferred his callsign to his own name. It gave him a sense of security. While not as advanced or as complex as official Earth military terminology, flotilla callsigns were impressive enough for the natives, and official-sounding enough for the more hardcore members of the flotilla. Nevertheless, the security forces still hadn’t broken away from the informality that punctuated their regular speech.

“I hear you, Martian. Sorry, but this isn’t the best time to talk—break left!”

There was a pause before more loud cracks came from the outside.

“War King?”

“The Everfree just came to life, and we’re being assaulted by hundreds of these bastards in waves. We’re holding, though.”

“Do you need vehicle support?”

“That would be—I said keep your eyes on the flanks, damn you!”

Martian winced as the static filled sound of heavy automatic gunfire overwhelmed the speaker. Playing around the sounds of weaponry were the agonized screams of the Everfree Forest. The gathered natives blanched at the horrifying racket emanating from the handheld comm’s speakers. Martian heard a magazine being ejected, a new one being rammed in, a gun action being pulled back.

Mel’s voice crackled through again. “Yes, Martian, vehicle support would be great right about now.”

“Okay, we’re sending armour to you. It’ll be there in...” Martian paused. “Five minutes, tops. G’luck, bro.”

The comm feed snapped shut with a hiss.

Gesturing to his squad, Martian signalled them to deploy the APC. With a roar, a titanic metal beast that the equines had previously assumed to be an evac vehicle roared into life. It was blocky, with a slanted front. Beneath it, catepillar tracks sank into the earth. Atop it, an angular block of metal with a long, thin cylinder rotated back and forth. The metal beast leapt forward through the streets, gouging long marks into the ground as it made for the Everfree.

“At least take the children!” cried one of the mob. “Surely you have space for them!”

Martian sighed.

To say that the clearing was a mess would be an understatement. Vegetation had been sliced up and ground under a fusillade of bullets. Chewed up and decimated bodies were littered left and right, covering the ground in an almost solid layer of viscera and meat. Puddles of gore soaked into the earth, giving the earth the appearance of a gash, an ugly wound left by a brutal weapon. The sweet smell of death was overwhelming; offal, the scent of burst internal organs wafted on the breeze. The bodies formed miniature hills that the enemy now had to crawl over to get at the security personnel. Still they came.

Mel had switched his rifle to semi-automatic in an attempt to preserve ammunition. As the horde continued, he was certain that the entire forest was dead set on killing him and his men. One round. Bang. A manticore crashed to the earth, head split open by the bullet, spilling a whole brain onto the grass. A second round. Bang. A cockatrice was blown open, its tail twitching despite the utter non-existence of a body. While the squad had initially laughed at the appearance of the bastard spawn that took the form of a chicken and serpent, they had quickly learned that it was wise to kill it first. One of the squad members had been stoned, and even now, his helmeted, statued form loomed in the entrance of the cavern. Mel pulled the trigger again. The gun clicked dry.

“I’m out!” Mel said. “How’s the ammo coming along?”

“Not good! A majority of us have run dry, sir!” Bastion responded.

Suddenly, and to the shock of everyone there, a manticore had manage to punch its way through the lead storm and came barrelling at Mel. Next to him, one of the squad members twisted to aim at the animal. Too late. It was already just about on top of Mel. Behind the lenses of his helmet, Mel’s eyes widened with horror.

“Wha-”

The manticore plowed into Mel, knocking the air from his lungs and sending jolts of pain in his ribs. Mel cried in agony, only for the sound to choke in his throat as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. Some distant, analytical portion of his mind determined that he had some bruised ribs at the very least. The armor had stopped the impact from doing more damage, but did it hurt!

Mel gasped, scrabbling frantically for the knife on his belt. The manticore struck him with its paw, claws extended, simultaneously going for the throat with its jaws. Mel’s helmet was specially hardened against penetrative damage, but the force behind the blow sent his head snapping to the side, bringing stars to his vision and tears to his eyes. Part of the helmet tore away, exposing his face to assault. Mel felt hot pain across the side of his head as the claws raked his temple. Frantically, he punched upwards, even as the squad member who had tried to take down this very animal came up behind it and forced his combat knife through the back of the animal’s head. The animal fell. Wincing in agony, Mel rolled away from it. The pain left him almost unable to breathe.

“Minor injury detected,” the armour exclaimed in monotone, “administering adrenaline.”

Mel felt a jab in his chest, followed by the pain receding to tolerable levels. He slowly got up, still wincing slightly, and blinded in his right eye from the blood dribbling down his face. The manticore was still struggling with the knife embedded in the back of its head, although it was growing weaker. Nevertheless, Mel struck it with his fist. The animal’s head jerked back, but it continued trying to get up and kill. Mel pinned it with his knee and struck it again. The manticore yowled as its skull caved in slightly, driving into the brain matter below. Mel struck again. This time, the manticore’s head burst into a spray of organic matter, which thoroughly coated the ivory armour that Mel wore. Looking down, he saw that his entire torso was covered in crimson matter, and that the joints of armour were now encased with quick-drying internal fluids.

Mel could taste copper in his mouth, and an unidentifiable piece of meat. He spat it out to find that it was in fact a bit of brain matter. He doubled over and vomited, the action of regurgitation driving a spike of pain through his ribs.

“Command!” he heard Bastion through the comm. “This is Bastion, Warking is down! We’re being overrun. Could we get some support here?”

“Bloopbloopbloopbloop,” the comm announced, signalling an incoming fire support mission.

“Tide of Progress hears you, Bastion,” Hood’s calm voice responded. “We’ll have a flyby overhead in five, ten minutes.”

“We can’t hold for five to ten minutes, sir,” Bastion responded evenly.

“It’s the best I can do, Tide of Progress out.”

The comm feed snapped shut.

“Goddammit!” Bastion hissed while clearing his weapon of a malfunction.

Mel sank to his knees, dazed by pain.

Bastion turned to him. “We’ll get you out of here, sir.”

Bastion then patted his tactical rigging, then shouted into the comm, “Ammo count!”

Then came the chorus of voices.

“Dry!”

“I’m all out!”

“Diddly-squat, sir!”

The horde was drawing closer at a tremendous rate, a wall of teeth, claws, and poison. The ground shook, and the air seemed to tremble with the breath of the beasts and roars of the monsters. Drool ran in rivulets from open mouths that anticipated the kill. Madness seemed to glaze the eyes of the wildlife, as if some sort of malign intelligence was driving them collectively to kill.

The security personnel drew combat knives, preparing for the worst.

Bastion dragged Mel back into the cave, away from the front lines. A creature that had only barely managed to get behind the lines, and had had part of its face blown away suddenly reared up, claws going for Bastion throat. It was a mismatched creature with an elephantine head and the body of a lion. Its eye, the one that remained, was empty, as if it was already dead. Dropping Mel, Bastion quickly evaded the clumsy swiping of the dying beast before clubbing it with the butt of his shotgun. The animal recoiled, and made for another swipe. This time, Bastion had his knife out. He stabbed once, driving the blade into the monster’s remaining eye. Wrenching hard, he drove the blade into the cavity to the hilt. The creature cried in agony, a strange trumpeting roar. Blinded, it thrashed about with its trunk and paws briefly before falling in a pool of gore and lying still. Bastion, with some difficulty, pulled the blade out of the being’s socket in a welter of gore and with a sickening squelching noise.

There was an omnipresent, deep, droning roar in the air. It was steadily growing louder, gradually forming into the throaty roar of an armoured vehicle’s engine. The drone was interspersed with a cracking thud as a tree was suddenly plowed over. An APC burst through the canopy at speed, crushing undergrowth and grinding bodies. Crimson intestines greased the threads of the vehicle as its turret swiveled to face the wave of hostiles closing on the beleaguered squad.

“Surprise, motherfuckers,” a voice growled over the comm.

The APC immediately opened up with its turret-mounted 30mm cannon. The fire was steady, pulsing and hard-hitting. Each three-round burst of death tore open groups of tightly packed hostiles, smearing their cruor across the ground in swathes of crimson. Shrapnel opened up hostiles to the air, spilling internal organs across the ground in twisted streamers of red. The vehicle ground forward, grinding the earth into a crimson gouge.

The Everfree’s wildlife turned and fled into the forest.

The security forces cheered tiredly as the Bumerang APC trundled towards them. Bastion opened his comm to call off the airstrike. High-fives were passed about, with a few groans of exhaustion. For roughly fifteen minutes, the squad had held out, but it had been an eternity for them. They could finally relax. A tree crashed nearby. Suddenly, everyone was alert again.

The APC’s turret swiveled to face the forest. A massive movement signature appeared on Bastion’s sensor. The ground trembled. Bastion put down his transmitter, staring intently into the forest. He flinched as an entire tree catapulted out of the forest canopy towards his squad. Three heads burst out of the forest, all reptilian, all roaring with the same fervent rage that had issued from the mouths of all the previous forest creatures.

“Oh shit...” Bastion groaned.

The hydra was advancing at a disconcertingly quick rate, when one considered its size. The APC opened up with its guns, spraying the massive reptile with withering fire. The beast growled in pain as each shot pinged from its armour, while another blew a chunk off the side of its central neck. The monster roared in pain as blood spilled from the wound, which took the form of an ugly, ragged tear. It charged forward with unbelievable speed, the Bumerang began to reverse, but to no avail as it was thrown bodily across the clearing into a tree by a flick of the monster’s head.

“Oh shit!” Bastion cried. “Fall back!”

The squad required no further prompting, falling back in short order.

Bastion snapped open the comm. “Tide of Progress, this is Bastion.”

“I hear you. Go ahead, Bastion.”

“We need an ETA on that fire support.”

There was a brief pause.

“The drones will be overhead in half a minute.” Hood’s voice hardened slightly. “What’s going on?”

“Position’s badly compromised,” Bastion choked out quickly, panicking slightly. “We have three people down and a massive hostile on our asses right now.”

“Define massive, Bastion.”

“It’s taller than the tree line, has three heads and is purple. It destroyed Martian’s APC. You can’t miss it.”

As if to prove the point, all three of the heads exploded through the cave entrance, snarling and snapping, coming just short of the Tree. Bastion and his squad congregated behind the excavator, out of the hydra’s sight. It went for the tree again, jamming part of its torso into the cave to give it better reach.

“Tide of Progress has the flight overhead, we see the target. Laying waste to the goyim.” Hood announced flatly.

The comm snapped shut.

The three heads withdrew and surged forward once again. This time, the Tree seemed well within reach.

Not far distant, Ponyville was almost in full-scale panic. Having heard the thunderous cacophony in the distance die down, they had initially assumed that the fighting was over. The flighting of a tree and appearance of a hydra’s three heads over the forest canopy, as well as the gory damage inflicted to its neck dissuaded them of that notion. The crash of metal and glass only further hammered home the fact that things were not going well for the human security forces.

“The horror! The horror!” The flower sisters galloped about, screaming.

The rest of the population milled about aimlessly, breaking the sorting of individuals. The foals, so recently loaded onto the shuttles, were now running about, crying in fear. In the midst of it all, Martian stood with his palm firmly affixed to his forehead. His other hand felt for his gun, as he tried to choose between firing into the crowd or into the air.

A deep thundering roar broke that thought from his mind. Looking up, he saw the distant silver shapes of aerospace drones. With squared sensor modules flanked by frontal weapon mounts, the drones had an aspect reminiscent of a manta. A large pair of forward swept wings flanked a pair of massive engines mounted to an almost oval shaped main body. The air seemed to vibrate with the force of the thrust.

The crowd stopped.

“Mister Martian?” a foal asked. “What is that sound?”

“The sound of victory, my friend,” he responded.

The first drone broke off into a steep dive towards an unseen enemy. A burst of fire sprayed from a pair of weapons mounted under the visual sensor. There was a thudding noise as the hydra’s back was chewed up by fifty-millimeter rounds, and the horrendously powerful shells penetrated straight to the other side, pulping organs. It roared in agony and pulled its heads from the cave. A mere millisecond later, the thunderous tearing sound of the twin rotary cannons firing nearly deafened those watching. The drone flew off to target some distant concentration of hostiles.

The cannons roared again.

Another pair of drones dove down. There was a brief, almost invisible flicker of energy, and a massive sonic blast that caused the earth to tremble. Seemingly spontaneously, the forest was set ablaze, and a number of trees fell into a new sinkhole that had been gouged into the earth by intense energetic fire. The Hydra screamed again as a head was carved clean off by the intense light-based weapons. The fighters pitched upwards and away into the distance.

The final drone had a bank of square pods affixed beneath its wings. As it dove in for the kill, a salvo of rockets pounded the earth, causing it to tremble. In Ponyville, a few kilometers distant, the tremors knocked china off their selves.. The hydra was blown apart. The sheer force of the detonations sent crimson, meaty chunks flying into the air, trailing massive droplets of gore. The drones roared off, quickly becoming mere specks on the horizon, and once again, silence reigned supreme.

The comm snapped open. “We have removed the hydra. Tide of Progress out.”

Martian turned and went back to organizing the crowd and loading the shuttles with foals.

Mel regained some semblance of consciousness as he felt himself being lifted up on a hover stretcher. He looked around, hazily seeing the aftermath of the battle through the sweat and blood in his eyes. Charred remains, as well as drying patches of blood, spotted the hell-blasted environment. Nothing survived. Flames licked at the trees’ trunks and branches. Ash floated about, seemingly looking for a place to deposit itself. The immolated remains of the hydra lay scattered in every direction: a limb here, a part of a head there. The ground in its entirety took on a charred and bloody colour. Ivory bone poked out of the earth where they had been ejected from bodies by the sheer force of weapons fire. It gave the impression that the world was some kind of dying eldritch beast.

With a turn of his head, Mel saw the ruins of the APC. With muted horror, he saw that bodies were being pulled out of it. They were shattered, broken things. The APC’s superstructure had a slight dent in it, but the impact had thrown the crew about. Mel saw a body with its head lolling about, skull completely lifted from its spine, functionally decapitated. There was a very palpable sense of nausea that struck him.

The looming, insectoid blackness of an evac ship engulfed him. With a hiss, the hatch lowered, showing a bay full of young foals. Martian was standing by the entrance, preparing to provide aid. The med personnel waved him away with brief words of thanks and briefer words of dismissal. The foals, for their part, seemed utterly horrified by the carnage that lay before them. Some cried. Mel was distantly struck by the stupidity in diverting an evac shuttle full of children as a medivac. He felt something poke his arm, and his senses dulled perceptible. He looked across to see a foal staring intently at him.

His mind, beginning to be clouded by synthesized hydromorphone, held on to a singular thought as he once again diverted his gaze to the bodies of his fallen comrades:

'That tree had better been worth it.'