"How are things going" Asked David

"Pretty well, but I think we may have crushed a squirrel or something when we crashed." Responded Mark.

"A squirrel?" Asked David.

"Well, there's some blood and fur plastered to the side of the hull, and I don't think its was there when we launched"

"Huh, well, no one's gonna care. Could'a been worse." Said David.

"Yeah, we would really be in trouble if we hit a local or something." He added, and cut the connection.

David lay silently, watching the nearby village and farms through his scope. Hopefully the locals don't consider squirrels sacred or something, he thought. That would be one of the more unusual things for a war to be started because of. Probably on par with the skirmish between the U.S.S. Gunboat Diplomacy and that Ceasian Faction because of our use of frying pans. Actually, why was the Gunboat Diplomacy even sent on a trade mission mission.

His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed some commotion by the apple orchard. He couldn't get a good view through the trees, but it didn't seem major, he could only make out a couple of ponies. After a couple minutes, an orange pony galloped down the road. He watched it as it came to the split path that led to the forest. It didn't even slow down, and continued dashing towards the village. Satisfied that nothing was heading their way, he continued looking for signs of trouble.

"Twilight, Rainbow Dash is hurt real bad!" Yelled Applejack as she burst through the door into the library, causing twilight to nearly jump out of her chair.

"What happened?" Asked Twilight.

"Ah don't know. She just crash landed right in front of me bleeding and burnt. She looks like she got into a fight with a dragon. We patched her up the best we could, but..."

"I'll teleport her to the hospital, it'll be faster" said Twilight. "Hold on." With a blinding flash, the two disappeared, leaving only the faint smell of ozone. They reappeared a millisecond later in front of Applejack's house. Applejack rushed inside, and Twilight followed.

Inside, Rainbow Dash was lying on the dining room table, unconscious, being tended to by Granny Smith. Twilight looked closer, and immediately felt sick. The entire left half of her body was covered in burns, charred black flesh and fur nearly exposing bone. A bloody bandage was wrapped around her head, covering a large gash.

"Ok, I think I can do this," said Twilight. "Granny Smith, you might want to takes a step back." Twilight concentrated on the Ponyville hospital, hoping she could get them close enough. Once she was sure she could manage it, she teleported them to in front of the Ponyville hospital. Applejack's fur was slightly singed, Twilight barely able to teleport the three of them at once, and Twilight herself felt nauseous from magical overexertion.

Applejack quickly regained her wits, and rushed into the hospital. A second later, doctors and nurses hurried out, carefully put Rainbow Dash on a stretcher, and carried her inside. Twilight and Applejack followed, only to be stopped at the doors of the operating room. They nervously waited, watching the clock on the wall. After about fifteen minutes, a doctor stepped out.

"Will she be OK?" asked Twilight.

"Well, her wounds were almost completely cauterized, so she didn't lose much blood. But the burns are so deep that she probably won't ever recover fully. We aren't sure how bad it is, but she probably will walk with a limp for the rest of her life, and might need a leg brace to comfortably stand. Her wings are also pretty bad, and her feather follicles are probably permanently destroyed. Fortunately, she will recover from the concussion she got, and shouldn't have any brain damage "

"Can't you use a tissue regeneration spell to-" Started twilight, before being cut off by the doctor.

"No, we've done all we can. She's lucky to not lose the limb"

"I know a regeneration spell, it's better at-" Twilight was cut off again by the doctor.

"Look, I can't just let random ponies operate on a patient." Said the doctor.

Twilight decided against pushing further, knowing the doctor wasn't likely to let her in anytime soon. She instead sat back down, and hoped for the best.

With a beep, the timer on David's HUD reached zero. "Hey, my shift is up, so i'll be coming your way soon." He called over the comms. He got up from his position, and made sure his gauss rifle was concealed. He had dug out a small area in the ground on top of a hill at the edge of the forest. It was halfway under a bush, and he had built a small wall of sticks and leaves in front of it, with a hole for his rifle. It gave anyone in it a good view, while being nearly undetectable. He turned on his rifles locator beacon, so it would be easy to find it again. Satisfied everything was hidden, he walked back towards the crash site.

The walk to the site was uneventful. Larger animals that had been frightened off by the crash had returned, and showed remarkably little fear of him. Rays of light shone through the treetops, illuminating the forest floor. The sun was nearly directly above him, and likely wouldn't set for hours. David considered taking off his helmet to enjoy the fresh forest air, but decided he would rather not risk getting some alien disease. After a couple minutes, he could see the clearing through the trees.

A lot of debris from their violent landing had been gathered, and the scientists seem to have recovered some equipment to use. Mark was at the edge of the clearing, rearranging a couple small boulders by the edge of the stream. "Hey," called David as he stepped into the clearing. "Your turn to keep watch".

Mark set down the boulder he was carrying. "Alright, I'll get going. See ya in two hours"

"Try not to get lost, OK"

Mark grumbled something in return, too quiet for the mic to detect.

David rolled his eyes, and turned to the scientists. "Alright, you guys can do your sciencey things. Just don't go too far. I'll be in the shuttle if you need me." He watched as the scientists got back to work, then turned around and stepped into the shuttle

"Yes mom," said one of the scientists the second he turned his back.

David spun around, but the scientists had scattered already. He sighed, and walked into the shuttle. He glanced over at the comms interface, which still read systems offline. Carefully, he pried off one of the wall panels, and began looking over the wires below. Spotting a cable that had come loose, he reached in and reconnected it. With a pop, the entire comms panel went black. He groaned. looked like it wouldn't be as easy to repair as he thought.

After going through what seemed like miles of cables and computers, David connected the final cable to the shuttle batteries. After a second, the standby light on the radio transmitter flashed on, and he silently cheered. He had managed to reroute power to the radio equipment, and after a few good kicks, gotten it working again. Now he just had to reconnect it to the controls, and it should work. He was interrupted when Mark called him over the comms, causing him to jump and nearly short circuit the entire setup.

"Hey, my two hours are almost up," said Mark. "Nothing unusual happened, but a train left for the mountain city. If we were spotted, it'll probably bring the news to the garrison in the castle."

"It's been two hours?" asked David, surprised at how quickly the time had passed.

"Yeah, last I checked. I'm getting ready to leave right now."

"Alright, I'll finish up down here. Whatever you do, don't touch anything in the shuttle. I just spent hours fixing it, so you had better not break it."

"Don't worry, I'll stay away from it. I want to get off this rock as much as you do."

A couple minutes later, Mark was back at the clearing, and David went back out to the observation spot. Nothing unusual happened for the next two hours, although the sun was getting close to the horizon. After a while, he started wishing something would happen, just to end his boredom. Finally, with a beep, his alarm indicated another two hours had passed, and he called Mark to let him know he was coming. As he got up from the hole, a stick got caught on his holster. He jerked it free, causing a sharp point on the stick to cut into the leather. Wonderful, though David, looking scar on the ancient leather. Oh well, I can get it repaired later.

The return to the crash site was, once again, uneventful, and he immediately got to work on the radio. With a bit of effort, he was able to jury-rig it up to a console, and get the software working. After a quick double check to make sure nothing would blow up in his face, he lifted two wires from the console. He tapped them together, sending a burst of power to the radio. the receiver on his suit confirmed that the radio had sent a loud beep. Experimentally, he tapped out a couple S.O.S.s. To his surprise, through a burst of static and distorted noise, a response came through.

Deeetdidididit didit dididit. The message continued for about twenty seconds. His suit translated the message, displaying it on his HUD.

"this is the intrepid we have received your message. please identify"

"This is David Jacobson, our shuttle crashed in the forest. please send assistance." His suit displayed his speech in morse code, which he tapped with the wires.

"this is the intrepid, we see your location. we will send assistance, ETA fifteen minutes."

David pumped his fist and switched his suit to local comms. "Guys, we've got help inbound, ETA fifteen minutes."

"They'd better be fast," said Mark, "cause a bunch of ponies in armor just showed up and headed our way, and they'll be here in less than fifteen minutes. I think I can slow them down if needed."

"Go ahead, but you had better not do something stupid." Said David.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

"If you say so..."

Mark watched the column of gold armored ponies advance. They were only a few kilometers away, and the crash site wasn't far from the edge of the forest. It was almost certain they would reach them before help from the Intrepid. But, depending on well disciplined they were, he could probably delay them for at least a couple minutes. He pulled out his rocket launcher, moved the gauss rifle, and poked the launcher through the hole in the bush, and waited. When they got within 50 meters of him, he pointed the designator into the center of the pony formation and fired. With a thunk, the warhead was magnetically accelerated from its tube, igniting its rocket motor as soon as it was far enough away. Its guidance systems kicked in, and it accelerated towards the ponies.

Celestial Shield marched along the path to the Whitetail woods. The Anti-dragon section Royal Guard had been sent down to deal with a supposed dragon in Whitetail Woods. An unfortunate pegasus had gotten what looked like dragon fire burns, but according to the doctors it looked like it had been done by something non-magical, but just as hot as dragon fire. He figured the doctors just got it wrong, he couldn't see those kinds of temperatures being generated by something non-magical.

Suddenly, some of the guards in the front of the formation yelled. He looked up, to something hurtling towards them, trailing smoke. Before he could react, it exploded above them, creating an almost perfect circle of white smoke, and left his ears ringing. Immediately, the smoke cloud descended, causing his eyes to start itching and watering uncontrollably and cough every time he tried to take a deep breath. Barely able to see and disoriented he stumbled away from smoke, and attempted to clear his eyes. Blinking away tears, he managed to get away from the smoke. As he sat down in a field beside the road, he saw something large disappear into the forest at the top of a nearby hill.

As soon as the rest of his squad recover from the smoke, he got them together and headed towards the hill. It wasn't very large, but big enough to give it a good view of the nearby town, Ponyville. The top of it was covered in small trees and bushes, making it an almost perfect hiding spot. He pushed through the first row of bushes, and stumbled into a shallow hole, a sharp branch cutting his foreleg. He glanced at the injury, and seeing it had barely drawn blood, continued on.

Mark ran through the woods as fast as he could. He had stuck around for a minute after firing the rocket, watching the results. The ponies seemed to be recovering relatively quickly, but it would buy them the time they needed. He burst from the forest into the clearing, just as two dropships slowed to a hover above them, a telltale rumble coming from their engines.

The dropships were bigger than the shuttle, but not by much. However, two powerful fusion engines in the roots of their high mounted wings, several tons of armor, a large chin turret and a black, grey and red paintjob meant they were much more powerful and intimidating. Several marines jumped from one, their power armor easily absorbing the fall, and began securing cables to the wreckage of the shuttle, whilst the other landed, opening its rear door. The scientists hurried in, and Mark and David followed.

"Is this everyone?" shouted the loadmaster over the rumble of the engines.

David did a quick headcount. "Yep, we're all here." He yelled in return.

"OK pilot, get us out of here" He shouted into his mic.

The loading door closed, blocking out most of the noise from the engines. Through a small porthole, Mark could see the second dropship take off, the shuttle carried underneath it.

"Well, looks like we're safe now," said Mark.

The Captain looked up from his computer, and turned to them, while Lewin continued standing next to him. As soon as they had gotten on the ship, the Captain had called them to his Ready Room."Now, We have already looked over the recordings from your mission, and I have to say, that could have gone better. But, you can't be blamed for the explosive rainbows, and you did do a reasonable job of making the best of your situation. The locals did find out you were there, but once again, nothing you could do about it. The scientist were still able to get a lot of useful information, nobody was hurt, and the locals never came in contact with you, so your mission could still be considered a success.

Mark internally sighed, realizing they were not being punished.

"We are considering sending you down for a second mission as soon as we figure out the exact cause of the crash. Until then, you are dismissed."

Mark got up, contemplating what he had been told. He immediately headed for the mess, hungry after not eating for about eight hours.

"Well, we get another mission to the surface." Said David. "what do you think."

"I dunno, I guess it is pretty nice down there when you aren't crashing."

"Yeah, maybe we should set up a resort or something."

Celestial Shield stood, waiting on the platform for the train to arrive. After spending the rest of last evening and most of today searching the forest, they hadn't found a trace of the "monsters". They did find what looked like some kind of crash site, although whatever had crashed was long gone. They had however, heard what sounded like a muffled dragon's roar and seen something fly off, but the setting sun had prevented them from getting a good look, and it was moving to fast to catch. But, seeing as the threat seemed to be gone, half of the Royal Guard company, including him, had been ordered back to Canterlot, while the other half was to stick around.

His train of though was interrupted by the train as it rolled into the station, accompanied by the hissing of steam and squealing of brakes. The train was empty, sent specifically for the Royal Guard, with each carriage for a specific squad. As he worked his way towards the carriage marked for his squad, somepony bumped into him, sending a sharp pain into his foreleg. He glanced down, and noticed the cut he had gained yesterday from a stick, while mostly healed, did seem to be showing the signs of an infection. He frowned, and reminded himself to get it checked out later.

Author's Note

Well, that chapter took a bit longer than expected, partially because a spider took up residence in my keyboard and caused me to forget to save. But the spider is gone and I got a lesson as to what happens when you don't save often, so all is good. Once again, advice as to how improve my story will be appreciated.

Edit: rewriting much more minor for this chapter, and another is in the works