Halo: The Interlopers

Three days and two nights had passed since the raid on Canterlot Castle. Most of Equestria had come to view the humans as heroes, or simply accepted them, but a vocal minority opposed their presence on the planet. The world at large was little more than a macrocosm of the consensus in Equestria. The largely trusting nature of ponies facilitated the establishment of UNSC bases on the surface of the planet, and improved the conditions that personnel stationed planetside lived in.

Princess Celestia requested that Knife team be stationed in the base adjacent to her castle, and even offered them fairly luxurious rooms in the stone building. Knife team accepted both without hesitation, once their superiors had stated that they would allow it.

Celestia requested Mark see her on a balcony on the exterior of the castle, where she gazed at the stars. His helmet was off and under his left arm, his weapons slung on his back.

“Before I tell you why I summoned you, I want to thank you again for saving us. If you hadn’t arrived on Equis…”

“Don’t mention it,” Mark said with a small but genuine smile, “You wanted to speak to me?”

“Yes. You remember my student, Twilight?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“She and her friends requested to visit one of your starships, to see how humans live and travel.”

“I could arrange for that. But you have to understand, a military vessel is not an accurate representation of how most humans live. The only really human thing they’d experience is what it’s like to be in space. We’re not going to take a joyride to another star just so they can get frozen during the trip like the most of us do.”

“I understand, and so do Twilight and her friends. But it would be more to go on than nothing. What they really want is to just be in space.”

“Well then, I’ll try to work something out.”

It took several hours to convince his superiors, but Mark was able to get permission for Twilight, AJ, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, Spike, Rarity and Fluttershy to come aboard the UNSC Deliverance. When Princess Celestia heard, she sent a letter to Twilight, telling her to wait outside her house with her friends the next day at noon.

***

Twilight had convinced Spike to stay behind, and take care of his pet phoenix and Owloysius, as well as take care of her house while she was gone. She told him she might be gone for a day or two, and to not do anything crazy.

“Are y’all a little scared to go so high up, or is it just me?” AJ looked apprehensive, as if she wanted to abandon the idea of being among the stars and planets.

“I think we’re all a little scared. Me, I’m just worried about how there’s no air in space.” Rainbow Dash never admitted fear, so when she said that, it gave the others pause.

“Oo-oo-oo-ooh! In spa-a-ace nopony can hear you scre-e-e-eam!” Pinkie Pie joked, as she just laughed away the fear like she almost always did. Thankfully for the others, this bit of humor mostly allayed their fears too, and they joined her in giggling.

“I’m sure the view will be gorgeous up there! But with it being a military ship and all, I imagine the uniforms aren’t quite as splendid.” Rarity said.

They heard a screech from afar, which rapidly increased in volume. The metal bird they had previously rode in, or one that looked near-identical, began to descend vertically after revealing itself to be source of the shriek.
Ponyville had quickly become accustomed to these “birds” occasionally passing through since they’d started appearing a few days ago, but they hadn’t seen one land before. They town was certainly surprised to see the rear end open to reveal three armored humans, and even more so to see several ponies enter it before it shut and flew off.

On board, Twilight and her friends saw Mark, Jason and Ethan without their helmets. The ride managed to be as scary for them as the first time, but only because this time they were leaving the atmosphere they’d breathed all their lives.

“This’ll be bumpier than last time,” Jason began, “But it’s still safer than it seems. Literally a hundred times safer than in the drop pods we went down in. I’m trying to think of something not as clichéd as ‘close your eyes and think happy thoughts’, but you can do that in the meantime.”

The ponies chuckled lightly at that. Most of them took Jason’s advice, deciding to think about the view they’d have after this, and the cool things they’d see on board.

As if Mark had read their thoughts, “What you’re gonna see is some advanced technology, but the ship itself is fairly utilitarian in its interior design.”

“Bravo zero-four-zero requesting permission to dock with the UNSC Deliverance, over.” Ethan said.

“Who’s he talking to?” Pinkie asked.

“He’s talking to the flight control center of the UNSC Deliverance, a Marathon-class heavy cruiser, the ship we’re about to board.”

“How? I mean, ya kept talking to yourself when we was in that cellar in the castle, an’ then ya said that you’d been talking to humans in orbit. What kinda magic is that anyhow?” Applejack queried.

“Humans don’t have magic; the only ‘magic’ we use is illusions for the entertainment of adults and children. Most of what appears to be ‘magic’ is just modern technology. As the 20th-century science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once said, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ Even after almost six hundred years, that still rings true,” Mark explained. “In this case, the technology is the radio, which is a few decades older than that quote.”

"Oh, radio, right."

Just as Mark finished explaining, the flight control center responded.

“Bravo zero-four-zero, this is UNSC Deliverance, you are cleared to dock, proceed along designated path. Sorry we couldn’t get to you faster, we’re transitioning to the whole fleet sharing control over deployments, but for now our control center is pretty busy.”

“Roger Deliverance, proceeding along designated path. Glad I ain’t you,” Ethan responded. “All right, we’re gonna enter hangar two in four minutes,” He said to the passengers, “Thing is, hangar two’s docking shield is down, so they’ll have to shut it with the regular doors and re-pressurize after we land. That’ll take about two minutes.”
Twilight changed the subject to one tangentially related to their previous discussion.

“Speaking of decades, how long do humans live?” She queried.

“Well, your average human, without any physiological alterations, lives about ninety years, but it’s not uncommon to see people over a hundred. However, slipspace travel, which is how humans travel faster than light, usually entails humans being cryogenically frozen, which halts their aging altogether, mostly because it still takes a while to travel between solar systems. Your average lifer, which is someone who’s a soldier for a living instead of just serving a short stint, is physically only half their chronological age, because of the time spent in cryo-sleep. We’ve got eighty year-old officers who are only forty physically,” Mark explained. “I’m actually thirty-six years old, but I’m physically only nineteen. I look bigger because, well, SPARTANs are physically enhanced for the purposes of war.”

“Hey, is that the ship we’re going to?” Dash inquired, pointing to the Deliverance through the cockpit window.

“Yeah,” Jason responded, “I’ll bring it up on the screen back here, so you don’t have to crowd Ethan.” He turned the screens in the front of the troop bay on, and punched in a few commands. The cruiser popped up, and the screens displayed various pieces of general information about it, including both imperial and metric measurements of its size and mass.

The ponies crowded around the screen, gazing at the information and images before them.

“100,000 tons, 3,190 feet long, 960 feet wide,” Twilight read aloud, awed by the numbers as the other ponies were. “How big is a foot?”

Mark put his hands exactly twelve inches from each other, palms facing inward, to indicate the size.

“That’s two hooves! I can’t believe anypony, uh, anybody, could build something so massive!”

“Well, there are larger ships we have, but not many, and they’re thrice the size. The average Covenant ship was the same size as this one, and the biggest ones were 95,000 feet long. And they weren’t made of cardboard either; they had tough armor, and tougher energy shields. We’ve only got energy shields on a few dozen ships, and a few types of fighters! Thankfully, the Deliverance is one of the few with energy shields, and they’re strong ones too.” Mark made sure to emphasize the technological superiority of the Covenant, which obviously carried over to the remnants that had attacked the castle days earlier.

“All right, beginning final approach,” Ethan stated.

The ponies, Mark and Jason sat down and waited for the Pelican to land, and to be let out. When it did land, it was almost silent, the only noise being a thump as it touched down on the tarmac. The occupants could feel the vibration of the landing, and similarly felt the movement of the hangar doors as they shut, even if they couldn’t see it happen. A few moments after the doors shut, a hissing started, and the sound intensified.

“Um, what’s that hissing noise?” Fluttershy asked.

“That’d be the hangar re-pressurizing. There’s no air in space to conduct sound or breathe in, or to exert the pressure that our bodies evolved to, as you’d experience on your planet. So that hissing is breathable air-” Jason said before he was cut off.

“It’s breathable air being pumped in so that we can survive without sealed suits; got it.” Twilight finished the sentence for him.

“Do ponies have that tech, or is that knowledge just from pony sci-fi?” Jason asked, leaving the cockpit now that he no longer needed to fly the Pelican.

“We do have science fiction in Equestria, and a lot of the authors seem to have been dead on, considering the technology humans seem to use.”

“Huh.”

The hissing stopped. Ethan walked back into the cockpit to check if it was safe to exit.

“101.3 kilopascals, that’s sea level pressure, and a comfortable 25 degrees Celsius; it’s safe to exit.”

The rear hatch opened, and the passengers could see that there were several other Pelicans in the hangar, as well as maintenance crews entering to work on them. Then Mark, Jason and Ethan grabbed their helmets and exited, beckoning their guests to follow.

“All right, visitors and returning personnel through here.” An ensign in a Navy work uniform gestured to a door. The humans and ponies walked into a narrow corridor with a window to another room on one side. There were several people in there.

“Okay, just a decontamination and routine screening. Don’t want any microscopic hitchhikers coming aboard,” A voice said from the other side of the glass using the intercom.

There was a mist puffed into the air, and some visible flashes of light from the corners of the room, and the other end of the corridor opened.

“Mark, Jason, Ethan, report to the armory immediately. Take the ponies with you.” They recognized the voice as the ship’s AI, Emmerich.

“Alright, just follow us everypony. And be on your best behavior, it literally took me hours to convince my superiors to let you all on board.” Mark followed this statement with a gesture for them to move forward with him.

The ship’s halls were functional and gray. The numerous supports reminded the ponies of a construction site, but the abundance of glowing screens displaying information and the people moving through countered that impression. The ponies could feel the stares of the passer-bys on them.

After around four minutes of walking, the group reached an elevator.

“This’ll take us to the armory, then we can figure out what Emmerich wants,” Ethan said. He punched in the destination level, and the elevator began to move.

“Who’s Emmerich?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“He’s the ship’s artificial intelligence. He’s basically a computer that’s fully sentient, and bound by numerous levels of programming not to betray his masters; he’s not a slave by any means. What he does is coordinate and perform numerous functions by his integration into the ship’s systems. He does this faster and more efficiently than any human can.” Jason explained

“Huh?”

“He’s an artificial person, without a real body,” Mark clarified.

“Oh,” The ponies said together.

The elevator ride ended a few moments later. The passengers walked out, and they were addressed again by Emmerich.

“Alright, take the ponies into the waiting room, outside the observation room.”

The humans obeyed.

“Just stay here, we’ll be fine, and so will you,” Mark said with a smile. “We’ll be back.”

I hope so. It’s scary being in a place like this without anypony you know who can guide you. Twilight thought. The others had the same thought too, although they didn’t realize it.

***

The SPARTANs entered the armor room. The armor room was where the MJOLNIR Mk V (B) armor system, its add-ons and its components were stored and upgraded for the numerous SPARTAN-IIIs in the Eagle Sword battle group. They’d figured out what was going on when Emmerich told them to leave the ponies outside in the waiting room.
Mark, Jason and Ethan all stood on marked spots on the floor, and held their arms out. The marked areas sent a signal to the hydrostatic gel layer of their suits, causing it to solidify and immobilize them.

Technicians entered to begin removing their armor almost immediately. The process took about forty minutes. If the suits hadn’t locked in place, the subjects wouldn’t have been able to hold the T-pose for the entirety of the process.

When the procedure was finished, the soldiers were completely naked. They were brought briefs, digital woodland camouflage pants, socks, boots and brown T-shirts to wear. The men quickly put them on, being completely dressed in under a minute.

Emmerich’s holographic avatar appeared. He claimed he based it on a supporting character from a stealth-action video game from the late 20th and early 21st century, and his name was taken from the first name of the same character. He appeared as a slim Caucasian man, around his thirties, wearing round glasses and sporting messy hair.

“Well, your suits are beginning their upgrades as we speak,” Emmerich began, pushing up his “glasses”. “It’ll only take a few days to finish. In the meantime, Vice Admiral Hunt has given you some shore leave on Equis.”

“Shit, really?”

“How generous.”

“I guess I could use some time to wind down.”

“Also, I’m working on the data packet you retrieved during the raid, Jason. It’ll probably be decrypted around the same time as the armor upgrades are finished. I guess I’ll just call those your birthday presents.” Emmerich followed that with a sly grin, and opened the doors to the hall where the ponies were.

***

After about forty minutes of waiting, a few humans walked out of a door near where Mark, Jason and Ethan had gone in.

They were dressed in bluish-white smocks, and smelled like foul sanitizer.

A few minutes later, their human friends returned, wearing clothes instead of armor.

“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting,” Mark said through a grin.

“What took ya so long?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I can’t tell you that, you don’t have clearance. But we can give you that tour now.”

“Ooh! Yay!” Pinkie exclaimed.

The group returned to the elevator, where Mark punched in the command to go to the recreation deck. The ride was a quick one, only a minute. When it stopped, the doors opened and the group exited.

“All right, this is where the mess hall, gym, shooting range, theater, library, and observation deck are; I’ll take you to the observation deck first.”

The walk took about three minutes, during which time they passed a few dozen off-duty personnel. As it was before, the ponies got some odd stares, but no comments other than the occasional greeting from someone going the other way.

The doors to the observation deck opened, to reveal a large chamber, oddly devoid of any people. The windows were reinforced with Titanium-A lattice, but that didn’t impede vision much.

Through the windows, the ponies could see the stars even better than they could the night Mark had arrived. The stars didn’t twinkle at all, but nebulae could be seen perfectly, and the planet below was a beautiful blue sphere, painted with a verdant green brush.

The ponies were awed at the beauty before them. Now they knew that out there, near at least one of those visible stars, was life. Life they had never seen, in forms they could hardly imagine, in places they could not hope to picture. A life was making its own journey to find a friend, or love, or a purpose, or inspiration, or most likely to create new life.

“You travel among such beauty! Have you become desensitized to the wonder of the skies from traveling them, or are you still moved?” Rarity asked in a whisper.

Pinkie stared silently at the magnificent spectacle, her smile lighting the room. Fluttershy gazed into the sprinkled blackness, pictured the life among it. Rainbow Dash imagined the adventures that existed among them, the challenges and dangers unique to each world. Applejack thought of the families among the stars, and the bonds that they shared, which were themselves a bond with other species they weren’t aware of.

Twilight was silent and unblinking, trying in vain to imagine every single wonder that could potentially exist in the endless expanse. Every form of life, culture, science, philosophy; everything.

“During combat, this room is sealed off by multiple bulkheads, as to prevent any unnecessary casualties and prevent potential damage to other areas of the ship. You can visit this room any time you want, as long as you have an escort.

We’ve also got a library with data on all known planets linked to the terminals in this room, but you’ll be restricted to accessing only non-classified information. I’ll continue the tour when you’re all ready to go,” Mark explained.

It was another hour before they were ready to leave. The rest of the tour was uneventful. They were allowed to see most of the ship, and they behaved perfectly.

The ponies and their SPARTAN guides had just finished the tour when a disembodied voice spoke.

“Colonel Thompson,” The voice began, “Because of a backlogged flight schedule for the Pelicans, our guests aren’t going to be able to leave the ship for another thirteen hours.”

“Thanks Emmerich,” Mark said.

The Deliverance was in a geostationary orbit above Equestria, which was now three hours into the night. Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, AJ, Dash and Fluttershy were all showing visible fatigue.

“We should probably get you some beds. Emmerich?”

“Colonel?”

“Are there any VIP rooms available for our guests?”

“Yeah, there’re four rooms available, with two beds in each.”

Mark took the guests to the appropriate deck. While in the elevator, they decided who would sleep in which rooms. Applejack and Rainbow Dash would bunk in one room, and Rarity and Fluttershy in another. Pinkie would get her own room, because they all agreed that she’d be a little too disruptive to any potential roommate sleep soundly. Pinkie didn’t take offense, she knew she was a snorer anyway. Twilight took the last room, so she could read without disturbing anypony.

Mark showed them all to their quarters, and showed them how to work the lights, bathrooms and such. Ethan and Jason headed to their bunks a few hundred meters away. Mark was too when Twilight asked him for a favor.

“Mark, could you show me how to access the library from here?”

“Sure.” He showed her how to use the datapad on the desk next to her bed.

“And could you stay here? I’m kind of afraid of sleeping alone.”

“Are you hitting on me?”

Twilight blushed quite visibly. “No, I’ve just always had some kind of company at night, whether it was my Smarty-Pants doll as a filly or Spike as a teenager or adult. I’m just afraid to sleep alone, it gives me nightmares, and then I have nopony to talk to about them.”

“Okay,” Mark said. “Emmerich, please try to prevent any gossip about this.”

“You got it Mark. My lips are sealed, and I’ll stop any scuttlebutt I hear.” The AI replied.

“Thanks.”

Well, he is good-looking as far as humans seem to go, and nice too, but I don’t like him that much. Twilight thought.

Mark got undressed to his briefs, and crawled in bed. Twilight used with the device as Mark had showed her how to, and turned off the lights. She understood that she’d be able to read in the dark with it. And she did for another hour before going to sleep herself.

***

“Run! Run! Get outside!”

Mark could hear his dad yelling to him. His younger brother and sister were following him, and he was following his mom.

They were leaving their houses to get to an evacuation center. They all knew where it was, their dad had made sure they knew the way by heart after the UNSC first built the place.

“Come on!”

Mark held onto his younger siblings hands, and pulled them forwards as they cried. Mandy was holding onto her favorite doll, and Eric to his teddy bear.

The whole city was deafeningly loud; people were screaming and dirt was flying everywhere. Mark could see Banshees in the skies, firing plasma and fuel rods everywhere. Including at his parents.

In a green flash of heat, Mark, Mandy and Eric saw their parents partially vaporized. Chunks of them hit Mark and his remaining family. They kept running, trying to ignore how tired their legs were. Mandy just stopped for a moment, but it was long enough for a bolt of green plasma to hit her in the upper back.

“Mandy!” Eric shouted, running back for his sister. He got to her, and started shaking her, foolishly trying to wake her up.

“No, Eric, c’mon!”

A plasma grenade hit Eric’s face, burning itself into the three year-old’s skin, and he started to run towards Mark, screaming like an animal. Mark ran faster, and looked over his shoulder as his little brother disappeared forever in a blue cloud. Mark just kept running.

He kept running until he was sure his legs would fall off. He made it to within fifty meters of the evacuation center when he collapsed. A brave UNSC Army corporal ran out to get him, and carried him into the building. The corporal got him to a ship in time, and Mark crawled onto a chair in the cold and empty bay.

“Hey, where’s your parents?” A stranger asked.

Mark just cried.

Plasma tore the ship apart, and Mark fell out of the sky.

***

“Ahhhhhhh!” Mark screamed as he woke. He was sweating like crazy, his sheets soaking wet. He got out of bed, and headed to the bathroom. There he emptied his bladder and splashed cold water on his face, as if it would cool the plasma that had filled his nightmare.

Mark didn’t dream very much, but when he did it was often the same nightmare. He relived his escape from the Covenant invasion of Biko over and over again. The only difference from the real escape was that he always died in the end of the nightmare, something he sometimes wished was the real ending.

The only thing about nightmares Mark could be thankful for is that plenty of other UNSC personnel went through the same thing, so while it may have woken some of the sleeping members of the crew, it didn’t really bother them.

“Mark? I heard you yelling in your sleep.” Twilight had gotten out of her bed to see what was wrong.

“I’m sorry Twilight, just a nightmare. It doesn’t happen often.”

“What was it about?”

“Just… Monsters. Monsters chasing me.”

“But, you fight monsters.”

“It’s always the same damn dream. It’s the only damn dream.”

“What?”

The hell with it, why not? It’s not like it’d hurt anyone, it’s not classified information, just a war story.

“It’s probably a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder induced nightmare; I don’t always dream, but when I do, it’s always that one nightmare.”

Mark told her about it; every single detail about the nightmare. He had never bothered to see a shrink, but he figured just talking about it would help. It helped a little bit.

Mark went back to sleep after that, but Twilight didn’t. She was disturbed by what she heard. She stayed up for several hours researching the Human-Covenant War.

I think he needs… Something. I don’t know what, but he sounds like he’s empty inside. No family, frequent nightmares, nothing but war, that’s a wretched existence.

Several hours later, Mark, Jason, Ethan and the ponies all boarded a Pelican to return to Ponyville. It was time to enjoy some shore leave.