Far Away

I coughed and shakily got up, my helmet's HUD flickering weakly. Every part of my body ached as I looked around. The emergency lights must've went on after I was knocked out. Come to think of it, I thought, what happened anyhow?

From what I remembered, we got pulled into an especially strong gravitational field from an unseen object. But a planet showing up out of nowhere had only happened once, and not during mid-flight, so the crew and pilots had agreed that that wasn't it. They figured some sort of anomaly occurred, because the ship was equipped with just enough energy to fight out of a gravity field of almost any planet, besides maybe Jupiter.

I looked out of the observation deck window into the containment zone. Metal crates were strewn about the large room. A disemboweled scientist lay on the floor in a pool of blood, eliciting a gag from me. I looked to the back of the storage room to a terrifying conclusion;

The cryosleep tanks were shattered, which meant blood thirsty insectoid aliens were running loose. I gulped, and checked that my handgun was still in its holster. Thankfully, it was. I grabbed my gun, and checked the ammo. A full clip. I felt stupid. Of course it was full, I couldn't have shot anybody if I was out cold.

"How long was I out?" I mumbled aloud after seeing that the door was closed. I checked the time on my HUD. 10:15. It had been four hours since the outage. Somewhere in the distance I heard gunshots. Jolting awake, I looked out of the door's window. Nothing. Hesitantly, I opened the door and looked around the corner. The hall was littered with broken equipment and the occasional dead crewman/scientist. I stepped out, feeling something soft under my boot. I looked down to see that I had stepped into the smashed head of a security member. I stared down for a second, choking back vomit. Slowly, I stepped over him, cringing at the squishing noise my foot made as I lifted it. Or at least, I thought it was a him. Couldn't exactly tell.

I crept down the hall, pistol at the ready. My armor would protect me, but I wasn't taking bets. Massive chunks of the walls had been taken out by explosions, revealing shattered fuel tanks and ruined cables. There was no windows on the ship, so I had no clue where we were. Hell, I didn't even know if we were on the ground or not. There wasn't really many windows on the ship except for on the bridge.

The silence was broken by another barrage of gunshots down the hall and around the corner. It was followed by a loud, inhuman shriek. I ran down the hall, before stopping and peeking around the corner. Two massive insect-like creatures - not unlike ants - were scratching and banging on a door. Their two forelegs each boasted a scythe-like blade which undoubtedly were used as weapons, while the other four legs were used to walk. Errocubi, I thought. We just called them bugs for the most part.

Hesitantly, I aimed my handgun and fired several times, unable to see from the constant muzzle flash and hoping that my rounds connected.

After I used half my clip, I stopped firing. The two creatures fell to the ground, black blood gushing out of several gun wounds. I stepped over them and knocked on the door (labeled Crew Quarters 03), trying to ignore the sick feeling from looking at the slaughtered bugs.

"Open the door!" I yelled.

"Who the hell are you?!" someone on the other side shouted.

"Lieutenant Edward Cartwright, U.S.C!" I answered. The door opened after a moment to reveal a familiar man.

"You're still alive!" Vince said with a chuckle, before stepping aside to let me in. Sergeant Vince Abel was in the same unit as me during the Mars conflict, and we had been good friends for a few years now. I saw another man in the room; Corporal Gunther Breiner, a foreign volunteer from Germany during the invasion of NT-1, who decided to stay in service. We had gotten to know each other pretty well, protecting routine logistic shipments between worlds against nonexistent threats. Breiner cracked a halfhearted grin, clearly exhausted. I tried to smile but it turned into more of a grimace.

"What the fuck happened?" I asked. Vince shrugged.

"No idea. Comms are down with the command room, but we didn't have enough guys with us to go and check it out and survive." he explained. "Gunther is damn sure that we crashed, and I guess that makes the most sense." I nodded, looking over at the man in question.

"The cryosleep chambers couldn't have released on their own. The glass would have to be shattered, as the controls for their tanks unlock when the ship is grounded. Judging by the fact that nothing works and a lot of the interior has taken as much damage as it has, I suspect we didn't just land softly." Breiner said.

"Fuckin' nerd." Vince jokingly said, tapping him on the shoulder.

"Takes one to know one, Mr. StarCraft." I said with a laugh, sitting down on a bed and using a small metal chair as a leg rest. "How old is the first game? Forty?"

"Thirty nine." he said with a scoff. "God damn plebeian." We all chuckled, before somebody came out of the crew quarter's restroom. A man adorned in combat armor with a sub machine gun slung over his shoulder walked into the room with us.

"Hate to cut off this very important conversation-" he paused for a second when he saw me. "Oh hey, Ed's alive. Anyway, we have a bit of a situation here, if I must remind you." Bryce Owens was a Welsh soldier that joined the U.S.C, after brief service as a commando under H.M.'s government during the NATO-Indian invasion of Pakistan in the early 2030s. He was jumpy, but quick to act, and a damn good shot.

"He's right." I said. "I want to get off this ship."

"It's dangerous out there." Vince said, standing up and pumping his shotgun.

"You got a better idea? I'd rather die trying to escape than doing nothing." I said, grabbing a rifle from the gun rack and checking the safety. Gunther stood up and grabbed his anti-material rifle.

"I'm with him." the sniper said, before putting on his helmet. "If we get out of the ship, we could hunt animals for food or some shit." The group all collectively nodded.

"Then it's settled." Bryce said. "Let's get out of here, lads."

Twilight observed the platoon of soldiers surrounding the strange object. She'd read lots of stories about aliens landing in Equestria, but none were actually true. The large metal object was stream-lined, obviously for quick travel. It was truly immense, almost the size of her castle. It had been very hard to keep civilians away at first, but increasing the presence of troops seemed to deter any curious ponies.

The trees surrounding the object were filled with spearmen watching vigilantly. Pegasi waited in the canopy wielding swords and axes, ready to swoop at any threatening force. Pikemen sat in the treeline, prepared to stand to attention at a moment's notice. Archers and crossbowmen took cover behind them, ready to attack at her command. Yet Twilight had never felt so unsafe in her life. Since she was princess, the soldiers would defend her to their last breath, but nopony knew the power of whatever was inside.

It was obviously some sort of vehicle. Short legs held one side up, while the landing gear on the other side was mangled and destroyed from the crash. Doors dotted the sides, some of which had odd green material oozing from the edges. It definitely wasn't an everyday sight. Twilight had personally agreed to oversee its defense, ready to command infantry if something dangerous escaped. A voice came from behind her.

"Princess, we are ready to breach." she turned to see a squad of heavily armored unicorns with axes and swords standing and waiting.

"Excellent." she replied, standing up. "I'll give the order in ten minutes."

"Where the hell did they all come from?" I yelled over the roar of gunfire. We stepped down the hallway, rhythmically spraying rounds into the attacking insectoids.

"The bastards fuck like rabbits!" Vince shouted in response, blasting one apart with his shotgun. After a moment, the onslaught ended. We ran for the control room, ready to shoot anything that lunged out in front of us.

I shakily unlocked the bridge room doors with my keycard, the magnetic entrance sliding open. We pored into the room, expecting a lot more bugs. Instead, we were greeted by lots of security staff aiming their weapons at us.

"Holy shit, you're alive!" one yelled with a laugh, taking off his helmet and walking up to me. He was Kyle Boon, a veteran from the Indo-Sino conflict in 2019. We met on my first trip to Mars and slowly but surely became friends. I chuckled.

"Good to see you, too, Kyle." I said.

"You guys got food?" Vince asked. "I'm starved." Boon shook his head. The other men in the room began to mill about in conversation.

"Nope, unless you're a cannibal." he said, motioning at a dead scientist in the corner. Massive scratch marks decorated his back. Oddly enough, no bugs were to be seen. I grimaced.

"No thanks." Gunther said.

"How was it out there?" another man asked, walking up to us and removing his helmet to reveal a familiar face.

"Hey, Brian." I said. "Lots of insects but we didn't lose anybody."

"I wanna get off this damn ship." Kyle said. "My boys are starting to go stir crazy. We got in here thinking there'd be a way to talk to HQ, but didn't find jack shit. The trip here was costly enough as it was, so we didn't want to leave again." the bulky man explained solemnly. I nodded slowly. We got lucky.

"Then let's fuckin' do it." Bryce said, reloading his S.M.G. "Maybe we'll meet some aliens?" The men in the room hesitantly began to get up and grab weapons. Kyle and I glanced at each other.

"Alright." Boon said, un-holstering his handgun. "I got some fight in me."

"Likewise." I replied, changing my rifle's mag and cocking back the handle. Vince topped off his shotgun and Breiner slung his sniper over his shoulder, grabbing a machine pistol from his hip.

Everybody in the room checked their weapons, and gave the all-clear. At that, we opened the doors and strode out, flicking on flashlights on our rifles and scanning the area. It was quiet so far, which was surprising. I expected heavy resistance.

We made way for the loading bay, clearing the hallways of the few bugs that we had come across. Their numbers increased as we got closer, but we still had no trouble. Out of nowhere, an explosion echoed through the ship from ahead. Everybody had began to talk in hushed tones, wondering what it could've been. I picked up a few ideas.

"Did we get breached?"

"Maybe someone else is alive!"

"Stupid bastard's gonna get the attention of every bug on the ship!"

I felt a stone drop in my stomach at the sound of thousands of angry howls. The insects had heard it. Gunshots roared out behind us as bugs swarmed the hallway. We all fired frantically, killing off most of the attackers and scaring away the rest. After a second of reloading and waiting, the clump of survivors ventured further towards the source of the explosion.

"Where are we headed?" Vince asked, catching up with me.

"To find whoever blew something up and get 'em out of here." I answered. "We don't know what's out there and we'll need all the men we can get."

When we got into the cargo bay, the scene was a disaster. All of the crates and containment cells had flown to one side of the room, and insects swarmed for a gaping hole in the wall. Several horse-like creatures desperately tried to hold them back with swords and spears with little affect. We opened fire hesitantly, killing plenty of bugs in our barrage. Despite this, they broke through the weak line of defense and spilled out of the ship, few of them caring to notice us. We gave chase, shooting more aliens until they were all dead. We checked the massive room for more opponents to find nothing.

"Land ho!" Kyle yelled, stepping through the huge blast in the wall and into a field. I followed hesitantly, as well as the rest of the troops. The field was littered with dead aliens and bugs alike. "Medics, take care of these locals!" Boon ordered, securing a defensive perimeter around the corpsmen as they did their work. I stared at the unrecognizable creatures on the ground as my squad mates caught up with me. Definitely some sort of horse. They weren't dead, since they had been protected by what could only be very heavy but primitive armor.

"The hell do we have here?" Bryce asked nobody in particular, standing next to me.

"Unicorns or some shit." I said casually, walking up next to Boon.

"Looks like we have company." The man said, pointing at the treeline. I hadn't seen it at first, but then I noticed lots and lots more of the horse-like animals along the trees, watching intently.

"They friendly?" I asked. He shook his head.

"No clue." he said. I sighed.

"Only one way to find out." I decided, starting to walk towards the edge of the clearing.

"This is a bad idea." Boon reminded, walking up next to me.

"Would you rather wait for them to kill you when we're sleeping?" I asked.

"No." Kyle sighed. As we got closer, a figure emerged from the treeline. This one had no armor, and had a purple coat and darker purple mane. I raised my eyebrow. Weird colors, I thought.

It eyed us wearily, before speaking in a female voice.

"Stop!" she said. We stopped walking, sharing a glance. "Who are you?"