Far Away

Kyle and I cast each other a glance. We'd seen a few kinds of aliens, but none like this. She was far too similar to creatures from our own world for comfort, yet extremely different. She was definitely some sort of horse-like creature, but she had a horn and wings. And that wasn't even taking her color into account.

"I'm Lieutenant Edward Cartwright, and this is Commander Kyle Boon." I said. "And you are?"

"Princess Twilight Sparkle." she replied, offering her hoof. I hesitantly accepted it, and bowed slightly.

"My apologies, your highness." I said awkwardly. I had never met royalty, let alone alien royalty. Kyle dipped his head respectfully.

"Oh, don't worry about it." she said dismissively with a wave of her hoof. Her attention was turned to our weapons and armor. "I've never seen a creature like yourself before. What are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Humans, from planet Earth." Kyle explained.

"So you're aliens?" the princess asked excitedly. Boon and I looked at each other and nodded.

"Basically, yeah." he said.

"I had a feeling. I mean, we don't exactly see things hurtle from space often." Twilight said, grinning widely. I stifled a chuckle. A soldier came up from behind us.

"Commander Boon, we count zero local casualties." she said.

"Good. Wait one moment." Kyle replied, before turning to the Princess. "Do you have somewhere to take the injured? As you can tell, our ship isn't exactly safe at this instant." She nodded slowly.

"Yes, we set up a military camp not far from here to monitor the crash site." the mare replied.

"Great." the commander said, before addressing the medic again. "Follow us, Corporal. Get the injured cared for and scan them for toxins." The woman nodded, before heading back to the clump of medics and injured aliens. After the medics got the victims onto stretchers, Twilight spoke up.

"Shall we?" she asked. Kyle nodded, following her down a rough dirt path into the trees. I followed, reloading my rifle. "What were those that attacked us, anyway?" the princess asked.

"Errocubi." Boon said. "An errocubus is an insectoid from a foreign world we colonized a while ago. Scientists from Earth think they can use just about any organic matter to produce nests. Nasty things." He grimaced. "Chances are they got loose on the ship and killed someone, before using the corpse to produce a hive." Twilight's expression went from that of wonder to horror.

"Could they escape with their current numbers?" she asked quickly. Kyle shook his head.

"No, not after a battle like that. It should take them a day to fully recover their numbers, so as long as we're ready to defend from a distant position once or twice in a day, we shouldn't have trouble." Boon answered. The trees thinned into a clearing filled with tents and warriors wearing light armor. Most were equipped with swords and axes, but there was a few wooden towers with crossbowmen as well. I shuddered. If the errocubi found this camp at its current state, the local guard would be decimated.

The train of field surgeons and injured troops followed us, hastily settling down and getting to work. I radioed in to Owens.

"Bryce, it's Cartwright." I said.

"Send it, Ed."

"Get all our men to the treeline to cover the breach, Lieutenant's orders." I commanded.

"Roger that. Staff Sergeant Owens out." he dismissed. I sighed and turned to Twilight, who looked at me with her head cocked to the side.

"The ship is locked down and won't be a threat." I said. She nodded.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"What?" I questioned dumbly. She pointed to the comm link on my wrist. "Oh, it's a communications unit. It uses radio waves to transmit messages to other people with similar devices."

"Such advanced technology." Twilight observed. Something clicked in her expression. "You said something about toxins to that soldier. What did you mean?" Boon got a grim expression.

"If they bite, their saliva produces a toxin that takes over your nervous system somewhat slowly." I explained for him. Errocubus venom was a touchy subject for Kyle. "If we find someone that's been injected with said toxins, we quarantine them. To put it bluntly, they turn into zombies that assist the bugs. Extensive monitoring has shown us that weaker infected subjects will try to feed themselves to the queen. These symptoms don't appear to be contagious, but the U.S.C doesn't like to take chances." She took a moment to process this all.

"U.S.C?" she finally asked.

"United Space Corporation." I said plainly. "Our organization primarily focuses on research and space exploration." I left out the part about mercenary operations and sabotage. That probably wouldn't sound good.

"What were these creatures doing on your ship?" Twilight asked with a slight edge to her voice. Apparently crash landing on her world and threatening her people with flesh-eating bugs didn't go over so well.

"We were moving specimens to a colony world, Mars, for captivity away from our main population." I explained. "I have no clue what, but something went wrong and we crashed on your world."

"We have the situation under control for now, but I'm going to try to contact our superiors to see if we can be granted further support." Kyle said. "It's a bit of a gamble, but if this planet is in the path between Earth and Mars for whatever reason, another larger cruiser with plenty of troops on board should be passing for the next four hours." Twilight and I nodded.

"Sounds like a plan." I said.

"I'll communicate with my mentor to see if we can garner some more infantry." the purple mare decided.

"Alright. I'll join the defense to command troops if I'm needed." I said, slinging my rifle and walking down the beaten dirt path once more.

I sat against a tree and used a small log as a leg rest, watching the sun set behind the massive cruiser. Gunther lay down next to me, sniper trained on the breach. He would occasionally snipe a bug trying to sneak out, his thermal optics catching it red-handed. I chugged a soda, before lazily throwing the can into the bushes.

"How the hell do you drink those that fast?" the German asked, cringing. "That has to hurt."

"I hate flat soda." I said simply, coughing a little at the burn. Kyle walked up and sat in the dirt next to me.

"Good news and bad news." he said, taking a long drag from a cigarette.

"Good news first." I decided, not moving.

"HQ's granting us armored support and two hundred more troops." Kyle said with a grin. "Bad news is, we're stuck here until the ship is cleaned out and the local armed forces are protected and equipped."

"Armored support?" Breiner asked, not looking away from the breach.

"Yeah. Old stuff, but it'll get the job done. Ten AT-105s, four BTR-80s, one T-55AM and a Shilka."

"A Shilka?" I asked with a chuckle. "We don't need the other vehicles."

"Right? Apparently they're expecting a shit storm. The support shouldn't get here until tomorrow, so we still have tonight to hold off on our own." he said with a sigh. "I doubt they'll be able to get out, though. We have this motherfucker locked down."