///LOCATION - NLTT-512-3A/UNKOWN LOCATION///TIME - 08:09 LMT///DATE - 20-05-2232///

[SOLDIER CONDITION DANGER]

[EXTERNAL INJURIES DETECTED]

[ADMINISTERING STEMCELLS]

[PULSE FOUND, 30BPM]

[SOLDIER UNCONSCIOUS]

[ADMINISTERING ADRENALINE]

[SOLDIER REGAINING CONSCIOUSNESS]

[ATTEMPTING CONNECTION TO COMMAND]

[CONNECTION FAILED]

2nd Lieutenant Jaakko Palander's suit had succesfully awoken him, but when he opened his eyes, he didn't like what he could see. In fact, he couldn't see anything at all. His eyes were covered in a thick, yello-like, deep-blue goo, as was the rest of his body. He tried to move his arms, and with some effort, was able to reach for the knife in his pocket. He moved it forward, poking around him with it in the hopes of finding something, anything, to help him orientate if for nothing else.

He quickly found a wall, one that appeared to be somewhat soft, being able to bend slightly around his knife as he continued to poke the wall with it. He eventually felt his knife slide trough the wall, allowing some goo to be released from its containment. He quickly dragged his knife upwards, slicing trough the wall in front of him in a vertical line. Once he was halfway, the rest of the wall ripped open, spilling him out onto the cold floor, all covered in deep-blue goo. As he slid out, the mask that had been placed over his nose and mouth popped off.

"HHUUURGHG....!" he quickly grasped for air, just realizing how out-of-breath he had been. He got on his knees, trying to get an idea of his surroundings. He saw lab-equipment. Ancient versions of the ones he had seen when he was visiting his girlfriend at the Oblivion University Medical Centre, but it was lab-equipment nonetheless. He looked behind him, noticing a row of weird biological-looking pods, one of which he had come out off.

"What the hell is this place?" he lifted his arm, trying to look at the map on his VisionARM, the military-version of the VisionAR. Unfortunatly, a link to a relay could not be established. "Damnit! Okay, not to worry, I can send a distress-signal to the Camp. They'll find me, and get me out of here!" he pressed the Emergency Distress-button on his VisionARM, but to his horror, this signal also didn't get trough. He was all alone, in a weird lab, with nobody around.

Then, he heard the sound of something approaching the door.

'Oh crap, someone's coming!' he thought. He quickly ducked behind one of the workstations, and went for the rifle on his back.

It wasn't there.

'Shit! Where is it?!' he couldn't find it, and whoever was on the other side of the door was getting closer and closer. Grabbing for his pistol, he was glad to find his trusty sidearm on his hip, ready for use. Although, it wasn't all that ready. The internals had filled up with goo, blocking the firing mechanism, and filling the space around the bullets in the magazine, not to mention the amount of the stuff inside the barrel.

The door opened. Jaakko couldn't see who or what came trough it, but he did hear a surprised voice, talking in a language which seemed somewhat familiar.

"Quid hoc est?! Unus quidem superfuit ex eis?! (What is this?! One of them escaped?!)" he heard. He had no idea what it meant, but he didn't intend on asking. He slowly crawled towards the open door, making sure not to be spotted. As he passed the space between two workstations, he caught a glimpse of the source of the voice.

A large black... horse? It was filled with gaps, like it was ridled with bulletholes. It looked quite menacing, It had a long horn on its head, but not like the ones that those mythical unicorns from the books had. No, this horn was... different. It was shaped in an odd way, going in random directions at some points. It reminded him of a twig.

Continueing on, he eventually reached the door unheard, and sneaked out. He was going to avoid a confrontation if he could. Those were his orders after all: "Whatever happens, DO NOT engage with the unkown civilization, OR the wildlife, as long as it is possible. We don't want to have another On'San-Situation, now do we?" The voice of the Commander echoed in his head. Going trough the door, he ended up in a hallway, one that looked reasonably well-lit, atleast in comparison to the previous dark room.

He looked around. There was nobody. As far as he was aware, there wasn't anyone else going to find him there. Looking at the signs above some of the doors, he realized that the letters were the same ones that the English language uses. 'Laboratorium', 'Imperium locus', 'Repono cella'. These all seemed quite important, eventhough he had no clue what any of them were. Except for the one he escaped from, the 'Laboratorium'. 'That must mean Laboratory.' he thought.

Sneaking trough the hallway, he could hear a faint buzzing, but he couldn't quite place it. The sound reminded him of a large bee-hive. He eventually reached the door labeled 'Repono cella'. He opened the door, revealing yet another hallway, this one having rows of doors on both sides, labelled with Roman numerals. Jaakko walked over to the first door on his left, which appeared to be room 1, and tried to open it. He tried to open it, but to no avail. It was locked, but he noticed a text on the door:

'Notas investigationis'

Jaakko suddenly remembers that his VisionARM has a translator-function. Holding the holographic screen in front of the text on the door, the wrist-mounted device was quick to recognise the language as 'Latin'. That is odd. Why would an alien species use the same language as an ancient human civilization? It made no sense. Either way, it did mean that he would be able to understand what everything meant. The VisionARM had translated the message on the door as 'Research Notes'.

The other doors hand't been blocked, so this one had to have something important behind it. Grabbing his knife once more, he stuck it into the small space between the door and the frame, and attempted to open the lock that way. It didn't work. With no other option, he jammed the knife into the lock, shattering the lock, but damaging his knife in the process. Either way, the door was opened, and Jaakko didn't hestitate to open it. With his pistol at the ready, he flung the door open.

The light from the hallway revealed the boxes full of paper, all scribbled with notes and drawings. He took one of them, and scanned the text on it.

XXXVIII Et Murmur Stomachum experimentum
Videtur quod non inveni clones novo ordine rerum erat fons. Sum fraudatus aspectu hic alios homines et ipsi sunt. Tres eos omnia vivere et subtracta a praesentibus. Quod si homines sunt hic tandem forsitan cum hunc viderint receptum in tribulatione mea, vocat? Ego sum non certus. Vel modo ego mihi permanere ad investigationis.
Cloned me unus de hominibus. Videtur quod per 'UEE', milites credo. Im non certus quid sentiunt de conservis cloning homines et eos subiciendo Murmur Stomachum, sed non alia optio. Si vis invenire remedium, mea mihi.
Quia ex hoc ipso quod videtur. De Clone non debebatur ad novum medicina, et tamen est vehemens in morbo post nuditate.
TBF CCCXXXVIII non operatur.

Whispering Stomach experiment 38
It seems that the clones have found a new source of subjects. I never expected to see other humans here, but here they are. Three of them, all alive, but unconscious. If there are humans here, maybe they have finally received my distress-calls? I am not sure. Either way, I will have to continue my research.
I have cloned one of the humans. It would seem they were with the 'UEN', soldiers, I suppose. I'm not sure what to feel about cloning fellow humans and subjecting them to Whispering Stomach, but I have no other choice. If I want to find a cure, I have to.
It would seem that the result is the same this time. The clone did not react to the new medicine, and is still violent after exposure to the disease.
TBF 338 does not work.

"Whispering Stomach? Did that translate correctly? And also: 'fellow humans'? Does that mean that the creature that I saw is- WAS human?! But that's insane!" Jaakko exclaimed, a bit too loud for his liking. He could hear the creature coming back towards him. He quickly grabs the paper, puts it in his pocket, and runs back into the hallway. Grabbing his sidearm, he gets ready to defend himself from that weird thing.

The door opened, and as soon as the creature entered trough it and looked Jaakko in the eyes, he fired his gun. Enough goo had flowed out of his gun, so that it could fire. The bullet went straight for the head, but never reached it. It simply stopped in mid-air, glowing in a weird green glow. The same glow that was coming from the creature's horn.

"Quaeso, mitescere! Et non nocuerunt mihi facturus es! (Please, calm down! I'm not going to hurt you!)" it yelled.

"How... What... Who are you?!" Jaakko asked.

"O mala mea! (Oh, my bad!)" it said. "I forgot that humans usually speak English."

"You... You speak English?!"

"Ofcourse I do! I learned it in school!"

"But... But..."

The creature looked at Jaakko. He seemed to be confused. "I know that this must seem weird to you, but I am, or was, a human, just like you!"

"But you look nothing like a normal human!" Jaakko exclaimed.

"sigh..." the creature's face turned from one of understanding to sadness. "I know... Damn Murmur Stomachum..."

"Murmur Stomachum...?" Jaakko looked at the creature. He then remembered the note he had picked up. Taking the note out of his pocket, he held it up to the creature. "This note said something about Murmur Stomachum. It translated to Whispering Stomach. What is it?"

"Where did you... Nevermind. Yes, that note is about an experiment with Whispereing Stomach, or rather, a cure for it. I would know, because I wrote it some 15 minutes ago."

"But what is Whispering Stomach then?" Jaakko asked, putting his pistol back in the holster.

"I'll explain." the creature said. "But first, let's go back to my laboratory. There's something I need to show you."

Walking back to the laboratory that Jaakko had just escaped from, the creature had introduced itself as Dr. Märtha Löfgren, though she is known by the locals as Chrysalis, or rather, Queen Chrysalis. She told Jaakko that she still didn't understand what reason the locals had for calling her that, but as far as she had been able to find out, it was because her new form resembled that of a creature from folklore.

The disease that she had come to name Whispering Stomach was one she accidently encountered when doing personal research on NLTT-512-3B, the planet's moon. The disease had caused some weird effects, including a painfull stomach, a weird rash, and most noticably, rapid mutation. She was able to land on NLTT-512-3A, in the Yakyakistani mountains, which was their current position, but she had no fuel to make it back home.

"Basically, I began by sending out a robot to find a willing subject." she explained. "One of the local ponies agreed to help me. I was able to clone him, and from that, I could make more and more clones to test the disease on, as their anatomical construction was roughly the same as mine is after the mutation. Unfortunatly, the real pony died because my cryopods were not perfect yet. Luckily, I still had enough genetic material left to create a few more clones, but I gave these ones some brain-functions, and I installed a chip that gave them simple commands, like finding volunteers."

"Why don't you just go outside to find them yourself?" Jaakko asked.

"I wish I could, but it seems like the disease interferes with the atmosphere, killing the host. That's why my clones usually don't return when they go outside to find volunteers."

"Uhmm... I'm sorry, but I don't think that's the reason they're not returning, nor are they finding 'volunteers'."

"What do you mean?" Dr. Märtha was confused. "They deliver plenty of volunteers. They are always unconscious, but I just thought that that's because of the altitude that we are at, along with the freezing temperature."

"Well, they certainly aren't volunteers, and the reason the clones don't return, is because they get shot."

"SHOT?! What the hell do you mean?!"

"I mean, they run up to us, shooting guns, and getting themselves and others killed. I'm pretty sure they are the ones that brought me here, weren't they?"

"Yes, they brought you, aswell as two other humans in earlier today. But how do they have guns?! I didn't give them those! Oh god... What have I done..."

"It's not your fault. You were just trying to find a cure. You were all on your own, after all. Speaking of that, why did you come here?" Jaakko tried to comfort Dr. Märtha.

"Well, first off, it IS my fault. I made and programmed the clones. But, since you asked, the reason I was here was for a freelance-mission for a company called Genesis BioTech. They told me to do some research in this star-system."

"You have to be kidding me..." Jaakko said under his breath.

"Now that I think of it, I remember getting a distress-signal across to one of their unmanned exploration drones, and they told me they'd send someone to find me, but he never arrived."

"Wait, what?! How long ago was that?"

"A week or two, why?"

"Oh crap..." Jaakko finally put one and two together. It all started to make sense. "I have good news and bad news."

"Give me the good news first."

"Well, the help arrived." Jaakko explained. "The bad news is that he crash-landed on this planet, and that a massive fleet from the UEN is currently in orbit around this planet, ready to bombard it and kill all those pony-like creatures."

"They are gonna do WHAT?!" Dr. Märtha exclaimed.

"I said, they are going to-"

"I heard what you said, I just can't believe it." She looked down in defeat. "Jaakko...?"

"Yes?"

"Have I just started a war?"

Author's Note

Bet y'all didn't see that one coming, did ya!