PSO Book 3: Universes Unknown

Fifty thousand zombies, five thousand ponies.

A year has passed, 20 thousand ponies down to 5 thousand ponies. Now ponykind is on the brink of extinction. Nopony in Gravity died, thank goodness for that. Starry's brain fully recovered, though she still couldn't control her movement. Lone Wind had is identity revealed and his crush on Starry was revealed.

Pony technology was advancing every day, new technology sprouting up every month or so. Hundreds of satellites collided into each other and other space debris, making space travel almost impossible. Space debris was very apparent, and spacecraft could barely get into low Equus orbit before getting hit by immense amounts of debris particles travelling at 2000m/s.

Ponies in robot suits dominated the place, fighting against zombies. I also fought against the zombies, using my own submachine gun which I was given. Ironstar returned and was caught, but released with no consequences. He then joined the R&D department with the last of the scientists, researching the cure. Even after months of intensive research, no cure. All hope for ponykind survival was demolished.

I was out of depression, and Flame Rider too. She was the head of engineering, Ironstar the head of developing the cure. I was the head of defence, planning tactics to not only defend the place, but keep the 1 thousand ponies defending the place safe. Lone Wind also played a huge role in defending the place, being the one that slaughtered the most zombies at more than 4000 of them.

Food supplies were getting lower and lower, clean air supplies depleting. Gas masks were nearly all used up and since the sterile air's gone, everypony had to use a mask even inside for extra safety. Eating was a difficulty, but was still possible. The food courts were all underground, so no problems with bad air down there. Resources were also starting to be diminished, no more spaceplanes or mech suits could be manufactured now.

Oh yeah, I also modded my spacesuit again, now made out of some type of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, 15 times stronger than steel. I also had graphene-kevlar hybrid padding for extra protection from bullets or zombies or whatever. Helmet was remade with metallic glass and the same other materials. Now I'm mostly impervious, just like Starry and Flame Rider in their OP suits.

Weather patterns showed a hurricane forming in the east. A class 5 hurricane with estimated winds of up to 340km/h. Estimated to hit sometime tomorrow, we had to get prepared, and get prepared fast. Very blurry photos of the hurricane taken from the last of the remaining satellites shows that it was stuffed full of zombies. Preparations were made, ponies scrambling ideas of trying to evacuate the place. Galaxy Voyagers were prepared to get the fuck out of the place.

One Galaxy Voyager out of the three made it to orbit with no problems, the others were destroyed due to Kessler Syndrome. Space travel wasn't safe, and a Pentagon Space spacecraft was also detected, but the remaining Galaxy Voyager wasn't hit. It housed only 8 passengers, not the maximum of 17. The rest of the spaceplane was stuffed up with base building kits and food and water. They were going to Minmus, a moon of Equestria that is barely visible from the ground.

Another message came from Pentagon Space. The message read:

We are now going to eliminate the rest of life on your planet.

This made some ponies panic, but some ready to attack. What we know of yet was that they didn't specify any time for the attack, so we had to be ready at all times. Night fell, the aurora was visible very clearly from outside. I ordered ponies to be on the watchout, looking out of the watchtowers and track the enemies with radar.

It was midnight, the moon illuminating the place with immensely strong beams of light, the ponies in the watchtowers noticed something. A drone, not large, but tiny one flying along the place, looking like it was trying to inspect it. I was informed about it as soon as they saw it. Taking out my sniper, the AWP, I looked into the scope, and shot it down with deadly accuracy. I've played games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive before. That's how I can aim.

A speeding pegasus caught it flawlessly, delivering it to the R&D department for analysis. They were also on the lookout, some also fighting for all ponykind. It was a reconnaisse drone, meaning that they were trying to spy on us. Dawn broke out, and the beast of a biological disaster was visible, the hurricane.

The seemingly cloudy white hurricane had many black spots visible even from afar. Those black spots were the zombies, and from my perspective, there were going to be more than 50 thousand zombies bunched up in the hurricane. 50 thousand zombies versus 5 thousand ponies. This wasn't a fair battle at all, but one wise pony once said, '10 ponies wisely led will beat 100 without a head.'

Though I wasn't a pony that had lots of training or a wise mind, but I did have a great plan in my head, use the technology to our advantage. They would have no chance winning as we had technology, and anyways, even if we lose, we could just zoom out the place in the SSTOs.

Edging closer, the hurricane also seemed to have tanks. What the fuck? How were they able to fly? Getting closer and closer, spaceplanes were diving down, though most of them were stalling. Whichever dumbass that constructed them might have made it so that the center of lift was behind the very far back center of mass. They flew like cows, like seriously.

Since there was an air raid with spaceplanes that flew like cows, the Galaxy Voyagers should be doing quick work of it. I was the leader of the bunch that isn't very strict. Don't ask, I'm not exactly strict. Also, I don't think I should be because of the Galaxy Voyager's very bad maneuverability. I'm talking compared to fighter jets and stuff, not other spaceplanes of its size.

The others got into their squadron of Galaxy Voyagers. I gave my Galaxy Voyager to another pilot instead of taking it myself. Galaxy Voyagers were for long range flight and for space warfare. I just got in a jet fighter that used a turboramjet rocket hybrid instead of a normal jet engine that had ion engines strapped on. It's really just a conventional fighter jet with a different engine and ion engines strapped on.

Climbing on the never before tested beauty that I built, I turned on the sole engine into the turbofan mode, no afterburner. Technology has advanced enough that turboramjets are now turbofans and ramjet/scramjets. The others used fusion drives. Back to the biological warfare.

'Flame rider to control, uh we have a situation, a large squadron of PS spacecraft coming in from the west, more than usual,' Flame Rider spoke over the radio.

The Pentagon Space (PS) spacecraft were once again flying like cows. Only problem was that they could fly, and that they had missiles and guns strapped on too. The Galaxy Voyagers, though had powerful guns, lacked good missiles. The fighter jet/spaceplane I was in also had crap missiles, but had the great advantage of being maneuverable. Oh yeah, and not to mention absolutely shit guns.

One strange thing about the war was that there were no alien ponies from Pentagon space. Zombies were taking the place of the Pentagon Space ponies. Smart move if I say so myself. Nopony from Pentagon Space would die and we die. Yay! (not)

The Galaxy Voyagers fired up the fusion drives, me in the random spaceplane I built out of absolutely no secrecy firing up the turbofan. 'This is a coordinated attack,' I heard Lone Wind call out.

Coordinated attack, we also have one, they weren't the only ones. 'This is central control, deploy Alpha team, coordinates B12-C26,' an officer from the control tower called out on the loudspeakers. The Alpha team were the ones in the robot suits. They were deployed to start to act as a first barrier. They were also the ones that would do the most damage.

'Beta team standby, coordinates J67-G21 and Omega team, defensive formation, K11-F92,' exclaimed the same pony again. The Beta team was the ones that were the second line of defence and offence. They would help out the Alpha team. The Omega team were the ones that would be solely for defence, and the last line of defence. Flame Rider was the leader of Alpha, Ironstar, Beta and Lone Wind, Omega.

'Squadron 1- 3 on-cleared runway 27-B,' another officer commanded, 'Squadron 4-6, hold on runway 27-A and squadron 7, hold on runway 62-T, Planetshine, clear to take off at runway 54-E.'

The others taxied over to the runways, I didn't though. Mine was a damn fighter jet that's able to get to space, I mean, who needs a runway when you have a fighter jet. I took off quick, pitching up as soon as I could. Speed was 40m/s, pitched up and in flight already.

Guards stood along the runways, helping the ponies in the Galaxy Voyagers taxi onto the runways. The zombies were going to strike anytime now. The Galaxy Voyagers were now in flight, and the enemies were very close. Some ponies were running into the newly built bunker, some of them scared and some of them holding guns out.

The state of the place was very complicated. The Alpha team was out there in a lattice formation, the Beta team, with more ponies, were in more of a phalanx formation. The Omega team was scattered around the place, being the last line of defence. The squadrons were circling around the place while I was checking on everyone.

Zombies were now raining, the hurricane instantly disappearing and zombies flung out. The Alpha team made quick work of them on the ground, the Beta team assisting them. The Omega team had snipers and assault rifles that killed zombies before they were able to even able to get to the space center.

'Permission to engage on enemy target. Squadrons 1-3 engage on Infected, squadron 4-7 engage on PS,' an officer radioed everyone.

'Oi, my initials are PS!' I complained back.

'Sorry, but Pentagon Space contracts to PS,' he responded.

The squadrons yawed left and right, 1-3 launching missiles and shooting down the infected. I was in squadron 1, firing tiny missiles and shooting bullets at the zombies. Squadrons 4-7 launched missiles and shot down the flying cows. Can't believe that Pentagon Space couldn't build planes correctly, though their homing missiles were great, have to give credit to them. The missiles were quite good at tracking the Galaxy Voyagers.

One was shot down, but the pilot survived and joined the Omega team. The spaceplane that the pony used crashed down onto the undead, flattening all of them that just happened to be underneath it.

'Squadron 4 reporting to Commandan...' a pony screamed, 'We just lost squad coordinator sir what should we d...'

Missiles were fired at me, but I was able to easily dodge them. Guns were also pointed at me from the flying cows, but after some shenanigans and turning on my plane's engine afterburner. The guns were barely able to shoot me down, but one bullet scraped the bottom of my jet.

'Mayday, mayday squadron 7 coordinator-P13. Hit ejection and pick up requested!' the pony uttered into the radio.

'Granted!' I uttered back.

Maneuvering my way back to squadron 1, the sky instantly went on fire. The ground also was on fire, the grass burning until light green turned into black. Zombies started to burn up, causing mayhem among them. It seemed like we were going to win, but predictions can always be wrong, very wrong in some times.

I set my radio to receive everything, and I mean everything, even the enemies. I could hear very faint voices detailing about the destruction of Equestria and remote controlled zombies. Whatever it was, I couldn't make out the barely legible words spoken. At least it was the same language, I'm not bilingual.

'Alpha team requesting, oh shi...' a pony cried on the radio, ending with a gunfire.

'Commander IS-46 requesting immediate backup... Oh god f...' another pony transmitted.

'Omega team under heavy gun power. Suppression of the enemy is not possible, permission to retreat?' Lone Wind radioed the control towers. I could see where the transmissions were going to because of the advanced tech that this place had.

'Permission denied, hold your ground for just a bit longer,' Flame Rider barked, a sound of guts spilling freaking me out. I was now really just on lookout in the air, maybe shooting down enemies that cross the line because of the low amount of missiles I had left. Only 10 hydra missiles out of the 30 left. Other missiles were all used up. I was also low on bullets, the others were fine though.

'Yes, sir standing in position,' a soldier exclaimed. What would be Flame Rider's reaction to that? She's a mare, not a stallion. Something as minute as this could well enrage someone, especially one that had a short temper. I'm talking about Flame Rider herself. She's got anger issues sometimes.

'Central control under her fire. Enemy is breaking through barricade, coordinates X13- V27,' a mare announced.

'Squadron 5 is gon…'

Looking over at where squadron 5 was, the Galaxy Voyagers were all shot down by zombies with rocket launchers. Flying cows that had homing missiles were bad enough, but rocket launchers, that's a little too extreme. One of the spaceplanes crashed hard onto the ground, blowing up in a fiery fiesta. I could feel some of the shockwaves that formed, and stray fuel made fire rain from the sky.

'To all units, central control is down retreat immediately,' Ironstar screamed.

A rocket was approaching me, I had to get the fuck out of the way. Thank goodness that they weren't homing missiles, if they were, I'm useless against them. Turning on the afterburner again, I dodged some gunfire and 2 missiles, not bad. I even had to resist more than 5Gs of force, not pleasant.

Swivelling past some rockets and doing some shenanigans with homing missiles, I whizzed pass Flame Rider, who was using her magical abilities, incinerating the undead. I pulled up just as I honked some zombie in the head, giving them a taste of their own medicine, or in this case, missile. Look, I didn't need to use my puny hydra-3 missiles.

Dodging cannon shells and whatnot, I had a very odd radio transmission. This anomaly came from up in the sky, about north east. A flash of bright light blinded me for a sec, and what I saw astonished me. From what the radars sensed, it was travelling at about mach 3, fast for something that was bulky as fuck. From what I could see, it was doing rolls and pointing radial if I say so myself, trying to lose speed.

The craft, which seemed like a space cruiser, came crashing down, heading right for me. There was no time for me to get out of the way, and so it's tail whipped me, sending me into a stall. Thank goodness nothing was broken, other than what seemed like a dent on the fuselage. No leaks though, so that was great.

'Shit, I'm hit!' I swore into the radio, sirens outside wailing, 'Ironstar, finish that fucktard for me!'

'Roger!' he radioed back.

Landing on the helipad that was situated on the vehicle assembly building, I climbed out, the omega team ponies on the lookout with their guns and turrets. Looking at the situation, I noticed Ironstar, a little orange dot approaching the space cruiser. Another dot appeared, a pony, an alien pony just like Ironstar and me.

Disturbing events happened, Ironstar killing the rogue pony at an instant. Maybe not an instant, it took quite a while of torture until it was dead. Blood splattered on the ground around them as Ironstar seemingly crushed its skull, later blasting its head with what seemed to be a laser bazooka.

The Galaxy Voyagers were getting less and less, and I had to go and help, but sadly, I was shot down by a homing missile. At least I survived, right? The missile edged closer to my plane until it scraped it and blew up. It was going to crash into the spaceplane hanger, and I was able to bail out and get the fuck out right before the explosion. Thank goodness I was a pegasus, or pegasus-kirin, whatever I really was.

We lost the battle from what the situation seemed like right now. Speakers wailing siren noises to signal an evacuation. The zombie hoard was too much for us, and we had to go, there was no other way that we could survive. Galaxy Voyagers were all landed now and a bio dome was cast and held up by Donut. She could only make that last for only a few minutes, and so the ponies all boarded the Galaxy Voyagers.

The remaining Galaxy Voyagers weren't enough to get everypony out of the place, so the Galaxy Destroyer was deployed. In the hanger of the massive helicarrier were 5 Galaxy Scouters, another Galaxy Diver and a new spaceplane called the Galaxy Avenger. The helicarrier was stowed away on an island about 30 km east, not very far but very useful. An underground passage was built a long time ago for easy access and safe access.

I rushed into the hospital where I grabbed Starry Night, who was still in that vegetable state, unable to move. Carrying her on my back like she was riding me like a horse, I sprinted all the way to Ironstar's little spaceship, or warping thingy. The others were already there, and they were going to leave in a minute. I shot in, Starry seemed to drop dead.

She stopped breathing, dropping down dead. 'Whaa?' I gasped.

'Dead?' Flame Rider added.

'Dead.' I joked.

Donut flipped her over, and it looked liked that she was dead. Checking her breath, it seemed like that she died again. 'Ha! Gotcha!' Starry spooked us.

We all chucked, giggling at the situation. I hopped into the pilot's seat, Ironstar in the commander's seat. There's something I don't get, and that was that the commander gets to control the spacecraft, the pilot only really helping the commander. Neon blue lights illuminated the glossy black interior. 'Start the engines and don’t wait for me, take off at my command,' Ironstar commanded.

He was walking out of the interior and into the cargo bay while I was strapped onto the seat. The others were also in seats that were strapped onto the walls. A dome appeared on top of us, pushing the dead bodies and zombies off the runway so that we could easily take off.

A flare caught my eye, which I thought was the signal to take off. Ironstar was still outside, but from what I could see outside, the zombies were going to destroy the dome if we didn't fire up the engines. The control panel wasn't very easy to navigate around, though not very hard at the same time. There were only a few problems with me and the joysticks. I'm used to using WASD and keyboard keys that I use all the time with a keyboard mod, but there were no keyboards here, no joysticks it is.

The spacecraft zoomed off into the air, 100m/s acceleration meant that we were on a suborbital trajectory in a matter of seconds. Too bad the controls had to be all manual with no stability assists or anything, but I was able to control it fine. Extreme aerodynamic pressure made the spacecraft unstable, knocking us slightly off course, but I was able to regain control.

I had no idea how to use the spacecraft to its fullest potential and get a good grasp of the controls, so I sped through the instruction manual that was covered in blood and dust. Nope, useless, I couldn't understand it, too complex of a book. Suddenly, warp drive activated, pain struck me and the spacecraft accelerated to more than 40000m/s, but was quickly stopped by the atmospheric drag. I let it coast all the way to space.

Now out of the atmosphere, I shut down the engine, coasting up into space. Completing a quick circularisation burn at the apogee, we were in orbit, along with the other spacecraft that were launched. No space debris for now. Now there was one question that we all wanted to answer, what happened to Ironstar?