For the right price

Chapters

Chapter 1: Smooth flying
Chapter: 2. Gear up
Chapter 4: Special forces ( soft M/M you have been warned)
Chapter 5: Lost and found
Chapter 6: In awe of passing through
Chapter 7: The calm before the storm.
Chapter 8: Sandstorm
Chapter 3: Derelict Scream

Chapter 1: Smooth flying

Spike was tired of space, Of course his job on the Imperial Equestrian liner earned him good credits and it was neither hard nor boring to write down schedules for the fighter pilot patrols and reporting in to his boss about any findings or any need for repairs. But the thing that bugged him the most was that when you go to sleep, it's just emptiness and stars, and when you wake up, it's always the same thing, he couldn't stand it, the same thing over and over again.

The liners that travelled from his home planet Equestria were filled with different resources of trading. They traded food, ores and even vehicles and small spaceships in return for credits, and even some spices from the distant planet of Arrakis, which was controlled by the alien species called 'humans'. Spike had done his research and studies on different alien species, since it was crucial to know who you traded with, but these humans had caught his interest more than any other alien species. From what he knew, the humans were the youngest of all the species in the galaxy to have invented space travel, but they were also the ones that expanded faster than any other so far. They had so far colonized about fifty different planets, he didn't know the names of all of them but he knew about 'Arrakis' and 'Mars'. The latter was located in the humans own solar system, where their home planet of 'Terra' was located. The name of their planet had, besides 'humans' as the general name, made the different species of the universe call them 'Terrans'.

...

Spike stood up from the bunk bed in his room and walked over to the window, looking out into the big void outside.

He sighed, "Only five space days left 'till we arrive at the Sander trading docks..." He looked over at his computer. Sighing again, he walked over to it, looking at the notification he had saved at the screen desktop. "And I need to report in to Officer Sparkle tomorrow night..." He didn't have anything against his commanding officer but she was... Special to say the least.

He started to dress up in his uniform that hung on the chair before him, getting ready to go out to his assigned fighter ship hangar, hangar number five, to inspect the ships and collect reports from the fighter pilots that had been on guard duty patrolling around the imperial liner. He walked through the long halls leading to hangar five, which were either filled with imperial pony soldiers, which by standard wore their bronze coloured imperial armour along with their laser blasters, or merchants and different employees, employed by the equestrian merchant guild. Thanks to him being so flexible because he was a dragon, he could easily squeeze in between all of the ponies there and headed into hangar five.

The hangar was huge, there was not only room for three fighters, which pilots he were to schedule and get reports from, but it was also filled with large landing crafts and bombers that were to be used in case they were attacked by a larger enemy fleet. Luckily there wasn't much of a chance that it would happen, regarding to the size of the imperial liner and due to that the only regular attacks that occurred were by smaller bands of bandits and raiders that were dealt with quickly by the liner's own guard crews. Two of the fighter ships had already landed at their specified landing pads and the last one was just flying in through the hangar force field. It slowly sank down onto it's landing pad, its cockpit opening.

Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack were skilled fighter pilots, some of the best on the liner. Spike smiled as he walked over to them with his holo-pad ready to write down anything that they had to report. "Hello ladies, good flying today?"

Rainbow dash, a blue pegasus with rainbow coloured hair and tail smirked. "As always Spike, we did some really awesome flying out there!"

The white unicorn with purple hair, Rarity, and the orange coloured pony with long blond hair, Applejack, chuckled at her.

"Well, at least some of us tried to do our patrol seriously." Rarity started. "But someone wanted to pretend to be an acrobat rather than a pilot, as they should."

This earned her a frown from Rainbow Dash. "Hey! I was trying to make it a bit less boring!"

Spike nodded, understanding that patrol duty could very boring. "The last thing we need is you two fighting." He said, a stern tone in his voice. "Now, anything out of the ordinary today?"

Applejack pointed at her fighter. "Nothing much, but there's an odd sound inside my cockpit. Sounds like it's coming from above, behind my head. Can you get someone to check it out for me? Might be one of the oxygen tubes leaking."

Spike was already writing it down on his holo-pad. "Fighter ship 4PPL3J4CK in hangar five, needs a maintenance check ASAP. Possible oxygen tube failure inside cockpit." He pressed send, mailing it to the engineer and repair foreman of the liner. "The engineers should be notified any minute now and then they will have it worked out 'till the next patrol, that's atleast what I'm supposed to say, I hope they will get it on time." Spike told Applejack, scratching his head.

She smiled at him, "Thank you Spike. See you in a few hours!"

"Yeah, see you," Spike started to walk out of the hangar, the same way he came in.

"Spike!" Rarity called out to him from the other end of the hangar, from the door leading to the pilot quarters.

He turned around and looked at her. "Yes Rarity?"

"Nurse Fluttershy wanted me to remind you to go see her. I think she said that she had to move your health checkup ahead of schedule."

He sighed. "Allright... Thanks, I guess..."

He turned back around and headed out of the hangar. He wasn't usually this annoyed about having to deal with this stuff. He liked to visit Nurse Fluttershy, she was nice and was always careful during the health checks. But there are still some things about being in the hospital wing that he didn't like, like all the sick people throwing around diseases in there.

Maybe I should tell her when she asks the usual questions about how I'm feeling, and if I slept well and all of that...

Once again he could easily slip in between all the ponies chatting and standing in the hallways. The infirmary was on the fifteenth level of the liner, which meant he had to take the elevator two levels up.
As he walked through the infirmary doors, an older, and very grumpy unicorn addressed him. "You don't look injured or sick! Visiting hours are over! Have you booked a time?"

Spike walked over to the desk, a tired look on his face. "My name is Spike and I'm going to see Fluttershy. I was told that she had to push my health checkup ahead of schedule"

Spike could clearly see that she didn't believe him.

"I'm going to check with her." She pressed some buttons and a hologram showing a yellow coloured pony with long pink hair popped up.

"Yes?" The yellow pony, known as Fluttershy, asked quietly.

"There is a lizard here, Spike, saying he had a checkup pushed ahead of schedule?"

Fluttershy smiled, "That is correct, you can send him to room #10."

The hologram disappeared and the unicorn gave him a look to show she was annoyed that he was still there. "You heard her, room #10. Hurry up!" She barked.

As Spike headed towards the room Fluttershy was in he thought to himself. And I think I'm tired of space! She must have been here since the universe was created! Talk about tired of space, more like tired of life... By the way, I'm a dragon... And not a LIZARD!

The doors to room #10 opened and he walked through. He was met by a smiling pegasus, who spoke to him in a quiet manner. "Hello Spike. How has your day been?"

"Mostly been in my room, scheduling. Then I got the patrol reports from the girls. Nothing unusual. Rainbow Dash was feeling a bit acrobatic while flying today." Spike answered her, sitting down on a chair in front of her.

Fluttershy giggled, picking out her medical equipment. "That sounds normal, considering it's Rainbow Dash."

Spike chuckled. "Yeah, I can't blame her, you can get bored easily out here. I'm getting tired of space."

Fluttershy turned around and looked at some document she had laying on the small table beside her. "We will arrive at the trading docks soon enough, and then you can ask Twilight if you can take a day off while we stop to trade and refuel to spend some time on the planet. Might do you good to get some real oxygen and get to have solid ground under your feet" Spike nodded.

"Now." She continued. "I'll have to do the regular checkup on you, I'll check your blood pressure, and I'll have to check your the levels of nutritions in your blood and I will check your scales for anything out of the ordinary, like parasites or lice." She cleared her throat and smiled again. "I'm sorry that I had to push you ahead of schedule like this, but I have some engineers that got hurt in a gas leak near the engines. They have been treated already but I need to do a follow up treatment, it takes a lot of time and I have to focus on them, you do understand don't you?"

Spike nodded again, "I'm just glad I can get this over with."

She giggled. "Still afraid of needles?" Spike shuddered.

...

Rarity sighed where she sat in her fighter jet, talking to the other girls over the radio. "It must be boring for Pinkie to be stuck on guard duty again!" Rainbow Dash's fighter did a barrel roll and stabilized itself between Rarity's and Applejack's fighters as they flew on their second guard patrol for the day.

"Yeah, but I guess we have the same problem." Rarity answered through their radio communications system.
"We're stuck on patrol."

"But not for several hours with no breaks!" Rainbow Dash was annoyed. She had hoped to wind-off together with Pinkie Pie for a while in the kitchen, sharing a meal or something. But her plans had been trashed when she was told that Pinkie Pie was on guard duty for another three hours.

She let out a deep sigh, "At least we don't run into anything odd out here, like drunk civilians that have to be calmed down..."

Suddenly all of the three fighters alerts went off. "Hyperspace rupture!" Applejack's voice said through the radio. "Evasive manoeuvres!"

In front of them a slip-space rupture appeared and a fighter burst through it, followed by three others that got busy attacking the first.

As the three ponies evaded the fighters that flew past them, they all received a message on the radio, "This is Stingray 405, I'm under attack by smugglers and I need assistance!"

Rainbow Dash spun her fighter around and pushed the speed to max, pursuing the smugglers.

"This is Rainbow Dash, I'm from the Imperial Liner of Equestria, we're on them!" Applejack and Rarity's fighters followed close behind.

The Stingray had it's hands full dodging the laser blasts from the smuggler ships flying behind it. As soon as they got in range, the three ponies began to fire, their rain of blasts forcing the smugglers to make a u-turn and attack them instead.

"This isn't your fight. Leave now or die!" They heard a dark voice say over the radio, clearly one of the smugglers. They ignored it and kept up their attack. After a few hits one of the enemy fighters exploded into a firework of flames and ship debris.

The Stingray had turned around and joined the hunt for the last two smugglers.
"We'll get these bastards now!" The pilot of the Stingray had a tone of enthusiasm in his voice. With joined strength, the girls and the newcomer shot down another smuggler ship, and now they had their sights on the last one.

A missile shot from his ship and flew past Rainbow Dash and the others, heading straight for the last enemy. The missile followed close behind the smuggler, the lock-on system ensuring that it stayed on his tail until it finally hit, turning the fighter into intergalactic dust.

As the last fighter got shot down, they all let out a collective sigh. This was all a well needed change from the usual boring patrols, if only it had come as less of a deadly surprise.

"I need to land and get some medical treatment, can I get a landing clearance?" The male in the Stingray fighter were breathing heavily, clearly relieved that his pursuers were dealt with.

"We'll make sure that there's no problem sir." Applejack answered him, as they guided his ship back to hangar five.

...

Waiting for them as they landed in the hangar were Spike, his boss, a purple unicorn, and a battalion of Equestrian soldiers, armed with big laser rifles.

They surrounded the Stingray fighter ship and aimed at the cockpit. It opened slowly, and looking out of it was a human with short blond hair, and currently with a very pissed expression adorning his face. He aimed right back at them with a rifle of his own, the front of it covering half of his face. At the front, it had a large gun barrel, and on the sides of it small hatches, that emanated some sort of blue smoke or steam. And under those, it had large capital letters, saying "UAC".

He opened his mouth to speak, and his rifle made sure that everyone was listening.

" I don't know who or what you think I am, but I'm not going to escape from a smuggler attack just to be surrounded and captured by gun wielding horses! All I want is to rest and get some medical attention, allright! And this..." He held his rifle up for a second. "Is just so you won't shoot me, and so that I have your attention, allright? I mean you no harm!"

The soldiers looked at each other, not knowing what to do. This human was armed and he was aiming right at them, if they opened fire he would aswell. He could kill more of them to start with, protected inside the cockpit of his ship. what could they do? They were at a stalemate.

"What is your name, human?" The purple unicorn that lead the soldiers asked.

"I'm Isaac. And who are you?"

"My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I'm second in command under the Admiral of this imperial Equestrian liner! If you lower your weapon I will make sure that you will get medical attention. Deal?"

Isaac looked back at her, silent for a few seconds. Then he lowered his rifle and put it in some sort of rifle hold in his fighter's cockpit.

He climbed down the ladder that had automatically connected itself to his ship when it landed inside the hangar.

The soldiers had lowered their weapons, but they were still alert, in case he decided to do anything. As he turned around, a few gasps could be heard. To be exact, they came from Twilight, Spike, Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash, and some of the soldiers mumbled things to eachother.

His face didn't really look that unusual, he looked to be in his thirties, maybe a little older and he had long blond hair. He had facial hair that grew around his mouth in a well groomed goatee, but the thing that earned the reaction from the ponies was his right eye. Then again, it wasn't really an eye, it was a piece of machinery. It had a thin horizontal lens, emanating a blue light, with metallic pieces around it. He was a cyborg.

/ I know that a mechanic eye doesn't really make him qualified for a cyborg position, but it sounds cool as hell, so let's go with it! /

"Well..." Isaac started, looking around. "I would feel safer if my rescuers would escort me to the medical bay." He turned his head towards Twilight. "Is that allright with you?"

She nodded, "I'll send Spike with you too, he knows one of the nurses personally, so he might be able to get you ahead of some ponies already there."

"Thank you, Miss..." He started to limp towards the hangar exit, followed by his saviours, Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash. And now Spike, leading the way let him lean onto him to take weight away from his leg.

"Thanks for helping me, Spike. This injury is killing me..." Isaac said. He didn't look at Spike, but the appreciation in his voice was sincere.

"Hey, no problem. I can't imagine what it's like to walk on an injured leg, and it sounds terrible."

Isaac groaned. "Ngh! Yeah, it is! Is it far to the medical bay?"

"Just a little further."

...

As the three ponies, Isaac and Spike stumbled in through the medical bay doors they immediately got a reprimand from the old unicorn sitting at the desk. "And what is this? A party? Get out!"

Both Isaac and Spike glared at her, but Isaac, having a sharper tongue than Spike, answered her first. "I'm injured and I need medical attention. I can give you first seat to the limp show if you don't believe me, you old cow!"

This made the unicorn sit straight up and frown, "How dare-"

But Spike interrupted her. "Give a call to nurse Fluttershy, tell her we're bringing a human in with a leg injury."

"Laser blast injury!" Isaac filled in.

Through all this, Rarity, AJ and Rainbow Dash had been quiet, letting Spike and Isaac do the talking, not that there was any room for them to talk. As the group hurried towards Fluttershy's office, the unicorn in the reception pressed some buttons on the console in front of her and a hologram lit up, but they were already so far away that they couldn't see who it was, but it was obvious enough that she was talking to Fluttershy.

It took about a minute before they got to Fluttershy's office, she was waiting for them at the door, "Come right in, I've got a bed ready for you." Spike helped him in and helped him up on the medical bed.

"What's your injury sir?" Flutterhsy asked him.

Isaac looked at her. "You can call me Isaac, and uh, I got shot in my leg by a blaster rifle, though I am not sure of the laser calibre."

Fluttershy went to work, she took up a small knife, or a scalpel if you will, and cut up Isaac's trouser leg, revealing the leg itself. It didn't look nice at all, he hadn't been hit just once, it looked like he had been hit two or three times from what Fluttershy could see. It was big, the wound was red and burnt, and you could just barely see the flesh shining through under the burnt skin.

"Oh, this doesn't look very good at all!" Fluttershy gasped and went to her cupboard, searching for whatever she were going to use to help with his ailment.

"They had regular laser rifles I think." Isaac said to Fluttershy. "Maybe that will help you find the right thing to heal it?"

She nodded and turned around, holding some bandages, cotton wipes and something that looked like jars with oil or creams. "First I have to tend to the burn. I will clean the wound, which will hurt a bit, but you will be allright. Then I will use this oil on the burn and after that I'll let this medical droid treat the rest that needs to be fixed. Then I'll put this bandage on you and you'll be good to go. Does that sound okay?"

Isaac nodded, "As long as I don't have to amputate it... Another piece of machinery on me wouldn't feel too good."

Fluttershy looked up to ask him what he meant, and then she noticed his right eye. "How did you lose your eye?" She started to use her cotton wipes, along with some antiseptics, to clean his wound.

The first touch made him hiss in pain, but as he got used to the stinging sensation he started to speak, "I lost it when I was younger. Got shot straight in the face, I don't want to go into any details."

The door opened and two ponies came in. Twilight Sparkle, followed by a pink one, dressed like a soldier.

"I told you Twilight, the alarm went off and I grabbed my group and took them to hangar five because they said that's where the alarm was initiated! I followed orders!"

Twilight shook her head. "Allright Pinkie, we'll clear this up later, now I have to talk with..." She turned to Isaac. "Isaac was it?"

He nodded back, grimacing as the medical droid stuck a needle into his leg and started to work on laying a layer of some protective organic wrap over his wound. "Yeah, Isaac's the name."

"So, Isaac." Twilight continued, stopping to stand next to him.

"Can you tell me what happened? I have to report this to the admiral, you know how it is with reporting this and reporting that."

Isaac rolled his eyes, "If you absolutely have to know, me and my mercenary team were going to escort some important goods for the UAC at a loading station on the planet Hampi when we got attacked by smugglers, trying to steal our goods."

He sighed. "My boys put up a good fight but they were too many, my friends died one by one until i was the only one left alive, and I had to get out of there. So I used a grenade to clear a way to my fighter. But when I ran over to it I got hit and had to get them off my back for long enough to get into my ship, so I turned around and let loose, and I got four of them, but they busted my leg in the process. When I got into my ship, three of them jumped into theirs and followed me into my hyperspace jump. I tried to jump out at a random place, hoping they wouldn't come out where I did, and ended up here."

Twilight nodded, "When you came out of hyperspace so close to us, the whole ship lit up like fireworks." She explained. "But you were lucky the girls were out on patrol."

Isaac looked over at them and smiled. "I owe them for their help, thank you once again."

"No problem dear, we are delighted that we could get something exciting to do once in a while." Rarity said, smiling back at him.

He chuckled, "For my own sake, I hope that I wont have to do this again anytime soon!"

The medical droid bleeped and turned itself off, it's work on Isaacs leg finished.

"There we go" Fluttershy smiled at Isaac as he sat up. "For safety reasons you have to take it easy for a while and relax. I will call around and see if we can get you a room somewhere, I mean there must be-" She was cut of by Spike clearing his throat.

"Ahem! He can sleep in my room." He frowned at the way all of the ponies were looking at him. "Come on! I'm twenty six, I can share a room... For fucks sake..."

They suddenly realized that they might have hurt him, so they all started to walk out, giving excuses for leaving so sudden.

"I have to go back to guard duty." "I must report to the admiral." "We have to relax after all this." They all blabbed as they walked out.

As they walked out Spike turned to Fluttershy again, "Thank you for helping him, I'm sorry we just came in like this but, you're the best doctor I know."

She giggled, "No worries Spike, as you know I enjoy helping, and that it isn't a pony or a dragon just makes it more fun to do" She leaned forward and spoke a bit more quiet. "Besides, if I file this as an 'emergency overtime' call, I'll get extra pay."

This made both Spike and Isaac chuckle.

"Clever girl."

Isaac followed Spike out of the medical bay. "Thanks for letting me stay at your place, you sure there's room for me?"

Spike looked at him, since he were grown up now and much taller than he was when he were little. He was one meter and seventy centimetres tall, and Isaac didn't seem to be much taller than himself, of course Spike wasn't including the green spikes on his own head to his length.

"Yeah I have an extra bunk bed that I can press a button for and it'll emerge from the wall. And they aren't that small, so you'll fit." Spike gave Isaacs shoulder a pat.

Isaac nodded, "So," he started, stretching a bit, "Do you have a cantina on board?"

"I was just thinking about the same thing!"

Chapter: 2. Gear up

Chapter 2: Gear up

Spike and Isaac were feeling quite good to be honest. The juma juice that they were drinking were like alco-soda on earth, but a bit stronger, and they have been drinking quite a few of them. When they decided to walk back to Spikes room they stumbled about a bit, but nothing worse than that occurred, other than Isaac groaning in pain as he bumped his leg into the door frame walking into the room. Isaac looked around the room, it wasn't the biggest but it was enough of course.

"So..."

He started as he leaned against the wall.

"Where's that spare bed you talked about? "

From where Isaac stood there seemed to be only one bed in the room, which was correct, there were only one bed in the room. Spike walked over to his bed and pressed some buttons on an interface next to it. A robot arm came out from under the bed, holding what looked like a big metal tray and with a buzzing sound it opened, like a hatch and a mattress came up.

"There, I have a pillow and a blanket in a cupboard over there if you want them, some people sleep without any, oddly enough. "

As he said this he pointed to a cupboard above the desk where he had his computer. Isaac walked over to it and opened it taking out a pillow and a blanket, putting them on the bed.

"Thanks for letting me stay here, by the way. "

Spike smiled at him. " No problem man, I started to get lonely in here anyway. "

They both chuckled and undressed as they were heading to bed. Spike looked at
Isaac with a question in mind as he was reminded of his cyborg eye.

"How does that thing work?" He asked straight out.

The juma juice had made him a bit less careful about asking since normally he would put Isaac's feelings into consideration, and that loosing an eye and having to get that cyborg eye could be quite a horrifying ordeal in itself.

"Oh, this?" Isaac answered and pointed to his cyborg eye.

"Yeah, how do you see with it? I mean does it look like the other eye? And is
it on all the time or can you blink with it?"

These were all questions that Isaac could both easily answer and he also understood
why Spike had asked them.

"It sees like the other eye, its just modified so I can choose to see heat signatures, night vision or normal sight. And it’s on all the time, but i can shut it off when i go to sleep and it automatically switches on when i wake up."

To show Spike that he could turn it off on command he turned it off. The eye shut down, the blue light that emanated from it stopped.

"There." He said, smiling at the "Cool!" expression that Spike had on his face.

"Now its like I would be having my eyelid close." He explained as he went onto the bed and wrapped the blanket around himself.

"Ah, cool. So how did you lose your eye?" Spike asked him, hoping to get an answer to this question too.

Isaac yawned and turned around facing in the other direction away from Spikes bed " I’ll tell you that story some other time. Goodnight, Spike."

"Goodnight."
...

When Isaac woke up Spike wasn't in the room, he guessed that since Spike was working and had to do the duties assigned to him. After he had taken a shower and memorized the room number he went out to explore the ship for a bit and to find out where the liner were heading. First he thought of visiting the nurse, Fluttershy. But he thought that she probably had patients to deal with and his leg wasn't hurting so he skipped that idea.
He did feel a bit hungry though, so he decided to try to find the dining hall and to get something to eat.

The liner weren't the easiest ship to navigate with its elevator and colour systems. And the ponies that tried to help him didn't succeed very well in teaching him either.

"This is the red west section, so you'll want to take elevator 10 to blue
west and then go to blue east, and take one of the elevators there down to
yellow east. When you’re there you’ll find it for sure. The dining halls are in the middle of the yellow section."

A brown pony who looked like a doctor, since he was wearing a white coat, and also had orange hair that funny enough looked like a muffin, explained to Isaac how to get to the dining area. Isaac still didn't quite understand the system, but lucky for him there were a soldier pony that had overheard their conversation and offered to lead him to one of the dining halls, which he accepted.

The main difference that Isaac noticed with the ponies, compared to the horses on his home planet Terra were that, for one, they spoke, and they walked on their hind legs and had hands. In every other feature they seemed to be similar to the horses back on Terra.
When they arrived at the dining hall Isaac thanked the soldier, the soldier went on with his patrolling.

Isaac went into the dining hall and looked around. There were ponies everywhere and he noticed a line along one of the walls leading to where they got their food. He grabbed a tray and stood in line, he noticed that he got a few looks but he didn’t let it bother him, the most logical guess he could come up with was that he was the news of the ship. He did set off both the patrols and the whole liners slip-stream alarm, and not only that, he met more than twenty soldiers showing no fear at all and as he did, it seemed like he was the one giving orders.

After he got his food, he looked around for somewhere to sit. As he turned around with his tray and plate he noticed a pony, or unicorn to be precise, who sat alone as she were eating, she seemed to be reading something on a holopad, but he couldn't see what it was. He walked over to her to ask if the table was available.

"Can I sit here?"

She looked up and when she did, he recognized her, she was the purple unicorn that had commandeered the soldiers when he arrived at the liner in his fighter.

"Oh, hello there!" She smiled at him and closed a window on the holopad that she had
next to her tray of food.

"Yes, you can sit here if you feel like it." She continued, giving him a smile.

Isaac nodded and sat down, placing his spoon in the synthetic mashed
potatoes that he had chosen. He had also chosen something that looked like a
live squid, slowly waving it's tentacles around, unable to move away from the
plate.

" I didn't really expect to see you here Isaac, getting to know the ship? "

He shrugged and started to eat, taking a spoon full of the mashed potato before attacking the squid creature with a fork and a knife.

" I was just trying to get something to eat and then sit down somewhere and
relax, might go to the cantina later. "

Twilight looked at him, still smiling. She seemed to be interested in Isaac
himself in general, and she listened to what he said with a clear interest.

"How is the pay here by the way?" Isaac asked and looked over at her. She
giggled, he had the end of a tentacle sticking out the edge of his mouth. he noticed that himself and chuckled, slipping it back into his mouth before he started to chew.

"Well... " she started, her tone having a very ‘it’s not really worth the effort’ feel to it.

"To be honest, pay is quite low and we work a lot for little pay. But we need
the work, and goodness, we need the credits even more! " She sighed.

"I have a good position though, I do administration so I have it alright in the credit department but, it's boring. I want to be more, on top of my job and really do stuff, you know? "

Isaac nodded slowly, he knew exactly what she was talking about." Yeah, I get it. Want to do stuff hands on, work with your friends and you want to have a little excitement, right?"

She lit up as he said this, a bit shocked that he managed to be so correct " Yeah, totally! that's exactly what I want to do! "

Isaac nodded again, for the same reasons as she have now, he quit what he used
to do and became a mercenary, he couldn’t stand the boredom and the people he worked with at the ship mechanic company he worked at.

It was a dangerous change, sure, but he and his gang of mercenaries earned a good lot of credits and with the credits they bought better weapons and equipment, which heightened their chances of surviving and finishing missions they were payed for.

He noticed that Twilight were looking at him again, and that she had said something.

" I'm sorry, I was inside my own head for a second there, what did you say miss twinkle? "

" Sparkle. " She corrected him. " And, I was asking what you are working with. "

" Oh, how weird, I was just thinking of that! " He answered.

" I work as a freelance
mercenary."

This statement made Twilights eyes get wider.

" Mercenary? Like in getting payed to kill? "

" Amongst other things, it's not just about killing, many times we have to retrieve information,
people to think your way and lots of other things. "

" Aha. " Twilight looked like she understood. " But isn't it dangerous? "

" It can be very dangerous at times, but if you have a quick trigger finger and cool nerves, you’ll survive.”
Isaac though for a little while, and then he got an idea.

" Twilight? Could you and your friends meet me and Spike later in the cantina
after the work shifts? " He asked, building on his idea in his head.

" I think so..." She scratched her chin. " Want to have a friends night out? "

He smiled at her. she’s so willing to get a new friend.

" Kind of, I think I have something we can talk about. "

...

They both finished their meals while they were chatting, and when they were done Twilight had to go back to her shift, leaving Isaac alone in the dining hall. As Isaac put his
empty plate and tray on a conveyor belt that lead to a big dishing machine he started to think about Spike.

" Yeah... he will want to be a part of this too! "

...

Spike sighed, these mechanics were so fucking stupid.

" I've already told you, my supervisor told me that she would pay for the repairs on the human ship as long as you proper repairs, all right? "

" But we can't really do this due to regulations, since it's not a ship that is used in the liner for work or patrols. "

They tried to use excuses for not having to do the job, even though they already started to do some repairs on the ship, so Spike couldn’t see what the problem was.

" Just do it or else I'll make sure that officer Sparkle will give you overtime
with no pay, got it? "

They sighed and went back to work, they were tweaking with the engines since they noticed some damage on them that kept the ship from flying at maximum speed.

Spike turned around and walked away, writing a message to his supervisor,
Twilight sparkle on his holopad.

" We have to get firmer with the mechanics! Even though I informed them that you said that the pay for their work on Isaac's ship will be taken care of, they still came with excuses! They have already started the repairs too. I guess they found more damage than they thought they would and got lazy! We have to get better people down here! Damn this cheap trading guild with its low pay and cheap people!"

He sighed and put the holopad in the belt he had on his overall. He walked out
the hangar and started to head towards the elevators going to the red section,
he wanted to go back to his room and check on Isaac. To see if he were doing
all right and had gotten something to eat. The corridors were as filled as they usually were at this time. The whole liner were getting ready to arrive to the Sander trading docks ahead of schedule. There were actually going to arrive the next day instead of 3 days. He heard a bleeping sound from his holopad and picked it up. It was a reply on the message he sent to Twilight. He opened and read it.

" I am fully aware of the problems with both the workers and the pay. Believe me, I am just as annoyed as you are Spike, I will try to get better people, if the admiral is ready to get the message. On a side note I just had lunch with Isaac, he told me that he was a mercenary. Here I though it just meant guarding important information and getting payed. But he does all kinds of things, or did. He seems to be a nice person, he wanted to meet me and the friends at the cantina after hours, will you be coming along? "

" Meet at the cantina after hours?" Spike thought to himself. " Maybe he wants
to get to know us a bit better? Doesn't seem like a bad idea. "

The elevator opened and he noticed that Isaac stood inside it.

" Hey Isaac! " He greeted and went in and stood next to him.

" So, I heard you ate lunch with Twilight today? "

Isaac chuckled. " Yeah, I just wanted to sit next to someone and it happened to be her. "

The elevator door opened and a robotic voice said. " Red zone west. " They stepped out and Isaac followed Spike, heading down the hallway.

" You have some weird things going on with your food though. " Isaac continued the conversation.

" What do you mean? " Spike smirked at him and took out the keycard to his room.

" If I were here and worked hard every day, I'd want DEAD food! "

Spike laughed as he opened the door, he understood what Isaac meant. But you
get used to things when it's the same every day. He flopped down on his bed as they got in. Isaac went to the window and looked outside.

" When are we arriving at the next stop? I need to get supplies and stuff before
leaving you know?"

" Yeah, we'll arrive at Sander tomorrow, we actually are ahead of schedule for
once! "

Isaac turned around. " Sander ? So much better! "

Spike stood up and started to take off his work overalls.

" I'll be heading in the shower. After that we can go hang around in the cantina or wherever you wanna go. Heard you wanted to drink with me and the gang later. "

Isaac turned back around to the window and he looked out of it again, checking
out the view that the room had. The distant stars, nebula's and planets. Once in a while a fighter ship or two on patrol flew by with swooshing sounds.

" Yeah, why not, I'm sure we'll meet the girls down there, since I asked Twilight to get her friends. If we're early we could just hang out for a while. "

Twilight, Rarity, Rainbow dash, Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie pie had
gotten off their job for the day and they were sitting at their usual table in
the cantina, waiting for Isaac and Spike.

" So, will he be here soon? " Pinkie pie asked, taking a sip of water from
her glass, looking very bored and impatient.

" I hope so, I would love to spend some time with him along with you guys! "
Twilight answered and looked around, hoping to notice Isaac somewhere.

" He was going to bring Spike, I think, so they might be on their way"

After a little while of more waiting and more drinks, Spike and Isaac arrived.
They too bought some drinks and sat down to chat with the girls. After a while of drinking, chatting and laughing at jokes and stories, Isaac remembered why he had gathered them.

" All right guys. " He started. taking a last sip from his glass of juma juice.

“ Girls. ” Rainbow dash corrected him with a smirk.

Isaac looked back at her with a smug look on his face.

“ I’m not so sure about you, you know?”

This made Spike and Applejack laugh, and Rainbow dash just chuckled. When the laughs had died down, Isaac continued where he left off.

" I wanted to talk with all of you because, from what I've heard, all of you
are bored with your jobs, have a bad pay and wish that you could do something
with more action. "

The girls looked and each other, they were not very happy to admit it but they
nodded, they were tired of their current jobs.

" Yes, that's true. " Rarity answered. " Even I am starting to get bored of this, doing the same all day. And the pay, ugh! Barely enough to buy anything smashing for myself! "

" Me and Twilight have quite the good pay though" Spike filled in, tapping the
side of his glass, making it cling. " But we have to work with
idiots, and it's really infuriating! "

" In any case. " Isaac continued and they could almost feel his cyborg eye zooming in on them all.

" I have a suggestion for you, and I want you to hear me out. I need a new group of mercenaries, and you guys seem to have nothing to lose, plus it is definitely a change of terrain. you'll get action and good pay, well you'll be amazed at the sums some people are ready to pay for special services, so what do you say, want to start a mercenary group with me? "

The girls and Spike looked at him, it was almost like they had expected this
but still weren't ready for the actual question. None of them wanted to be the
one that answered first even if the answer was a no. Isaac sat down and kept
drinking from his glass, waiting for any answer.

" I will do it!" The soft voice of Fluttershy was heard from the other side of
the table.

" I am tired of this ship and my job! I need change" she continued, her face
having a stern look on it.

" If Fluttershy is going with it i am too!" Spike filled in. " I will stick to my friends 'till the end!"

" I can't let you guys go alone! " Twilight sparkle stood up, with a confident
tone in her voice.

Applejack laughed and drank the last of the beverage in her glass. " I guess
that we all have decided already. You can count me in. "

" Yeah, lets do it! " Rainbow dash shouted out with a big grin.

" If i am supposed to buy myself some really amazing outfits I need to earn
big credits. I am absolutely in, dears! "

Last were Pinkie pie, she didn't answer right away. but the smile on her face
got wider and wider and her eyes started to twinkle.

" WHEEE! I'm gonna buy me so much cool stuff! rifles and cool armour and
those goggles that can see in the dark! I'm so in! "

Isaac grinned, as he thought, they had all been positive to the thought of
getting more excitement and pay at work.

”Uhm. I have a question though... if you don’t mind me asking.” Fluttershy looked at Isaac, a bit unsure how to put the question.
“Well, i wondered. Won’t it be dangerous? And, i don’t like the idea of killing people. what if they are good people and have nothing wrong and someone want us to just kill them?”

Isaac cleared his throat again, he had to tread carefully here.

“I wont lie to you, if you join me you WILL get hurt, and you might be killed. You might be held prisoner and tortured. But your friends, your crew will have your back. For each shot you take, they will be ready to receive the double to save you. Even if you are killed, or if we all are killed. We will have died with our friends, our brothers and sisters, ready to give their lives to save eachother. To answer your second question, you have to learn to do what you are payed for, and even if the people are good people, it’s not our place to judge anyone, or to feel. We are there to do our job, whether it’s to save someone, kill , protect valuable goods or information. We are there as mercenaries, soldiers that puts our job before anything else, and sadly, sometimes people die even if they are good.”

Fluttershy and the others looked at him for a little while, his speech had got their thinking. some of them looked like they regretted that they had spoken out so quickly. But Fluttershy finally nodded and said that she understood. That things happened for a reason and that no one could stop it.

Isaac could finally feel victorious about his recruiting skills. He turned to Twilight and gave her a smile. " I guess you'll hand in your resignation papers as fast at you can? "

Twilight giggled. " Resignation papers? That would be doing the administration
a favour! No, fuck them! We'll just leave! "

Isaac didn't expect Twilight to be such a powerful lady, but he had to admit that he would have done the same if he was in her shoes.

" Well then girls, and Spike. " Isaac leaned forward and spoke with a lower
voice. " I know a guy at sanders who runs a... less legal shop where we
can buy some basic equipment. "

Spike chuckled, this was really amazing, this guy thought about everything.

" That's a very fitting coincidence, and a very good one to boot! "

Isaac shrugged and smirked " Just luck! "

...

The liner had docked at Sander and the gang had gotten off, they had gotten all
of their stuff and were heading into a more, questionable area of the docking
station. They got a few mean looks from all the thugs they passed on the way
to the friend of Isaac's black market shop. luckily it seemed like the dight
of Isaac and Spike was enough to not get any trouble. if the ponies had been
there alone there is no telling what could happen to them. Isaac took them to
a dark alleyway and then to a door. he pressed a button beside it on a small
computer panel, after a few moments a voice answered.

" What do you want?" Seemed courtious enough.

"It's Isaac, I need some special supplies"

The voice coming from the panel chuckled, and seemed to be amused.
"You go though your supplies quick, old friend, I'll come down and meet you."

The door opened with a hissing sound and they walked in.
it was dark, the lights weren't on. They heard steps coming towards them and then a click, followed by the lights turning on. In front of them stood an alien, a rodian to be exact, his skin had a dark green tone the girls couldn't really read any expressions on his face, but they thought he was smiling.

" Hey there Isaac!" Isaac and the rodian stepped forward and shook hands.

"Esten! It's a wonder you are still alive, you bastard!"

Isaac turned around to introduce the gang.

"This is my new mercenary group, Spike, Twilight, Applejack, Rarity,
Rainbow dash, Fluttershy and Pinkie pie. They will make any enemy shake in their boots."

Esten smirked and walked over to a counter and turned back around to the gang.

" I think that I can supply you properly, and since you're a friend I think I
can give you a discount"

He put in a code on a computer panel on the counter and the shelves on the
walls that had been empty spun around and were now filled with different
weapons.

The girls and Spike were shocked and were staring on all the things around
them.

" Go find something you like, guys"

They all walked around looking at the rifles and the different equipment
around them.

Isaac stood around, looking at what the others tried out, since he already had
his own equipment.

Spike had found a flamethrower that he were currently trying out.

"Woah! this one is awesome! I’ll take it!"

Isaac chuckled and patted his shoulder.

"Now, don't forget your secondary weapon Spike, you'll need it when you're in
a pinch. Myself, I would recommend having a rifle as a secondary rather than a
blaster, especially if you have a flamethrower as your primary weapon"

Spike nodded. "Yeah i guess you're right. What about this one?"

He put flamethrower on the floor and picked up a smaller lazer blaster. He aimed at
one of the shooting dummies and opened fire. The blue lazer shots hit the
dummy with perfect accuracy and the sparks from the impact flew around it in a
blur.

"Damn! Count this one in! This was only holding it with one hand!" Spike exclaimed and put the blaster in a holster at his hip.The girls seemed to have found weapons and equipment they liked.

Pinkie pie were still wearing her uniform from the liner so she didn't need to pick out a
uniform from the ones on display, but she were looking on some nightvision
goggles, but couldn't really decide which one she wanted.

Isaac remembered something and turned to Esten.

" I need a new shotgun, do you have any in stock?"

Esten smirked, Isaac were very attached to this sort of weapon, might be that
it was human made and shipped from Terra itself.

"They are where they used to be" he pointed to a special shelf that had a few
different designs of the shotgun weaponry.

"I have some new designs in, if you care to take a look." He stepped forward and pointed at a smaller version of a shotgun on the top shelf.

"This one is a small one made for having one in each hand, they are automatic,
they don't need to be pumped to load the next shell. And this one."He pointed at the one below it, much larger clearly made for two hands.

"This is a normal sized automatic shotgun, this was made for rapid fire and
has a big cartridge, the cartridge is larger and fits more shells. Now this one here!" The one he held his hand on now, looked almost like a normal lazer blaster but
with slight differences.

"This, my friend, is a model "E-11e" blast cannon. A lazer blaster version on the shotgun, and this one actually utilize the use of ammunition clips, for easy reloading"

"That seems like a good choice, since barely no one uses actual projectile
weaponry anymore". Twilights voice was heard behind them. She stood there, holding the gear she had chosen in her arms.

" OHHH I'LL TAKE ONE OF THOSE!" Fluttershys voice echoed in the room as she
hurried toward them, grabbed the blast cannon and squealed. Then she blushed
and looked down.

"Um.. I mean... If that's okay."

Esten smirked at her reaction when she saw the weapon.

"I see we have a blast cannon fan in~"

Isaac chuckled.

"You take it."

He turned back to Esten.

" I want one with good accuracy and power." He looked over the shotguns
in store.

"I think this one will suffice" He grabbed a normal sized shotgun with pump action.

" And i want to have a supply of ammunition for every weapon we buy."

" I would be a bad salesman if i wouldn't be able to fix that."

After a while they had all found some basic equipment and they had payed for
it they were ready to leave but, Isaac still had some unfinished business with
Esten.

"So Esten, I need another favour from you."

Esten crossed his arms and leaned against the counter.

"What is it this time? Will I get another near death experience from
this?"

Isaac smirked and placed his hand on Estens shoulder.

"I need The Nordin back."

Chapter 4: Special forces ( soft M/M you have been warned)

Chapter 4: Special Forces

Isaac took the last sip of his drink and put the cup down on the table, slowly rubbing his injured leg.

"So, the most likely option would be that the creatures lived in the asteroid itself and got into the facility through the mine-shafts!" Spike sat down in his seat as Twilight explained her thoughts on where the creatures they had encountered came from. Isaac sighed and moved his cup away from where he sat and put some small bags on the table the crew were sitting around.

"Luckily we won't have to go back there and do any research, let’s leave that to the investigators of the UAC, and speaking of the UAC, they are happy that they got their data and we got our pay. We got 160.000 galactic credits, which means we all got 20.000 each. Here are your payments."

He tossed a bag over to each one of them, and they opened them, smiling now that they had gotten their hard earned money.

"Remember, if we keep doing our job well we will get even better paying jobs." Isaac continued. He groaned as he stood up.

"Reputation spreads fast among contractors, but I think we'll wait a bit with our next contract. I need to get a tiny bit healthier now don't I?" He chuckled as he walked through the meeting hall, intending to go to the medical bay.

"Ilsa?" He spoke to the ships AI.

" Yes, captain?"

"Can you please ready a Bacta tank bath for me in the medical bay please."

"Will do, how long do you intend to stay in?" Isaac stopped at the door of the meeting hall and looked over at Fluttershy. "That depends on the diagnose from our medical expert."

Fluttershy smiled and stood up, walking over to Isaac. "I'll go with you and look at your wounds, and then we'll see how much time you need in the Bacta tank"

They walked out of the room and headed towards the medical bay, leaving the others to could their credits, chat and do their own things.

…

Spike sat and counted his credits. it was a lovely lump of money, he could definitely get used to the work if the pay were this good all the time.

A speaker in the roof sparked to life and Estens voice was heard from the speakers in the room.

"Spike, I have something for you in the cockpit, if you could come here for a minute?" Spike put his credits in his pocket and sighed.

" All right then, I'll be over in a bit."When he got to the cockpit he saw Esten walking around, pressing buttons and looking at monitors.

"Hey, Esten. What was it that you had for me?" Esten turned around, stopping whatever he was doing at the monitor he were standing at.

"Oh, lovely! You're here! I were thinking about your choice of weaponry, and don’t get me wrong, your taste in my weaponry is exquisite, BUT!", he walked over to a locker on the other side of the room and opened it. "Carrying a big flamethrower around is very heavy, and might be very dangerous to say the least, in situations that require speed and agility,. so I have been working on this."

He took out a medium sized rifle from the locker, compared to the lazer blasters the others had this looked more like it was of human design. From what he could see it had some a cartridge slot on the side and on the top were something that looked like a tiny tank filled with some sort of liquid. On the front was the same thing that his flamethrower had in the front, the thin barrel that emitted a small flame when the safety is turned off.

"This is my latest creation, the Hellrazer! It is a hybrid of an automatic rifle and a flamethrower." ,He started to explain, exalted and proud over his invention, "The rifle part fires incendiary bullets"

"Incendiary bullets?" Spike asked, interrupting him. He had never heard that word before.

"Yes, easily explained the flame in the front ignites the bullets as they fly out of the barrel, and once they hit the enemy, the bullets break and the flammable liquids inside turns the enemy to flames. The tank on the top is for the secondary fire, which is basically a flamethrower. This is also usable to keep your enemies at bay as you reload the rifle."

Spike nodded, it seemed like a very good gun indeed.

Esten continued. "But I still have some flaws I need to buff out, the bullets exploding as soon as the flame ignites them and such.But I think I might have it ready in time for your next mission." Esten looked over at Spike, looking a bit guilty now. "But, sadly I HAVE to charge for it, you know, making these sort of things cost and I have to cover expenses. But I can make a deal with you. If you give me your old flamethrower and ten thousand credits I will throw in a pair of my special goggles for you."

"Special goggles, you say?" Spike crossed his arms, if this was good enough he would go with it, he wouldn't just agree to anything without getting out on top, figuratively speaking.

"Yes, they are special in many ways, the design is made so that you have two latches that are wrapped around your head, then fastened behind it, sitting tight and in place. The goggles themselves can be changed to see night vision and heat signatures. In bright light they moderate the light intake so that in even the brightest lights you can see everything like normal, which is well in use if your enemy have flashbang grenades, just stay away from the grenade blasts, they can still hurt you if you are too close."

Esten looked at him, still hoping that he would take the deal.

Spike finally nodded. "All right, I'll take the deal. I just hope that this, Hellrazer, and the goggles are worth my flamethrower and the money."

"Dont you worry" Esten assured him. "You will not regret this, I will work my butt off with this gun."
…

Back in the medical bay Isaac was in the middle of undressing, and as he did, Fluttershy were carefully taking off the bandages she had wrapped around his injuries. She gasped once she took off the bandage on his leg. The large wound had started to turn to a blue-ish and green colour, indicating an infection.

"Oh my goodness!" She gasped, causing Isaac to look down at the injury.

"Damn, that looks really nasty. But the Bacta tank will take care of that for sure."

"No it will not." Fluttershy stated with a stern and medically professional voice. "You'll need some anti-infective medicine before you go into the tank." She stood up and looked around, looking at the cabinets, and then sighed, not knowing where she would look first, she didn’t know if they even had any medical supplies, though she doubted that Isaac wouldn’t think of having any.

"Just ask Ilsa if there's anything specific you need. She usually knows where everything is in here." Isaac said, standing in place. Fluttershy hadn't commented on him being naked, or maybe she just didn't realize it. Anyway, Isaac felt happy about this, since he wanted the gang to be comfortable in any position, and especially Fluttershy, since she's the medic, and he didn't want her to be afraid of seeing some skin, or coat.

"Ilsa?" She asked, feeling a bit stupid speaking out to the the room itself.

"Yes doctor?" The robotic voice answered her, as on queue.

"Uhm... I need some anti-infection medicine and some cleaning solvents, Isaac's wound has gotten infected. I need something that works fast and efficient, can you find some thing that might get in effect while he's in the Bacta tank?"

"There is an anti-infection vial in the third cabinet to the right, on the bottom shelf. The medicine is also an anti-coagulant so that blood won’t cause the wound to swell. In the cabinet beside it to the left are some clean syringes" Fluttershy grabbed the medicines, solvents and a syringe, then walked over to Isaac, kneeling down to get closer to the wound. She put on rubber gloves and carefully rubbed the wound to see if there would be any pus coming out of it. Luckily there was none, so she put the syringe into a vein close to the wound, which made Isaac groan, and finished her job.

"There we go" she stood up and smiled at him, taking off the rubber gloves and throwing them into a bin on the floor.

"I'll leave you to your Bacta bath and I'll come back in three hours. Is that allright?", Ilsas voice were heard in the room. "I can address you when he comes to, doctor."

"Thank you very much, that will be all."

With this, Fluttershy exited the medical bay, leaving Isaac to enter the Bacta tank. He entered the tank and closed the door behind him and put on the breathing mask inside. He closed his eyes and sighed as the warm Bacta filled the tank, and he slowly drifted off to sleep.

…

Isaac stumbled out of the Bacta tank, now cold and empty since the three hours were over. As he blinked, trying to get a clear view, he heard Ilsas voice echo from outside the door. She was letting Fluttershy know that he had woken up. He looked down on his body to inspect his wounds. It seemed that they had healed, but from what he could feel as he ran his hands over them, the skin where the wounds had grown back together was very thin. It was enough to keep the wound together to heal further, but if he were hit in the same place again they would open, and the leg might not be able to save a second time. The sickly colour had faded away almost completely and the only thing left of is were small gray spots on the edges of the healed wound, they would soon disappear.

The door opened and Fluttershy walked in, now dressed in her normal clothes, a white doctors coat with a green shirt and a skirt, she were followed by Spike who also had changed into casual clothes, a white tank-top and blue slacks. Spike averted his gaze as he noticed the naked Isaac, but Fluttershy didn’t pay any attention to it and walked over to him.

"Did you have a nice nap?" She asked, handing him a towel that hung next to the Bacta tank. Isaac nodded and wrapped the towel around his waist, covering himself up.

"How does your leg look? " Fluttershy looked down at his leg, but she waited until Isaac showed her the injury himself before examining it. She didn’t want to unwrap the towel, that would just be rude.

Isaac put his right leg in front of himself and moved the towel so that the whole leg was revealed. Fluttershy looked at wound and noticed the tiny grey specks that Isaac also noticed earlier. She carefully poked the gray spots and nodded to herself. She then looked at and felt on the other injuries, humming to herself and nodding, acknowledging her own thoughts.

She stood up, allowing Isaac to cover himself up again and started to give him the verdict. "It all checks out, these small spots will disappear, they are harmless now. If they had grown larger, allowing the bacteria to grow stronger, they would have made your leg rot from the inside. You’re in luck, just don't do anything crazy for a day and you'll be allright."

"Yeah.. I'll... " Isaac started, talking slow and sounding very tired. "I'll do my best. Im sorry if I'm... Slow. The Bacta bath... I need to get things going you know."

Fluttershy smiled, it was nice having her there as a doctor, she knew what she was doing. " I'll leave you to it, take care!”

"I will."

She walked out of the door, heading down the hallway toward the bunks, possibly going to get some sleep herself.

Isaac walked over to his clothes and started to dress himself. Once done he turned around to Spike, who still were in the room, his head still turned away.

"You can look now, I'm dressed." Isaac told him, smiling at how respectful Spike were even though he wanted him to be like Fluttershy, not thinking about it. Might be that he is a male, Fluttershy is a female and it's only natural that she would have been with a naked male sometime, plus she is a doctor so it might have been easier for her, since it’s a part of her profession.

Spike turned his head and uncrossed his arms, giving him a small smile."All good now eh? The others are going to get some sleep, how about you?"

Isaac rubbed his head, the dizzyness and the feeling of being lost inside his own head slowly disappearing.

"I wont need any sleep, three hours of sleep isn’t that much, but the Bacta have given me an excess of energy... I will be fiddling with my weapons and speak to Esten if he stays awake."

"Speaking of Esten." Spike remembered the deal he had made with the rodian. " Esten offered a deal with me, that I accepted, but i’m not sure that it's a good one..."

Isaac chuckled and patted Spikes back, leading him out of the medical bay. "Esten wouldn't stiff you, he is a honest man. But please, do tell me about this deal of his."

Spike told him all the details about the new gun and the goggles, at hearing this Isaac seemed pleased and nodded, it seemed to be in order with him.

"Of course you doing this deal will push him to make the gun to perfection, and with perfecting a first prototype he can sell more of them and earn lots and lots of credits, but he will not trick you. And the goggles are very good to have, my eye is working the same way. I would happily recommend them."

Then everything was allright, Spike didn't need to worry. That Isaac would recommend both the flamethrower and the goggles made him feel more secure about the whole thing.

"That makes me less worried, not that I thought he would give me a bad deal, but I don’t know him, you know?"

" I understand, don’t worry about it, if you trust him he will do his best to keep that trust."

Spike yawned and stretched, the scales on his back itching slightly.

" well i-aaaaaahhh.... I'll just get to my bed. You have a good time doing whatever you plan to do."

Isaac coughed and sat down on a chair.

" I'll do my best, g'night."

Spike headed toward his room, his steps felt heavier even though they never got heavier, the things a tired brain can do to you. He moved into his room and closed the door behind him, he yawned again and undressed. The bed wasn't much but it was something you could sleep on, and that was enough for him.

He sighed and smiled as he rested his head on the pillow, and with a last though of Isaac, he fell asleep.

…

One by one the gang woke up and went to get some breakfast. Ilsa had prepared food for them that they could get out of a machine. At first they thought they'd get processed food, but Ilsa had actually used proper kitchen equipment to make the food, the machine they pressed to get it from were only for proper portions.

After breakfast Isaac sat down with them again in the meeting hall and showed them the new contract they have gotten, and he had chosen the one that gave the highest pay, since mercenaries work for the highest bidder.

"The United leaders of the planet Gaolbreak have assigned us to take care of a rebel base on the south side of the planet." Isaac explained the mission to them. "Their soldiers haven't been able to get inside the base, but they have found out some of the installations existing in the base thanks to scouting and long range scopes.. We are to sneak inside, plant a bomb on a assembly of tanks containing fuel for their vehicles."

He turned off the monitor and turned back around and looked at his crew.

"Hopefully this will blow the crap out of the whole base and once that is done, the Gaolbreak army will take care of the leftovers, any questions?"

Rainbow dash put her hooves on the table and leaned back.

" How will we sneak in? And if we can sneak in, then why don't that army of theirs send in some special forces of their own instead?"

This was a good question, and Isaac had at first wondered this himself and asked Ilsa if she had any additional information on this and got his answer.

"They heard about how fearless we are. The rumours of how you went in to a mining facility full of mutated monsters to save me had its impression on them. They're determined to have people that won't chicken out, which we won't since we have a pay of 1,000,000 credits to split if we succeed."

This made Rainbow dash move her hooves from the table and sit straight."One million credits? Damn!"

Isaac smirked, to be their second mission it sure were a lot of credits.

"But be ready for a hell of a challenge. This wont be a walk in the park, so you guys be on your best toes, allright?"

"Yes captain!"

"Speaking of how we will get in, there is a 'back door' to the base. The base is surrounded by a jungle, and the second entrance is less guarded. If we deal with the guards quietly, then we got a way in."

…

Spike was wearing his gear, the black gear he wore on their last mission. He looked just as badass as he did then, atleast that is what he thought. He were heading towards Estens little workshop to get his new Hellrazer. He walked in and were greeted with a smile from the rodian.

"I was waiting for you, and I knew you'd come because you want to get the benefits from our deal, and lucky for you, the gun is done."

Esten walked over to the table, and there were the Hellrazer, it looked different from the first one that Esten had shown him. The tank that had the flammable liquid in it were nowhere to be seen, but the clip with the bullets were in the standard place, in front of the trigger.

"Let me just explain some things, so that you use it correctly.” Esten held up the gun and statred to do a tutorial. ”First, the problem with the bullets exploding was because of the liquid I used, but I changed some components of the liquid and now the flame has a bright green colour and the bullets do not explode until impact on your target."

He used his thumb to press a button next to the handle, which opened a small hatch on top of the rifle. Inside of it were a small cylider shaped container.

"This is where you insert the liquid containers. It doesnt’ look that big but the liquid itself is very durable so you wont need much of it."

Esten handed Spike a small pouch, filled with these cylider containers and another pouch filled with the bullets that he needed to use. He placed the ammunition in different pouches he had around his waist and across his chest.

"What about the goggles? You didn't forget those right?" Spike gave Esten a stern look.

Esten faked being hurt by this question." Oh, how dare you even suggest I would forget even the smallest detail in a business proposal!?"

He chuckled as he handed the goggles to Spike. "The red button here..." He pointed at a small red coloured button that were placed on the side of one of the straps."...Is to chance between regular vision, night-heat vision."

"So it shows both nightvision and heat signatures at the same time?"

"It does indeed, now put them on."

Spike wrapped the latches over his head and fastened them behind it. It was true, everything looked like normal, the light, shapes and forms. But when he pushed the button to change the vision everything became a bright green colour and Estens figure were turned into red, yellow and orange colours. That was the hybrid, night-heat vision mode. He turned it off and looked over at Esten again. "Everything seems allright."

"I better hope it is, and look at this" The rodian walked over to the light control and turned it so that the light were on maximum power. The light caused Esten to close his eyes it was so bright. But Spike didn't really notice anything other than that Esten stood there with his eyes closed.

"Did you turn up the light?"

"Yes I did, can you tell?" Esten answered in a groan, the bright light were really bugging him.

"No, I cant tell at all! This is amazing!"

Esten turned down the lights again and sighed as he were able to open his eyes again. "There you go. I wish you and the others good luck at your next mission."

"So do i. I am expecting this one to be a real sucker..."

Esten smirked and crossed his arms. “Like the last mission?”

Spike chuckled, realising how stupid he just sounded. “The monsters might have killed us and eaten us, but they wouldn’t torture us for hours if they caught us.”

…

Isaac, Spike and the girls moved as quickly and quiet as they could through the undergrowth. The planet of Gaolbreak were covered with jungles that stretched for miles. But the jungle around the rebel base was not growing as thick, which made it easy for them to sneak about. It was night on this side of the planet and they moved stealthily through the darkness, like they had been doing this for years.

One by one they moved in a line, moving on a small path between the trees and bushes. they got closer and closer to the gates leading into the base. They stopped and Isaac signalled them to divide into two small groups on each side of the path.

Spike, Pinkie pie, Fluttershy and Rarity quickly moved over to the other side of the path. looking at the guards standing there.

Spike looked at the gate and the guards that patrolled the area and conveyed what he saw to the others through his communicator. " can see two guards by the gate, and a third one on top of the wall."

"Ee'll have to take the two by the gate out without the third one noticing." Rainbow dash answered with a voice that basically said
. "That or we can do it reversed.” She continued. ”I still have my tazer old gun, I can take out the one on the wall without making too much noise, but we have to take care of the other two."

"I know!" Pinkie pie pointed towards the edge of the bushes near the gate.

"I can make some noise over there, and hopefully they'll walk over to me, then someone take one of them from behind and I'll get the other one."

Isaac nodded.

"Rainbow, move out. once you taze the one on the wall, make him fall down on the outside. Pinkie, you make the noise loud enough to cover up his fall. I'll get one of the guards, and you'll get the other one when he gets close enough."

"Allright, lets go!"

Spike pointed ahead, and they headed out, getting their plan to work, hopefully being successful in killing the guards.

Rainbow dash moved fast and without sound through the edge of the jungle and hid below the wall, staying unseen in the shadows. She turned her head to look at Pinkie pie, but she were nowhere to be seen.

She uttered a silent swear. "Damn, I guess I'll just have to rely on that she can see when the guard falls down..."

She looked up and aimed her tazer gun at the guard above her. She fired, and the guard started convulsing, he dropped his rifle and started to stumble. Rainbow dash tugged, making the thin electric cable that connected her gun to the guard stretch, sending the guard toppling over the edge.

Just before he hit the ground, a loud rustling came from the bushes in front of Rainbow dash. She stepped back into the shadows in case the sound didn't cover the guards fall. She held her breath, hoping that everything had gone according to plan.

The shadows of two human males came towards her.

"Shit, they heard it!" She thought to herself and readied her knife.

But they hadn't heard it. As they came into view, they walked toward the bushes where the sound had came from, where Pinkie pie hid.

" I don't know what it was" one of the guards said to the other. "It might just be an animal, still, we wouldn’t want them so close to the gates."

Isaac were crouching, sneaking towards the tguard duo. He held a large knife in his right hand. Rainbow saw the look on his face, like one you see on a stone cold murderer, and for a moment she didn’t dare to draw another breath.

Isaac lunged forward, swinging his arm around the head of the guard standing closest to him, covering his mouth as he slit his throat. At the same time, another knife came flying out from the bushes, and buried itself into the other guards forehead, killing him instantly. The two bodies fell to the ground with dull thuds.

Spike, Twilight, Fluttershy and Rarity came towards them. Rarity fiddled with her backpack, taking out the same computer device she used at their last mission in the Myrath mine facility. She walked up to the gate and plugged it into the computer interface next to it.

" Give me a minute, make yourselves ready." She told the others and got to work at getting them inside.

Spike and Rainbow dash proceeded to hide the bodies in the bushy canopy in case there were more guards patrolling the area.

Rarity turned around and waved at them, putting her hacking device back into her backpack. The gates opened and they moved in. It seemed that they were in luck, there were no guards in sight. Isaac made some signs with his right hand and they split up, covering behind different objects to stay out of sight.

Isaac tapped Spikes shoulder and nodded towards the huge fuel tanks. He turned around and waved to Rarity, who lobbed a pipe-bomb towards them, which Spike caught without problem. The two of them headed over towards the tanks. Spike kneeled down and started to enter the time-code. Isaac looked around, keeping guard.

Rainbow dash looked around and noticed something that looked like big thick metal pipes inside a fenced area.

" What the hell is that?" She said to herself.

She sneaked over to the pipes, making sure that she stayed in the dark places. When she got over to the pipes she noticed they had some sort of plates on the bottom to keep them steady and were very tall. She followed the pipes up with her eyes and when she got to the end of them, she grew a wide smile on her face.

"Awesome!"

…

"Done!" Spike whispered as he rolled the bomb in under the tanks and stood up.

"Captain!" Rainbow dash's voice came into his ear through the communicator.

"What’s up RD?" He answered in a low voice.

"I found some sort of war machine.Requesting permission to use it."

Isaac blinked, not knowing what to say. "Can you get it to work?"

Suddenly a sound echoed through the rebel base. As the tripod started up it let out a sound that shook the foundations under them.

" ULLAH!"

All of a sudden an alarm went off and rebel soldiers started to flow out from the buildings, shouting, wielding weapons.

" Fuck! They know we're here now. Open fire!" Isaac shouted.

He and Spike lept for cover as the girls started shooting. These rebels didn't seem to be too organized, or maybe it was because it was in the middle of the night and they were not ready for intruders. In any case they ran around like chaosed ants, only some of them answering the gunfire provided by the girls.

Rainbow dash fiddled with the controls in the tripod, trying to steer it properly. The tripod stumbled forward and its big metal feet breaking through the metal fence that had contained it. The machine let out its loud roar once again.

As she controlled the tripod she used it to walk around, trampling small objects and rebel soldiers that were crushed under the large metal feet. She looked out of the cockpit, down at all the soldiers running around below.

"There must be a weapon in this thing! Would be wonderful it it turns out this is the cooks food tray machine!" she exclaimed whilst looking around. As she turned the large machine around she felt a trigger on the backside of the steering controls.

She pressed it and a bright glare came from the machine. A lazer ray shot out from the front of the machine, Igniting buildings and soldiers. Rainbow dash grinned and aimed towards a group of rebel soldiers. Once again there was a bright glare, as they all burst into a living flame, waving their arms and screaming in agony before they were burned to crisps.

…

Spike were running from cover to cover, shooting the enemies close to him. His rifle engulfing them in bright green fire. He turned around to find the others, a few meters away he saw Fluttershy, she kneed a soldier in the groin and as he got down to his knees in pain, grasping his crotch, she blew his head off, the blood splattering the ground beneath her.

"Nice job!" Spike shouted as he aimed and opened fire again, causing a few rebel soldiers to throw themselves on the ground for cover.

"Thanks!" she answered, killing another soldier that were running straight for her with a large knife. Her shot hit him in the chest, causing him to fall forward, toppling over and smashing his head on the ground. “Oh goodness! I hope that didn’t hurt... what am i saying? i don’t care!”

Applejack were standing upright behind a low concrete wall, her lazer rifle rapidly firing bright red lazer blasts at her targets, whilst doing this she let out a loud "Yeeeehaaaw!" and said “ I bet y’all didn’t know a girl could handle a gun better than you!” Next to her were Isaac who had his left foot up on the wall to steady himself as he to were on a killing spree, the round blue plasma balls shooting out from his plasma rifle.

"32!" He shouted with a large grin on his face, which was followed by a laugh from Applejack.

"You ain't gonna win over this cowgirl, sugarcube! 35!"

Rarity and Twilight were under heavy fire, they had turned over a large metal container in which they were hiding, the lazer blasts hitting the container sent sparks everywhere.

"Oh dear, i think we're trapped!" Rarity said as she tried to peek out of the cover to get a chance to shoot back, but she quickly went back as a lazer shot flew right by her head.¨

"Don't worry, it's not over yet!" Twilight smiled and threw a grenade at the soldiers keeping them pinned down. Some panicked shouts were heard just before the grenade exploded, turning them and their gear into bits and pieces.

Suddenly there was a loud, high pitched beeping that came from the fuel tanks. The bomb were going to explode. Close to a second after that, Isaacs voice came through their communicators.

" TAKE COVER!"

Fluttershy leapt towards a large metal bin that had fallen to the ground and Spike started to run after her, but he didn't get there in time.

The explosion that followed was so powerful that it threw Spike all the way across the large courtyard they were in. His body flipped limply in the air until he crashed against the ground, landing in a heap amongst metal scarps and bins. The large explosion lit the whole base up in a bright glare, and the debree that were flung everywhere caused even more fires and damage as it rained down on the base. Not to mention the shockwave that went through the base, shaking its foundations.

This was the signal that the Gaolbreak army and its officers had waited for. Helicopters, tanks, soldiers, suddenly swarmed the rebel base as they went in to take care of what was left of the resistance.

Isaac, Fluttershy, Twilight, Pinkie pie, Rarity and Applejack were running around amongst the debris in the courtyard, looking for Spike. Rainbow dash jumped out of the tripod and ran over to help them in the search. She had felt her heart drop when she saw that Spike was caught by the explosion and thrown threw the air. They all gasped as they finally found him. His body was smoking,and he were laying there limply, not showing any signs of being alive. He had been standing too close to the bomb without noticing, and it might have costed him his life. Isaac shook him, hoping he was still alive.

As Isaac shook him, Spike let out a scream of pain. His body felt like everything was broken. He wreathed and shook as the pain grew worse. When he rolled arouns in pain, they could see that he had lost his left arm. Where his left arm had been were now a burnt stump.

Isaac grabbed him and lift him up, making him wrap his arm and legs around him, even though this caused Spike to scream even louder from the pain. He started to walk out from the base, contacting Esten on the communicator.

" Esten, Spike is badly wounded, I need you to get us back to ship, NOW!"He turned his head and looked at Spike. He sighed in sympathy, wrapping his arms carefully tighter around Spike and whispered. "You'll be allright, i promise to take care of you okay? It’ll all be okay, you’ll be fine!" He held his fallen comrade tight in his grip and placed a quick kiss on Spikes cheek.

…

Spike were laying on a hospital bed in the medical bay on the Nordin. He was awake, and the medicine numbed his pain, but it felt that nothing could ever cure the depression he had fallen into. He just laid there with a down look on his face, occationally trying to move his left hand as if it was still there, but every time he tried his stump just wiggled pathetically where he lay. The others weren't in the medical bay, they thought he looked like he wanted to be alone, so they did just that, left him alone. But that wasn't what Spike really wanted, of course, he didn’t want to admit it, but he wanted to talk with the. He wanted to be able to talk about this, but he didn't know how. He sighed and sat up.

" fuck... everything" He sighed and rubbed his cheek.

Was this it? Was this the end of him working as a mercenary? He didn't want it to end, he had enjoyed working with his friends. They worked as a unit, and they wouldn't leave anyone behind without dying themselves.

The door to the medical bay opened and Isaac peeked in. "How are you feeling?" He asked, slowly walking up to him.

Spike shrugged, making his wrapped stump move up and down. " Im not sure... I just lost an arm, and I guess no one feels good at the moment" Spike said plainly.

Isaac sat down on the edge of the medical bed. He leaned forward and hugged his friend.

"It'll be allright Spike. You’ll get going again. ANd before i forget it, I have something to tell you."

"Is it about giving me that kiss?" Spike asked, no angry or any specific tone in his voice, just the tone he always had while talking normally.

"Well..." Isaac started, feeling a bit caught off guard. "That wasn't what I wanted to tell you, but sure. What do you want to ask about it?"

Spike shifted were he sat and layed down on his side. "Why did you kiss me? would be the simplest question"

Isaac cleared his throat. "I think that it was so emotional seeing you like that. Something just happened inside me." Isaac started to explain. "And... We've had so much fun and we've all grown closer. When I saw you in that condition, screaming in pain and that you had lost your arm, I wanted to protect you, to be there for you. I don’t know really, it just happened."

Spike didn't answer at first, but then he nodded slowly. " I think I understand, it's allright Isaac. I've had fun with you too, and we're good friends right?"

" Yeah, we are." He answered and smiled. "Now to the other thing I wanted to tell you." Isaac continued.

" Rainbow dash managed to keep some tripod war machine in one piece when she took it in the rebel base on Gaolbreak. She used it to tear the rebel soldiers to pieces and apparently it was a prototype of a machine they were going to use against the leaders of Gaolbreak."

Spike sat up, interested in this information.

"Our contractors have paid all of us now, and your share is waiting for you in the meeting hall. They also heard about your injury and the tripod Rainbow dash used, since it’s still in one piece, our contractors will use the prototype to create more, better tripods for their own use, and as a thank you they want to give you a bionic arm that they will attach to you surgically."

Spike didn't say anything, he just looked back at Isaac with a blank stare, not sure how to answer.

"We will fly you to the Capitol of Gaolbreak tomorrow. I know it's not the same as a real arm, and it will feel very weird having something mechanic in your body, I mean, just look at me." Isaac chuckled as he went on."
elieve me, soon that arm will become a part of you, quite literally."

Spike sighed and nodded. "Yeah,I guess that it'll be allright."

"There we go" Isaac smiled. He stood up again and gave Spikes cheek a kiss and started to walk away.

Spike looked at him, a bit shocked. "What was that about?"

Isaac turned around and smiled at him. "You only asked why I kissed you last time, you didn't ask me to stop it."

Spike chuckled, and Isaac walked out of the medical bay with a warm smile on his face.

…

The gang were waiting outside an operation hall, sitting on chairs around the room. They were in a small military base on the edge of the Gaolbreak capitol, named Pilkington.

They were all anxious for Spike. He was just getting a bionic arm surgically attached to him, so there weren’t any lethal danger with the surgery. But they still kept thinking that something would go wrong and that Spike would die.

They had been sitting there for hours, waiting until Spike walked out from the surgical room. Two doctors was following him out and made sure that he wouldn't fall over, the drugs and painkillers he had received caused his balance to be inaccurate.

He held his up his left arm and looked at the bionic, metal arm that were now attached to it. He clenched it to a fist and moved his fingers around, testing it to the best ability he could in his current state. He didn't say anything, his pupils were widened and he seemed very confused. The doctors had put a black leather glove to cover up the machinery, and together with the rest of Spikes gear, no-one would be able to notice any difference.

Isaac walked forward and took Spikes new arm under his own to help him walk. " I know you can't understand everything properly right now, but you're doing okay."

The girls nodded and gave Spike a group hug. Fluttershy smiled at him, very relieved that the procedure had gone without problems. "Let's go back to the ship. you need a long, good rest."

Chapter 5: Lost and found

Chapter 5: Lost and found.

Spike were walking around inside The Nordin, he hadn't really had a good time to look around and truly explore. As he walked around he noticed the crew being at their own places doing their things.

Fluttershy were inside the medical bay, looking around at the medicines and equipment while talking to Ilsa about what kind of medical supplies and equipment they needed to have to give the crew quick and efficient medical attention. For example, rather than just using cleaning solvents to clean a wound and then wrapping it with a bandage, they could purchase a droid that effectively removed all the dead skin and unclean materials from the would and then covering it with a bio-film before finally covering it with an air tight bandage.

Rarity was in the meeting room, reading something on her holopad, occasionally chuckling to herself. " I'll absolutely buy that one~ Oooh, I simply cannot skip buying that utility belt while I’m at it!" She seemed to be looking through some kind of catalogue filled with with different Black, and Spec-Ops gear.

He went through the lower levels of the ship too, Esten were in his workshop, as usual working on armour, equipment and dancing to some weird kind of music, Pinkie pie was keeping him company, also dancing to the music, making her tail and mane bounce at her motions. Spike chuckled at him as he continued down the hallway.

Rainbow dash and Applejack was in the shooting range, fighting against holograms. The holograms could only shoot small electrical charges at them, but it hurt enough to not want to get hit by one, so the girls were crouching behind some obstacles that had been placed out in the big room by machines, shouting out orders and the like to each-other, systematically defeating their hologram enemies.

The only one he hadn't seen yet was Isaac, wondering where he could be, Spike kept looking around for a while, thinking that he might be on the bridge.

He wasn't there, Ilsa had put the ship in autopilot and they were for the moment standing still, in orbit of a small space station.

"Hmm... Then were the hell can he be?" Spike asked himself, after thinking for a bit, he gave up, turned around and looked up at the roof and spoke to Ilsa. "Ilsa? can you tell me where Isaac is?"

A speaker next to one of the screens in the bridge flickered to life and Ilsas voice came ringing out of it."He is in his room relaxing, do you want me to tell him you're on your way?"

Spike shook his head."No thank you, I'll just try to be as quiet I can going in there, I think it might be a bit harsh to have your voice suddenly appear in his room, disturbing whatever he is doing. I think knocking will be more subtle."

"I understand. I hope that you have a good time socializing with him." And with that, the speaker turned off.

Spike walked out of the bridge and headed towards the crew quarters, where all the rooms were. he walked up to the Captains room, which were the farthest down the corridor. He knocked on the large metal door and waited a few seconds.

"Wait a minute!" Came Isaacs voice from the inside, and after about a while the door opened and Isaac stood there in just his underwear.

"Hey, Spike. What's up?" Isaac smiled at him and leaned against the door frame.

"Nothing really" Spike replied. "I was just taking a good look around here, and I just wondered where you were, what you're up to, Ilsa said you were relaxing."

Isaac chuckled and invited Spike inside, pointing to something that looked like a big metal futon, with a face-mask and a black overall laying on top of it.

"I was in my virtual reality simulator, the V.R.S for short, if you feel like it."

"Virtual reality?" Spike asked as he inspected it closely.

"Yeah, I'm just relaxing in it, and it feels very realistic too, just relaxing at an exotic or far away landscape is nothing but wonderful." Isaac patted the machine and smirked. " I have a second one, it’s just one press of a button away. Would you like to jump into it with me? It's really refreshing!"

Spike looked at the machine, he was interested in how it would work and feel. He agreed, and soon both of them sat in a futon of their own, wearing the black overalls. The one Spike was sitting in came out through a large panel in the wall after Isaac made it appear with a button on his table. This room apparently hid more than he thought.

"I'll just program them to take us to the same place i was just in." Isaac told Spike and pressed some buttons on the arm of his machine. "Just put on the face mask and you'll be ready to relax."

Spike nodded and put the mask on his face. Even though he was used to wearing his goggles the thought of this mask and the overalls making him able to see and feel things in the virtual world created by the machine, made him a bit nervous.

"Allright, here we go. just close your eyes and be calm, you'll feel a slight electric shock but it isn’t anything dangerous." Isaac reassured him.

Spike nodded and closed his eyes. There was a clicking sound and his body shivered from electric charges for a second, then it stopped and he opened his eyes. He was laying on a towel which was on a beach with white sand and waves of water slowly sliding up and down the beach.

He didn’t quite understand how it worked, but as he laid there in a pair of bathing shorts, which had suddenly appeared on him as the simulation began, he could feel the heat of the sun all over his body, like he were actually laying on a sunny beach. He turned around and looked up at the sky, it was a clear blue sky with small clouds here and there.

He looked to his left and saw Isaac laying in similar bathing shorts with his arms behind his head, smiling. "So, what do you think?" He smiled as he said this, clearly enjoying the heat and the clear sky.

But Spike noticed that he only had one eye, where Isaacs cyborg eye were supposed to be, there was nothing. " what happened to your eye?"

Isaac shrugged, his expression unchanged. "The machine cant read the eye properly since it's mechanical, I can still see with it, but the simulator can't show it. The same thing happened with your arm."

Spike frowned in confusion and held up his right arm. Where the bionic arm where supposed to be, where nothing. He could feel that it was there, and he could grab the towel and visibly lift it, but as Isaac had explained it just wasn't showing.

"Uh... I see." The dragon laid back down on his towel and closed his eyes, determined to relax now that he had an opportunity to do so.

He laid there for a while, basking in the sunlight, the warmth caressing the scales on his back, legs and tail. Suddenly he felt something small and wet on his left shoulder blade. He turned his head and looked up, Isaac was on top of him, his arms keeping his body hovering just above Spikes. Isaac were planting soft kisses on Spikes back, making Spike blush. He didn't expect it, but he didn't want him to stop either, it felt good. Isaacs lips climbed up his shoulder up towards his neck. As he gave Spikes neck its first kiss, Spike put his hand under his chin and pulled his lips towards his own. As they kissed, Spike closed his eyes and felt the heat growing on his cheeks.

Their tongues danced their passionate dance, one trying to overtake the other and so on. Spike felt Isaacs hand entwine with his, and after what felt like no time at all for Spike, their kiss ended.

Isaac chuckled.

"What is it?" Spike opened his eyes and looked at his lover, who had a soft smile on his face.

"To think that we are really sitting in my room, making faces. We’re not really kissing after all, haha!"

Spike realised that that was true and chuckled as well. "Yeah, my goodness. It would look really weird if someone walked in and saw us wiggling our tongues in the air. Haha!"

Suddenly they felt like something were shaking them. The beach around them faded to black and they both pulled their helmets off of themselves.

"Ilsa! Status?" Isaac was out of the seat in a second, he were out of the overalls and were already putting on something that looked like a mix between an engineer suit and an army outfit.

Ilsas voice once again came crackling in the speakers. "Captain, our radar shows multiple fighter ships approaching, we've already been hit by them firing at us. I suspect they are smugglers or pirates doing a raid on the space station."

"Damn it! allright, shields at maximum and engage the auto turrets, fire at will once they are in range" Isaac ordered and he zipped up his suit.

Now Spike had put on his clothes as well and was waiting for Isaac to tell him what to do.

"Shields are up, firing at will" Ilsa answered and the muffled sound of lazer blasts being fired was heard.

Isaac took Spikes arm and lead him out of the room. "Head to the defence turret on the ships right side, I'll take the left one, go!"

Spike started running through the corridor, and Isaac spoke into a microphone placed on the wall in his room.

"This is the Captain speaking, we are under attack by pirates, get to your battle stations and fighters, I repeat get to your battle stations and fighters ASAP!"

Spike climbed up a ladder leading to the defence turret, it was already up and running when he reached it, so he sat down in the seat and manned the gun. The pirate ships flew past like flies, fast and vigilant. though, this didn’t stop Spike from opening fire and successfully blowing a few of them to pieces.

But he wasn't lucky all the time, a few times an enemy shit got in a good hit which hit the turret, sending electrical shocks through his body.

"Don'cha worry Spike, I got ya!" Came Applejacks voice though the turrets radio as her fighter jet swooped by, shooting a torpedo towards the pirate fighter that had just hit Spike.

Shortly after Applejack came Rainbow dash and Rarity, their fighters swooping past in high speed aswell.

"Okay girls, triangle formation, let’s get these fuckers!" Rainbow dash voice boomed in the radio.

Twilight were sitting next to Esten at the ships bridge, about to move the ship out of the fighting zone.

"Pull the thrusters up to 50% " Esten ordered her as he turned some gauges and flicked some switches, turning off the electricity in some sections of the ship, channeling it to give more powers to the defence turrets, engines and the shields. Twilight pressed the buttons that Esten had told her on the controls in front of her and the ship shook a bit before starting to move forward.

Esten grabbed something that looked like an old walkie-talkie and contacted Isaac with it. "Captain, we're moving out of range from the pirates, you guys try to hold out as long as you can!"

The walkie-talkie crackled and Isaac answered. "Allright! Make sure to call back the girls to the ship before you fire her up, if you go full speed you'll leave them behind!"

"Yes Captain!"

Esten ordered Applejack, Rainbow dash and Rarity back to the ship. Their fighter jets swooping back in a wide arch, finishing off some of the pirates as the came back to land in the hangar. As they did this, Isaac noticed that the pirates had stopped attacking them and simply flew past The Nordin, as if they were not worth of any attention.

"Why are they not attacking us?" Spike asked as he continued to shoot at the fighter jets flying past, hitting one in the rear end, causing it to spin uncontrollably until it exploded into pieces.

"They're all heading for the space station!" Isaac exclaimed, he got silent and looked at the station, feeling that something was wrong. He noticed that small explosions started to appear in the hull all over the station below them. When he realized what this meant, he threw himself towards the radio.

"Esten, punch it! she's going to blow!" He barely finished his sentence before the whole space station lit up. The power wave from the explosion shook The Nordin wildy, throwing everyone inside it to the floor, like they were discarded items.

"Whoa!" Spike screamed as he fell down the ladder and landed on his back on the hard metal floor. He let out a groan of pain and slowly rolled around on the floor, his spine feeling like it was on fire from the pain of falling from such a height.

Esten crawled up to the bridge controls and pushed the thrusters to full. The ship shook again and flew away in speed you'd think impossible for a ship of The Nordins size.

Twilight held on to a table next to her, her eyes tightly shut. Rarity, Rainbow dash and Applejack clinged to their fighter jets, trying to keep their balance.

When the ship had gotten far out of range, Esten once again reached for the controls and slowly dropped the speed until the ship stopped.

"Is everyone okay?" Isaac shouted out and climbed down the ladder to his defence turret. He rushed over to Spike who layed on the floor, still rolling around and groaning. "Fuck! damn it!"

"Are you okay? Here" He helped the dragon up on his feet, helping him into the meeting hall.

…

"That, was not a walk in the park!" Rainbow dash said as she sat down in her chair in the meeting hall.

"That is the LEAST you could call it!" Rarity answered her, rolling her eyes.

Spike groaned, rubbing his back. "I’d rather lick a thousand engine batteries than go through being shot at in the turret again!"

Isaac walked in, a stern look on his face. “You WILL go through that one hundred more times if it happens one hundred more times, Spike"

He walked past them and stood in front of the large table, Spike nodded as he got reprimanded by his Captain. Of course, he would always put his life on the line to defend their ship and themselves, but this time he wasn't ready for all that happened at once.

"Yes Captain" he answered, now looking back up up Isaac.

Isaac looked around the table at his crew, who looked shaken and scared after the incident.

Isaac pressed a button on the control panel next to his chair, two metal plates that covered the windows on the far left wall in front of the table opened up, revealing the space outside. The smoldering remains of the space station was floating slowly in space, ripped into two large pieces and a mass of smaller pieces, debris and the bodies of the dead inhabitants floating around it.

" I am proud of how quickly you all got to your stations, and I'm proud of how well you defended our ship. Sadly the space station was lost, and from what I know everyone aboard was killed in the explosion."

He sighed and Twilight put her hand on her mouth. “Goodness... Was there something we could've done to prevent it?"

Isaac shook his head, a slightly pained look showing on his face. "Only if we had known they were coming. If we were prepared for them we could have fought them back, but no, not under these circumstances."

He looked at his friends again, they were too shook up right now, they needed rest. He stood up straight and sighed again. "You all deserve to rest and to calm down, you're allowed to go on break for the rest of the day.”

The girls, Esten and Spike stood up and walked to their rooms, looking gloomy and tired.

Isaac sighed and turned around, looking at one of the monitors on the wall. "Ilsa, do we have any more contracts pending?"

The monitor screen flickered to life and a list of contracts came rolling down it. "Yes Captain. We have quite a few of them, want me to show you the one with highest pay?"

He nodded. "Yes."

The screen flickered again and another wall of text rolled on it. And Ilsa told him about the contract. "The authorities of the Nebula 9 space colony has reported kidnappings by a rivalling space colony, apparently they have kidnapped their citizens, forcing them to work in weapons factories. they want us to infiltrate the one of the factories, free as many captured workers as we can and neutralize the facility. They are willing to pay a sum of one million credits if they can get their people back".

Isaac turned around and started to walk back to his room.

"We'll travel to Nebula 9 the first thing tomorrow."

"Yes Captain"

Once again they were gearing up, putting on their suits and armour. They had Travelled to the Nebula 9 space station the first thing after they woke up. The nebuloans had greeted them like they had been old friends returning from a long voyage. They had told them about the citizens that had been kidnapped by the soldiers of another space station a few light years away, called Purnima. They had given the crew the co-ordinates to the station and suggested that they left right away, a suggestion which they agreed to.

Pinkie pie still had her Equestian guard armour, but she had it upgraded. now it had a small personal enegry shield that can absorb an average amount of blaster fire until it has to recharge, and she had also gotten her armour painted in dark camoflage colours.

As they got ready, their weapons loaded and themselves geared up Esten called to them through the communicators.

" I can’t land on Purnima due to their hostility. You'll have to go down with the drop pods!"

Isaac groaned. "Then get us as close to the weapons factory as you can, we'll regroup after touchdown!"

"Yes Captain!"

Isaac commanded the group to go into their drop-pods and to fasten themselves, as usual he started his Intel via radio.

"Listen closely, because I’ll only go through this once! The drop pods won’t land next to each-other due to the altitude and speed of The Nordin, when you get down on the station, clear out your LZ and then we'll regroup at a rendezvous point that I’ll mark with a smoke grenade, got it?"

"Yes Captain!" His crew responded, they were all strapped in and were waiting for the drop.

The Nordin shook as it continued its voyage towards Purnima.

"This is gonna get rough, hold on. Drop in T minus 5!" Esten said trough the radio as he tried to keep the ship steady as the defence grid turrets at the space station were shooting at them, hammering the ships energy shields and hull.

" T minus 2!"

Spike grabbed the two control joysticks that sat in front of him. They were used to navigate the drop pod, so that you won’t crash into something you don’t want to crash into, like a building, or a very hideous in-law.

"T minus 1, good luck down there!"

With a loud clunk, one after the other, the pods were released and started their descent towards the space station.

Withing seconds, the pods were under fire, the lazer blasts punding the pods, sending sparks everywhere, and creating cracks in the pods glass windows. They all managed to dodge the fire quite well, all except Spike. A blast from one of the turrets hit straight in the glass window, causing the pod to spin, Spike could not be able to stabilize the pod and soon it spun out of control.

As Spike tried to regain control of the pod, another blast hit the pod, making it shake violatly. This caused him to hit his head and lose consciousness. His body collapsed onto the control joysticks and caused them to steer him even more out of course, his drop-pod falling down and crash landing far, far away from where it was supposed to.

Twilight gasped as she saw Spikes pod disappear in the distance.

"Spikes pod is out of course! And he is not responding!"

" Damn it!" Isaac almost shouted out. "We'll try to contact him and find him once on the ground! I'll find a suitable place to regroup, once you see my smoke grenade advance on my position! Brace for impact!"

One by one and at different locations, the pods crashed down into the metal floors of the large space station, the smoke soon rising from them.

…

Rarity and Applejacks pods had landed close to each-other, and they had been able to regroup quickly, which was fortunate because after a little while, Purnima soldiers started to come down on their position.

They took cover behind a big metal bench, the enemy soldiers fire flying over their heads and creating showers of sparks as they hit the bench.

"We have to move somewhere were we can shoot back!" Applejack groaned and sat up, firing a shot which hit its mark and then kneeled back down behind cover again. She peeked out over the bench but got back down almost immediately as a lazer blast hit right next to her head, sparks flying.

Rarity reloaded her rifle and frowned, looking around for a way to escape.

As she looked around she could see a bright red smoke slowly rise next to a large building that looked like a dome.

" That's Captains signal!" She said with an exited tone.

"Good, now how in tarnation do we get there?" Applejack groaned and returned fire at the enemy soldiers, hitting one of them. His body fell onto the ground, twitching violently before stopping as he died.

Rarity took out a grenade and held it up. "This beauty will be our ticket out of here, atleast i think it will, i hope this isn’t one of those that Pinkie filled with confetti, get ready!"

She threw the grenade over the bench, it flew in a wide arch and landed in the middle of the group of soldiers.

They screamed and started to scatter, not all of them managed to get away and those who failed to do so were blasted to pieces and their remains were scattered all over.

The screams of the civilians, if you could call them that since the entire station was a military installation, were heard around them as the grenade detonated.

"Go go go!"

…

Isaac crashed his pod into a big fountain, the water and marble that the fountain was made out of flew everywhere as it got smashed to pieces. As the "professional" he was, he kicked the door to his pod open and went to work. He grabbed his shotgun and started running through the streets, the intruder alert blaring at full volume through the whole station.

soldiers lunged out at him from different directions , but he effectively finished them off one by one as they came towards him. He successfully knocked the men in front of him to the floor as he went on. The soldiers on the floor groaned and looked at him as he kept running, almost like he wasn't paying any attention to them. A fox, who had been groaning in pain, started to scream and started to crawl away in a blind panic as he noticed an armed grenade on the ground next to him. Before he managed to escape, it exploded, sending him and his comrades to their graves.

( The soldiers on this station were of different alien species, humans, reptiles, wolves and many different others, this wasn't unheard of but it was rare, since the different species of the universe are happier to stay with their own kind. )

Isaac ran towards two other soldiers that were coming full speed towards him. He threw his shotgun at the soldier on the left, knocking him to the ground, after that he pulled out a knife, and in one smooth motion he spun around and kicked the other soldiers legs out under him. As he fell towards the ground Isaac drove his knife into the mans chest, the blade easily cutting through his uniform and his ribcage, puncturing his lung. The lizard under him wheesed and blood dripped from his mouth, his arms waving limply, trying to push Isaac off of him, but Isaac held himself in place.

He looked up as another soldier rounded a corner, his boots rumbling as he came running full force at him. He reacted by pulling the knife out of the dead soldiers chest and throwing it through the air. The knife buried itself into the mans throat, his knees collapsing under him in the middle of his step as he fell onto the ground, landing on his stomach. This drove the knife deeper into his throat, the blade now poking out the other side of his neck. Isaac grabbed his shotgun from the ground.

Isaac went on, shooting every soldier coming in his way, the shotgun blasts throwing them backwards, blood and intestines flying along with them.

He sprinted through a narrow alley and came out in something that looked like a town square which was, for the moment, empty of soldier presence. In front of him was a large metallic dome, probably filled with machinery to keep the station stable, and from what he could see there were only two places you could get there from, the alley he had just came through himself and a broader walkway on the other side.

He looked around, searching for any movement. to be sure he switched his eyes visual mode to heat vision. He couldn’t detect any presence, and he started thinking to himself.

"No sign of any sentient life anywhere, this will do as a rendezvous zone for now."

He opened a pouch on his chest and picked up a smoke grenade from it. He armed it and threw it onto the ground. It started to emit a bright red smoke, slowly moving up through the air.

Almost immediately after he had done this, he heard footsteps behind him. He spun around, ready to shoot, but he lowered his weapon as he saw Twilight and Fluttershy coming toward him.

"Looks like you had luck finding me so fast" he smiled at them and turned around to keep a look out for enemies.

They ran up to him, looking relieved to have found him. "We're lucky that you leave a trail of death and destruction after yourself."

Twilight smirked and held up the knife that Isaac had left in the throat of the soldier a while back. He took it back and nodded, as to say "Thank you" and slid it back into its sheath on his chest.

"We're also lucky that I managed to get Fluttershy to come with me when I found her, she was killing enemies left and right "

Fluttershy gave them a shy smile. " I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make the situation more dangerous"

Isaac smiled at her and patted her shoulder. "It's okay, every dead enemy is bought time, as long as you use that time well."

Fluttershy opened her mouth again, but instead of saying what she had planned, she held up her blast cannon and opened fire at something behind them.

Pinkie pie was running toward them, atleast ten soldiers following behind. "HELP!"

" GET DOWN!" Isaac shouted at her, already pulling the trigger.

Pinkie pie threw herself on the ground, the lazer blasts and bullets from the enemy soldiers and her crew members flying over her head.

A few seconds and some loud thumps later, she looked up. The enemies were dead, their blood slowly dripping out in one big pool on the ground, but Isaac were clutching his arm, blood dripping from under his hand. Twilights and Fluttershys armour had black marks from where the lazer blasts had hit them, and they were panting as if they had lost their breath.

Fluttershy tried to tend to Isaacs injury, which he reluctantly let her do, since he thought it was more important to keep their position secure.

Twilight held out her hand for Pinkie pie to grab on to. Once on her feet she re-positioned her nightvision goggles on her forehead.

"They ganged up on me." Pinkie pie sighed, and took a better grip on her weapon." I couldn't fight them off, so I just ran away. And they didn’t look like they wanted to invite me to a party either!"

"Lucky you found us.” Twi said to her, turning around as she guarded their immediate vicinity. "If you hadn't found us when you did, that lazer shield of your might have gotten more work than it is made for."

Pinkie pie nodded, her nerves now on edge.

In the distance they could hear shouting and gunfire, the sounds gradually growing louder.

Isaac, now with a bandage around his arm, started to give out orders "They’re coming from over there!" He pointed towards the walkway Pinkie pie had came from.

" Pinkie, Twilight, you stay in front behind those pillars, me and Fluttershy will hide behind the metal benches! Go!"

They all ran into position, the rumbling of boots and gunfire getting louder and louder, until finally Rarity and Applejack came running down the street, followed by what looked like the entire Purnima stations army following them.

“Shit..!”Isaac sighed, he knew that this was going to be a hard, lengthy fight. "Spike better come with fire and thunder once he finds us, or this is going to be a difficult rescue mission."

…

Spikes landing pod, 2 hours after drop.

Spike slowly regained consciousness, his head pounding, feeling like it would get split apart. He moved a hand to his forehead, and winced in pain as he felt a large bleeding bulge, the blood slowly dripping down onto his face.

"Argh...Damn it..."

He looked around the pod, he noticed some lights flashing above his head, he looked up and saw a small screen under the bright red light, it was flashing the words:

" LOCKDOWN INITIATED! LOCKDOWN INITIATED!"

Spike groaned again and pressed a button next to the small screen, a loud bleep came from the screen and another text started flashing on it:

" UNLOCK ERROR! UNLOCK ERROR! MANUAL UNLOCK REQUIRED!"

"Fuck!" Spike groaned again and pressed the button, this time the screen turned off and four more buttons lit up around the rim of the pods door. The soft green light that emanated from the buttons shone on Spikes face and illuminated the pods interior in a dim green light. One by one he pressed them and their green colour turned to red.

When he pressed the last button, a beeping sound filled the pod, and after four beeps the door was blown away from the pod by small explosives placed built into the frame of the metal door. The door rattled loudly as it knocked into the ground as it flew away.

Spike grabbed his Hellrazer rifle and the put it in a holster on his hip, he took his blaster rifle in his right hand, checked his ammo in the pouches on his chest and around his waist.

He stepped out of the pod and started to jog towards the first main road he could see.

It had been snowing for a while, the snowflakes falling slowly and softly down onto the metal ground, covering it in a thin white layer. The space station apparently had an environment-imitation machine, which tried to imitate the weather on a habitable planet with heat, cold, wind, rain and snow.

Spike went on his way, the station feeling empty and eerie in this, to him, strange weather, since the planet Equestria was a warm planet which temperature could be compared to the temperature around our own planets equator, where there is no snow either, but the positive thing is that you can make snowmen out of sand when you spend your Christmas day on the beach.

He shivered a bit, the cold was unfamiliar to him, but he was not going to let that keep him back. He slowly started to become paranoid, he had expected to have faced some enemy soldiers by now and it got to his head. Maybe they would all jump out at him once he got around a corner? He gripped his rifle tighter and started to pick up speed. After a while of jogging along the street he heard voices coming from around a corner and the sound of boots on the ground along with it.

He pressed his back against the wall and carefully peeked around the corner. Three enemy soldiers, a human and two wolf looking creatures were walking towards his position, holding rifles in their hands, talking to each-other.

"How can seven persons withstand all of our guys?" The human said, frustration and wonder in his voice.

"Yeah, what are they? Super soldiers?" one of the wolves answered, followed by the other one. “ Maybe they are Spartans?” This earned the wolf a smack on his head from the human.

“Don’t be stupid! Spartans are the strongest human soldiers in history, and they get their orders from planet Earth! They would not come here in a million years!”

The other wolf looked at them as if he didn’t notice ther exchanghe of harsh words. " I heard from the lieutenant that their ship flew over their position before, and it took out a whole chunk of our guys with it."

The human soldier groaned. "Well we better hurry to assist, or else we're gonna get our asses handed to us!"

They walked around the corner and did not notice Spike hiding in the shadows, Spike took this to his advantage, he saw a chance to find his crew the easiest way possible.

He lunged forward, grabbing one of the wolves by the throat and kneed him in the back, causing him to let out a howl of pain and drop his rifle. Spike pressed his lazer rifle against the wolfs head and looked over to his companions , giving them a scowl.

"If you move, he's dead!" Spike barked at them, taking them by complete surprise.

"What the- Who are you!?" The human asked, not daring to lift his rifle.

"I'm the one asking the questions here!" Spike said again, trying to sound as cold as he could. "Drop your weapons, or your friend will be all over the place."

They did as he said, dropping their rifles on the ground and kicking them over to him.

Spike took a step forward, still keeping the wolfs throat in a tight grip and he kicked the rifles far away. “Good, now were is the location of my crew?"

"Your crew?"

Spike frowned and aimed towards the human, shooting him in the foot, which made him fall down on his knees, screaming in pain.

" I ask the fucking questions! My crew, the group of soldiers you guys can't take care of! Where are they!?"

He pressed the gun back against the wolfs head, causing him to wince in pain and fear.
"Please! Please don't!" He whined weakly, now shaking in pure fear.

" Shut up! The location, NOW!" Spike shouted.

The human soldier looked up, the blood from his foot slowly pooling out beneath him.
"That dome over there!" He pointed towards a huge metal dome, which seemed to be about a kilometer away.
“They've fortified themselves in front of the weather dome. Please, let us go now!"

Spike gave him a menacing smile. "That was nice of you, thank you very much Sir."

He pulled the trigger, the wolf he had held by the throat died instantly as his brains were splattered on the ground in front of Spike, his body limply falling down as Spike let go of it.

The human threw himself at Spike despite the pain from blaster wound in his foot, but Spike managed to beat him down quickly, headbutting him and finishing off with his rifle.

The other wolf were running away, but Spike would not let him get far. He aimed and fired at the wolf, two of the lazer blasts hitting the backside of his knees. His legs gave out under him and he fell face first into the ground.

The wolf had tears flowing from his eyes due to the pain, and he let out a scream of pain. He turned around and grabbed at his legs, his eyes filled with shock. "ARGH! OH GOD! I’M GONNA BE CRIPPLED FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!"

Spike walked up to him, aiming at the wolfs forehead. He smiled, the wolf were writhing pathetically before him and he spoke in a soft, but menacing voice. "No you're not..."

He pulled the trigger, a blue flash from the lazer blast painted Spikes face and the wolfs body fell back on the ground, his head now blown to pieces.

Spike sighed, and started to jog again, now heading towards the weather dome, if he hurried he might be right on time.

He ran faster and faster, the weather dome growing larger as he came closer to it. He had grown tired, his steps getting heavier as he went on.

As he came closer he noticed a large group of enemy soldiers and vehicles cluttering the entrance to a side street.

He stopped in his tracks and started to think. Since they don't know who he is he could pretend to be anyone he wanted to. But maybe the best idea would be to pretend that the leaders of the space station had hired him to take care of the attackers. Even if they didn’t buy it, it might buy him some time.

He sighed and started to walk towards the group of soldiers. “I better hope this shit works...”

As he came closer one of the soldiers noticed him and ordered him to stop."Halt! who are you, this is a restricted area!"

He continued to walk towards the soldier and the vehicles, his breath now turning to thin clouds in front of his face from the cold.

"The general has paid me to take care of these interfering attackers you've got!" Spike told the man in front of him, with the toughest voice he could muster.

"Not that I’m surprised that a security force that can’t defeat seven mercenaries doesn't have good internal communications either!"

This made the soldier confused, but he lowered his rifle and nodded. "Allright, you better hurry though, we need to get these bastards now, before we look REALLY stupid."

Spike held up his hand and shook his head. "Let me walk around here a bit, I have to plan a strategy to take them down, but to do that I need to see what I have to work with. I need to see the placement of your vehicles and any ammo crates, in case they'll be to my use. I guess that all you’ve done is attacking them in an unplanned manner, which is why they’ve kicked your asses."

The soldier was baffled at this barrage of down-talk, but he guessed that the dragon knew what he was doing. "Uh sure, go right ahead. But tell me when you'll go on with the attack, we're loosing men out there!"

Spike nodded at him and started to walk around in the small forward base. Two APC's were standing next to each-other, providing cover for the soldiers that had arrived in them. About 20 or 30 of them, from what Spike could see, were having a quick lunch behind the vehicles, sitting around a small fire.

Spike thought for a moment and looked around to make sure no-one saw him. The soldier that had let him get into the small camp had his back turned to him, once again guarding the little entrance so that no civilians would go there.

Our dragon grinned and opened a pouch in his belt and took out two small bombs that looked like tiny ice-hockey pucks. Esten called them "Sticky detonators", he could place them under the APC's and then convince the soldiers that their only chance to take his team out were to storm them with the vehicles. But they will not reach the crew, he'll blow them up halfway.

He looked around again, and he could see his crew in the distance. They had fortified themselves with big chucks of rocks and metal, and from what he could see, it looked like Esten had taken The Nordin for a fly by, dropping small ammo crates to them. There were lazer blasts and small explosions coming from the area, he had to work fast now, in case they're injured.

He kneeled down and put one of the sticky bombs under the first APC. He moved over to the other one and just as he put the other sticky bomb on the bottom of the APC, he heard footsteps coming towards him from around the vehicle. He started to panic as the steps came closer, how was he supposed to explain this?

A soldier came around the corner of the APC and noticed Spike with his arm under it.
"Hey! what are you doing!?" He aimed his rifle at the strange dragon in front of him.

"Dont worry." Spike answered him, trying to keep his voice calm. " I am here by the order of the general, I dropped my gun under the APC, I'll show you, just don’t shoot me, okay?"

The human frowned, not quite trusting that Spike didn't have anything hidden in his sleeve. "Allright, but if you make any sudden moves, you're dead!"

Spike nodded and slowly pulled his hand out from under the vehicle, his fingers sloppily wrapped around a lazer rifle. "See, I just dropped my gun, are we cool now? " Spike tried to reassure him.

The human still aimed at Spike, but luckily the soldier that had let Spike in was walking over to them.

"Its okay, he's payed by the general to help us take these guys out."

Spike stood up and turned to him. "And I know how we'll do that, but I need your help."

"So what's your plan?" The human asked, leaning his rifle on his shoulder.

Spike turned and pointed towards the fortified position of his crew. "Since I got better eyesight than you, I can see from here that they have no explosives or grenades. That means it's safe to load your guys up in the APC's and drive in there and rush them."

Both of the soldiers looked at eachother, not entirely convinced. "That seems a bit risky, and we have already lost too many men, and it only takes a few lucky hits and they’ll take our APC’s out aswell." The human said, not sharing the same determination to get things done as Spike.

Spike groaned and crossed his arms."This will be a good distraction while I pick them off one by one while you keep them busy, but if you want to stand here and argue while your friends die out there, then sure, why not?"

After a while of arguing back and forth, they agreed that this plan was a good one, and the soldiers jumped into the APC's. Spike ordered them to go full force while he would sneak around to their backside and pick them off.

Spike smiled to himself as the APC's with all the soldiers on this side of the big town square in them. He held up a small remote control, and pressed the " detonate" button. The APC's exploded into large flames and smoke, spreading the debree of bodies and vehicle parts on the ground around them.

…

Isaac were crouching down next to Twilight, both of them covered in bruises and multiple bandages. The ground in front of their fortifications were filled with dead bodies, the Purnima army had an almost unlimited number of soldiers it seemed. Atleast they did not seem to stop coming.

Still, after enough of their soldiers had fallen they decided that storming their position was a bad idea. But even after this change of tactics they didn't manage to get anywhere, but Isaac and the others had not been too lucky either, despite holding the enemies back.

They had gotten multiple injuries and their ammo were running out, the ammunition problem was solved by Esten though, he flew in The Nordin and dropped a few ammo boxes for them. But due to the strong anti-air turrets and defences he could not stay, and with the AA guns battering the ships shields and hull, he sped off back into space, orbiting Purnima.

Twilight turned and looked at Isaac, the fear showing in her eyes. "Captain? We're not going to make it are we?"

Isaac sighed, he looked over the small wall of debris they had used to fortify themselves, he shot at the soldiers he could see running around in the distance. He kneeled back down and looked at Twilight. " I'm sorry. But it seems we're done for now. They must have gotten Spike aswell. But we're not going to surrender, remember that, never surrender!"

Twilight nodded, giving him a slight smile. "It has been a pleasure to work with you Captain, for the time it lasted."

Isaac smiled back at her and placed his hand on her shoulder. "It has been a pleasure to work with you girls, and Spike."

A loud explosion and a cascade of fire, sparks and metallic debris suddenly caught their attention, also causing Rarity and Applejack on the other side of the fortifications to turn around in shock.

There had been two vehicles driving towards them, but it seemed like something had caused them to explode, but what? Isaac hadn't heard anything like a missile or torpedo flying through the air, and his eyes heat vision should have detected the heat from the any missile in any case.

He and Twilight looked over at the remains of the APC's now engulfed in flames. Behind the flames they could see someone approach them.

Isaac crouched again, reloading his plasma rifle. He pulled a small switch and something that looked like a big empty light bulb popped out and fell onto the ground with a clattering sound. He picked a new one from a pouch on his waist, this one was filled with a gleaming, light blue mist, and reloaded his rifle. "Get ready for another assault, whatever blew up those APC's made it look like we took them out, and their owners seem pissed!"

Twilight looked at him, now with a truly shocked expression in her face. "We didn’t take them out!?"

The shadowy person came closer and closer. As Isaac stood up, his rifle reloaded and ready to fire, he could see Spike climbing over the debris, the fire painting his purple and green scales with a orange glow.

" Spike!" Twilight and Isaac shouted at the same time.

"Get your ass over here now!" Isaac ordered, and started to jog over to Rarity and Applejack, Twilight following close behind him.

Spike started to go faster aswell, his boots hammering the ground as he went through the snow. He swung himself over the low wall and jogged over to the others.

Applejack smiled at him and bumped his fist as he kneeled down next to the others, taking cover from the lazer blasts that the enemy had started shooting at them once again.

"Well I'll be damned, you finally got out of bed." Applejack smirked at him.

Spike chuckled and grinned back at her. "That was one hell of a nap I tell you, how do I look?"

The blood that had gushed from the bulge in his forehead had now frozen, a trickle of blood temporarily stuck across his face.

"You look like you finally lost your virginity" Isaac smirked at him, which made all the girls laugh, all except Rarity who let out a "ladylike" chuckle.

Rainbow dash patted Spike on the shoulder, her face in a wide grin. "You know, I would've been able to take care of that for you."

Spike laughed again, giving her a sly look. "Since you're all about speed, we all know how long you'd last, ‘fastest flyer of Equestria’!"

A lazer blast that shattered a piece of the wall they were huddling behind snapped them all back to reality.

"Whoa!" Rainbow dash let out and threw herself on the ground, as some of the smashed stone struck her face.

"We need to take them head on and then head for the weapon factory!" Isaac held out his holopad, which was now showing a lit up way to their destination. Esten had managed to hack Purnimas data net from The Nordin and had located the factory for them.

Spike looked at the gang, all of them with different injuries, bloody bandages and burn marks on their clothes and skin. "Can you guys do it?"

"oh please!" Rarity answered him and waved her hand in a high class manner. "These small scratches won’t stop us."

Spike nodded and looked at Isaac. " You guys ready then?"

They all nodded, and responded in a affirmative manner, they were as ready as ever.

Like one unit they stood up and turned to their enemies, opening fire at them. They swung over the low wall and rushed towards the soldiers waiting for them on the other side, their guns blazing as they went.

Chapter 6: In awe of passing through

Chapter 6: In awe of passing through.

The group had fought their way to the weapons factory, guided by Esten over the communicator. The resistance they met on the way were minimal since they had taken out a big chunk of Purnimas military numbers before reaching the factory.

Luckily, Rarity managed to lock the door that lead into the factory behind them as they got in, she also did the feat of hacking open the door. She changed the code lock on it aswell, so that they were the only ones able to get in and out. Of course, if their enemies were as good at hacking as her, that would change pretty soon.

Isaac was panting, his chest heaving as he ordered the others to take a break. "Allright... Let's rest for a moment, Fluttershy, can you take a look at our injuries and your own? No need for any bypass operations, just staple us up, we only need to hold together until we get out of here.You can't be too sure though, we don't want to end up with any infections, like the one I got after our trip to Myrath."

He sat down and leaned against the metal wall, the others doing the same, everyone except Spike, who kneeled down and guarded the hallway they were in.

Fluttershy walked over to him and started to get some bandages, cleaning solvents and other things from the medical pouch she was carrying with her. "Stay still, I'll try to get the blood off your face, then I'll puncture the bulge and put a bandage around your head, okay?" She explained to him while she got her things ready.

Spike nodded, not letting his gaze leave the hallway. "You don't need to tell me what you're doing, just do it, I can take the pain."

Fluttershy gave him a nod and went to work, putting some cleaning solvent on a big needle before pushing it into the bulge on Spikes forehead. The needle sunk into the bulge nicely without any problems, when she pulled it out the blood started seeping through the hole the needle had made.

To hurry things along, Fluttershy started to press on the bulge, causing the blood to drain in a steady stream. Once the bulge was gone she started to clean his face with a wiping cloth. She placed small strips of medical tape on the small cut and then patted Spikes shoulder, signalling that she was done.

"Thanks." He replied, letting out a sigh as he sat down, still making sure that he got the hallway covered.

He looked over to Rarity, who got some burn injuries on her arms and legs looked over and bandaged by Fluttershy. "Got some water in that bag of yours?" He asked, his mouth feeling like a desert by now.

Rarity nodded and started to look through her backpack, which she had placed between her legs as she sat down. " I would rather go back and fight those creatures in that mineshaft than do this." She said as she looked for the water bottle she had put in her bag. "It actually went better than this has gone so far, not counting Isaac almost being killed of course." She held up the water bag and lobbed it over to Spike, who took a sip of it and handed it over to Rainbow dash, who then passed it over to Pinkie pie.

Everyone took a sip as the bottle came to them and handed the bottle over to the person next to them until it came back to Rarity. After drinking some herself, she put the bottle back in the backpack.

Fluttershy had taken care of her comrades injuries, atleast to the extent she could for the time being, patches and bandages placed on their arms, chests and heads.

Pinkie pie looked around at them and giggled. "Tehee~ We all look like we come from different pieces of a mummy!"

Isaac shook his head but could not stop himself from smiling. "If everyone is ready to go, we'll head down this corridor, four of us on each side."

The others nodded and down the corridor they went.

...

The few guards they met along their way further into the factory were quickly dealt with, a hand covering their mouths and a knife slitting their throats, and sometimes these hands slammed their faces into the wall, successfully smashing their craniums to big pieces.

The only time they could not ambush the soldier guarding one of the corners they needed to pass, it was because he was facing them and if they as much as moved another inch, he would see them. They had to think fast before they got discovered, shooting him would only make their situation worse. If anyone heard the blast, the whole factory would be in lockdown before they could say shit!.

Luckily, Rarity was the fast thinker this time. She took a step forward into the soldiers view and slowly walked over to him in a seductive manner, unzipping the top of her suit, making her breasts to bulge out slightly, giving him a clear view of her cleavage. "Hi there, handsome." She said in a just as seductive voice.

The guard smirked and put his rifle down on the floor and took a step forward, his hands ready to grope her airbags. He was stopped by Rarity however, who pushed him back against the wall, trailing a finger on his chest. "Do you think you'll be able to handle me?" She asked, giving him a flirtatious wink.

He smiled at her and put his hands on her hips. " Hell yeah."

He let out a loud groan and fell down on his knees when Rarity punched him in the groin, a swift kick to the head, and another groan later, he fell down on the floor, unconscious.

"I hope I never have to be so vulgar again!" Rarity exclaimed, turning to the others as they came towards her.

Rainbow dash smirked at her. "I don't know, you're very good at being slutty."

This comment earned her a fist bump from Spike and a scowl from Rarity. "I despise that!" She said in an angry tone, turning around and walking down the hallway, the rest of the group following her, Rainbow and Spike smirking.

...

Soon they came to a big door, from the inside they could hear the sounds of machines and hammering. This must be where the workers were imprisoned. Isaac ordered Spike and Rainbow dash to pry the door open, but after a few failed attempts he changed plans. He ordered Rarity to hack the door, but he didn't want the door to be able to be closed and locked behind them, trapping them inside, he wanted her to overcharge the whole mechanism.

Rarity kneeled down in front of the door and started working on the computer panel next to it. As she did this, the others got into formation, ready to storm the room.

Isaac positioned himself in the middle and started to speak. " Allright, when we get it we take care of any guards first, after that we call Esten so that he'll come here and pick the workers up in the landing ship. Hopefully this will go smooth, and I hope I didn't just jinx it."

Rarity looked back at them and nodded. " Here we go!".

Sparks flew from the door as it got overcharged, it opened and stayed that way, giving them a way in. They rushed into the large room which was filled with conveyor belts, and workers dressed in blue overalls standing next to them.

"Hey! you there!" A guard on the other side of the room shouted at them and held up his rifle, about to fire at them. Spike and Rainbow dash shot at him first, forcing him to throw himself behind cover to not get hit.

The other guards in the room soon found themselves under fire aswell, though not all of them were as lucky as the first one, and died quickly. The workers laid down on the floor to protect themselves from the temporary carnage that ensued from the battle between the last remaining guards and Isaacs crew.

When the chaos died down, a few of them looked up as if to wonder why they were not dead yet. Isaac walked up to the worker closest to him and helped her up on her feet.

"Who are you?" She asked, looking at him, Spike and the girls like they were some sort of supernatural beings, or atleast like they were an odd looking group of people that was carrying lots of guns.

The other workers slowly started to stand up and look at the group, not sure what to do.

Isaac looked around at them and spoke. " We're from Nebula 9, we're here to get you out, there's a ship waiting for you outside, now move it, we can't waste time."

He turned around to Fluttershy and Pinkie pie. " Fluttershy, Pinkie, you escort them out to the landing ship outside, make sure that they won't get hurt."

They nodded and walked back out into the hallway and escorted the line of prisoners out.

Isaac contacted Esten on the radio. " Esten, are you inbound?"

Estens answer was almost inaudible but Isaac managed to hear some of what he said. " I...BBZZZK...There soon. Ilsa...SSSKHT...Autopilot!"

Their conversation was cut short by other doors in the room opening and soldiers marching in.

"Take cover!" Isaac shouted out, but the others had beaten him to it, already hiding behind the conveyor belts. He jumped behind the cover of one himself, but the lazer blasts they had expected didn't come.

"Well, I guess that you have a lot of skills, being able to get this far." A dark voice addressed them. "Sadly, this little rescue mission of yours will end here."

Isaac stood up to look at the person talking to them. The person in question was a dark skinned human male. He was bald, had an eye patch and a large scar crossing his face , passing under the eyepatch.

" I'm Logan, and may I ask who you are? We have to put your name on your tombstone after all." He gave a menacing chuckle, but Isaac didn't show any reaction to it.

" I'm Isaac, and you won't get any of us any tombstones without a fight, know that Logan!" Isaac scowled at him, grabbing his plasma rifle.

Logan sighed and gave him a smirk. " If that is the case, we will see it soon. Kill them!"

The group of Purnima soldiers opened fire at Isaac and his crew, and they in turn responded in the same manner.

Isaac let out a groan as his leg got hit, and he hid behind on of the conveyor belts next to Twilight, who were shooting at two enemy soldiers huddling behind a large metal box.

Twilight herself had some more burn marks than when they went into the room, and she looked more pissed than anything. "I hope this will be easier than it feels like!" She said, shooting a few rounds before taking cover again.

Isaac let his rifle rip, the light blue orbs flying through the air, leaving black burn marks on the walls and conveyor belts he hit when firing at the enemy soldiers hiding behind them.

He went back down the conveyor belt again and turned to Twilight. " We might have to retreat this time." He said, the words feeling wrong to him. "Or as I would call it." He continued. "Advance backwards."

He looked up to shoot again, but stopped in the middle of his motion.

Logan was walking towards him, a smirk grew on his face as he saw that Isaac was looking at him.

Isaac gave him a stern look in return, this was it, he was going to fight him, man to man. He was determined to kick the shit out of him in the process.

"Twilight!" He called, causing her to look at him.

She just barely managed to catch his plasma rifle as he threw it to her. She looked at him for a second as he started to walk towards Logan, his hands clenched into fists.

With his shotgun still strapped to the side of his leg, he walk slowly towards his opponent, who was throwing his own lazer rifle to the side.

Time felt like it slowed down the closer Isaac got to Logan, but it sped up again as he threw the first punch.

Logan dodged it perfectly and threw a punch that hit Isaac in the chest, making him stumble back a few steps. But he recovered quickly and struck his opponent on the side of his head.

Logan groaned and lunged at him and grabbed Isaac around the waist, lifting him up so that he could throw him down on the floor, but Isaac headbutted him and both of them fell down on the hard metal floor.

When they got up they went at it again, the lazer blasts from both sides of the room flying around them.

In the corner of his eye, Isaac could see Twilight firing his plasma rifle at her enemies. She had a slight problem with the recoil, but she still managed to pick off a few of the enemy soldiers. He looked back at Logan and stepped forward.

They went at it again, swinging punches that hit one another in the chest and the face. Isaacs nose was bleeding and Logans lip was busted, blood dripping from that aswell.

Isaac managed to give Logan a successfull uppercut followed by a kick to the groin, which made Logan fall down on his knees. He let out a loud groan and held up his hand.

"Argh! Shit! Come on, just give me a moment, allright!"

Isaac smirked at him, but allowed Logan to collect himself, but what Logan actually was doing was counting his balls, to make sure there were just two, and no additional pieces.

Their battle now heated up, they did not only kick and punch eachother, but slammed their opponent onto the boxes, pillars and conveyor belts around them.

Logan had managed to hit Isaac in the solar plexus, momentarily stunning him. He used this to his advantage and slammed him onto one of the conveyor belts, giving Isaac a large burn mark across his face.

Isaac screamed in pain as the conveyor belt pulled at his face, he started to wrestle and grabbed Logan and pulled him forward. This made Logan smash his face into the back of Isaacs face, and a loud cracking noise was heard as his nose broke.

When Logan was preoccupied with the pain, putting his hand to his nose. Isaac decided that this was his chance to end this little game.

He put all of his bodyweight behind a kick that he aimed at Logans leg, which hit right where he wanted it to.

Logans leg collapsed under him as the bone snapped and with a scream of pain he fell to the floor.

Isaac took his shotgun and loaded it, aiming at Logans head.

Logan was groaning, blood seeping through the marks and scars he had gotten from the fight. He was gripping at Isaacs boots, but the pain from his leg was too great for him to ignore.

Isaac looked down at the fallen enemy. " I hope someone makes sure that the tombstone says Rest in pieces." With that, he pulled the trigger, ending Logans life.

He turned around and ran back to Twilight, hiding next to her.

" Is he dead?" She asked, handing him his plasma rifle.

Isaac nodded, putting his shotgun back in the holster on his leg. He reloaded his plasma rifle and started to fire at the soldiers that were scattered about in the room.

"As dead as one can be. Now we have to get out of here!"

He looked over at Rarity, Applejack and Spike on the other side of the conveyor belt, but he couldn't see Rainbow dash anywhere.

"Where's Ranbow? " He asked, looking around.

"Right here!" Her voice came from his left, he looked over and saw her huddling behind a bench that she had turned over, now reloading her rifle. "I saw you take that guy out, nice work captain."

Isaac smirked at her. "Thanks, good job at keeping your ground." He turned back to Aj, Spike and Rarity, shouting at them to get their attention.

"Guys, get ready to move! Me, Rainbow and Twilight first, you follow. Move it!"

He grabbed Twilights arm and ran towards the door they came though, Rainbow dash close behind them.

The others covered them as they went. Spike got a lucky hit on one of the soldiers, making him fall to the ground, his lazer rifle still firing as he dropped it.

When Isaac and Twilight was through the door, Spike, Rarity and Applejack rushed to the door.

Before the door closed behind them, Spike felt an immense pain in his back as he got hit.

He fell forward onto the floor, groaning. "Shit! Argh! They got me, bastards!"

The door closed and he felt two arms lifting him up. It was Rarity, he had clearly underestimated her strength.

"It's okay Spikey, don't worry" She told him, dusting him off. "We'll patch you up back at the ship."

Spike rolled his eyes and pulled his arm away from her. "Yeah, yeah. Thanks, I'll be allright."

Rarity looked at him a bit shocked at how he acted, even though she had helped him, but she let it go, giving him a huff in response.

Isaac stood near one of the walls, trying to contact Esten on his communicator. "Esten. Esten! Damn it, it's busted!" He exclaimed, putting his communicator back into the pouch on his chest. " I hope that he'll find his way here."

...

Fluttershy and Pinkie pie led the group of workers through the halls and corridors back to the door they came through. They moved slowly around the corners, not wanting to fall into a trap.

Fluttershy's communicator bleeped, the screen showing that Esten wanted to contact her. She pressed a button on it and Estens voice came crackling through it. "Fluttershy! Doctor! I need the coordinates to your position now! I can't get through to Isaac!"

A loud bang was heard, followed by a swear from Esten. "Damn it! A few more hits like that and I'm toast, I need those coordinates, Doctor!"

Fluttershy frowned, she didn't know the coordinates, but maybe Esten could locate them by using the communicators.

"Esten, I dont have the coordinates, you'll have to use the communicator to triangulate our position. Please hurry up, we don't want to keep these people waiting for too long."

The communicator crackled before letting Estens voice come through it again.

"Understood, Doctor." Esten responded, the sound of the landing ships engines roaring in the background. "Keep the people protected for a bit longer, I'm on my way."

Fluttershy turned around to pinkie. "Pinkie, make sure that there is no one behind us. We have to get these people out of here now, Esten is on his way."

Pinkie pie did a salute. "Okie dokie lokie, Doctor!" She said and walked back down the hallway, walking past all the prisoners they had rescued.

A wolf male in the line of prisoners turned to Fluttershy, giving her a pleading look. " We'll get out of here safely, right?"

She smiled at him and patted his shoulder. "We'll do our best to get you out of here, either that or we'll die trying. Your people at home wants you back, and we're here to get you back."

He nodded quickly. "Thank you!"

Fluttershy walked them through the maze like corridors, the line of prisoners and Pinkie pie following behind.

Luckily the bodies of the guards they had taken out on the way in were still there, working like a trailblazer.

Fluttershy sighed in relief when she saw the exit further down the hall. She turned around and urged the prisoners to hurry towards the door.

They started to run towards the door, but the clattering of Pinkie pies rifle falling to the floor and a scared squeal from the pink pony made them turn around and stop.

A soldier had snuck up on her and grabbed her from behind, knocking her rifle from her grip and was holding her around the throat, making her gasp for air as she could barely breathe.

"Stop right there!" The lizard said aiming his blaster at Pinkie pies head. "The lot of you ain't going anywhere, drop your weapon or your friend dies."

Fluttershy slowly bent down, put her rifle on the floor and kicked it over to the lizard.

"Good girl, now start getting those prisoners back inside. And you..." He spoke into Pinkie pies ear. "You and I will get to know eachother a bit better, how does that sound?"

He smirked, but his expression froze as he felt the barrel of a rifle pressed into the back of his head, followed by a TCHKWHEEE sound.

The lizard sighed. "Oh crap..."

"Yeah, shit would have worked well, but crap will do it." Isaac answered, and pulled the trigger. A blue light flashed in the corridor, painting the walls for a second, followed by splatters of blood.

The lizards dead body fell to the floor, leaving Pinkie pie and Isaac standing with bloodstains on their clothes and faces.

"Are you allright?" Isaac walked up to her and picked up her rifle, handing it to her.

Fluttershy did the same, and took up the task of guiding the prisoners to the door.

Pinkie pie smiled at Isaac, nodding, wiping some of the blood off of her cheek. " I'm allright, he didn't hurt me, but it sure was a doosey."

Isaac turned around and saw Spike, Rainbow dash, Rarity and Applejack coming around the corner.

"You ran off mighty fast!" Applejack panted. " But it seems you got here in time."

Isaac nodded at her. " Yeah. I'm sorry, Esten is waiting for us. Rarity, get the door open, we need to get going fast."

Rarity laughed all the way to the door. She put the code in and the door slowly opened.

All of them turned towards the door, getting their weapons ready, but they were met by Esten standing outside of the landing ship, a laser blaster in each hand.

"Nice to see you all in one piece." He looked over at them, noticing all their marks and bandages. "You guys sure look like shit."

The prisoners walked in a line, hurrying into the landing ship and strapped themselves in.

Isaac walked over to Esten and patted his cheek in a oh you manner. "I can show you all the mirrors we have back on the ship later, friend."

Esten smirked and climbed back into the ship, closing the hatches and lifting off.

"Hold on, we'll be back at the ship soon."

...

The crew and the prisoners had arrived back at the space station Nebula 9, and they were greeted by the whole population of the station, cheering as they found out that their kidnapped friends had returned.

The leaders of the space station thanked them with all their hearts and they were more than happy to pay the crew for their services.

Once paid, Isaac and the others thanked the Nebula leaders and went back to the ship with their credits.

While on the Nebula 9 space station, the girls and Spike had noticed the way that the people had looked at them. Even though they were covered in bruises, bandages and burn marks, it felt like the people looked up to them, like the signs of their struggle to get their loved ones back were symbols of their goodness.

The people looked at them and whispered, gasped and tried to reach for them, to touch them, to make sure that they were real. And they could hear the words Super soldiers get whispered repeatedly amongst the people around them.

They felt perplexed as they walked through the mass of people, random persons walking up to them, taking their hands and shaking them as they looked at them, starstruck.

Isaac walked last in line, he sighed as he looked around at the people around him, he could feel their stares on his skin, it was like it was burning the outside of his clothes.

He walked into the Nordin and sighed. "Poor souls... So desperate for heroes, for someone that will do the right thing, and protect them, give them hope."

He sighed again and closed the hatch, never to see the people of Nebula 9 again as the Nordin slowly moved from the space stations orbit and flew back out into the endless space.

Chapter 7: The calm before the storm.

Rarity was sitting in her room, she was sitting on the bed, thinking about the last mission and the aftermath. All the people that had basically worshipped them, all the pain each one of them had gone through when Ilsa and Fluttershy had done a full health check on all the injuries they had gotten. She couldn't believe that cleaning solvent, medicinal creams and the biofilm that Ilsa applied using one of the medical robots would hurt so much as it did. But it was more than worth the one million credits they split, and the one hundred and twenty five thousand credits that she got to keep herself would be more than enough to buy some gear that could give her better protection.

Her mind slipped back the their last mission again, back to when they had gotten out of the factory room, after Isaac had killed that Logan guy. She couldn't let go of how Spike had acted towards her on their last mission, and it annoyed her. All she did was helping him up and tell him that it would be allright, she had called him Spikey too, but he had never had a problem with that before, but this time it looked like it had annoyed him.

She huffed and turned around, looking out the window of her room. He was not going to get away with being rude to her without apologizing, under no circumstances would she allow that to pass.

She walked out of her room heading down the hall to find Spike, hopefully he would be in his room.

Rarity couldn't understand why spike had acted that way at all, they used to be close friends when they lived at the imperial liner. He used to go out and buy her gifts when they docked at different space stations, and she had enjoyed it when he did, she felt like they were the closest of friends.

She walked down the hall thinking about the past and things they had done together, and felt a bit sad. She hoped that it had not gotten bad between them, she still wanted to be a friend with Spike.

She gave his door a light knock. "Spike, are you in there? I need to talk to you, please open the door."

A minute went before the door opened and Spike peeked out from his room, wearing a pair of dark pants but no shirt. "Hey Rarity. You wanted to talk?"

Rarity looked at him and smiled, not sure how to start. "Oh, could we perhaps take this in your room? It's a bit personal and I don't want the others to hear."

Spike nodded and held out his arm, motioning her to walk into his room. "Sure, come in."

She walked in and looked around the room, she wouldn't say that it was dirty or anything like that but, Well, it was easy to tell that a young man was living there.

She turned around to look at him as he closed his door.

He turned around aswell, giving her a questioning look. "So, what is it?"

Rarity cleared her throat, not sure how to say it. But after all, she figured that being honest and telling it as it is was the best way to go. "Well, I did notice how you acted at me back in the factory. I think that you were very rude to me when I tried to help you up after you got shot."

...

There was not much to do while taking a day or two off, but lucky for Isaac, there had been many technological advances in storing terran history, documents and files. This included movies, texts of fiction and science, movies and music. He was at the moment listening to a song that, according to the musical library was from the 20th century, it also described the musical genre as " Melodic metal".

Isaac danced around enjoying the sound of the electric guitars and the bagpipes that was coming through the speakers. "Haha! People thousands of years ago sure knew how to make some good music!"

He lost himself in the music as the chorus came, the song being sung by a female at first and then by a male.

Where is the wonder, where's the awe?
Where's dear Alice knocking on the door?
Where's the trapdoor that takes me there?
Where the real is shattered by a mad march hare.

Where is the wonder where's the awe?
Where are the sleepless nights I used to live for?
Before the years take me, I wish to see, the lost in me.

As the song died out he sighed and turned the speakers off. " I need to show the others that song someday, that is just pure amazing, and to think that it was from the 20th century, ten thousand years... They must have had an awesome century to live in."

Suddenly he could hear shouting and screaming from the hall. He went for the door and peeked outside. " Hey! What's all the commotion? Did someone steal your toilet paper or what!?" He shouted out into the hall, trying to get the attention of the screaming perpetrator, which he soon found out to be in plural.

A door opened and Rarity, followed by a half nude Spike walked out, shouting like they were trying to talk to one another from different star systems.

" Is it so bad for me to think that it was simply nice of you to do it?" Rarity shouted at the dragon, who answered her in the same vocal manner.

"No I don't, but when you know it's more to it than just gifts, why do you lead me on, thinking that you care about what lies behind it?"

Isaac groaned and stepped out into the hallway, making his way over to the two possible opera signers. "Allright, calm down, and stop the shouting, someone might be trying to sleep."

"Not anymore." Came Ilsas voice though the speakers in the hallway. "My readings of the vital signs on the ship shows that everyone is now awake."

"Ilsa" Isaac said, having a difficult time to hide his smile. "This is not the time, I'll take care of this."

He looked back at the two combatants and gave them an irritated look. "So , do you care to explain why you're shouting at eachother."

Rarity crossed her arms. " Spike was very rude to me back at the factory when I helped him up. I thought that it would be a good idea to talk to him about it, and suddenly he says that he is mad at me because I've apparently lead him on before."

Spike didn't wait to let Isaac respond and kept on going. "You did! I bought you gifts because I was interested in you more than a friend. If you would have told me that you're not interested in a relationship I would be fine with it. But you never said that, you wanted me to keep buying you gift didn't you? That's why I'm mad at you, because I think you're a greedy bitch!"

Raritys eyes widened at this, furious that he'd call her such a name. "How dare you!?"

"STOP!" Isaac told them and put his hands on their shoulders. "Talk, don't shout, and please no name calling, that is doing nothing to help."

He turned to Rarity. "Now, if that was true, that you didn't tell him that you were not interested in a romantic thing, then Spike is right you lead him on."

Rarity looked frustrated now, and you could see her brain working to give an answer.

"But I thought it was nice, that he was friendly to me, and I thought we were really good friends. I actually bought things to him too when I got the chance."

Spike huffed and started to walk in a little circle. " Yeah, right. I bought you a really big golden necklace with a ruby on it, and what did you buy me? A TINY RUBY SHARD!"

Isaac groaned again. "Okay, calm down Spike. I understand that you are frustrated okay? But listen, both of you, that was in the past, though I think that some apologies are in order."

The two of them looked at him, they looked like they agreed, but that they did not want to be the one that apologized first.

Isaac looked at them in turn as he continued to speak. "Rarity, I think you should apologize for not being thorough with Spike, that you did not explain to him what you felt and what you really wanted, that way he would not have made the mistake of thinking you were interested. Spike, you should apologize for being rude instead of talking to her, asking her about it, and you should apologize for calling her a bitch too."

Spike and Rarity looked at eachother, and both of them said sorry at the same time. This caused them to be quiet for a moment, then Rarity continued her apology.

"You're right, I should have told you that I wasn't interested in you in that way."

"And I should have taken you aside when we had the time to talk to you about it, I shouldn't have let my actions speak for me." Spike told her, sounding like he was ashamed for stooping so low.

They gave eachother a hug, sealing the apologies.

Isaac smiled, relieved that they could resolve their argument. " Im glad you worked it out, we can't have the two of you fighting. If anyone of you need me I'll be in my room."

Rarity walked down the hallway heading back to her room, and Spike turned to Isaac. " I need to talk to you aswell, Isaac."

Isaac smiled, wondering what he might want to talk about. "Allright, what's on your mind?"

"I need to talk about what's going on between us."

"Oh."

"Don't worry, I don't want to stop it, I like giving you affection and when you show me the same, but. What if it affects our missions? Maybe I do something stupid because my feelings for you are so strong?"

"Hmm... I'm not sure, my best guess is that we both have to restrain ourselves to not let anything that's between us have any effect during the missions. It might not be easy, but it's either that or this relationship is a no go."

The speakers sprung to life and Ilsas voice came through them once again. "My calculations on how you have acted towards eachother in a romantic manner while having days off compared to preparing for missions, the chances of you letting your feelings get in the way of a mission is 1245 to 1."

Isaac shrugged and looked back at Spike. "Well there you go, can't argue with those computer calculations."

Spike chuckled, thinking that Ilsas timing was good. "I think I have to agree with you. So, uh... Isaac? Do you want to get something to eat with me?"

His boyfriend smiled and kissed his cheek. "Hehe, yeah. I'd love to Spike." He wrapped his arm around Spikes waist and they walked towards the small dining room.

" I want some more of that squid and mashed potatoes you had back at the liner, I wonder if I remembered to fill our stock with some of it?" Isaac said as they went around the corner of the hall.

Spike sighed and shuddered. "Ugh, you LIKE that crap?"

...

The days went by, not much happening at the Nordin. Isaac had wanted to take a few days off to allow their wounds to heal and to just wind off for a while, letting all the stress from the earlier missions wash away.

But even though there was calm and serenety on board the Nordin, out in the galaxy there was things that was set in motion, it might not have mattered much to the galaxy itself, since what has been set in motion is quite small and trivial compared to the universe, it would have a lot of meaning to the humans inhabiting numerous planets in the universe. These motions would soon echo out, and arrive at certain destination, where one specific human being was now sleeping in his bunk bed, aboard the Nordin.

Isaac was sleeping soundly, he had started to eat his breakfasts, lunches and dinners together with Spike, wanting to spend more time with him than he did, due to all the things that had to be done aboard the ship. The meal he had eaten earlier with Spike made him very content and very drowsy, so he had decided to take a nap, which resulted in him falling into a deep sleep with dreams of Spike swinging on a swingset, shouting "Look at me, I'm going at lightspeed!" and of random spacecrafts that crashed with weird farting noises.

As the swinging dragon and the repeated farting of the spacecrafts slowly faded, he opened his eyes and stretched.

"NHHHG!" He groaned as he stretched, waking himself up even more from this very logical and normal dream of his.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes, and as he did he noticed that his communicator was flashing. Usually, this was a sign that Ilsa had wanted to let him know that she had news for him, but that they were not so important that she would wake him up.

He stepped into his shower and after a quick sonic wave cleaning later he put his work overalls on and got out of his room, heading for the meeting hall.

He walked into the meeting hall and spoke out to gain Ilsas attention. "I saw that you had a message for me Ilsa, what is it this time?"

A screen flickered to life and Ilsas voice came through the speakers. "I'm glad that you're awake captain. The UNSC, The united Nations Space Command , has sent out messages to all the military branches of the UN corporations and anyone affiliated, that Terra is at war!"

Isaac sat down with a frown and faced the screen, where Ilsas face was showing. She looked like an older woman, with her hair up in a sort of ball on the back of her head.

"War? Terra has been preparing for the possibility of war for almost a few thousand years now, but it has only been to the extent of preparing. What made us break the peace?" Isaac asked, looking at Ilsa intensely, almost like he could not believe her.

" The planet Arrakis, which is one of the many planets colonised by the human race, is under attack by the Jeckyllean aliens. They have sent a fleet to Arrakis and have landed on the planets surface. They have attacked a large number of Spice melange refineries on the surface and have built bases in the deserts and in the mountain regions. The UNSC is sending a attack fleet in response to this attack, they feel that loosing Arrakis would deal a terrible blow to Terran economy and that it would also deal a blow to the overall trading in the local region of this galaxy."

Isaac sat quiet for a while, mulling the newly acquired information over. " In which starsystem can I find Arrakis?"

The screen that Ilsas face was shown on flickered to black. "Searching for relevant information... Searching... Seachring... Arrakis is orbiting the star Canopus in the Carina star system, which is located 312 lightyears, or 96 parsecs from Terra itself. Canopus is also called Suhayl in the native language of the humans on Terra that discovered it, and it is a white supergiant. On a side note, this the discovery of this start later led to the invention of the Canopus star tracker, a space navigation device that was used in the early centuries of human-kinds space exploration."

Isaac nodded and sat quiet for a few minutes. "Hmm... I know what I want to do, but I need to make sure that the others will go with me, if they do not.. Then I guess I have to let them go for a while."

He stood up. "Thank you Ilsa, you can go back to piloting the ship and keeping all the systems under control."

"Yes captain." She responded and went on with her duties.

Isaac walked towards the computer panel on the end of the table that was placed in the meeting hall. He pressed a few buttons and then spoke into a microphone that was placed next to the screen.

"This is the captain speaking, if anyone of you was asleep I apologize, but I have gotten some grave news and I need to hold a meeting urgently, everyone to the meeting hall ASAP. Thank you."

He released the button and sat down in the big chair behind him as he waited for his crew to assemble.

He let out a troubled sigh, thinking to himself. "I hope that they're ready to go to war with me. It's not like they haven't already, but this is different. I'm doing this for my people, for Terra. In any case I hope that they will stand by my side, and I hope that I am not asking them for too much. The Jeckylleans were ruthless, if they sent a fleet to Arrakis, it would by no means be a small and weak one. I hope that our fleets are as massive and lethal as we make them sound, otherwise this will be a short campaign."

Chapter 8: Sandstorm

Chapter 8 : Sandstorm.

(Author’s note: if you want to better understand the size differences of the spaceships later in the chapter, please click this link. http://halofanforlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/StarShip-comp-w-UNSC-Infnity3_sm1.jpg )

War is a terrible thing, people die. It might be a short war that is over after fifteen minutes, but people still die.

Death is something that Isaac had feared for a long time, he could honestly say that he isn't scared of it anymore. He had learned to respect death, especially after he's had the luck of escaping it so many times as he did.

He didn't fear it anymore, but the others... He couldn't know if they feared it, or welcomed it. He couldn't imagine sending them to a war that isn't their own, for them to fear death, and to fear dying for a cause that isn't their own.

Isaacs thoughts was interrupted by Rainbow dash walking into the meeting hall, followed by Pinkie pie, who were shoving the bright blue pony in front of her as both of them were laughing and giggling.

Isaac sat in his chair, quiet. He greeted his crew members but stayed silent as they got into the room, one by one, and in Twilights and Estens case, they arrived as a pair, chatting about something on the bridge.

When they had settled down, they looked at Isaac, waiting for him to start talking.

Isaac took a deep breath and spoke to Ilsa.

"Ilsa, please inform the crew about Arrakis, and the situation that has arisen there."

The screen on the wall next to the large table flickered to life and showed a dark orange coloured planet, slowly rotating on its axis.

"Arrakis is an arid desert planet that oribts the star Canopus, which is located in the Carina star system. The star Canopy is located 96 parsecs from the terrans homeplanet "Terra". And Terra itself is now localed 2487 parsecs from our position; it will take a few days to reach it with hyperspace travel."

The others gave the screen and Isaac a few confused looks, but Isaac nodded to tell them to keep watching.

Ilsa continued.

"Arrakis is the home planet of the Shai-hulud sand worms, who mostly inhabit the deep sand dunes of the north and south poles, and the valuable spice melange and various other minerals that are mined out from under the sands and out of the mountains.

Terrans have controlled this planet for many decades, but now an alien race, called the jeckylleans, have attacked the planet in order to colonize it and get control of the valuable minerals found there. In answer, the terrans are sending a battle fleet to take the planet back. "

Isaac breathed calmly as the Ilsas transmission ended and his crew turned to him.

He spoke to Ilsa again, now telling her that she could go back to auto-piloting the Nordin. He then looked at his crew members.

"As you heard, Terrans and Jeckylleans are at war. The planet Arrakis has been attacked, and the terrans are sending a battle fleet in response."

Spike looked at him with a piercing look in his eyes, almost like he was suspecting that Isaac was hiding something.

"So what has this got to do with us? We're just a band of mercenaries after all, we don't really fly under anyones flag."

Isaac stood up from his chair and started to walk slowly around the large table.

"I want to support my fellow terrans in this war. I want to go to

Arrakis and defend what we own. I'm not expecting you to fight for a cause that isn't yours, and I don't expect you to be willing to go with me."

He stopped at the end of the table and leaned upon it, both of his hands resting on the plane surface.

"Whether you want to go with me to Arrakis or not, I will go there. And I will leave the Nordin with you until I get back. If I get back."

There was a moment silence, the others were digesting what Isaac had just said. None of them looked shocked, or even sad that they might never see him again if they chose not to come with him.

Rainbow dash was the first one to speak up in her normal, competing tone.

"I am surprised that you even think that I, Rainbow dash, will let you go there and build on your kill count without me? Forget it Captain, you'll still have to watch out for me!"

Her trademark smirk, made him smile slightly, but he didn't respond to her as Spike spoke up.

"I'll follow you to the edge of the galaxy and back, I wouldn't be able to sleep if I had to think of you on the battlefield, without me to protect you."

This caused the others to laugh, except Isaac, who were looking at him with an "oh you" look.

Esten stood up and walked over to Isaac, wrapping his arm around his shoulders.

"I think that everyone here has already made their mind up about this. And so have I."

Isaac turned his head and looked at his old friend.

"What have you gotten into your old green head now?"

Esten chuckled and patted Isaacs shoulder.

"I'm coming with you; I miss being out on the field, and especially being in the field with you. And I think that it will be another adventure, taking the field with our new crew."

...

Spike was sitting in his room by his own. At the moment he was looking at his bionic arm, turning it around and looking closely as he clenches his fist and moved the fingers individually.

He could honestly say that he didn't understand the medical science behind how it worked, but it was intriguing to know that somehow the electrodes in the bionic arm was connected to the nerves in the rest of his body. Of course he could not feel anything in the arm; you could smash it with a fucking hammer and he wouldn't even notice it... unless it had left any dents, then he would come after you. But don't worry, this is a fictional story, not chutulu witchcraft.

(note from the author: speaking of witchcraft, if people ask questions about the wierd stuff that happened in chapter 3, I don't know anything, and YOU don't know anything, okay? Good. Carry on.)

He stopped his very non-scientific study of his bionic arm and looked out of the window. Hyperspace was swirling around outside, it would be almost two days before they arrived at Terra. Spike was excited to see the planet where all Terrans originated from, since Isaac didn't really talk that much about it.

They wouldn't stay there for long if they were going to tag along with the terran battle fleet, but at least they could take a quick look at the planet from orbit.

Isaac hadn't been willing to tell him much about his homeworld, but the little he had told Spike about the huge oceans and the continents, made him imagine it being a large, clear blue pearl with small specks of green, floating serenely in the timeless whirls of space, orbiting around its star.

His thoughts went back to Isaac, his home planet wan't the first thing he didn't talk much about. How he got his eye for example, he did tell them all about how he got it, but there was no details, just a quick story, he was younger and his eye got shot out, it was basic at best.

Something about Isaac being so closed about himself and his past bothered Spike. He knew that it was rude to intrude on other peoples personal issues, but he wanted to know more; they were a pair after all. Maybe not official yet, but still a pair.

To be quite honest, Spike himself was not sure that the others didn't know. Him and his partner had spent most of their time showing each other affection, in Isaacs room, or sitting in the virtual reality machines, so there wasn't really obvious that they were affectionate in such a way. But still, he was sure that none of the others would object or butt into it, if they even cared, especially Twilight.

Twilight had been his friend back on their home planet Equestria, and she was the one that got him the gig at the imperial liner. She had always been there for him when he had a problem or something like that.

He looked out the window again, the hyperspace swirling outside. Maybe he should tell Twilight, sit down and talk with her, he thought.

He stood up and walked out of his room. The door made a soft swooshing noise as it opened and closed when he walked through. He headed down the hallway, towards Twilights room.

He noticed Isaac and Rainbow dash standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall as they were chatting about something that he couldn't quite hear, not that he tried

As he walked past them, he felt a light spank on his butt, followed by snickering from the both of them. He smiled to himself and continued down the corridor, heading for Twilights room.

He knocked on the door, and it didn't even take a second before he heard Twilights voice behind it.

"Come in, I'm just gonna put some stuff away."

Spike stepped in and saw Twilight putting some small electronic devices into a cupboard above her bed. Her room was designed differently than his. His bed was located on the right side of the room, with a desk on the other side, the cupboards above it and the window on the side.

Twilights room was not too different, just that the cupboards was above
the bed instead of over the desk, and the desk was facing the window.

Twilight closed the cupboards and turned to her long time friend, a warm smile across her face.

"Hey there Spike, what's going on? Getting worked up over joining the Terrans in their war? Personally I think it will be very interesting to see their own spaceships, weapons, their strategies, everything really."

Spike chuckled at her, ever the researcher she was. Couldn't leave anything connected knowledge within her reach without her trying to go through it, study it, and learn from it.

"Yeah, i'm a bit excited, but nervous as well." Spike started as the door closed behind him. "It's war after all, we have our reasons to be a bit queasy of the thought. But that isn't why I came here."

Twilight sat down in the chair next to the desk, and Spike took his seat on the bed.

"I'm always here for you Spike, so what's up? What’s on your mind?"

Spike rubbed his hands against each other, quickly pulling his thoughts together.

"The thing I wanted to tell you is... Well, you might already know, im not sure if you and the others have noticed. You can never be too sure about these things. Plus that there could be rumours going around and-"

Twilight interrupted him. "Spike, get to the point, you're waffling again."

He sighed and looked down. "Allright... Me and Isaac... We love each other. You know, we eat together, drink together, train together, we even sleep together. I love him Twilight. And I want you to know, since you are the closest friend I have, and I hope that you'll accept our love."

Twilight looked at him for a while, she didn't seem shocked, nor did she seem like she had always known, she looked neutral.

The lack of reaction made Spike feel uneasy. He felt a droplet of sweat run down his back as he waited for her to answer.

"I can honestly say that I do not care who you love and why. But I also don't understand why. The man is a brute, we all know that. He kills for money, but so do we, but he has been shaped by it, it has forever become a part of him. Killing others for personal gain."

Twilight looked at her friend with piercing eyes. Those eyes were something he had always feared; once she looked at you like that, she could get the truth out of you, no matter how deep you hid it. Or she wouldn't hold anything back in telling YOU the truth.

She continued.

"When he is with us on missions I have seen something in him that perplexes me. But I have finally figured out what it is, he has a passion, and a deep love for what he does. He feels free, and he keeps that to his heart. And he does so with you too. I have seen him, I have seen him with you. He feels the same about you, a fiery passion and love."

Spike looked up at her, not knowing what to say. "Twilight I-"

She held up a hand to silence him.

"He will love you more than he loves himself Spike, I can see it in his eyes, and he will protect you with his life. He is our captain, but me and him have grown to be good friends. Please, make him as happy as he makes you."

Spike smiled at her. She was special, the most special friend he'd ever had. He nodded and stood up.

"You know I'll make sure he stays with me, and I'm not gonna leave him any day soon, or ever. Thank you for accepting us. You're a great friend."

Twilight smiled back at him, and stood up, giving him a hug. " You are too. Now, I think you need some sleep. At least I do."

Spike nodded and walked out of the room. He felt himself yawn. He would need a long, deep sleep after this.

He walked back through the hallway, heading to his room. Isaac and Rainbow dash were still talking. He wondered what they had been talking about for so long. Not that it mattered to him, let them talk.

As he walked past them he saw Isaac give Rainbow dash a pat on the shoulder before he started to follow Spike. When Spike felt a hand grab his behind he chuckled and gave his boyfriend a smile.

The long, deep sleep would have to wait.

...

Once again the crew of the Nordin was sitting in the meeting hall. Not for a briefing this time, but to get ready for the jump out of hyperpace, and to vote for what they wanted to call their group when they arrived at Terra. After a while of laying forth suggestions and voting, they all agreed to calling their group "Assault team Stingray".

They were all chatting and laughing when Ilsas voice rang through the speakers in the room.

"Captain, we leave hyperspace in T-minus five. I would recommend that those who want to observe the planet in orbit should look through the windows. We're out of hyperspace in T-minus three."

This new information made the group run towards the windows, everyone except Isaac and Esten. They walked slowly towards the window, they were keeping their attention on the others, wanting to see the others reaction.

Ilsa spoke again, and the whirling hyperspace outside the window slowly transformed from whirling clouds, to regular space.

"Hyperspace jump complete in T-minus one. We have now arrived at Terra."

Spike, Rainbow dash, Twilight, Pinkie pie, Applejack, Fluttershy and

Rarity were all amazed at the sight before them.

Terra, the homeplanet of Isaac was as Spike had imagined it, a blue pearl with white and green specks on it. Around the planet however was something that looked like a ring, of epic proportions.

From what Spike could see, the large ring was attached to the planets surface with something that looked like energy pillars surrounded by large black wire looking materials.

Twilight turned around to Isaac, the researcher twinkle in her eyes woken to life.

"What is that ring? And what is that pillar?"

"That." Isaac started, piking his finger on the window.

"That is the Terran shipyards. That ring is a massive factory creating all kinds of ships. Freighters, transports, fighters, massive military ships, you name it. And that energy pillar is one of many space elevators, transporting people and materials to the ring, aswell as keeping it attached and powered up, so that it wont crash into the planet. Our gravity is a bit odd like that."

"So its all just a massive workplace?" Rainbow dash asked, taking a long look at the ring before turning her gaze to some other spaceships that flew by.

"Not just a workplace, Dash. People live there aswell. There might be fifty billion terrans living on the planet, but there are close to ten billion, as far as I know, that live on the shipyard ring."

As Isaac spoke,their ship was suddenly cast in shadows, and the reason for it was just as amazing as the shipyeard ring itself.

Above them, a massive ship blocked out the the light that the sun was shining onto the Nordin.

All of them gasped at the sight of this. And Spike was the only one who spoke.

"Holy guacamole!"

Isaac gave a wide smile, feeling proud at the marvels that his fellow terrans had managed to create.

"That my friends, is the UNSC 'Goliath'. An 'Infinity' class cruiser. one of the largest ships in this part of the galaxy. An 'infinity' cruiser is always a part of a battle cluster. Meaning itself, two 'Phoenix' class frigates, four 'Halcyon' class cruisers and four 'Charon' class frigates."

He let out a chuckle after he had spoken. " I find it kind of funny that they say that terra will send a 'small' fleet in response of the invasion of Arrakis."

Applejack turned around and looked at him with a sceptical look on her face.

"It's funny that you send a small fleet? I should've sent a large one if I was in charge."

Esten nodded pointed up at the battle cluster, which was the Goliath and the other frigates and cruisers going with it, above them.

"He thinks it's funny because, one 'small' fleet, consists of fifty battle clusters."

The mentioning of fifty clusters like the one above them made the whole crew turn around to look at the both of them.

"Fifty, of THAT?" Rarity asked, not believeing it.

"Fifty, a total of fivehundred and fifty battle ships. " Isaac answered, a proud, wide grin now adorning his face.

"I want you all to have all your things ready for when we jump with the fleet to Arrakis, when we arrive we might have to drop immideately to establish a foothold on the planets surface. I intend for us to go with the first wave to land on the planet, but for now, I'll have to speak to the admiral of the Goliath."

Isaac turned and walked over to one of the monitors, and the others sat down in the chairis around the table.

"Ilsa, please contact the admiral of the Goliath for me."

"Yes captain, sending an audience request to the Goliath now."

For a while, there was silence as they waited for the response that the admiral of the Goliath might have. Then it came.

"Captain, the admiral of the Goliath will grant an audience."

The screen flickered and a man with brown hair, green eyes and a tall stature appeared on it.

"I am admiral Miguel Winters of the Goliath, I heard that you have requested my presence... Isaac."

Isaac smiled at Miguel, a warm, friendly smile, which looked like the kind one would give an old friend that you haven't seen in a while.

"Hello Miguel, how are you doing, brother?"

Not even Esten was prepared for this, which showed, since he visibly froze for a few seconds. And the others, well, they always get shocked about stuff Isaac doesnt tell them.

Miguel sighed, and he sounded a bit annoyed.

"Make this quick Isaac, my battle cluster have to join a fleet heading for Arrakis near Mars, I can't stay here and chit chat with you all day."

"You wont." Isaac said as his smile faltered.

"The others here are my crew of mercenaries. We are the assault team Stingray, and we're signing up for military duty in the Arrakis conquest."

Miguel looked at his brother for a second, then he crossed his arms.

"Are you sure this is what you want to do? What thay want to do?"

"We've talked this through, we all know what we're up against. Give us a spot in the first wave on Arrakis, and i'll be grateful."

Miguel nodded at his request, but held up a finger as he continued to make a point.

"On one condition. Your ship will be in military service, which means that your team will be flown down to the planet by a pelican, and we'll use your ship in orbit. Is that understood?"

Isaac looked over at Esten, who gave him a quick nod.

"I understand, I'll inform our AI, ASAP."

"Good." Miguel continued.

"I'll send your AI the number of the available hangar for you to land in, during the time in hyperspace while we travel, we'll give you weapons and gear for you to use. Along with that, we'll send pilots and marines in there to inspect the ship and to get accustomed to the controls and the AI."

"It all sounds fine brother." Isaac said and looked at his brother, who seemed eager to end their conversation early.

"I'll contact you once you're inside the Goliath. Miguel out."

The screen turned off when the call ended, leaving the crew in an awkward silence.

"I didn't know you had a brother," Applejack pointed out as she leaned back in her chair.

"Wondering why I haven't told you?" Isaac looked at her with a neutral expression.

"I know it's not my business to be snooping, but yeah, why haven't you told us you had a brother?"

He shrugged and walked over to his chair and sat down in it, nonchalantly leaning back.

"Oh I don't know, me and my brother haven't talked for long, and the times we do talk, it's not very good. I figured that it wasn't important."

Applejack looked at him for a second, and then she leaned back herself, nodding.

"Yeah, I suppose. It hasn't affected anything that's happened so far."

Applejack stood up and walked out of the meeting hall with nothing more to say.The others followed her lead and left one by one, going back to their rooms or disrupted activity they were up to before getting called to the meeting hall.

Isaac turned to the screen on the wall, looking the his reflection in the dark black glass.

"Ilsa, Miguel has sent you the coordinates to the available hangar on the Goliath, am I right?"

"Yes captain, I am moving us into position now. We will arrive in a little while."

"Good, and please, do me a favour. When the pilots and soldiers from the Goliath arrive, please treat them like you would treat me and the crew, okay?"

"I'll do my best, I might even attempt making some new friends."

Isaac chuckled at this as he walked out of the room. A lot of things have changed, and now Ilsa was starting to change. All he could do was to hope that it all was for the better.

...

The Nordin had made a slow landing into the hangar on the Goliath. Ilsa had hadled the ship without fault, as always, but still Esten could notice that she was a bit off. He noticed that she was nervous.

It was peculiar to him, she was nothing more than a hologram built into a machine, an AI that was created to control machinery and electronics in a way that regular sentient beings ever could. Sure she was made by using human DNA, to give her personality, but machines shouldn't feel fear, or attachment to anyone. At least not outside authority, admirals, captains, and so on.

The attachment he could see that she had to Isaac, himself, and their crew...

He wouldn't say that it scared him, or even worried him, but he had realized that Ilsa was more human than he had thought. Maybe she was more human than her creators had intended her to be.

In any case, he understood what she went through. She was scared that the crew or someone in the crew would die, leaving her and the others grieving. He knew that she would grieve the loss of any crew member, after this was all over he would talk regularly to her. Ask her to help, make her feel needed.

When the Nordin had landed, the crew was met by six UNSC soldiers in the hangar. The soldiers were a bit shocked that the only human on the ship was Isaac, and that the others were Equestrians, a dragon and a rodian.

As they walked out of the ship to get re-geared and get their intel

Spike overheard some of the UNSC talking. One of them, a shorter, but robust soldier with a buzz-cut was chuckling, his head turned to his friend next to him.

"Like these grass eating cows can even help us. I bet they'll run around on that dustbowl, looking for any grass to chew on."

Spike took a step towards him and raised his binonic arm, lifting the guy up by the neck.

"I might choose to chew on YOU if I get hungry, how's that for a grass eating cow?"

The soldier coughed and struggled, in the process he started to slam his fist down on Spikes arm, of course not doing any damage.

The soldier’s friends froze for a second in shock before they charged at Spike, grabbing his arms, trying to get him off their friend before he choked him to death.

"Hey, get off him! Let him go!"

Isaac walked over to them and pushed his fists into Spikes sides, making him shout out and release the soldier, which made the others take a step back.

"Spike, what the hell!"

Isaac reprimanded him, and the girls were standing behind him, giving Spike, and those he had struggled with very dirty looks.

Spike frowned and turned to Isaac.

"What do you mean? He talked shit."

Isaac grabbed the dragons shoulder firmly and looked into his eyes.

"Maybe so, but if you start fights over WORDS, I'll GIVE you shit, understood?"

Spike nodded slowly.

" Yes captain."

Isaac let go of Spike and turned to the soldiers.

"And you guys. IF you don't show some respect to non humans wanting to fight on your side, I'll make sure that admiral Winters demotes you to toilet cleaning, you hear me?"

The soldier that Spike had choked chuckled.

"Yeah right, Winters doesn't listen to any chump that comes waltzing into his ship. 'captain'."

Isaac smiled and walked up to him, his face now inches from the soldiers.

"Captain WINTERS to you soldier. I'll talk to my brother in a few minutes. I hope you like scrubbing toilets."

They all stared at him with wide eyes, now realizing that they were in deep shit, almost literally.

Isaac turned arond and headed towards the door leading out of the hangar, his crew following him closely.

They walked through the halls filled with soldiers, marines and engineers that were heading to their bunks or their duties.

Pinkie pie was looking around, and as always a smile was on her face.

"I'm so happy that i'll be helping these men and women out. I mean, just me being here won't really change the outcome of the war, but helping people is still fun."

"Why, you're awfully exited." Rarity chuckled.

"You do know that this is war, and not some regular contract?" She asked, looking over at her friend.

"Of course silly, thats why its even more fun to help, in the most dangerous of situation, we will be helping those who need it the most."

"That proved it to me." Applejack said to her, over her shoulder.

"You are crazy, Pinkie."

The pink mare giggled.

"Yeah, I'm a crazy, crazy-pants."

"Calm down now girls." Isaac said to them in a loud voice, trying to be heard over all the other noise around them.

"We'll be meeting Miguel in here, in his office. He is an admiral after all, so we'll have to show him respect."

The door opened with a low swoosh as they went inside.In front of them sat Miguel Winters. Except some differences in the face and hair colour, he looked like his brother, and if he had tried to stifle a smile, he failed. He stood up and walked over to Isaac, giving him a big hug.

"Brother, I have missed you. How have you been?"

Isaac smirked, placing his hand on Miguels shoulder.

"I've been as I've always been. Close to being killed, earned money for killing others, but in the end, I feel good."

Miguel let out a laugh.

"The difference between you and me is that I don't get a new contract each time I have to kill."

"We're not so different after all then." Isaac pointed out, looking straight into his brothers eyes.

Miguel gave a respectful huff and looked over his brothers shoulder and looked at Isaacs companions.

"So who are your friends, I only got a far away look at them when we talked earlier. Introduce us."

Isaac took a step back.

"These are my crewmembers. Esten, Spike, Rainbow dash, Twilight

Sparkle, Pinkie pie, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy."

When their names got mentioned, one by one they shook hands with the admiral, who in turn said his own name and gave them a warm smile.

They were interrupted by a beeping sound, and a male voice that spoke.

"Admiral, we have reached Mars, the rest of the fleet is ready to jump to hyperspace, so are we. We need you at the bridge urgently."

Miguel sighed.

"I'll be there immediately, Vince. Get her running"

He turned to his visitors with an apologetic tone in his voice.

"That's my call. Get back to your ship, we'll be in hyperspace any minute now."

As on queue, an alarm went through the ship. Causing everyone abord to return to their rooms and positions.

"Warning, hyperspace jump imminent in T-minus ten. Get to your stations. I repeat, hyperspace jump imminent!"

This cause all the soldiers in the immideate area to hurry up to their destinations.

The admiral looked at Isaac and his crew.

"It'll take us five days to reach Arrakis in hyperspace. Your assault team will be with the first landing parties when we arrive. You'll go with fireteams Charlie and Omega."

Isaac nodded.

"Understood admiral, we'll give them hell!"

Miguel headed out of the room, and our friends did aswell, heading back to the hangar and into the Nordin.

Outside of the Goliath, a myriad of other Infinity class ships were gathered, all with their accompanying cruiser and frigate class ships.

It was so serene looking at it all. The armade of spaceships floating in space above the bright red planet we know as Mars, which was now inhabited with vast colony complexes and landing sites on the surface.

At first, one after the other, the large terran battleships jumped into hyperspace, but soon all of them were gone in bright flashes, seeming to all dissapear at the same time, into the vast emptyness of space.

...

Arrakis, the sand planet, home to the Shai-hulud and the mineral Spice melange, was spinning slowly around its axis, the great sand plains on the surface like big, bright yellow and orange

Even though it had been attacked, the space around orbit seemed calm, the Jeckyllean corvettes and cruisers that were patrolling, looked

almost beautiful in the glare of the nearby sun. Their dark black rounded bulks and thick hull glistening in the sunlught as they went, slowly doing their march around the planet.

But as we know, they were in for a big surprise.

When the first of the UNSC ships were about to jump out of hyperspace, the sensors on all the Jeckyllian ships lit up like christmas trees.

First one or two at a time, but then more than ten at once, the infinity class UNSC cruisers and all the following frigates came on through hyperspace, cluttering up a large plot of the orbit.

In a few moments, the cruisers were engaged in battle. Missiles, lazers and plasma turrets opening fire.

The fighters were also in motion, flying in formations as they ready themselves for battle.

Assault team stingray sat inside a pelican landing ship, waiting for their drop. They had been equipped with UNSC gear and weapons, standard for any teams that works with or under the UNSC.

Isaac walked past his crew and a few UNSC soliders that were sitting in the pelicans seats, and headed towards the cockpit.

"Pilot?" He asked, getting the pilots attention.

"Yes Captain?" She answered, pressing buttons and turning gauges, preparing for takeoff.

"Where will we be landing, and what's our objective?"

The pilot turns a few more gauges, which makes the pelican start to shake slightly and the engines rev up.

"Your team is going to be landed at Cielago west. Your objective is to destroy a jeckyllean outpost before they manage to build a fortifiable base there. This will help in clearing the way to Arrakeen, the capitol of Arrakis."

Isaac nodded and turned around, heading back out to the others sitting in the seats.

As he walked out, the pelican shook and the hatch in the end of the ship closed, as they took off, flying down towards the sand planet below.

"Alrright, team."

Isaac started, to get the others attention as he briefed them.

"We're going down together with fireteam Charlie and fireteam Omega, we're landing in Cielago west. Our mission is to make a crater out of a jeckyllean outpost. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir!" Isaacs team and the UNSC soldiers answered in unison.

"Good! Let's give them hell!"

The Pelican shook as they came into orbit, and once they had descended low enough, the boarding hatch opened, giving the passengers a clear view of the outside.

Pelicans landed in certain spots, soldeirs and different vehicles coming out of them. Twilight noticed a few pelicans that carried something that looked like some sort of truck and one that carried a big tank.

She gasped as a jeckyllean fighter jet flew past and blew the pelican into pieces, causing the wreckage to fall down into the sand dunes, almost crushing terran soldiers undearneath it. The enemy fighter jet was almost immediately pursued by the terran fighter jets that had escorted the pelicans down, they flew away in the distance, their deadly dogfight dissapearing over the horizon.

Their pelican picked up speed, leaving the sight of the landing terrans and the downed landing craft behind them in the dust.

Isaac turned on his earpiece and spoke into the small microphone attatched to it.

"This is assault team Stingray. Charlie, Omega, did you guys survive?"

After a second a voice came through, answering his question.

"Omega here, we came through clean, Fireteam Charlie is following close behind. Charlie will land with you Stingray, and we'll land on the other side of the outpost, flanking them. The fact that you'll be more on your side might make them send less soldiers our way, might be a chance for us to break through. Charlie will bring a warthog, so make sure you plant a flare, so they'll find you. good luck gentlemen!"

As their pelican kept flying, Twilight noticed a large machine standing in the sand, abandoned, with a large dig site next to it. She turned to one of the human soldiers across from her.

"What is that thing?" She asked, and pointed to the large machine.

"That's a Krupp bagger minig rig!" He answered, turning to look at it himself.

"That thing costs one hundred million credits to build. And it can mine a quarter million tons per day."

Twilight nodded in understanding. "That's why it's used in mining operations, right?"

"Yeah." The soldier replied.

"That's the most effective mining rig invented so far in the galaxy!"

Suddenly, the pilot demanded their attention through the speakers, the pelican making a sharp turn.

"Allright team, no more chit chat, get ready for landing, we're closing in on the LZ. We'll have to get down on the ground fast, we don't want them shooting us down. I've gotten intel that command will drop us some Spartans to make sure this place is cleaned up properly. Don't let your guard down just because we'll have Spartans! They are hard to take down, but they're also mortals, like us! Take care down there guys, and give them one from me!"

The pelican slowed down and made a turn, which gave its passengers a view of some small fortifications in the sand in front of them, and the purple skinned jeckylleans running around between them.

From this distance, and clad in their armour, the jeckylleans had a close resemblance to purple skeletons in military suits.

The pelican sank down to the sand, and Isaac started shouting out orders.

"Allright, move, move, move!"

They all grabbed their rifles and ran out into the sand plain, heading for some rocky outcrops that would work as cover for them. As they ran towards them, one of the human soldiers running next to Esten got hit and fell down dead in the sand, his blood slowly painting it dark red.

The jeckyllean spike guns wasn't powerful in the way a bullet was, but the nails, the size of an index finger, could do much damage if they penetrated your chest and torso.

Isaacs crew and the remaining UNSC soldiers leapt for the rocky outcrops, and found themselves behind cover. Once again, Isaac started to shout out orders, turning his rifles safety off.

"Spike, Twi, Fluttershy, shoot at the left flank! Rarity, RD, Pinkie, you shoot their right flank, this'll cause them to cower in the middle where Esten, Applejack and I'll pick them off!"

He turned to the UNSC soldier and pointed to a position behind them.

"You, put up a flare where fireteam Charlie can see it! We'll be needing that warthog!"

He turned back, patted Estens shoulder and turned his head to Applejack.

"Allright, us three, let's lets pick these purple fucks off!"

The jeckylleans had opened fire at them already, the spikes from their guns clattering against the rocks and sticking to the sand when they didn't hit their mark.

Assault team Stingray answered with their own volley of bullets.

As ordered, they all shot at the flanks, while Isaac, Esten and AJ shot at the jeckylleans in the middle of the small outpost. After some of them had died, the jeckyllean soldiers started to move towards the middle, huddling behind the small concrete walls that they had started to build, for cover.

A popping sound was heard behind them and a dark green smoke started to pour out from the flare that the soldiers had placed in the sand.

Isaac stopped shooting and sat down behind the large rock. He turned his microphone on and spoke into it, doign his best to make sure that he was heard over the gunshots.

"Fireteam Charlie, this is Assault team Stingray. We''ve placed a flare for your arrival, what's your ETA?"

"Hearing you loud and clear, Stingray. We'll be there in two minutes, hang tight! Show those purple balloon animals who they're dealing with!"

"Roger that, Stingray out!"

Isaac turned back and opened fire again, shooting down an enemy when he hit it in the shoulder, but he had to keep his head down, and this caused a small rain of jeckyllean spikes to rain down on him.

The second pelican with fireteam Charlie on board swooped over them, casting its shadow on them, and while it swooped around them it also drew the enemies fire towards it, giving Isaac and his team a second to reload safely and to get ready for the next strike.

The pelican dropped the warthog it had carried with it next to the rocky outcrops, then it swung around, and fireteam Charlie came charging out.

The other team came running down the sands, heading towards the others, but the jeckylleans realized what was going to happen if they allowed these reinforcements to reach the others.

They had already had to split their forces to deal with another group of humans that had landed on the other side of them, forcing them to fight on two sides, and they were not willing to give one of the sides an advantage against them.

Suddenly, all of the jeckyllean soldiers that were fighting against Isaacs team, stared to shoot at fireteam Charlie, forcing the group to fall back and lie down among the sand dunes, not to get mowed down by their spikes.

"They're pinned down!"

Applejack exclaimed, firing at the jeckylleans, sadly not hitting anyone of them as they cowered behind their small concrete walls .

Isaac groaned.

"I know, but we can't get to them, or else we'll be mowed down!"

Esten looked at the warthog that had been dropped next to them. It had a machine gun turret attatched to it on the back. This gave him an idea.

Twilight noticed that he crouched down and did the duckwalk over to one of the UNSC soldiers. The soldier nodded and both of them stood up and started running. She couldn't understand why, since standing up in itself was a death trap at the moment.

When Esten and the soldier got to the warthog and jumped in, she understood what they were up to.

As Esten climbed up into the machinegun turren on the back, she stood up and shouted at him.

"Esten don't! you'll get killed!"

The warthog roared and drove through the sand dunes, heading towards the jeckylleans, spraying sand around it as it went.

Twilight suddenly felt herself get pushed over, along with the sound of the enemies nails flying around her.

When she looked up, Applejack was looking down at her, visibly angry at her.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed !?"

She looked up at her friend as she pulled her up with a firm grip of her arm. She tried to defend herself as both of them huddled behind the rocky outcropping again.

"I had to stop him, they will get gunned down!"

Applejack had her head down as the enemy nails kept raining around them, before quickly looking up above the rocks, firing a few rounds at the enemies and then went back down again.

"Esten knows what he's doing, getting yourself killed will not help one bit!"

The rattling of a machinegun was heard, and both of them peeked over the rocks to look.

The warthog was moving at full speed towards the enemy, and Esten was letting the machinegun turret rip, the bullets raining down onto the Jeckyllean soldiers, . It looked like they were going to drive right into the outpost and clear out some of the jeckylleans, and to pull the attention towards themselves so that fireteam Charlie could reach their own team.

But those ideas would soon be buried beneath the very sands upon which they fought.

A grenade that was thrown by the jeckylleans exploded close behind the warthog, making it flip over and fly into the jeckyllean outpost.

It crashed behind one of the concrete walls, landing upside down.

Twilight gasped as she saw this, and she let out a short scream as the jeckylleans ran up to the warthog and opened fire.

After a few seconds, they moved away from the wreckage and turned back to their concrete walls.

Twilight let out another scream.

"Esten, no!"

Isaac ran up to her and grabbed her, holding her back as she tried to run away from the rocks and charge the enemy by herself.

"Twi! Don't! We'll find him! We'll get him out of there, but you cant run out there!"

During this moment of discraction, fireteam Charlie had reached assault team Stingray, but they still held their position behind the rocky outcrops, they saw no safe way to charge the enemy without being gunned down.

A shadow was cast upon them. They looked up and saw another pelican fly overhead. But that wasn't all they could see.

The pelican left three small dots behind it, which grew larger and larger.

After a few seconds, Isaac recognized what they were, and noticed that they were falling towards the enemy outpost.

"Spartans!"

This made the soldiers of team Charlie to cheer. Isaac shared their entuziasm, the spartans were some of the best soldiers that exited amongst all the terran systems.

"When they land, we move in, get ready!" Isaac ordered and reloaded his rifle, throwing the empty cartridge in the sand near his feet.

The swooshing sounds coming from the three armoured spartans falling towards the enemies grew louder and louder. With an impact that shook the ground and a dust cloud that followed, they finally landed.

When the large cloud of dust settled, three armour clad giants stood up, their lenght close to two meters. Their helmets had visors that, just like their armour, glared in the sunlight.

As they opened fire against the jeckylleans, Isaacs team and fireteam Charlie charged and ran through the sand towards the spartans.

...

Esten groaned, he had slammed his head into the machinegun when the warthog flipped over. His head felt swollen, and more correctly his right eye had taken a beating, which had made it swell up, so he couldn't see with his right eye at the moment.

He coughed and spit some sand out of his mouth. He raised his head a bit and looked around. The warthog had landed on top of him, but the machinegun turret had shielded him and bent almost all the way down under the weight of the vehicle, so he was lying in a small hole of sand with the machinegun turret above him as a roof.

He groaned and started to dig beside him, shoveling handful after handful of sand out of the way.

After a little while, he had made a hole big enough for himself to crawl out of. the battle was ensuing outside, but from what he could see, the terrans had now managed to get into the jeckyllean outpost, and taken the battle into the enemies "lair" itself, but the jeckyellans still had his friends pinned down behind a concrete wall, and three large armour clad soldiers had their hands full with picking off jeckylleans that circled around them.

It was obvious that fireteam Omega still fought against the enemy on the other side of the outpost, since it seemed that most of the jeckyllean soldiers were fighting against his team and fireteam Charlie.

He turned around and looked at the machinegun turret, aside from the large stand that the machinegun itself was fastened upon, it was intact. Maybe a few kicks would crack the stand so that he could pick up the gun itself.

He moved himself to a better spot, where he could see the turret completely. He lifted his leg and kicked. Nothing happened, but he kicked again, and again, and again. with one final kick, the machinegun fell off with a crack and landed in the sand with a dull thud.

He grabbed it and started to drag it towards the opening he had made for himself.

After a few moments of pushing, pulling and swearing, he managed to get out into the open air.

The sudden sunlight made him squint. He looked around, searching for the spot where he had seen his team. There, he saw them crouching behind the small wall, occationally peeking abovi it to fire at the enemies.

He turned and looked over at the jeckylleans huddling across from his friends. He felt himself frown, and he held up the machinegun and pulled the trigger.

...

The rattling of the machinegun suddenly sounding through all the other sounds of battle around them, made Fluttershy and Pinkie pie look at each other, what the hell was that?

Pinkie pie, always there to see what's going on, peeked over the wall they were crouching behind, squeed and then went back down.

"It's Esten!" She exclaimed to Fluttershy.

"He's not dead, he's alive, and he's picking those meanies off!"

Fluttershy gasped as she herself peeked over their cover and saw the state that their comrade was in.

"He won't last long with that swelling." She noted.

"He'll pass out, and then he's in trouble!"

Pinkie pouted, then lit up. She grabbed Fluttershy by the arm and ran out on the battlefield, heading twards Esten, while waving towards the spartans, who were busy with taking on a large group of the jeckylleans that tried to herd them in so that they could take them on from all sides.

"Spartans!" She shouted, getting the attention of one of them.

The armoured giant, with red plated armour, used the butt of his shotgun to break the cranium of an enemy trying to take it from him.

He looked up at her.

"Yes, soldier?"

Pinkie pie kept running towards Esten, Fluttershy now running on her own accord next to her.

"We'll get them from behind and let Omega inside on the other side. You get these guys attention!"

The spartan nodded. "You got it!"

He turned over to the two others and said something over their communicator. Then they went melee. They bashed their way through the enemies that tried to surround them and then jumped straight into the largest group of them, now using their weapons and fists to beat them down, another cloud of dust hiding them from view.

Pinkie and Fluttershy closed in on Esten now, who stood with his side turned to them.

"What is your plan?" Fluttershy asked, she, as the others, knew that pinkie was a spontaneous woman, and rarely planned anything.

Pinkie giggled. "Grab him, and follow my lead!"

Before she could question, or even protest the idea, they had caught up to Esten and they grabbed his shoulders, picked him up and kept running.

"WHOA!" was the reaction they got from Esten.

"Keep shooting, we'll take them from behind!" Pinkie shouted at him, and the pure shock of what was happening made him nod.

The jeckylleans were just as confused as Esten, and before many of them could get out of the way, they were gunned down, their dark blue blood staining the concrete walls and sand under their feet.

The three of them moved towards a larger group of the enemy that were hiding behind the concrete walls on the far side of the outpost. The sight of them made the jeckylleas retreat further into the outpost, heading towards the spartans and the others.

Suddenly, the machinegun stopped firing as it had no more ammo, and the three of them fell into the sand as Fluttershy tripped.

Before they could get a moment to rest, they heard footsteps heading towards them. Fluttershy handed a pistol to Esten and Pinkie held her rifle in a tight grip, ready for battle once again. But there were no jeckylleans charging them, the sound came from behind them. And before they could turn around, UNSC soldiers came over the concrete walls with a unified roar that felt like it shook the foundations they were resting on.

...

The rest of the battle was over quickly. The sheer number of terran soldiers managed to overwhelm the jeckylleans, and they were finally defeated. This battle had been won.

The commanding officer of fireteam Omega, accompanied with claps and cheers, planted a flag in the center of the conquered outpost.

It was a black and blue flag, half of each colour, and in the center a picture of continents, encircles by a wreath and a circle of stars. And cirling this was a text that said " Unis Terra, Unus Lugum." One Terra, one Union. The flag of Terra.

Isaac was relieved to see his friend still alive and gave Esten a big hug when he, Pinkie, and Fluttershy finally met up with the others, who were moving the dead into piles, one for the UNSC soldiers, one for the jeckylleans.

Each and everyone of them were covered in the dark blue jeckyllean blood. Twilight had gotten some in her face and on her hands, Applejack had gotten some on her boots when she had stepped on an enemy before shooting him in the chest, Spikes bionic arm was almost completely covered with the stuff since he had punched a jeckyllean in the chest repeatedly until his hand broke through the skin and ribcage.

Even Rarity was covered in it, but she looked proud of it rather than disgusted, it might have been because she had chosen to wear this " organized chaos" herself.

Right now, and for many hours to come, it was time for work, but when the evening came, it was time to rest, finally.

...

Assault team Stingray, the two commanding officers of fireteam Charlie and Omega, and the three spartans were gathered around one of the fires that now burned inside the outpost.

The spartans, named James, Karl and the third one who was a woman named

Carrion, had taken their helmets off after the battle had ended. Beside their sheer size and their armour plating, they looked like normal people, buzzcut and all the standard army gear.

They were all chatting with each other, finally able to rest. But they would not leave their guard down completely, and had built makeshift guard towers that would be used to guard the outpost during the night.

They were lucky to be able to rest, the sounds of battle could still be heard in the distance, echoing through the night.

Isaac was talking with one of the spartans, Carrion. She had been interested in Isaacs eye, and Spikes arm. She cringed when Isaac told her about how Spike had gotten his new arm.

She told him that she had gotten her arm broken once during a battle against the farmer rebels on Europa, one of Jupiters moons, and the pain had been close to unbearable, so she couldn't imagine loosing the arm completely.

Then she went back to talking about the rebellion on Europa and chuckled.

"Luckily the rebellion didn't spread to the other moons. A rebellion on one planet, and even one moon is difficult enough to deal with, but 63 moons with rebelling farmers and colonists, what a nightmare."

Isaac nodded and looked over his shoulders, gazing out into the endless sands behind them . The dune sea stretched for tens of thousands of kilometers. If you got lost out there with no water, the planet would swallow you whole.

"It isn't like here at least. A dustbowl that hasn't seen rain for millions of years." He looked at Carrion and smiled.

"Have you ever heard the saying 'the grass is always greener on the other side'?"

She nodded and grabbed a hipflask filled with water.

"Yeah, what about it?" She asked before starting to drink.

Isaac grinned and gave her a sly look.

"Here on Arrakis it must be 'The grass is always- FUCK I GOT SAND IN MY EYES, AND MY ASS! AND MY MOUTH!' "

This made Carrion spurt the water out of her mouth and she started to laugh.

"Holy crap, I'm gonna burst! Hahaha!"

She gave Isaac a hard pat on the back. Her strength knocked him over, making him fall down onto the sand. Even though this shocked him, he couldn't stop laughing at Carrions reaction at his joke.

Commander Echo of fireteam Omega raised an eyebrow when Carrion and Isaac started to laugh when isaac fell off the small rock he was sitting on.

He turn his head to Twilight, and gave a nod in Isaacs direction.

"The fact that we fought a battle today and that the jeckylleans might attack us in the night doesn't seem to faze him at all."

Twilight smiled and stretched her arms above her head.

"It seems that few things do, except if one of us get harmed."

"So he cares about his team more than the way a commander usually does?"

"I guess so, since we're all good friends we wouldn't want to loose anyone. Though, i had to admit, there have been many times where we could've lost someone."

Echo looked into the fire, the dark orange colour panting his face.

"Dangerous missions?"

"Yeah, a few of them might have been called suicide missions, but we made it through, came with a price though. I almost lost my life, aiming for the head seems to have become a generally accepted strategy."

Echo gave an amused chuckle.

"It doesn't always end your life. Isaac survived it, didn't he? "

He looked over at Isaac and Carrion again, now the two of them were testing the strenght of Carrions armour suit, or the strenght of Isaacs hand, he couldn't really tell.

Carrion stood in front of Isaac, her arms crossed, And Isaac were backing up a few steps before punching as hard as he could at Carrions stomach.

With a loud clunking sound and a "Shit!", Isaac started to jump around, holding his hand while both of them were laughing.

Echo looked up at the two moons above. Krelln and Arvon, both of them were colonized, covered by large building complexes.

"So peaceful they are." He thought as he observed the two bright orbs in the sky.

"Looking down at us from up there, are people that have never even been to Terra, the very home of our race. But still, in this time of need, people they have never met come to fight for them."

He looked back down and turned his head to the horizon, listening to the sounds of explosions and gunfire, occationally a faint sound of screaming voices echoing through the night.

He stood up and cleared his throat, getting the others attention.

" We need to rest, tomorrow we will join the teams from Cielago east and south. We'll be launching an assault at Ceilago north, we won't have any air support, so things will look dark. But we'll have to fight like we were defending Terra herself!"

Author's Note

This has taken a long time, and it has beem fun gathering ideas. Though i have to admit, this chapter should have gone on for much longer, but instead i will put the next part of this chapter into chapter 9 instead, so i already have a big idea for the next chapter to work on. i hope it was worth the wait, thank you for reading!

Chapter 3: Derelict Scream

Chapter 3: Derelict scream.

Esten looked at Isaac, his reaction neutral. The Nordin was Isaacs flagship, but
he had to hide it once he had made himself an enemy with competing mercenary
groups.

"You presume that I still have it?" Esten asked, crossing his arms.

This made Isaac smile slightly, Esten loved to play around, examining peoples
reactions.

"Like I would even remotely believe that you've lost my ship, old friend."

Esten nodded "When do you need her?"

" When can I get her?"

"In an hour or two."

Isaac shook Estens hand, they had come to an agreement.

" Excellent. Now, girls."

He turned around to Spike and the other ponies, grabbing his new weapon and ammunition.

"We can go upstairs to get our gear on, and I promise I'm not trying to sound like a pervert here, but to get used to be around each other in any kind of situation we will change in the same room."

He saw the looks on the girls faces and before any of them got to answer or object to the statement, he continued.

"No we're not getting completely nude, but this is very important in case we
get into any extreme situation where we're required to be comfortable with
each other with less clothes on than normal, allright?"

"It does sound a bit... You know." Spike said, waving his hand around to show an expression of " Odd".

"I know, but if we're afraid of being around each other if we don’t have full
gear on it might be an obstacle, if we ever need to remove gear to get bandages
on or the like."

"I understand, I’m not
afraid of showing myself!" Rainbow dash smirked and put her fist in the air.

"We are not going to show ourselves, it's more about being comfortable, as i
said" Isaac said, face palming.

"But to be honest we might not give a shit if we have a bullet or a blaster wound in our body." He finished with a chuckle.

"Yeah I get it. You girls all right with it?" Rainbow dash put her arm back down and looked around at the others.

"I guess so. Doesn't seem too difficult. No worries. It's all right" They all said at once.

" Good, then lets get going."

They grabbed their newly purchased gear, which Isaac had been generous enough to pay for them, and headed to the dressing room Esten had upstairs. Even though Isaac had paid for this first purchase, he told his crew that they had to pay for everything else they wanted to buy from here on out.

…

As they walked out they looked formidable, all of them wore black and grey "SWAT" looking gear along with their weaponry, except Pinkie pie of course, she still had her imperial equestrian armour on. They all held their rifles in a tight grip, feeling strong and confident.

Esten had told them to meet him at his personal dock in the slum area. If they didn't have their weapons or gear they would have refused to go through that area. but now, well if anyone tried anything all that would remain of them would be a dead, and looted, corpse.

Once again they arrived at a large metal door, this one leading to a hangar. Isaac used the code Esten had given him and they went inside.

"Holy guacamole!" Spike were the first one to react to the ship in front of
them.

It was a large and magnificent ship. It seemed to be big enough to even fit a few
figther ships in it.

"This is The Nordin!" Isaac said proudly as he presented it to them.

"She has served me well and I have a feeling she will do it again."

A hatch opened in the ships side and Esten, dressed in pilot gear, came out of it and waved them over.

"Get in, quickly. I heard a rumour that some of the scum in this area will try to strike
us, apparently they think we have some big treasure on us. Be on your toes!"

Isaac sighed, this wasn't what he wanted to happen on their first day. But this
might be good, it could be an opportunity to see what his new crew were capable of.

"All right, Rainbow dash, Applejack, you stand guard and if anyone comes in... You know what? If I wanted to be cliché I would say shoot first and ask questions later but if you want to ask them questions go ahead, but don't blame me if you get shot"

Rainbow dash chuckled. This guy doesn't seem so bad after all. She thought to herself.

"All right cap'n, just tell us when we are leaving."

"Yeah!" Applejack filled in. "Wouldn't want y'all to leave without us."

Isaac smirked. "If you die, we will."

He turned around and stepped into the ship, followed by Spike, Rarity, Pinkie
pie, Fluttershy and Twilight.

He smiled as they got inside, he finally felt at home, back where he belonged.
Esten walked around, starting the ship up. As the lights and monitors came to life around them a female robotic voice echoed through the speakers inside the ship.

"Welcome back captain, have you been doing well since you last visited?"

Isaac had almost forgot, the ships AI Ilsa had reluctantly agreed to stay under Estens protection when Isaac had asked her to. He didn't want to lose his ship, and since he
had gotten threats that rivalling mercenary groups were going to take him down he wouldn't take any risks. Of course Ilsa could download herself to his holopad and live inside it as a hologram, but Isaac had been firm with her, which made her promise to stay with the ship and Esten.

"I am well Ilsa, and you? Has Esten taken good care of you?"

Ilsa had an amused tone in her voice, at least as much amusement a robot voice could have.

"He actually got some upgrades done on me. The galactic map is more detailed and he installed some automatic turrets. He sure is an effective man."

Esten shrugged and kept walking around turning on minor systems. The
conversation Ilsa had with Isaac were cut off when Esten pushed a few buttons and Ilsa automatically said "Goliath turret defenses online."

"I'm sorry about that captain, I guess we need to rewire so that I don't need to say that every time, or what do you think Esten?" Illa directed the comment towards Esten, who sighed and answered her as he continued to turn everything on.

"Whenever I get the time I promise to do some rewiring on the system."

Isaac unsheathed his weapons from their holders on his back and on his leg and placed them on the table close by.

"So, do we have any new contracts in, Ilsa?"

"Scanning for relevant content... Scanning... Scanning... Sir, you have one contract sent by the United Aerospace Corporation of planet Terra" She answered, and a screen flickered to life in front of them, showing the message from the UAC.

"So, what will our first mission be Isaac?" Twilight stepped forward, looking
enthusiastic. Before Isaac could answer, his communication radio bleeped.

"Isaac! We're under attack! Esten was right!" Applejacks voice shouted to him through the radio. "They're too many! We need to leave, NOW!"

"Esten, get the ship running, I'll get the girls! Ilsa, open fire at the attackers!"

"Yes captain." She answered, and the muffled sound of the defence turrets gunfire were heard from outside as she opened fire.

Isaac grabbed his plasma rifle and ran towards the ships entry hatch. Rainbow dash and
Applejack cowered inside the ships opening, poking their heads out to return fire at the attacking thugs.

Isaac opened fire at the enemies as he reached the opening, the blue plasma orbs shooting from his rifle flew through the air and hit one of the attackers in the face. He let out a howl of pain as the plasma melted his face into an unrecognisable bloody, gooey mess. His limp body fell down on the ground and his comrades scurried to find cover.

Isaac took this opportunity to contact Esten on his communicator.

"There's a lot of them, how long 'till you can get her flying?"

"Give me a minute, gotta wait for the start up sequence."

Isaac sighed and open fire again, Rainbow and Applejack followed suit, the red lazer rounds flying towards the attackers. Rainbow dash went back behind the cover of the large door frame, she reached down to her waist and held up a grenade that she got out from a pouch on her belt.

"Fire in the hole!" She stepped out of cover, moving across the opening and threw the grenade and jump to cover on the other side. The grenade exploded sending heated shards of shrapnel , and a shower of debree raining down on them. The thugs inside the blast radius were either blown to pieces, torn apart by shrapnel, or thrown through the air by the power of the blast.

"Lift off captain! Strap yourselves in!" Estens voice came through the communicator, the ships entry hatch closed and the ship shook as the engines went to maximum speed. Before they knew it the ship was in orbit, quickly flying away from the Sander trading docks.
Once Esten had gotten The Nordin stable the gang sat down in the meeting hall.

"That went smooth." Isaac sighed and turned on a big screen, the contract from the UAC once again showing on it.

"There, this is our first assignment. The UAC is a big corporation from Earth. And they have a mining facility in the Myrath asteroid field, which is where we are heading."

Rainbow dash was fiddling with her chair, but the others were listening and looked interested.

"So what are we doing? Defending people, killing people?" Twilight leaned forward and smiled.

"It's not that simple, it's simpler actually. The workers have stopped answering on the communications. We are going to go in, and find out why they are not answering. We are also to go into the computer mainframe and download all data and return it to the UAC."

Spike cleared his throat and were rubbing his palms together. "Why do they want the data back?"

Isaac smirked, Spike was about to learn one of the many lessons all of them had to learn.

"THAT was your first mistake Spike, we don't ask questions, we do what it says in the contract and get paid. If someone want something done we don't ask why. We don't see or hear anything, because we don't get paid to see and hear, all right?"

Spike nodded. "All right Cap'n."

…

The small landing ship that Isaac and his crew were sitting in were slowly making its way through the asteroid field toward the UAC mining facility. If they collided with any of the asteroids around them the explosion would create a domino effect, which in turn would turn the whole asteroid field into fireworks.The result of that would be anything but lethal to them, so Isaac did his best to navigate them safely through this "minefield".

Isaac turned around and spoke to the crew sitting in the seats behind him. "Get ready, ten minutes 'till we're in the hangar!" He turned back to the control board, keeping the ship steady.

" Esten? "

He contacted the rodian over the communicator, he had agreed to stay with them, to take care of The Nordin while the group were out on missions.

"Yes captain?" Came his voice in reply.

"I want you on the communicator through this whole thing. You’re getting the schematics, so you'll have to monitor our movement and point us to the right direction once we're inside."

"Understood, I'll start to scan the schematics right now, if I do it right I might find the data center before you're even in there."

Spike were sitting in his seat, quiet. He was trying to keep his cool, he was nervous, the idea of not knowing what were ahead of them inside the mining facility scared him. There could be anything, some disease killing the workers, raiders trying to cash in on the stuff they've dug up and will attack anyone going into the facility.

"Are you all right back there?" He looked up as he heard Isaacs voice, he wasn't looking back at him but somehow he could feel that Spike wasn't at ease.

"Just nervous, is all" he answered honestly.

"You'll get used to it soon enough, I feel the same way, but for me it's more of a thrill because I'm about to get into action."

Spike chuckled, it was easy for him to say. He must have been on a hundred missions like this.

"I sure hope so." Spike answered, shifting his feet.

A blue light started to flash above Isaacs head, in response to this he turned down the ships throttle, pressed a few buttons, making the landing stands go out.

" We're landing in T minus five, get ready ladies!" He informed his crew.

the ship slowed down as it entered through the force field that protected the hangar of the UAC mining facility. Their ship shook as it landed on the hangar floor, coming to a complete stop.

"All right, before we go in, Esten has a surprise for you, hold your rifles in a tight grip and turn the safety off."

The girls and Spike looked at each other, maybe this was some sort of "welcome to the business" thing? They did as he said though, and Twilight was the first one to get her surprise.

"Blaster rifle online, user: Twilight " The voice came from the rifle itself, and it was the same with the others weaponry:

"User: Rarity."

"User: Spike."

"User: Applejack."

"User: Rainbow dash."

"User: Fluttershy."

"User: Pinkie pie."

And lastly came a voice from Isaacs own gun. This was a dark male voice.

"UAC plasma rifle online, user: Stingray."

Isaac smirked, they were ready, more ready than they knew.

"All right, our mission objectives are: Find the data room and download all the files and contact workers, then get back to the landing craft. Get in, find the workers, get the data and get back out . Ready?"

"Yes sir!" They all answered as one.

"All right lets go!"

…

The halls in the facility were dark, even though there were plenty of lights they were not strong enough to illuminate all the dark corners. The group walked slowly and carefully through the hallways, the flash-lights on their weapons lighting up their path even more than the lights in the ceiling. they were all edgy, not even Isaac could shake the feeling that there were something in the shadows, just waiting to jump out at them.

"If you follow the hallway to the left you will come to a big room that has the data central in it. Just make sure to be careful, there are many doorways leading in and out of that room." Esten guided the group through the abandoned facility over the communicator.

"Understood" Isaac answered and kept moving carefully through the dark passageways.

The thing that got under his and his crews skin the most were that they hadn't seen any bodies at all. Plenty of bloodstains on the walls and floors, but no bodies. It was like the corpses had just disappeared, something was very wrong.

"T-this place is really creeping me out!" Fluttershy whined and looked around, holding her blast cannon in a tight grip, she was shaking, clearly distressed and scared by the dark empty halls."Can we please hurry up and get out of here?"

"Don't worry Fluttershy." Twilight reassured her as she aimed her rifle at one
of the corners, illuminating it with the flashlight attached to the rifle, revealing the metal walls. "We will be out before we even know it."

They came into the data central room, the computer screens covering the walls, casting their dim light on the floor.

"We are doing to do this job properly, we're not going to do it quick just because we’re freaked out. The better we do our job, the bigger chance that they keep give us work. Rarity, get working on downloading those files. Twilight, you and me will guard her. Spike, Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow dash, you guard the entrances."

They all rushed to their positions, growing more and more weary as the shadows around them seemed to close in on them. Rarity were clicking away on the computer panel, hacking into the data mainframe.

"It will just be a minute and then those files are as good as ours Darling." She exclaimed and let out a squeal as the panel let out a bleeping sound, telling her that she had gotten into the system. She took out a portable storage device and plugged it into the panel.

"Just give me a minute darlings and we'll be on our way."

Twilight looked at Isaac, thinking about how to start a conversation. "How did you get that mechanic eye?"

He turned his head and looked at her for a second and then turned back, looking out the doorway.

"Got my eye shot out when I was younger and I have used much of my earned credits since then to upgrade it."

Twilight waited for more, but Isaac stayed quiet. "Uhm... No details?" She asked, giving him a nervous smile, even though he wasn't looking at her.

"What kind of details do you want?"

“Well..." She couldn’t really figure out a good question now that she had a chance to get it answered ."How was it, getting a new eye?"

Isaac slowly shone his light on the walls and floor of the dark room as he got an answer together in his head.

"It was horrible losing half my sight. I can imagine that it was close to the feeling of loosing a leg or an arm. But the operation that gave me this mechanic eye went quick and easy, it was expensive but worth every credit. The first version only restored my sight, but the upgrades I currently have allows me to see heat signatures and night vision."

"Night vision?" Twilight asked, now asking more questions just because she could. "Then why do you have the flashlight on?"

"I do have the night vision on now, but there are some equipment and creatures
that can only be seen with heat signatures when hiding in the dark. The flashlight actually illuminates any enemies hiding in the dark, so I'm just doing extra effort, plus the next upgrade I'm going to pay is to be able to see both heat signatures and night vision at the same time."

"All done!" Rarity said, putting her storage device back into her backpack.

"All right gang, lets get back to-"

Isaac were interrupted by Rainbow dash opening fire and letting out a shout. "CONTACT!"

Pinkie pie ran to her side and opened fire as well.

" TWITCHA-TWITCH! THERE IS SOMETHING THERE!" She screamed, her voice sounding of sheer terror.

The creature that they were shooting at jumped over them, knocking over Spike as it landed behind them.

"Back to the ship! Go!" Isaac let his plasma rifle rip.

The creature let out a howl as the plasma hit one of its arms. It looked like nothing they had ever seen before. The closest resemblance would be a deformed human giant, with long thin arms with large claws on the end of the fingertips. The face had barely any features beside six small black eyes It were crawling on all fours but when it stood up on its legs after getting hit by Isaacs rifle it looked like it were close to two meters tall.

A sudden shot that came from Fluttershys blast cannon splattered the monsters brain on the wall behind it and it fell down limply on the floor.

"Run!" Spike got up and grabbed his rifle, which had fallen onto the floor beside him, and then they all started to run back through the corridors, trying to find their way back to the hangar.

"Esten! Have you seen anything like this before?" Isaac screamed over the communicator as he quickly turned around a corner.

"No! what the hell are those things?"

"I don’t know, but we are getting the hell out of here!"

Another one of the creatures lunged at the from a room they ran past. Spike took
his lazer rifle and shot at it, his blue lazer shots giving the creature immediate burn wounds, causing it to hurl backwards in pain, emitting a loud scream.

As they got to the hangar door, they all stopped dead in their tracks, on the other side of the hallway were another creature, it looked like the ones they had already encountered but it was big enough to fill the whole width and height of the hallway. This creature had eyes that almost seemed to glow red in the darkness and large razor sharp fangs.

"Holy shit!"

Isaac didn't turn his head from the creature, but he spoke quietly to the girls and Spike.
"Go to the ship, I'll lure him away"

Spike gave him a shocked look.

"But-"

"NOW!"

Fluttershy screamed and ran into the hangar followed by the rest of the crew. Isaac aimed his rifle at the monster.

"Come get me, fuck face!" The creature let out a roar and charged at him. He opened fire and the hangar door closed. Leaving the rest of the crew with the muffled sounds of plasma shots and the monsters roars.

Suddenly the door made a loud clanking noise as it locked itself and a robot voice echoed through the hangar."Warning! Hangar pressure change in progress!"

Spike started to feel dizzy, panicked he contacted Esten on the communicator.

"Esten, what's happening!?"

" The hangar is changing pressure, damn! The pressure will cause you to black out, hold on! Try to stay with me!"

Spikes head was spinning, and the others groaned as they one by one fell to the floor, unconscious.

"M...must stay awake! must...stay..awake..." The pounding in his head because too much, and he fell to the floor.

…

Spike didn't know how long he had been out cold, but once he woke up he slowly remembered what had happened. He groaned and rubbed his forehead, the pain was still there but it was fading. He sat up and looked around, the girls bodies laying around him on the floor. he crawled over to Twilight and started to shake her.

"Come on Twilight, wake up!" He turned on his communicator, contacting Esten. "Esten! You there? How long were we out?"

Twilight opened her eyes and sat up. "uhh... Spike? What-"

She were cut off by Spike who got an answer from Esten as he ran over to Fluttershy to wake her up as well.

"Spike! Thank goodness you're awake! you have been out for two hours!"

Spike kept talking to Esten as he woke up the other girls. " Damn! I want you to scan the facility for life forms, we have to get Isaac out of here! He might still be alive!"

Fluttershy sat up, looking over at Twilight. " Spike is right, we can't leave Isaac behind, dead or alive!"

"And I didn't plan to either." Twilight answered, standing up.

"Spike!" Estens voice came through the communicator again. "I can see lifeforms moving all over the facility, oh why couldn’t I see this before!? Would’ve saved us so much trouble!" He sounded distressed but continued. “I can't determine which of them is Isaac, but his radio lost contact an hour ago, I can help you get to where he last were when his radio worked, but from there, you're on your own!"

Spike frowned, the thought of those creatures harming their leader and friend filled him with anger and determination. He were actually shaking with rage, and he were showing his fangs. He were going to save Isaac, even if it were the last thing he did alive! He felt Twilight put her hand on his shoulder, making him turn around.

"Don't worry Spike, we'll find him. And we'll show those creatures who the fuck they're dealing with!"

Spike nodded, he held up his flamethrower and pressed the safety button, making a small flame on the front light up.

"Tonight is the night bitches die! Let's get them girls!"

" YEAH!" All of the ponies voices answered simultaneously.

…

They moved as one unit through the hangar door, Esten speaking with them as they moved down the hall.

"He went down this hallway you're in now and he moved towards the storage areas!"

As they moved through the hall they came across the corpse of the large monster that had chased after Isaac after he taunted it. It was dead, and were laying face down on the metallic floor. It's blood and brain were stained on the walls and floor. Isaac had either gotten a lucky shot or put himself in immense danger moving in close to get such a clear shot.

"Allright girls, I'll go first along with Fluttershy." Spike started to explain how they were going to move through the facility in their search for their friend and leader.

"Applejack, Rarity, you follow behind us giving extra firepower to the front. If needed you'll assist Rainbow dash and Pinkie pie behind you, watching our backs, allright?"

They nodded. " yes! lets do this!"

The floor shook slightly as they jogged through the dark halls. The sound drew the attention of the alien creatures, who didn't take long to show up. As the first creature came towards them, Spike and Fluttershy kneeled down and opened fire. The flames from Spikes flamethrower engulfed the creature, making it let out a high pitched squeal. The shotgun lazer blasts that were provided by Fluttershy caused the creature to stagger backwards as it flailed its arms, attempting to put the flames out. And lastly, by some well aimed shots from Applejack and Rarity the creature fell down dead before them, the fading flames scorching the last of its unburned flesh.

They kept going, finishing off the creatures that came in their way. Spike almost got hit as one of the monsters swung its claws at him, but at the last moment he actually fell backwards and Fluttershy got a clear shot at it, her blaster cannon turning the monsters face into a blood filled hollow.

They searched room after room, but none of them had Isaac in it. They started to get more and more exhausted and frustrated after each room. But soon they found a trail of creature corpses. Figuring that Isaac had been the one killing them they followed the trail, and after a while they came to a big door with a sign.

"Ore storage 501"

The door had large bloodstains on it, one of them looking like a handprint, this was it. They all readied their weapons and stepped forward, the door opening with a slow "Psssssh" noise.

Spike froze in the middle of his step at the sight before him. "Fuck me..."

...

Isaac looked around, where was he? Was this a forest? The trees stood dense around him, yes it was a forest, but how did he get here? As he looked around he heard a faint voice that seemed to be calling his name.

"Isaac..."

The voice came from a small dirt trail, leading into the forest. He frowned and started to follow the voice down the dirt path. The further he moved down the path the farther away the voice seemed to be. He started to run, hellbent on catching up with it. Suddenly he ran out of the forest into a small secluded cove. A tiny hidden beach with snow white sand.

He was on his home planet, terra. He felt a warmth inside, accompanied with strong happiness. He smiled and waded out into the water. The waves splashed on his legs, sending small droplets of gleaming cooling water onto his face and body. Finally, he was home. He let out a sigh, and fell forward into the water. He felt complete as he slowly sunk deeper and deeper into the cold dark water. finally, he was home.

" Isaac!" Spikes voice cut through his head like it were a loud screech.

Isaac groaned and opened his eyes. Before him were Spikes worried face, and also Fluttershys. She had a stern look on her face and were tending to the wounds on his chest, leg and stomach.

"I knew..." He started, with a cough and another groan of pain. "...That you wouldn't leave me behind, but I were afraid that you wouldn't get here in time."

Rainbow dash, Pinkie pie, Applejack and Rarity were standing at the door, guarding it in case the creatures found them.

" We wouldn't leave our leader to die just like that!" Twilight kneeled down next to Spike and smiled. "Once Fluttershy has taken care of your wounds we'll get you out of here"

Spike looked at Isaac, his face painted with worry. "What happened to you Isaac?"

Isaac coughed again, and looked back at him. He did his best to explain, but his head was pounding.

"I... I ran back through the halls, with that thing after me. I tried to figure out a way to kill it, but it caught up to me and grabbed me. It was going to eat me and opened it's mouth to bite down on my head. But I grabbed my shotgun and pushed it into his mouth and blew its brains out. It fell to the floor, still holding me in its hand, but I freed myself of its grip. The rest is a bit blurry but I remember that I got surrounded and went down the corridor leading to this room. I got many of them, but sadly they chased me in here. I defended myself well, but after I killed the last one at the time, all my plasma round had run out and I was badly wounded..."

He coughed again and let out a scream, that he muffled with his hand, as Fluttershy tightened the bandages around his chest.

"Argh! shit! I only have one shotgun shell left, and I was just waiting for more of them to find me, but then everything went black..."

Twilight looked around at the dead bodies of all the monsters Isaac had killed on the floor. She shuddered, she knew that Isaac weren't telling them everything. She understood, she could almost imagine the fear and paranoia he must have felt, just waiting for the next creature to find him.

"I'm done!" Fluttershy stood up and turned around, reloading her blast cannon.

Spike and Twilight helped him up on his feet, and Spike wrapped Isaacs arm around his shoulder. "I got him, now let’s get the hell out of here!"

...

Their journey back to the hangar was slow and just as horrifying as their search for isaac, the monsters were everywhere, they could not stop anywhere without the risk of being surrounded from every hallway, so they had to keep on going. Fluttershy, Applejack and Rarity were watching the front, while Rainbow dash, Twilight and Pinkie pie watched their rear. Spike had some difficulty keeping Isaac on his feet, which a few times resulted in both of them falling to the floor. The fifth time this happened, Isaac told spike to grab his shirts collar and drag him over the floor so that he could shoot at the monsters behind them along with the others.

The tall thin horrible monsters let out high pitched screams and roars when they charged the group. The girls and Isaac opened fire, the blasts echoing loudly in the halls along with the creatures screams, causing their ears to ring.

Twilight was thrown to the floor by one of the monsters that clawed at her. The monsters claws had been stopped by her rifle but the power of the hit caused her to fly a few meters across the floor.

Pinkie pie ducked as the monster tried to hit her aswell and when it lost its balance when missing her she took the opportunity to shoot it in the knee. The shot severed the lower leg from the knee and caused the creature to fall face down on the metallic floor, which allowed Pinkie and Rainbow dash to get clear shots at its head.

They could see the hangar door in the distance, which made them even more determined.

"Not far no y'all!" Applejack stated, jumping to the side to avoid a monster slashing at he, she then opened fire at it, making it run away down a hallway, howling in pain.

When they got through the hangar doors, Applejack and Rainbow dash helped spike carry Isaac to the landing ship. When they had gotten him inside and had strapped him into one of the seats, Rainbow dash sat down in the cockpit and took control of the ship.

"Esten are you there?" She asked into the communicator, and Esten answered almost immideately.

"I'm here, did you find him?"

"He's alive, and we have the data with us. Tell the UAC that their mining operation has been overrun, no survivors. We're coming back to The Nordin ASAP!"