12:30, October 22, 2552 Military Calendar. Unknown Location

“Radio check. Can anyone hear me?” Byrne called over the squad’s radio frequency.”You know Ray, if you had the choice between a nine incher and ninety credits versus a three incher and three million credits, you’d probably go for option b. You get three million credits and an extra two inches.”

This caused some laughter and an expletive from Raymond.

“You know Byrne, making fun of small dick energy doesn't affect me. It’s about your spiritual dick, Your soul cock. You can have a small sausage and have the biggest bratwurst energy in the world. Dick energy transcends the human form you coward” came the retort from Ellis.

“Sod off, you two”, Webby shouted over the radio. “I am getting an aneurysm listening to both of you!”

“Besides, can anyone actually confirm where we are?” Alyssa asked her squad mates.

Webby looked at her scanners, then looked outside through the windows in the pod. “Well, we’re definitely not on the Covenant Carrier like we’re supposed to be, nor does this look like New Mombasa.”

“What actually happened,” Dominique asked, confused.

“When the carrier entered slipspace, we were pulled in for a second,” Boris explained. “We must have been all knocked unconscious since we all don’t know how we got here.”

“Should we pop our pods?” Byrne asked, “Because someone’s knocking on mine and it’s getting real fucking annoying. Also, are we together or anything?”

“I think I landed in some sort of farm.” Dominique asked, “Probably a horse ranch since one of them is coming up to my pod.”

“I’m in the middle of a forest, and I can see Webby’s pod across from mine,” said Raymond. “I swear I just saw a tree move.”

“I think I crashed through a clock tower of some kind, considering there are bits of it strewn around my pod.” Alyssa stated. “Funny, there are horses here too, in the distance.”

Boris tried to check his surroundings, but his windows were all fogged up. He opened the hatch and got out, finding himself in the ruins of an old 11th Century style castle. “I’ve apparently gotten stuck in the medieval period, with an actual fucking destroyed castle all around me. Lucky me.”

“This knocking is getting really annoying. Permission to pop my pod?” Byrne asked again.
“Granted”, Boris nonchalantly replied, distracted by what seemed to be curtains and decorations depicting horses. He spotted a book lying down and went over to pick it up.

Byrne proceeded to punch the release pins of his pod and the hatch blew forward.

Royal Ballroom, 10 minutes prior

Princess Celestia was enjoying the small gathering she held every month for the social elite of Canterlot. Although she’d rather be in her private quarters with her cake stash, She had a reputation to uphold. She was enjoying a conversation with Fancy Pants and Rarity when Luna came rushing in.

“Sister, a meteor is making its way in this direction, but it is demonstrating odd characteristics.”Luna told Celestia.

Celestia frowned. “What characteristics, Lulu?”

“It appears to be symmetrical and has changed course multiple times on its descent, not to mention it is slowing down.” Luna replied.

“How long until it impacts the surface?” Celestia asked, slightly concerned.

Her question was answered by the ceiling caving in and a metallic object crashing into the middle of the ballroom.

“About now.” Luna deadpanned.

Celestia turned to face Luna, giving her a ‘really’ look. “Could you have come here five seconds earlier, sister?”

Everypony present started to gather around the object, standing a fair distance away. All but one pony.

“Don’t worry Auntie’s, I’ll investigate the object!” Prince Blueblood exclaimed. His “Investigations” were just him tapping the object with his hoof. Repeatedly.

Celestia winced at the sight of her nephew doing this while Luna facehoofed. On the other side of the room, a white pony with a gorgeous purple mane simply looked annoyed at the antics of Blueblood. Celestia knew that Rarity had some bad history with Blueblood and wasn’t surprised by her expression, which many occupants of the hall had as well.

Blueblood stopped tapping when the object began to hiss. “I didn’t do anyth-'' He was cut off as a section of the object shot off and catapulted her nephew into the wall opposite him.

Celestia’s hearing was still as sharp as ever, and wasn’t surprised when she heard a muffled “Yes!” from Rarity.

“I'm not sure if I should be concerned or if I should laugh.” Celestia said. Luna however, was not as reserved.

She rolled on the floor, in a fit of laughter, crying because of how hard she was laughing, until they heard a voice come out of the object.

“OI! COULD YOU STOP KNOCKIN ON ME BLOODY POD YE CUNTS!” Byrne shouted. But he was surprised to see instead of a person, several equines surrounding the pod. “Dominique, I may need to see you, because I’m surrounded by horses, and I swear they have horns, and two of ‘em even have wings.”

The ponies were all shocked at the sight before them. A single bipedal creature in almost black clothing or armour with a single blue “eye” that dominated its “face”. There was no mouth, but they could clearly hear a voice coming from the head.

“Horses? We’re ponies you incompetent welp!” replied one of the nobles.

“Dominique, check my bio-monitor. I need to know if I have a concussion because one of them fucking talked.” Byrne's voice crackled over the radio.

“Nolan, I don’t think I need to,” she replied as she herself was confronted with an orange talking pony.

“Ah said, what are you?” came the question from the orange pony. “And how the hay are you speakin’ without a mouth?”

Dominique shook her head, seeing if she indeed had a concussion before realising that it was futile. She sighed before looking back at the pony. “Does anyone else know why the ponies are at two of our crash sites?”

“I think that these equines may be the inhabitants of this planet we’ve found ourselves on,” Boris interjected over the radio, “considering none of the artwork I’ve found in this castle feature a biped of any kind and- wait. How the hell did a cupcake get here? And how did whoever wrote this note know my name and unit?”

Dominique had a look of bewilderment on her face, but decided to respond to the pony. She waved to the pony, making sure her weapon was still secured to her pod discreetly. She then took off her helmet, revealing her furless skin with silky brown hair tied up in a ponytail to the orange pony

“Hello...pony. My name is Dominique. Eh, I am a human.”

The orange pony raised an eyebrow as she looked at Dominique. “A hewman? Never heard of a Hew man, Ah have to say.” The pony sighed before straightening the cowboy hat on her head. “But it's only polite Ah tell ya my name since ya told me yours.” She raised her hoof like she wanted to shake hands. “Applejack, pleasure to meet ya.”

Dominique smiled and shook Applejack’s hoof. “Nice to meet you, Applejack.”

She straightened up. “Now, would you be so kind as to tell me where exactly I am?” She looked around. “If this farm is yours, I hope I haven’t damaged anything with my pod.”

Applejack smiled and shook her head. “Don’t ya worry, ya landed in an empty part of the farm, and that pod of yours did no damage to my property or the apple trees, so its all fine. For where ya are, we are in Sweet Apple Acres, outside the town of Ponyville, in Equestria.”

Dominique cocked her head to the side as she heard the visible horse pun, but decided to not mention it, since it seemed to be the actual name of a town on this planet, given everything she was seeing at the moment.

She looked out in the distance, and found a trail of smoke close in the sky, with two more on the horizon. She looked all around her, and found a fourth smoke trail a fair distance away. She smiled as she put her helmet back on and faced Applejack.

“Could you show me where that smoke trail is?”

Applejack frowned for a second as she spotted the smoke trail, then looked back at the crashed pod behind the Hew man, with a similar trail flowing into the air at that spot. It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots and Applejack nodded to Dominique.

“Yer friend would be in Ponyville, I can show ya the way.” Applejack began to walk towards a gravel path, leading Dominique towards it.

Back in Canterlot, Byrne was dodging questions left and right. “I already told you I can’t give you that information. I have no idea if you work with the Covenant.”

“And I’ve told you, we have no idea what this ‘Covenant’ is.” The taller one shot back.

“All I will tell you is that I am Sergeant Major Nolan Byrne, I am a Human, and I have no bleeding idea where I am.” Byrne replied. “I have no idea who these changlings or diamond dogs are.” with his priorities in mind, Byrne collected his gear. “All I want to do is find out where the hell the rest of my squad is. If you could guide me out of here, I can be on my way and out of your hair.”

“There are more of you?” The shorter of the winged and horned ponies asked.

“Shite” Byrne exclaimed. “I guess that one was on me. Yes, there are more people like me. Maybe on this planet, maybe not.”

“This is the only planet in this system that can support life. And I only detected five other objects similar to the one you arrived in.” The short one said.

“Could you please just show me out of he-” Byrne didn’t finish that sentence as he was struck from behind. He quickly recovered and in five seconds had his knife against his assailant’s neck.

“From here there is only one choice for you. One way out. And that is to stop you piece of sh-” for the second time, Byrne couldn’t finish his sentence as he was pinned against the wall by some sort of yellowish forcefield.

“I’d think again before you threaten my blood.” The taller one said with venom in its voice. But what caught him off guard was the fact that it winked at him. Byrne figured this was probably just for show and played along.

"Alright. You win. I yield." Burne said, struggling to breathe.

But then his attacker then piped up saying "That rust bucket should be made into my hoofstool for what he did!"

Byrne responded right back with "You're one dumb air-head, ain't ya cunt," then turning to the tall one and excaiming "Didn't you clearly see him strike me first!?" in disbelief

"Oh I did.” the tall one said, as the force-field shut off and the tall one turned to glare at Byrne's assailant, saying "we'll be talking about the privileges permitted to royalty and what it takes to get them revoked very soon, nephew" in the way a disappointed father might say to his son who he now regrets employing & promoting at his company on the basis of family.

Byrne's offender, who at the time was proudly beaming with his eyes closed at the thought of his own suggestion, was quite startled at the tall one's tone and fearfully peeked his eyes open, saw the tall one's glare, squeaked, then made puppy dog eyes, as if performed by a raccoon who once saw a dog use them to be given food.

Byrne dropped to the floor coughing. “Please, Don’t do that again. I swear you nearly cracked a rib.”

The white winged one then turned back to Byrne, smiled and said “My name is Princess Celestia. Welcome to Equestria Nolan Byrne. We’ll help you find your unit.”

Author's Note

And away we go. Dalek and I hope you enjoyed the beginning of our story. More will come in due time.

This chapter has been slightly rewritten and i would like to welcome Vladistad to the Helljumper's Feet first team!