Chapters Fall of the Caribou: First Strike
Prologue: Battle of New Eden
Date: July 12, 2394
Today was supposed to be like any other day, wake up, go to work, work on species designs for the military, go home, rinse and repeat. However, when checking the news I see that the Juraxi Imperium has declared war on us and our ally, the Federated worlds of Shi’xu.
‘What made the Juraxi attack us, it’s not like we were allies, but we weren’t enemies either. Maybe it’s because of our Gene modeling technology.’ I thought to my self. I got into my standard clothes, a white button down shirt with black pants, and headed out to the shuttle depot to get on the one heading to the lab so that I’m not late again. After a brisk 5 minuet walk to the depot, I saw one of my colleagues, Zarin, son of Zarou. Zarin is a Xaoiri, an Avian species with an average adult height of about 2 meters. I quickened my pace to catch up with him, when I got close to him I asked him if he heard the news.
“Yeah I did, it really surprised me that they would attack us after the major casualties they took in there civil war a few years ago.” Zarin said.
“Yeah, it confused me to. I suppose maybe the military will invest more into either better training for our troops or will invest into Bio-Engineering companies.” I responded.
We boarded the shuttle and talked for a little longer until the shuttle arrived. We went our separate ways, due to working on different projects, I jogged down the catwalk towards the elevator leading to the military section of the Bio lab. As per usual, a local policeman stood guard outside the entrance, when I approach him he asked for me to show my ID, I pulled out my ID, he looked at it and then me, confirming who the card said I was, and then let me into the elevator. I hit the button for basement level 4b, where the lab was. The elevator seemed to go quicker than usual, once the door opened I entered the lab and turned to the right, then grabbed a lab coat and other safety gear. I headed over to the DNA banks and saw Dr. Bright working there with the same amulet he wore everyday.
“Hey Bright, you got here early again, is it because of the news?” I asked Bright
“No it isn’t, I just woke up early and caught the news on the way here. On to something related to what we’ve been working on, I’m thinking that if we mix the Juraxi genome with the human and Xaoiri genome would make a decent front line solider.” Bright responded.
“I guess maybe that would work, the strength of a Juraxi, the speed of a Xaoiri and the intellectual ability of a Human would be good, we just have to see if the Army agrees with you.” I told Bright.
He nods and looks back at his work. I head past him and head over to embryo monitoring station and kept everything in check. I worked for several hours with some Army officials coming in and out of the lab and Bright asking me some questions from time to time. When I checked my watch, it showed it was 8:27 PM.
“Holy shit, I can’t believe the Juraxi Imperium got here so quickly, New Eden was 15 jumps from the border with the Juraxi Imperium.” Bright told me.
“Me neither Bright, I just hope we can hold the planet. Come on, let’s find a place to set this MLCU up.” I replied. We finished ascending the stairs and saw several Human and Juraxi Soliders dead on the ground. We exited the building and saw the fight raging down the street. Looking at the Juraxi bodies, I saw they were Deep Strike Shock Troops with their characteristic blood red stripes on their otherwise jet black helmets, the rest of the body not protected by the armor was covered in a sand colored chitin. Bright and I ran back towards the Capital building to set up the MLCU in a safeish area. On the way there, a Juraxi janissary attacked us, I dodged out of the way and fired 3 bursts into it’s head, the energy bolts did little more than piss off the solider and it charged me with a energy lance, a weapon that could cut plassteel in half like a knife through butter. I froze with fear as I saw my death approach, in the blink of an eye, a loud bang was heard and a bunch of blood and grey matter splattered everywhere around it. As the body slumped over, I saw a Human Star Coalition solider in their silver colored Mk2 combat harness, holding an M73 marksman rifle.
“Are you injured at all?” The solider asked
“I-I’m fine.” I stuttered as a response. I was shaking from the adrenaline coursing through my veins and the amount of fear I had just experienced.
“Great, you need to head towards the star port, we’re evac the planet, the Juraxi forc are overwhelming our troops.” He tells me and points me in the direction of the star port. I looked in that direction and was going to start running when I saw a CKS class siege ship belonging to the Juraxi, the excavation beam underneath it started to glow a bright red before it fired, the wave of heat and light quickly approached us, then everything disappeared in a searing flash of white light and pain.
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I groaned as I awoke in the middle of a forest, staring up at a blue sky with no clouds.
I walked several hours befor reaching the edge of the forest and seeing the town, as I observed the town I noticed something disturbing, it appeared that the Males were rapeing the Females.
Author's Note
If you notice any mistakes, please let me know. I was writing this at pretty much midnight from my mobile device.
Fall of the Caribou: First Strike
Date: July 12, 2394
There’s no good places close enough to that village I could set up a camp at, maybe I should go further into this expansive forest that I have never been in before, yep that sounds like a good idea.
A distant scream brought me out of my thoughts, it sounded feminine in nature, I stood up and ran over in that direction, after a few minutes of running through the forest, I arrived near where the scream came from, I saw four figures, two were in some sort of leather armor, one was in some robes, and the last one was completely nude, who I assumed was the female. they all looked slightly humanoid, except for hooves instead of feet. What I saw however slightly pissed me off, the one wearing the robes was groping the female in a sexual way, clearly the female was not enjoying this. I quietly look lifted out my pulse pistol, leveled the sights on the robe wearer, and pulled the trigger. Three quick beams of light flew and impacted the head of the robe guy. His head exploded in a fountain of blood, bone, and grey matter. The other two pulled out some kind of sword, I fired two more bursts at there heads, the first one going down, the second one dove to the side, dodging the attack, I pulled the trigger again... Click...
‘Shit, I’m fucked.’ I ran out of the trees and dove for the sword from the first solider. I picked it up and swung around just in time to block the swing of the other, the power of the swing however nocked me down. In a last attempt to survive, I quickly stabbed the sword forwards, an action the solider wasn’t expecting, stabbing him through his neck. He dropped the sword and put his hands to his throat in a vain attempt to stop his life from leaking out. I got up and approached the female, who just sat there in shock, and offered her my hand. She looked at for a second and then to me, I guess to see if the act was genuine. She slowly reached her hand and put in in mine, I pulled her up to her feet (hooves?).
“Are you okay, who were those guys? What’s your name?” I asked her.
“I-I’m fine. Those were Caribou soldiers my ‘Master’ had sent after me after I escaped, and my name is Starlight Glimmer.” She told me in a slightly shaken up voice.
“Do you want my jacket, since you don’t have anything to wear.” I asked her in an embarrassed voice.
“What,” she looked down at her self then back at me, blushing, “Oh.. yeah that would be great thanks.” She responded.
I took off my lab jacket and gave it to her, she put it on quickly.
“Thanks for helping me Mr..., I never caught your name?”
“Oh um, my name is Adam Richey, Ms. Glimmer.”
“You can just call me Starlight, my friends used too before the Fall.”
“Starlight, I’m not exactly from around here, what do you mean by the fall?”
“Well, about 5 years ago, the Caribou invaded Equestria with the purpose of enslaving all Mares as sex slaves, Equestria hasn’t had any wars in like, 1,000 years, so despite the desperate efforts of the Equestrian military, they quickly Steamrolled us, and here we are now.”
I was pretty angry, slavery is bad enough as it is, but enslvment of a certain gender for sexual purposes is just another level of wrong.
“Starlight, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to help fight the Caribou and push them out of Equestria and back into what ever pit of evil they crawled out of, I just need a base of operations, people to help fight, and weapons for this people. Would you like to help me Starlight?”
“Would I? Buck yeah, any chance I can get to fight back I’ll gladly take, and for a base, the old castle of the Two Sisters deeper in the Everfree would be a great location, the only way to get access is from a bridge crossing an empty mote.”
“Great, sounds good. Let’s stop wasting time, lead the way.”
“With pleasure.”
We set off going down the path, moving at a jog, as to make as much distance between us and the Caribou bodies.
Author's Note
Sorry for the heavy amounts of speech in this chapter, there will be more action in future chapters.
Fall of the Caribou: First Strike
Date: July 12, 2394
We had walked along the path for a little while now, the sun had started to set below the trees behind us.
“So, Starlight, could you tell me about what has happened over the past five years?” I asked
“Yeah, Four years ago, the Caribou had Finished conquering most of this continent except for a small griffin colony to the Northeast, I was roaming about the East coast, attacking Caribou patrols. I did that for a couple months until I ran into a resistance group, I fought alongside them for 2 years until I had gotten caught after we walked into an ambush. I was enslaved in Ponyville until several hours ago when I escaped and ran into the Everfree, and well... you know the rest.” Starlight responded
“Do you know what happened to that group afterwards?”
“No I don’t, I think they might have been destroyed, I noticed a decrease in soldiers around Ponyville.”
Alright, that’s good to know.
“If we’re going to be fighting together, I think we should know more about each other. I was born in a small village named Calmare, I lived there with a friend named Sunburst. We were great friends, after he got his cutie mark, he moved to Canterlot to attend a magic school. After a while I went to pretty much the middle of nowhere at the time and made a town where the Ponies that lived there had no cutie mark. Twilight Sparkle and her friends came to the town, I stole their cutie marks. Soon after the Ponies there had enough and rose up against me. I fled into the nearby caves. I acquired a time travel spell and tried to stop Twilight from meeting her friends, she showed me the future, Equestria was a complete wasteland with no life whatsoever.”
“Interesting life story, I was born on the planet of New Eden, in the capital city of New Moscow. I really only had one friend, he joined the navy at age eighteen. My father was an early Bio-engineer and my mother was a secretary for some big corporation. After I graduated from college, I applied for a position for the Tokyo Biotech company, I got the job and soon after the company was acquired by the New Eden Defence force. We all got some basic survival and combat training. This pulse pistol they supplied us with is complete crap, the ammunition feed jams frequently, the weapon overheats way to quickly, and it requires a lot of maintenance to actually function. The only good thing about it is that it’s easy to disassemble for maintenance.”
We didn’t talk much after that, when we got to the castle, it was almost dark. The grey ruins of the castle was being overrun by vines and trees. The only way across was a small rickety wooden bridge. I looked back at Starlight before looking back at the bridge. I could see the bridge swing from side to side as we crossed it.
We entered the castle, most of the interior was still intact. We wandered around for a little bit before we found a room that was still intact. I pulled the MLCU off my back and set it on the floor. I never realized how tired I was until I was laying on the floor, sleep soon overcoming me and my world faded to black.
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After I awoke the next day, I picked up the MLCU, and reholstered my Pulse Pistol. I walked down the hallways of the ruins, I eventually came to what appeared to be a throne room, several holes were in the ceiling and the back wall. Other than that, it was a pretty secure room. I again, set down the MLCU, this time however I activated it. A holographic keyboard was projected in front of me. I looked through several controls until I found the activation menu.
Huh, it appears that Skirmisher DNA is already inserted into this. They won’t be useful in melee combat, they should be great as a recon unit though.
I activated it fully and a timer popped up, showing how long until the first batch of Skirmishers will be ready. The timer read, 5 hours, 48 minuets, 32 seconds . I heard my stomach grumble, that’s when it hit me that we had no food supplies, we we’re either going to have to find it or steal it from the nearby village of Ponyville. As I turned around, Starlight has walked into the room, now with a full set of clothes, don’t know where she got it from but, I’m not going to question it at the moment , she walked over to where I was and asked me what I was doing.
“I’m just setting up the MLCU, it’s going to take about 6 hours for the first batch of Skirmishers to finish. I did notice however, that we have no food, I’m kinda doubting that there’s food nearby.” I told Starlight.
“Umm, I don’t think so, the only place close by with food would be Ponyville.” Starlight responded.
“Well, we could either try to hunt something in the forest around us, or we could try and sneak in during the night and steal some food from Ponyville.”
“The main problem i can see with heading to Ponyville is that your the only one with a weapon, and like you said, it’s not that great.”
“I’m thinking that we could try and make some crude weapons, or we find a way to head northeast towards the Gryphons and try to buy weapons from them.”
“Maybe going to Ponyville will be safer, Sweet Apple Acres has its fields extending to the edge of the Everfree, I think that would be easier that hunting a Manticore.”
“What’s a Manticore?”
“A Manticore is a big lion with bat wings and a scorpion tail, trust me you don’t want to run in to one of those.”
“That’s good to know. So, we’re heading to Sweet Apple Acres at nightfall.”
Starlight nodded and walked off, back down the corridor she came from. I pulled out my pistol and began to disassemble it to try and fix the jam.
Fall of the Caribou: First Strike
Chapter 3: An old Friend.
I’ve been walking for a little while now, avoiding Timber wolves and the odd Caribou patrol, patrols getting more frequent the closer I got to Ponyville. The occasional chirping of birds and the rustling of ferns as I walked, suddenly everything went really quiet, way to quiet to be normal, I pulled out my pistol, and crouched down in the tall ferns, listening for Caribou or something else. A loud crackling, like a plasma grenade going off came from my left, about 25 meters away.
What the hell was that?
I decided to investigate the noise, because if I heard it, most likely the Caribou did too. On the way there i didn’t encounter any patrols whatsoever, when I arrived, I saw a body on the ground, a Stallion by the looks of it. I looked around for any signs of Caribou, seeing none, I carefully ran over there, then dragged him back into the dense undergrowth of this part of the forest, what struck me as odd however, was that he was wearing the same amulet that Dr. Bright wore.
This has to be a coincidence, right? Their is no way it’s the exact same amulet.
After a few minutes, a patrol showed up to the pathway.
Their was three of them, the first one had two red stripes on his chest plate and helmet, the other two had had the same steel armor as the first one, just with out the stripes.
“What do you think hit the Magi trap Corporal?” The second soldier asked.
“I don’t know private, what ever it was, it ain’t here anymore.” The Corporal responded.
I’m going to have to let them past, these seem like proper soldiers, not whatever I fought yesterday, also with how unreliable this weapon is, I don’t think I could survive a confrontation.
They searched around for a little bit before heading back that way they came, I was brought out of thought when the Stallion I dragged off woke up with a weak groan. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up at me, his eyes widened like he knew me.
“Adam, you survived?” He said
“I don’t remember ever meeting you before, how do you know my name, who are you?” I asked him.
He stood up, “It’s me, Jack Bright, this amulet here,” he lifts his amulet up to my eye level,“Is SCP-963, the original owner of this body had picked up and ran. He had put it on, and that’s when I took over his body, then I stepped on some Landmine, knocking me unconscious.” He responded.
“I’m going to need some proof, tell me something only Bright would know?”
“We’ve been working together for 12 years at the Toky Bio-Engineering facility on New Eden, in the city of New Moscow.” Bright spoke with confidence.
“Well then Bright, let’s go. I’ll explain what’s been happened recently from what Starlight has told me.”
“Who’s Starlight?”
“I’ll get to that during the explanation, now come on, were wasting time here.” I told him as we walked closer towards Ponville.