An A.I’s tale
Chapter 4: I’ve got a bad feeling about this
Previous ChapterNext ChapterWhen we arrived in Cog City it was starting to get dark, we were heading towards the landing pads, where an Equestrian Government helicopter was waiting for Luna. The helicopter was quieter than I expected it to be, it was still loud mind you, when we boarded it the Co-pilot called Luna to the front of it and told her something that I couldn’t hear over the sound of the blades. The physical appearance of the craft reminded me of a UH-1 Huey, complete with door gunners and twin mini guns on the side.
Luna came back and sat down across from me told me something as we took off, “Change of plans John, Celestia wants to have a word with you at the Palace.”
“What do you think it’s about, I thought she wanted to destroy sentient A.I?”
“She’ll most likely want to see personally if your intentions are good like I said they were.”
The entirety of the flight only took about half an hour before we landed at the Canterlot Airbase, as
we hopped off the helicopter four Equestrian Marine Corps personal were there waiting to escort us to the throne room. The uniforms of the soldiers were in an urban camo style, with whites, grays, and blacks.
The weapons seemed very similar to the AK-12 that the Russians use.
The palace was absolutely massive, the corridors were like a maze, it would be almost impossible for someone to escape this place unassisted. When we arrived at the door to the throne room, I was told to wait outside as Luna and two of the soldiers went into the room. As I was waiting I inspected the one of the rifles more closely from where I was, the weapon seemed to have a 30 round magazine, and a partial stock similar to the one on the Aks-74U, and if the measuring tool was correct, it seemed to be firing 6.45x38mm rounds. I didn’t get a further chance to inspect it because the doors opened and a single soldier stepped, pointed at me and motioned for me to go into the room behind her, “Celestia wishes to see you now.”
I entered the room and the door closed behind me, I approached the throne and kneeled down to show respect.
“You may rise, John. I have a few questions to ask you.” Celestia said in an authoritative yet not quite as harsh voice.
“Fire away Princess, I’ll answer your questions to the best of my abilities.”
“Good, First, who created you?”
“No one Ma’am, I died in my previous life and woke up here as an A.I.”
“I hope you know I find that hard to believe.”
“I know, if you could look at my memory you could see in telling the truth, unless I had a projector of some sort I am unable to so.”
“I can have a guard bring in one, onto the second question, what is your intentions here in Equestria, however if I find out your lying I’ll make you wish you were still dead.”
“My only intention is survival, and I’ve calculated my best chance would be an alliance with Equestria.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live, this brings me to my next question, if you were attacked by an Equstrian citizen, would you kill them.”
“I would only kill if I absolutely had to, I would try to incapacitate them with minimal harm coming to them.”
I was questioned for at least a couple hours before the projector had arrived, Luna must have left at some point because when I looked over to where she was sitting before, she wasn’t there. I made a wireless connection to the device and proceeded to replay the events from when i died to just after I had construction of my Moth scouts.
“Could you explain more about your death, it’s evident that an explosion happened, but how?”
“Well, I assume it was an attack by a terrorist force, after the explosion my vehicle had flipped and a piece of shrapnel from another vehicle had pierced one of my legs and the other got crushed by something else, I bled out very quickly, thank god.”
Our conversation had gone for about another hour or so, her body language changing from that of hostility to more of a neutral look.
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Perspective change: PFC. Silver Wing
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I looked over the plains of southern Germaney, there was no movement, just like every other night. I went inside of the radar station, I went over to the monitor where Ruby stationed. “Pvt. Ruby, are you picking up anything on radar?” I asked her.
“Still nothing sir, same as an hour a go.” Ruby replied
“Alright, keep me updated if anything changes.”
“Yes sir”
I walked back outside and on to the catwalk and looked back over the field. Pvt. Amber came out of the barracks on the other side of the catwalk and took up a position to my right. I kept looking over the fields for about 45 minutes, I was just about to clock the end of my shift when I saw a flash of light out in the field, CRACK, a round impacted Amber’s helmet, going straight through, then I heard the bang of the rifle.
“Sniper! Somewhere south!” I shouted as I ducked behind some sandbags, I dropped down from the catwalk and into the courtyard, I unslung my M18 rifle and started to run over to the command building when two Zebra Spetsnaz soldiers rushed around the front gate and into the courtyard, and opened fire on us, Pvt. Dusk and Pvt. Song were taken out almost immediately, I got into cover and returned fire, I hit one in the chest, killing him almost immediately. The other one fired before getting behind an T3 truck, several more came through the gate, they threw smoke in front of my position before they advanced.
Fuck, I need to warn High-Com, the radio is up in the radar tower, and I can’t get there, my only choice is to get out and run towards nearest outpost.
I ran through the secondary barracks and grabbed the only other Ponies here, a medic and a wounded soldier, we made it out the back of the compound and kept running north for several kilometers. By dawn we made it to Outpost Charlie 327, when we got the report through to High-Com, they already knew. Several sectors had already taken contact and had been overrun, reinforcements are being called in, we just needed to hold Outpost Charlie 327 and delay the Zebra Coalition’s advance.
