Chapter 7: Utguard’s Last Stand

The flight back to Utguard was setting up to be long and stressful. Even with command dispatching the other two pelicans, a move which Twilight overheard Byrne mutter about being ‘risky and stupid’ but ultimately the right call, it was standing room only inside the dropbay.

Or, well, mostly standing room, everyone not in a jumpseat was actually sitting on the floor with makeshift harnesses securing them incase of dramatic and sudden landings. Twilight is one of them, though considering her size and quadruped form she finds it a lot easier to just lay on the floor than in one of the seats. Currently, she has her head sans helmet resting on Eivor’s lap as he leans back to back with Natalie. Both of her human friends have their rifles nearby, Natalie cradling hers in her arms as she sleeps, and Eivor’s resting on the floor in front of him, his hands currently occupied with absently scratching behind Twi’s ears.

Far from being a demining gesture, Twilight can’t help but relax as the slow even pressure her friend is applying along her neck and behind her ear eases some of the tension and stress she is feeling. Were she in a more talkative mood, and in a better frame of mine, she might actually be able to voice the small part of her that is embarrassed that her tail is lazily flicking behind her, almost wagging like a dog at the feeling.

But perhaps not, that would mean he’d stop and Twilight honestly could use a little bit of physical comfort right now.

More so after the battle at the power station, then the trek through the wood and over a small mountain. By the time they had reached an area clear enough, and far enough away, for the Pelicans to land, it had been dark and rainy. And then, it had taken so long, that by the time they landed and everyone had gotten on board, it was well past midnight when they departed for Utguard.

And now it was an hour into the flight, the group going fast and low to the ground in an attempt to skirt screening forces the aliens had put out. It has so far worked, though from the quiet radio chatter Twilight can hear from her restored radio not all of the flights into the city were making it, and the trains were cut off as well.

“Do you think we’ll make it,” Twilight asks softly to no one in particular, causing the gentle pressure behind her ear to slow.

“I think we will,” Eivor states, “so long as we all stick together, do our part.”

“Trust in the person next to you, and they shall do the same,” Byrne states from nearby, causing one of Twilight’s ears to turn towards him, “do that and you’ll make it through, Sparks.”

“Can’t sleep, Sarge?” Twilight asks.

“No. We’re reaching the end of this whole shitshow, I can feel it,” the sergeant grumbles, “the air is thick with it. The muggy anticipation before the thunderstorm.”

Twilight frowns, and curls her tail around herself a bit tighter, “I feel it too. It’s the same sort of tension as before my brother’s wedding got attacked, and the city invaded.”

The Pelican goes quiet after that save for the sound of the engines and the quiet breathing of the passengers.

“Your home was invaded too?” one of the power workers asks hesitantly.

“A race of shapeshifters attacked, seeking to feed off of our emotions,” Twilight replies, her tone distant and eyes straight ahead. “I was there with my friends and family, we tried our best to fight them off… but in the end my brother and sister in law were the ones who repelled the invasion.”

“If not for the fact you’re a talking horse, I’d almost not believe you when you say a race that feeds off of emotions,” another of the power workers chuckles, then their tone grows somber. “Did you lose a lot of people… erm, ponies?”

“A few,” Twilight states softly, absently, “accidents during the invasion, mostly. The aim wasn’t to kill, apparently. You don’t kill your food source, after all.”

For a long moment the cabin falls to silence again, and Twilight nearly drifts off as the gentle petting starts up again, the very start of a dream about home filled with downy white feathers on her neck, before another voice speaks up.

“Why are the aliens attacking us, do you think?”

“Colonization, perhaps?” another replies

“But then why would they be destroying so much of the landscape?”

“Resources? Perhaps that’s all they want,”

“We’d be able to negotiate with them if that was it…”

The conversation fades into the background after that, the voices no longer really mattering to Twilight as she settles back down into Eivor’s lap, her eyes closing as she attempts to get even a little rest before landing in the capital again.

Back into a living hell.

The remaining flight time, about a half hour perhaps, is filled with barely remembered dreams of pillars of flame falling from the sky mixing with the soft scents of Bittish Tea and feelings of gentle morning sunlight.

The feeling of the Pelican landing brings her back to the world of the living, her body standing and stretching before her mind fully awakens. The ramp lowering brings with it the glow of bright flood lights and the chaotic swarm of voices that fill the area.

They let the civilian engineers go first, many running to embrace family, or to wade out into the crowd with fearful yet hopeful looks when they see none waiting.

By the time the last of the civilians are off Twilight has her gun and bags settled back on her back, and she trots down the ramp with a yawn mirrored by just about every single soldier around her.

Setting hoof onto the tarmac, she can see that the other two Pelicans have put down next to the one she arrived in, their engines whining shrilly as the ramjets power down, support crews swarming over them as civilians and soldiers exit. Many of her fellow militia quickly rush off to the comfort of their assembled families, her squad included, but with no one there to greet her Twilight simply wades through the tides of humanity around her towards the police station.

The walk there is a lot different than the walk out earlier, as in the ensuing hours a lot of the city has been fortified. The buildings on the way to the station have sandbags piled up in makeshift fortifications and bunkers, with the guns the civilians had scrounged up peeking out of murderholes or from beneath camouflage netting. And of course there are the civilians themselves, many wearing police or even old militia uniforms and combat equipment.

If she looks close enough, she can see the dust of some of their plate carriers leftover from the attics and trunks they had been stored in.

But then, even if many of them look past their prime, or their equipment is old and dusty, Twilight cannot help but take heart in all of them coming together to protect each other and defend their city.

For however long that city would stand, which with what Twilight had seen so far will not be long.

Many of them pay her no mind as she walks, a few call out in greeting or nod at her in passing. Even if she is not one of them, she is still fighting for them, and from what she had learned so far about humanity that counted for a lot.

Reaching the police station she has to stop a moment to take in the fortress that it has become, the entire first floor is encased in sandbags shored up with what looks to be fresh rough timbers. Light peeks out of a few of the small openings, and she can see and hear people moving around inside. And even looking up towards the second story and the roof, she can see additional sandbag emplacements perched inside windows, and ringing the roof, heavy looking guns and what looks to perhaps be an anti-aircraft gun that should by rights be in a museum complete the station’s transition into military outpost.

Shaking herself, and trying to fight back the fatigue clinging to her mind and body, she goes for the entrance and is allowed inside by a pair of grim faced police officers, their faces shrouded beneath cloth masks and helmets, and into the interior of the busy chaos within. It takes her a further few minutes to make her way through the crowd of civilians lining up to get weapons or ammo, and by the time she reaches the armory desk she is informed she needs to keep her kit with her, as Commander al’Cygni has ordered everyone be ready to fight at a moment’s notice.

Getting extra ammo for her rifle to replace what she had used, Twilight heads back to the lobby with the intent of finding a free cot until she is called up, but is stopped almost as soon as she reaches the room.

“Hey! Twilight, there you are,” a voice calls from nearby, causing Twi to stop and turn to watch her friend and squad leader push her way through the crowd of people in the area.

“Hey, Natalie,” Twilight replies with a tired smile, quickly followed by a yawn, “what’re you doing here? I saw you going off with your family, figured you’d be bedding down for the night.”

“I did, and we are, but I noticed you walking off, and well,” Natalie starts, frowning, “I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t offer you a warm campfire and a sleeping bag, you know? And I’d be a worse squad leader if I didn’t look after my troops.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Twilight says softly, ears lowering and tail going between her legs, “you all deserve to spend time with your loved ones and friends.”

“Well, you’re my friend, Twilight,” Natalie says as she comes over and kneels down, resting a hand on her withers, “and if I come back empty handed, my parents and wife will haul me back here and convince you that you’re family too. Okay? You might not be human, but that doesn't mean you don’t deserve comfort too, right?”

Twilight looks away for a moment, then sighs, nodding.

“Perhaps I’m just homesick,” the unicorn says softly, looking back to her friend with a smile, “too wrapped up in the friends I am missing to remember the friends I’ve made.”

“Wise words,” Natalie agrees as she pats Twilight’s withers, “now, lets get out of here. There’s warm food, warm drinks, and warm beds at my family’s little campout.”

Finding no real excuse to refuse the offer, Twilight nods and follows after her friend, who leads her from the police station turned fortress, and back into the night.

Natalie leads her through the late night activity around the station, and towards a long park-like stretch of grass that cuts down the center of the planetary capital. Known as “The Mall” locally, it serves as both a local park and an area dedicated to monuments and memorials for early settlers of the planet. Now, however, it hosts a vast expanse of tents and other non-permanent structures.

The pair pass by everything from medical tents, which are currently filled with doctors tending to patience from the outlying settlements, to large tents filled with the smells of food and drink and the echoing laughter of its occupants.

The destination turns out to be a large collection of tents arranged in an open semi-circle. A large fire pit in the center of the circle surrounded by pillows, blankets, and camping chairs seems to be the main hub for the tents and is full of not just the members of Natalie’s family she had met before but others she had heard described and even a few of Twilight’s squad. The pair only make it a few steps into the firelight before Natalie is nearly thrown from her feet as a figure launches herself at her with a happy laugh.

“Took you long enough!”

“Sorry, Twilight here is easy to lose in a crowd,” Natalie laughs before kissing her wife, “are you off for the rest of the evening? Or are they going to drag you back to the medical tent?”

The pair step further into the firelight and Twilight is able to get a good look at the woman who has her arm around her wife.

She’s slightly shorter than Natalie, being perhaps five four or so in the human measurements, she has a pair of military pants, a bright blue medical shirt, and a jacket. All of it immaculately clean, as is her dark hair which is tied up in a tight tail that trails down over one shoulder. She looks tired, too, her happy expression ruined a bit by the dark circles around her eyes.

“Nah, they gave me the night off, something about working nearly seventy-two hours straight being bad for my health,”

“Sarah, I swear sometimes,” Natalie laughs, “glad they made you take a break, need to get in some time with you before it all goes to hell in a handbasket tomorrow.”

Twilight continues onward as the two continue to talk and flirt, her ears lowering a little as the pair’s laughs summon forth memories of a laugh her heart aches to hear. As she gets deeper into the camp, the others greet her with smiles, waves, and nods before quickly shepherding her to an open spot around the campfire.

The instant she is off her hooves, she feels all her muscles relax and she lets loose a yawn. She shakes herself and levitates her rifle off to a nearby table currently covered in the rest of the group’s weapons, and then removes and places her helmet beside her.

Yawning again she reaches into one of her saddlebags, and starts to pull an MRE out, only to have her hoof swatted by a wooden spoon lightly.

“None of that pre-packaged food, young lady,” a voice comes from above Twi, causing her to look up at the older woman on the other end of the spoon.

“I don’t want to be a bother, Ma’-” Twilight starts, only to get lightly booped on the nose by the smiling woman.

“What did I say about calling me ma’am?”

“Sorry, Mary, but it’s late and you shouldn’t have to go out of your way to get me food when I have my MREs,”

“It’s not a matter of having to Twilight, it’s a matter of a young lady such as yourself being here and hungry. I’m not going to let you go hungry,” Mary states as she sets a paper plate of what looks to be warm pasta in front of Twilight. “Here, it’s not much, but it’ll taste better and be better for you than those drain stoppers the marines call MREs.”

Chuckling softly to herself, Twilight closes her saddlebag and picks up the fork on the plate with her magic. Digging into the food, Twilight admits to herself that while this normally wouldn’t be all that much, or really anything to write home about, it is perhaps the most delicious thing she’s eaten in a while.

But then, military rations leave a lot to be desired.

As she eats those of her squad present gather around the fire and go about their own business, many of them eating the same home cooked meal Twilight is. Natalie and her wife end up opposite the fire from her, a large blanket wrapped around their shoulders as they both quietly stare into the fire and relax.

The sight of her friend and her wife causes Twilight to slow in her eating, her ears lowering a little as her mind drifts to her own family and the distance between them and her. It drifts through all those she cannot see for a bit, before settling once more on memories of her dream from earlier. Memories of the scent of tea, of warm sunlight.

Of soft white feathers.

Soon enough her mind is brought back to the present when she finishes her food and helps clean up from the cooking -- Natalie’s mom tells her she doesn’t have to, but Twilight won’t take no for an answer -- and then finds herself a place to set up the small survival tent she has with her.

It doesn’t take long for her to get it up, and soon she finds herself inside, curled up inside a sleeping back and drifting into Luna’s realm.

As the darkness closes in around her, Twilight silently prays to the lunar princess that her dreams are quiet and safeguarded against the horrors of her waking world.

In an instant, Twilight’s eyes were open.

The camp is quiet, saved for muffled conversation outside, the words indistinct but hurried. Twilight struggles to get her mind and body to focus enough to understand what is being talked about.

Rising, her body sluggish and sore, she opens the tent and stumbles out into the foggy cold air beyond, finding Natalie and al’Cygni talking hurriedly next to the smoldering campfire.

“Are you sure? Could this be a trick by the aliens?” Natalie asks, her tone hushed and worried.

“We can’t be sure, but if it’s real, we can’t waste this opportunity,” The commander replies. She looks like she wants to continue, but spots Twilight. “Ah, good, you’re awake, Recruit Sparkle, there’s a situation we need you help with.”

“How may I help, Commander?” Twilight asks slowly, yawning.

“About a half hour ago there was a spike in radiation near the outskirts of the city,” al’Cygni explains as she pulls out a datapad and offers it to Twilight. “Initial reports stated there was a bright flash followed by the appearance of gold-clad equines of different kinds.”

Twilight nearly drops the datapad as she hears this, her heart hammering, “Do you have pictures?”

Ignoring the demanding tone in Twilight’s voice, al’Cygni nods, “They’re on the datapad.”

Twilight wastes no time in opening the pictures attached to the report, her heart all but stopping as she spots Royal Guards issuing forth through what looks to be a portal of some sort. What's more, as she goes through the photos, she can see the tip of a white horn in one, and the blade of a polearm towering over the guards that she has only seen once in the royal armory.

“She’s here…” Twilight whispers softly, “she came for me.”

“Who, Twilight?” Natalie asks, looking over Twilight’s shoulder to the pictures.

“Princess Celestia, my mentor! She’s here! That’s her personal weapon!” Twilight says excitedly, tears forming in her eyes, “She’s here! She-” Twilight pauses, eyes wide, “Wait… Commander if you could pick up the radiation spike than…”

“So did the Covenant, yes,” al’Cygni reports, calmly, “they’ve started their advance towards the city, they’ll be here soon.”

“Oh my gosh! No, we have to get out to the Princess and her escort! We can’t let the Covenant get to her!” Twilight shouts as she starts grabbing the parts of her kit she had taken off the night before. “Commander, if they find her-”

“It’ll be a blow to your nation,” al’Cygni states with a nod, “I’ve already sent Johnson and a group of the militia out, but if you want to go I won’t stop you.”

Twilight is already galloping out of the camp, her saddlebags halfway on and her helmet rattling around on her head as she continues to try and strap everything on at once.

Twilight rushes past civilians and militia alike, their faces blurred and indistinct in her haste to get towards the nav point her hud is showing her. She can hear shouting behind her, but her ears are filled with her own heavy breathing and the sounds of her heart hammering in her chest, a drumbeat only broken by the occasional sound of her armored hooves sliding across pavement as she skids around corners or tries to reverse course at a wrong turn.

Before long, she can hear equestrian military callouts ahead, and her heart nearly stops as she hears one voice in particular rising up above all the others.

“Hold the line my little ponies!” Celestia’s voice echoes above the din of battle, the sound causing Twilight to redouble her efforts to get to her mentor.

The final street feels like it takes an eternity as she dodges between militia and even Royal Guard rushing in both directions and around rubble. A few times she nearly trips as she dodges around those in her way. Her luck runs out when she runs straight into a pothole at the end of the roadway, her hoof catching and sending her tumbling sideways into a royal guard.

As she picks herself up, she notes in passing the guard isn’t moving, and has needler rounds sticking out of his side.

Once she’s back on her hooves, she can see Celestia in the middle of the fight, her polearm swinging in wide arcs as she shouts commands to the guard tightly packed around her. The aliens are doing their best to break the line, though, and Twilight can see the shields of the unicorn guards flagging beneath the onslaught of plasma and crystalline rounds.

“Princess!” Twilight calls out, rushing forward, heart beating harder as she sees the cracks in the guard’s shields growing. Her shout causes Celestia’s head to whip around, and for a split second Twilight’s heart skips a beat as she sees unbridled joy fill her teacher’s eyes, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth.

Twilight runs faster, but right as she is about to reach the pile of rubble Celestia is on, there is a sound like a whip cracking and the shield shatters as a lance of purple plasma breaches it and strikes Celestia in the head right at the base of her horn.

The large white alicorn stumbles for a moment, her wings fluttering in an attempt to keep her upright before her eyes go unfocused and she falls.

As her mentor falls, Twilight lets out a loud scream, the sound echoing through the area for a brief moment before it is cut off by the sensation of someone grabbing her from behind. She is pulled backwards as the ring of Royal Guards is overwhelmed in their attempts to defend their fallen monarch.

“Twilight! Twilight it’s okay! Wake up!” Natalie shouts through the sounds of Twilight’s own heartbeat. The scene starts to darken as Twilight hyperventilates. The last thing she sees before she loses sight of the battle is Celestia’s unfocused eyes staring up at her.

Sitting upright suddenly, Twilight flails and falls on her side in panic, fear overtaking the logical side of her brain. All she can feel is the constricting arms around her and she struggles to get out of their embrace.

“Twilight, calm down,” Natalie states from nearby, and Twilight looks over to her, breathing hard as she blinks, “It was just a nightmare.”

Twilight flails a bit more, but starts to calm down as her mind catches up to the fact that she’s awake, primarily because she fell on something hard when she fell on her side. Once she stops struggling she realizes she’s tangled up in her sleeping bag, and blushes a little, her ears lowering as she looks over at her friend with a sheepish smile.

“Sorry, I uh, that doesn’t normally happen,” Twilight states softly, not quite meeting Natalie’s eyes.

“Don’t worry about it, it happens to the best of us,” the human replies, before frowning, “but as much as I’d like to tell you that you can get back to sleep, the sun's going to rise soon and we need to be up and eating.”

Nodding slowly, ears taking on a bit of a purple-red tinge, Twilight rubs a foreleg over her eyes and yawns.

“Okay, I’ll be right out,”

“See that you are, we can’t be late,” Natalie says softly before allowing the tent-flap to lower back into place.

Twilight stays laying on her side for a moment, her ears splayed out in both shame and residual anxiety.

For a moment, she isn’t quite sure if she’s out of the dream, or if her mind is playing yet another cruel trick on her. The pain could simply be a construct of her traumas, and her overactive imagination, right?

But she won’t figure out if that’s the case laying in the seclusion of her tent, so with a nickering sigh, Twilight untangles herself from her sleeping bag and pulls on her armor. Once that is accomplished, she attaches her rifle to its magnetic attachment point next to her helmet and heads out into the pre-dawn air.

Beyond the safety of her tent, she finds her squad leader and the rest of her squad all sitting around the fire, Natalie’s mom cooking and filling the air with the sweet scent of food. Trying desperately not to drool, Twilight walks forward as her stomach rumbles loudly.

Without a word a plate is handed over to her as she sits down, and her heart skips a beat as she sees it’s stacked high with pancakes and fruit, the scent of sugary syrup filling her nose as she holds the plate in her wavering magic. Her mind turns once more to her dream, mixing with memories of early mornings at the big table in Celesita’s study.

She can still distantly smell the scent of fresh parchment and the leftover smell of the evening’s fire. The happy smile on her mentor’s face as she carries in two plates of pancakes she herself had made, pancakes just like these.

Once more, she can feel her heart breathing in her ears, her vision clouding with her mentor’s smile. The warmth of it lost on her beside the fact she likely will never see her again.

Before the spiral can get too deep, however, a warm mug of tea is placed beside her. Her nose quickly picks up the scent of slightly over-steeped English Breakfast, and the spiral starts to slow before leveling out. She blinks a few times, wiping at her eyes with the back of a foreleg while everyone else studiously pretends to have not seen the tears.

Breakfast passes quickly after that, with a side of toast and eggs ending up with Twilight as well. All of it is eaten happily, by Twilight and all the others around her. They can’t take a lot of the food with them, weight and space have to be saved for people, and food takes up both.

As soon as they’re all finished eating, paper plates are discarded into the fireplace, weapons and armor are shouldered, and the group starts their trek through the dying city towards the towering spaceport and elevator at its heart. The only electrical lights shining in the city come from that building, the sputtering beat of the ancient reactors buried deep in the landlocked ship’s corridors providing the only power left for the city’s final stand.

It takes them a half hour to navigate towards the spaceport, thousands of civilians likewise shuffling towards it hamper progress, as families do their best to rationalize what they’re taking with them, and linger around what they are forced to leave behind.

Twilight’s ears twitch and turn the entire time, picking up snippets of quiet conversation amongst the humans all around her. Shame fills her a bit as she cannot help but hear parents talking to their children, assuring them they’ll be alright and that this won’t last forever. Husbands and wives talking quietly about the lives they’re leaving, and the elderly speaking on the lives they had lived and the sweat and blood they had spilled and shed to erk out the start of this colony they had called home.

And yet with all the buzz of quiet conversation all around her, Twilight’s squad, and in fact all the soldiers they pass or who join their little procession towards the spaceport, are silent. No one talks, no one greets any of those they pass by or offers comfort. All of them are focused on the grand structure they are approaching, minds doubtlessly turned towards the coming day, and the conflict they’ll soon find themselves in.

Many likely wonder if they’ll live to see the planet they’re all going to evacuate to.

Before Twilight can dwell too much on her own thoughts of seeing the next planet, or even her homeworld, again her hooves touch the steps to the spaceport, bringing her back to the present.

Up close the building is clearly a repurposed Phoenix-Class, it’s large windows and large launch bays with their faded paint still naming the ship as UNSC Skidbladnir. As they ascend the stairs towards a large entrance built into the side of the planetbound ship, the ground rumbles and there is the distant whine and roar of a truly massive engine, the lights around them glowing brighter in the misty early morning light.

“They’re running the engine to keep the batteries charged,” Red mutters, “the thing is so old I’m surprised they can even get it lit.”

“She might be old, but she’s a loyal ol’ workhorse,” Natalie chuckles, the light hearted nature of it dispelling a little of the tense air.

“Truly a feat of engineering, if I ever saw one,” Twilight offers softly, “sad I never got to see this ship up close until we’re right about to leave.”

There is a general round of agreement, and a little conversation about the ship’s story as they reach the top of the stairs and make it into the interior.

The large spacious area they walk into must have, at one point, been a cargo bay as the ceiling is thirty, perhaps more, meters about Twilight’s head and as she stares up at it she can still see the lines of skycranes that had once moved heavy items about the area. Now it is full of benches and tables, truly massive glass windows spanning the area the doors used to be, allowing the sunlight to drift into the entrance terminal.

Today, the benches and tables that normally held passengers and new arrivals to the planet are all gone, save for the ones literally built into the floor, and the entire area is covered in military equipment, tents, stacks of crates, and people. Not all of them are wearing UNSC Uniforms, some are simply civilians, but there are also scattered groups of armed soldiers that are clearly not militia, police, or any combination of the two.

Those groups are glaring at the UNSC personnel and police, and are getting glares in return, though so far nothing more than that seems to have happened.

Twilight’s group, for its part makes its way through the chaos and past the security checkpoints usually for the departing passengers, which are now staffed by a combination of police and military, and towards one of the starship hangers.

The hanger they walk into is about how Twilight would imagine it, a smattering of small civilian spacecraft all throughout in various states of repair or damage, large containers scattered about with humans working on various tasks. In the center of it all, however near a rather badly damaged pelican, is Commander al’Cygni along with Ponder, Johnson, and Byrne. Another man and a few others are on the other side of the table the Commander is at, and from the shouting they can hear as they get closer whatever conversation is happening isn’t going so well.

“I cannot allow you to stay behind with military weaponry, and that’s final,” Commander al’Cygni all but shouts as she glares over the table at the man opposite her, “I know you know how to handle yourselves, but we’re evacuating everyone. I don’t care if you don’t trust me, or want to continue to plant your flag on a burning hill, you’re coming with us.”

“And face what? Arrest? Execution after a show trial? Commander al’Cygni, I thought ONI officers were smarter than that,” the man across from her frowns, “you’re going to have to do better if you want to convince me to go. Besides, you and I both know the less of my forces on those freighters, the more civilians you can cram on there, and I think we both can agree that civilians are worth far more.”

al’Cygni looks about ready to argue when Twilight’s squad arrives at the table, all of them saluting and standing at attention, causing the conversation to halt at the table.

“Militia Squad One-Charlie reporting for duty, Ma’am,” Natalie says crisply as she lowers her salute.

“Corporal,” the Commander sighs, “I hope you had a good night’s sleep, because chances are that’s the last one you’re going to get for a good long while. We’re going to be attaching a strap to you, as we need recruit Sparkle’s magic to help our casualty clearing.”

“Who are you attaching to us, ma’am?”

“Petty Officer First Class Healy,” al’Cygni states, “he along with medics from our dear insurrectionist friends here, will be running a casualty clearing point here in one of the hangers, however we cannot send out MedEvacs, as all civilian and military air capable craft are being used to keep the skies clear. That leaves us with one option.”

“You want me to teleport casualties around the city, right?” Twilight asks, a little hesitation in her voice.

“Yes, we wouldn’t be asking this of you if it wasn’t important, Recruit,” al’Cygni sighs, “your ability to teleport will help us save lives, and at this point you’re the best asset I have to keep our medics safe.”

“You can count on me, Commander,” Twilight says grimly.

“I still can’t believe you’ve got a talking alien horse in your forces,” the man across from the commander states, coming closer towards Twilight and causing everyone to tense up, “but if you’ve not shot at us yet, and she hasn’t shot you, you can’t be all bad.”

“Sir, I’ve been caught up in this war as much as you have,” Twilight replies, frowning beneath her cloth mask.

“Yes, I recall hearing from my informants you were there, at the disastrous peace meeting,” the man says, crouching down as he continues to ignore the fact multiple UNSC personnel now have their hands on their rifles, “they also say you’re smart, little horse, so tell me; as an outsider, what is your assessment of our little predicament?”

Twilight looks over to al’Cygni and the other leadership with her, and the Commander subtly nods to her.

“You’re fucked,” Twilight states simply, causing everyone to flinch slightly at the tone, “their technology far outpaces yours, they’ve got air and space superiority right now, and they’ve begun to systematically destroy every city and settlement on the planet. And that’s just one ship, how many more do you think they have?”

For a long moment the room is quiet, everyone seeming to stop and watch as the Insurrectionist leader stares at Twilight his eyes narrowed.

“Daniels, don’t you dare,” al’Cygni growls, breaking the silence.

“No, no Commander, I like her,” Daniels states softly, a thoughtful smile on his face, “she’s got guts, I see why you let her carry a weapon.”

He then stands up and puts his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, “Look, little pony, I like you. You’re pretty much right, but we’re still not going to give up. If they came to your home, started killing your friends and family, would you run?”

Twilight looks up at Daniels and frowns, “No. No I would fight them until I died or they did. But that’s also why I am leaving with the UNSC, I can’t let them find my home.”

“And that, my little purple friend, is exactly why we’re staying. You have to protect your home, and so do we,” He states softly before turning to look at al’Cygni, “you make sure she gets off the planet, Commander, you’re going to need people like this one if you’re going to make it out of whatever shitstorm these aliens are going to kickup.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the Commander sighs, rolling her eyes, “in any event, Corporal, you and your squad are dismissed, the Petty Officer will update you on the specifics when you get to the bay he’s in,” she taps a button on her datapad and a waypoint appears on the group’s HUD, “this’ll lead you to your destination. Good luck, and I’ll see you on the freighters.”

Offering one last salute, Twilight and her squad turn and make their way out of the hangar and into the corridors of the ship turned spaceport. The hallways are cramped and dark, with personnel rushing up and down them with the occasional shout of “Make a hole!” echoing down the corridor as someone with an important task rushes past. More than once, in the ten minutes it takes them to navigate through the cramped space, the lights flare and flicker as the entire structure vibrates as the engines spin up to vent exhaust from the reactors.

Moving into the next hanger through a blast door, the thick doors wedged open with what looks to be a combination of steel pipes and wood, they are met with chaos beyond anything they’d seen in the corridors or the outside.

The entire space, which Twilight can only guess is perhaps the size of downtown ponyville, is filled with medical equipment, tenting, and hundreds of people rushing about or laying on cots and stretchers. The air humming with a thousand different voices and the steady rhythmic sounds of the medical machines.

Moving deeper into the vast space, the sea of humanity parts and allows them deeper into the chaos, as they follow the nav marker towards their friend and soon to be squad mate. The journey is not an easy one, as they pass by people being worked on by medical staff and more than once Twilight has to breathe through her mouth to keep from gagging on the acrid stench of burned flesh and blood.

The earplugs and comms device only block out so much of the sounds of human suffering.

Eventually, they find their way to what had likely been a flight briefing room on the opposite side of the hanger to find Healy surrounded by medical personnel and maps, more than a few of the medics there are wearing the same sort of armor that the insurrectionists Twilight had seen earlier were wearing, but they have white armbands with red crosses on them denoting them clearly as medical personnel.

“You all know the city better,” Healy says to an Insurrectionist medic as they walk up, “are there any routes we can take under the streets? I know there were plans for a subway system early on in the colony’s development, but they scrapped it.”

“We continued working on even after it got scrapped, but it only covers parts of downtown, with a major station situated underneath the Mall,” the medic replies, drawing a line on the map with his finger, “but the entrances are sealed, we’ll need to open them up, likely with explosives.”

“That’ll let us get out medics at least closer to the front,” Healy states softly, frowning, “but I we’ll still need to cover a lot of the outskirts above ground.”

“That’s where we’ll come in, Healy,” Natalie states as she walks up and claps the medic on the shoulder, causing him to jump.

“Jesus, Corporal, warn me next time,” Healy shouts, “but… yes that is where you come in, or rather your purple pony friend.”

“Recruit Sparkle Taxi service, reporting for duty,” Twilight states as she comes up beside Healy and rears up to put her forehooves on the table so she can look at the map, “I hear you need my help?”

“I do, there’s a lot of area to defend, and even though the plan is to collapse progressively back onto the spaceport, we’re going to need to hold until we can collapse back here,” Healy says, tapping the map, which is actually paper, on the table. “So to that end, how much can you teleport at once? What’s your limit?”

“Well, back home I could teleport myself and five or six friends, so I’d say that’s my currently known limit, but I likely can do more if needed. Weight wise somewhere around two, three times my weight?”

“I know this is going to be rude, but how much do you weigh? I weighed you when you first arrived but I doubt all that training hasn’t changed it,” Healy offers with a smirk.

“Well, good thing I’m not my friend Rarity, she’d tell you it’s terribly rude to ask a lady her weight,” Twilight laughs, “but I think at this point I’m something like three-hundred, three-fifty kilograms? Out of armor at least, in armor I’m likely closer to near four hundred?”

The table goes quiet for a moment, which is broken up by one of the insurrectionist medics whistling.

“Ma’am, I’m glad you’re on our side, because if you’re telling me you can break space-time with something like six-hundred to nine-hundred kilograms of weight I never want to get on your bad side.”

Twilight blushes and nickers, drawing a circle on the table with a hoof, “Well, I mean, it’s not that much. My mentor moves an entire star so I really think in comparison to that I’m a bit of a light weight.”

“Sparks, your mentor is pony God, it’s not the same,” Healy sighs.

“I… okay I’ll give you that,” Twilight sighs, “so, what’s the plan? Or do you all want to keep talking about how I could bench press a tank?”

“Besides wanting a practical demonstration of that? No, no we are going to move onto the division of forces,” Healy states, looking back to the map, “so we can’t cover everything, the city and the defensive line are too big for that, but we can station medical evac teams throughout the city using the subway system as a launch point to and from the spaceport. So here’s what we’re going to do…”

The next hour is filled with planning, as Twilight and the rest of her squad get broken up into different units and mixed with the insurrectionists to help protect the field medics. Twilight herself is assigned to the squad with Healy, along with Natalie and a grim looking Insurrectionist medic who can’t be any older than her but wears far too many years in his eyes.

Once squads are made, they all rush off to their rally points, which for Twilight and her little group involves going deep into the bowels of the landlocked ship, opening a door covered in dust and cobwebs, and entering the abandoned transit system beneath the city. They are followed by technicians and marines to secure and power the station off of the reactor in the spaceport, the lights flickering on as Twilight and company make their way down the center of the rough-hewn tunnel.

It takes them a further half hour to get to the end of the line, the massive form of an abandoned tunneler filling the end of the tunnel beneath the Mall. The sheer size of it causes Twilight to pause, as she looks over the mass of dusty conveyors and rock crushers, all capped off with a drill bit the size of a small house. At its heart, barely visible through the tangled web of steel garters and walkways, Twilight can see the cold dead heart of the beast in the form of a fission reactor not reawakened in a decade.

Moving off to the side of it, the group comes to the unfinished station at the end of the line, which is a cavernous space with a large platform with stairs leading up to what Twilight would guess is the Mall. There is sunlight filtering in through the doorway at the top of the stairs, with the smell of ozone and blast marks around it giving evidence at the recent reopening of the entryway. They make their way up onto the rough stone and steel pads that make up the station’s platforms, and set up a small camp to make ready and wait for the battle to start.

Their little campsite is nothing more than some camping lights, a portable heater, and a radio one of the Insurrectionists carried along with an antenna that he sets up at the entrance to the mall.

They all gather around the radio and the heater, and listen to the orders floating around through the radio waves, the crackling static of the ancient radio lending a familiar quality for Twilight, reminding her of the nascent radio broadcast system back home.

Celestia has one, a hulking thing of wood and copper, powered by magical crystals set into tubing. Celestia’s first address to the nation via the radio had been a magical moment for her, curled up in her mentor’s study in front of the hulking beast of a machine, the crackling tinny sound of her Princess reading the speech she had fretted over when she thought Twilight hadn’t been looking.

How she wished this radio was that radio right now.

“Exodus, this is Bravo, alien capital craft and escorts spotted on horizon,” a male voice comes over the radio, the crackling static nearly drowning him out for a second, “laser rangefinding clocks it in at way too fucking fast, it’ll be on the city soon.”

The announcement causes all the fur along Twilight’s neck and back to stand up. The aliens were nearly here, soon people were going to die. Hopefully, less with Twilight helping the medics. Perhaps, in some small way as the world of Harvest is tearing itself apart beneath the Alien’s onslaught, Twilight can put a bit of it back together by saving lives.

Time seems to slow down, the beating of Twilight’s heart feeling like it becomes an eternity as she focuses on breathing and checking over her gear mentally.

M three-nine-two DMR, check. Six spare fifteen round magazines, check. Magazine Drop Pouch, check. Two Infantry First Aid Kits? Check. Personal Aid Kit? Check. Combat Application Tourniquet? Check. MediFoam? Morphine? Water?

Check, check and check.

She’s about to go through the list a second time when the calls for aid start coming in.

The first clash starts on the eastern part of the city, a flanking force of tanks, recon vehicles, and infantry had come around and started to probe the defenses there, the police and insurrectionist forces repelling them after a few tense moments, calling out that the aliens are regrouping in a nearby quarry.

Soon after that reports flooded in from the other end of the city, closer to where Twilight and the others are, as a large contingent of the alien force along with their ship had come within firing range of the outskirts. The shouts over the radio are followed by the ground shaking and muted explosions, causing Twilight’s squad to tense.

“We need to get out there,” Natalie says, looking at the others.

“We’ll wait for the current barrage to stop,” Healy states, gathering his gear, “then take turns going out and coming back with wounded. Anyone who you think needs immediate evac to the spaceport can be handled by Twilight and her teleportation.”

There is a chorus of ‘yes sir’ from the soldiers, along with a few ‘okay, navy boy,’ from the insurrectionists as everyone gets up and readies themselves.

Twilight herself puts her helmet on, and tightens the straps on her makeshift plate carrier, grunting a little as the heavy load she is carrying shifts around a little on her sides and back. As soon as her helmet is on, she boots up the hud in the visor, and goes through one last mental checklist as it boots.

As soon as the HUD has booted, the group is out the door and into the strange twilight the city has fallen under. The darkness confuses Twilight for a moment, the clock on her visor reading it only being near Noon, but a quick check of her surroundings shows that the massive alien craft that had destroyed Gladshiem is hovering directly in front of the sun to the West, as well as a thick blanket of black acrid smoke filling the air from doubtlessly hundreds of fires.

Sounds of battle and screams fill the air, too, only barely dampened by the ear protection in her helmet.

She has little time to process any of this, though, as her squad is quickly moving towards a waypoint from Healy once they’re all on the surface. As soon as it’s there, all of them start making their way through the abandoned tent city on the Mall, many of the temporary structures knocked over or totally destroyed by errant fire from the aliens or defenders.

The area is thankfully free of bodies, though quite a few of the prepared positions she’d seen set up earlier are nothing more than smoking ruins at the moment. More than a few of the alien’s aircraft seem to have plowed trenches, with one even having impacted a high rise building, so the positions had at least done their job. The downed craft does force them to pick their way through a small maze of debris though, and slows their journey just enough that the defenders are already falling back to the secondary line of defense by the time they’re free of the mall.

Unlike the first line, which was set into the outskirts of the city, the secondary line of defense is a collection of prepared positions stretching between and even into buildings. Cars, trucks, large utility vehicles covered in sandbags, concrete barriers, and oddly even logs and wooden boards, all thrown together into thick barricades for which the defenders can fight from.

Twilight herself had seen them being constructed when she had glanced at one of the CCTV screens in the command center during the briefing. They wouldn’t hold forever, but they didn’t need to.

Twilight and her squad find themselves dashing into a pharmacy, the windows boarded up and reinforced with sandbags, turned into a casualty clearing station.

In other words straight into Tartarus made manifest.

The first thing to hit Twilight is the smell, which she had actually started noticing a block away, her sense of smell being more acute than her human friends. An acidic, coppery-iron smell that leaves her mouth full of memories of when she had licked a potato battery in primary school. She knows it’s the smell of blood, but she can also smell the putrid scent of death, and the sterile desperation of cleaning chemicals attempting to keep the whole place clean enough to operate.

Then there’s the screaming, which truthfully is something she can’t say she had ever experienced in her life. Ever. The soul-wrenching, desperation in each cry for help, each sobbing begging demand for loved ones. All of it digs at Twilight’s heart and does its best to claw into her heart and shake her willpower, stopping her from going forward.

However, the instant she is past the front door of the pharmacy and sees all the people who need her help, she steels herself to wade into the sea of human suffering to find the ones she needs to help first.

With Healy at her side, Twilight is able to wade through the chaos, both of them quickly checking the tags attached to shirts or pants, Twilight pausing every once and a while when a red tag is found so she can remove the tag and teleport the critically injured person to the medical ward back at the spaceport. She does her best to tune out their injuries, and cries for help, as she focuses on her work, her mind focusing on the math required to get humans that look no older than her to safety and hopefully life saving aid.

The worst part is there are far more black tags than there are red, and more than a few red she has to change over to black before her squad is called out to do casualty evacuation on the line.

The entire time in the pharmacy is a blur, and Twilight feels like she doesn't really breathe or think until her hooves touch the asphalt. She actually pauses on the sidewalk, and starts taking deep breaths, ears flat against her head as tries to shove the sights and smells she saw inside into the back of her mind. But, whatever mental filing cabinet in her mind she normally shoves these things into is currently full to bursting, and it takes a soft hand on her withers to bring her back to reality and realize she was hyperventilating.

“Are you going to be okay?” Healy’s voice echoes distantly through the panic and haze.

“Y-yeah,” Twilight says softly, shaking her head, “yeah I’ll be fine, just… a lot. I’d ask for a moment but we don’t have one so…”

“We really don’t,” Healy says softly, “let me know if it gets worse, we may need to send you back to the spaceport.”

Twilight nods, then takes a final deep breath and starts forward again, the rest of the squad having advanced to an alley across the street from her and Healy. Absently as they pass between the buildings and into the shade of the alley, Twilight wonders if she really is okay.

Only to remind herself she has no choice, and the humans are counting on her.

They advance quickly towards the front lines in this side of the city, only stopping once to fight off a squad of the strange reptilian creatures, led by a larger one with a feathery crest and dark armor. The little skirmish forces Twilight to teleport one of the insurrectionists in her squad back to the Spaceport when he takes a crystal round to the chest, her quick diagnosis scan showing it being stopped only millimeters from his heart.

Another isn’t so lucky, and is killed by a grenade. His desperate screams as he tries to get the ball of sticky plasma off of his shoulder nearly sends Twilight into another panic attack.

She shoves it down, barely, as they leave their fallen squadmate and push forward towards the sounds of battle.

The closer they get the more they’re forced to scramble over ruble, or through the ruins of houses and businesses. At one point, just before they reach the front, they make their way through what was likely that morning a grand hotel, now covered in sandbags and defensive positions, its beautiful woodwork and grand fixtures now charred and broken from the fighting.

The marines manning the positions in the windows on the ground floor nod to them, more than a few inside the lobby don’t look up as they tend to minor wounds or prepare to take prone forms on stretchers to a casualty collection point.

Then they’re out the other side and quickly diving into the hastily dug trenches.

They’re not deep, they’re not fancy, but they’re holding for now. Though the forces inside look far worse for wear than the positions they’re manning. Twilight is able to easily keep herself behind the earthwork of the trench, the lip of it coming up to only her withers so she does have to crouch a bit, while the rest of her squad is forced to kneel down quite a bit as they set to work on helping the soldiers present.

The majority of the soldiers that are injured are suffering from burns and shrapnel wounds, the acrid smell of blood and burnt flesh filling Twilight’s nose once more and it takes all of her strength to not dry heave as she pulls out medigel and bandages. She has to save the gel for the worst off, there was barely enough to give her the little she had one her, and instead resorts to a spell Celestia taught her after she’d burned a hoof during a chemistry lesson.

Her presence is welcomed almost instantly, her magic and the medical supplies her and her fellows are carrying. Still, there were some beyond her help, and she is forced to teleport a fair amount of wounded soldiers as they move down the trench.

Eventually they get to a section where the trench meets the road and they’re forced to stop to wait for a lul in the fighting.

As they wait in the large dugout at the end of the trench, Twilight keeps herself busy by helping a human male, likely no older than sixteen, bind a particularly bad wound that has rendered his arm useless.

“I’m fine, miss horse,” the teenager says with a pained chuckle, “really. It’s not that bad, I’ve had worse fallin’ off my atv.”

“Sure, and my friend’s little sister has had worse falling off her scooter,” Twilight replies as she applies the burn healing spell, “but I’m sure that atv wasn’t in an active war zone.”

The young man replies with a chuckle, which echoes rather loudly in Twilight’s ears for how odd it is to hear laughter on the battlefield. Or, perhaps, Twilight muses as she finishes binding the wound with gauze, it’s because the battlefield is actually quiet?

Looking around, Twilight turns her ears in an attempt to figure out if she’s just not hearing what’s going on, or if things really have fallen quiet. And she finds, both to her growing confusion and relief that things have fallen quiet for the moment in her area, with only distant explosions and gunshots coming from other parts of the city.

“What’s going on?” Twilight asks, looking to Healy.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” the medic replies, peeking his head up over the lip of the trench he’s crouched in. “But it looks like they’re retreating?”

“They have to be regrouping,” one of the militia in the trench with them says, “they’ve been pounding this position non-stop, and we’ve been giving it back just as good, they have to need to regroup.”

“Well, that just means we should eva-” Twilight starts, then stops as the fine hairs along the back of her neck start standing up. The feeling unsettles Twilight, and it instantly brings her attention up to the skies above them where the alien spaceship is currently hovering.

“Sparks, you okay?” Natalie asks from nearby, but her voice is distant as Twilight stares up at the ship, “do you see som-”

“We need to move,” Twilight says softly, ears lowering and eyes growing wide, “no… no wait no time for that.”

“Sparks what are you talking abo-”

“Everyone get to the hotel!” Twilight shouts, “the ship is going to fire at us!”

“How can you tell?” a militia soldier asks, looking up at the ship.

“I can feel the weapons charging, I felt this back in Gladsheim! We need to move RIGHT NOW!”

That is all anyone needs, and before she’s even done shouting militia and separatist soldiers are hauling themselves and their injured friends out of the trenchline, causing a hail of plasma and crystal bolts to come from where the aliens must have retreated to. A few soldiers go down, Twilight instinctively using her magic to grab onto clothing or armor and drag them as her own rifle hovers near her and fires down range.

They reach the front doors of the hotel in a storm of bullets and plasma, the soldiers inside returning fire towards the aliens shooting at their friends. Twilight is barely through the door when a burning, stinging pain shoots across her flank, and she lets out a scream as she throws the soldier she was hauling in her magic through the door, then limps herself into the chaos of the lobby.

“Twilight! You okay?” Healy shouts, coming over and actually picking her up and hauling her to the opposite wall.

“Yeah, got hit, can’t feel my rear left leg,” Twilight grunts through gritted teeth.

“Looks like a glancing wound, but it’s bleeding, we’re going to need to bandage you.”

“Do it, and do it fast, I don’t think the hotel will survive those ship weapons,”

“So we go underground?” A nearby soldier asks, already moving towards a door marked stairs.

“No, no time, need to do something,” Twilight pants as Healy starts bandaging her, “I have an idea, might buy us some time.”

“Bandage is on,” Healy says, “won’t hold up if you start running. But what are you going to do?”

Twilight stands up, tears forming in her eyes as she hobbles to the center of the lobby, “I’m going to do my brother proud…”

She then lights her horn, gathering all the magical power she can as quickly as she can. Distantly, she can hear muted booms and the entire building starts to shake.

“They’re firing! Everyone, get to cover!”

Twilight can hear screams as everyone around her starts rushing to cover, the muted booms getting closer, the building shaking more and more. Masonry starts falling from the pillars and walls, and right as it seems that the building is going to shake itself apart, Twilight lets the collected magic loose.

And the world turns purple.

Author's Note

*Crawls in and tosses new chapter at story* IT. IS. DONE!

Sorry about the delay, I got sick. Not like hospital levels of sick, but just like a long series of feeling just sick enough that I couldn't/didn't want to write. But I got better!

I likely didn't do the best editing it, but I just really wanted to get it out so I can start on the next chapter, which I want to get done soonish because my birthday is next month and I really want to give myself that chapter's completion as a birthday present (I turn 33 *cries*) and you know have that done and published to wrap up this first arc of the story.

So enjoy the dirty, dirty cliffhanger at the end!

Also, if you enjoy my writing, and wish to perhaps toss me a few bucks, I have a Kofi that I am going to start using again, you can find it here at https://ko-fi.com/sylvian74226 ! Funds go to buying groceries and other sundries for my family, and occasionally getting me out of the house to enjoy nature.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy!