It was a quite day in the mining town, Cobblehoof. Until it wasn't. But it didn't start loud and angry. At first, nothing but a small red dott appeared in the sky, without an equally small red tail to match. One would be forgiven for thinking it a mere comet or s meteor. Some inhabitants of Cobblehoof even noticed it and simply thought that they simply missed the warning about comets and meteors in the local newspaper.

But as it grew bigger, someponies thought it weird. Most of them had never seen neither a meteor nor a comet, but even they thought it unusual when two more dots appeared behind the first in a formation keeping close to each other.

"You see those comets?" Asked Pick Axe, local member of the mining guild and one of the leaders of the Miners Union.

"Sure I do." Answered his best friend Rocky Stone. "But never like these. Did somepony order birthday comet and didn't invite me to the party?"

"Nah, I know when everyponies birthday is. And the next one isn't till the next moon."

"Realy? Nopony else has a birthday this moon? That's pretty odd if you'd ask me."

"Not if you'd know the date. There's only two weeks left till the end of the moon."

"Sorry, you know how it's with me and checking the date. Oh look at that, they are going right over us. Looks like they'll crash into Iron Valley. I say we check it out."

"You mean like right now? I know you like to do things on impulse, but don't you have stuff to do?"

"Nah, the only things I have to do on weekends is hang out with you. So you up for it?" Asked Rocky. He, however, entirely forgot that he had yet to buy the groceries as he promised his wife. I'll do it once I get back, he thought once he remembered it, not bothering to inform his friend about it. Iron Valley isn't far, we'll be back before my wife even notices we're gone.

"Yeah, it's not like I have something else to do either." Agreed Pick.

"Alright, let's go!" With that, they set off to investigate the supposed comets, not knowing what it really was.

Tech-priest Difindor exited the modified red painted valkyrie with practised eas. He was, as the head of security, tasked with securing the landing site of the three valkyries and making sure they stayed secured as his geologist colleague did his geological analysis.

Well, to call the valkyries only modified was a bit stretch. The main body was intarealy replaced with much larger chassis, giving it the appearance of being fatter, allowing them to carry more cargo and even some heavy equipment. Because of that, the skitarii often jokingly referred to them as "obesity pattern valkyries". Furthermore, the engines have been replaced by a larger and more powerful model, giving the same speed as a traditional valkyrie, although the same couldn't be said for its mobility and armour. The weapons have all been stripped from the craft aside for a rotatable multi-laser for precision fire. Lightly equipped all things considered.

They had landed about thirty minutes ago, but only now had Difindor decided to step out of the relative safety of the valkyrie. He wasn't afraid, he was just very cautious. He understood the value of his life was too great to senselessly risk like that. Many of his peers would suggest to simply lead the mission from the armored fortress that was Voidspear, but he preferred to lead his low risk and unknown risk missions from the ground, it tended to produce better results. Not that he would ever go on a mission with a significant risk of casualties if there was another way.

So as he walked out of his transport, four kastelan robots surrounded him from all sides, protecting him from potential snipers and, more importantly, making the skitarii believe that they protected someone truly important. Which they were, but it couldn't hurt to remind them a little. It tended to raise morale.

The landing site was a hustle of activity as skitarii, servitors and even few low ranking tech-priests walked around preforming menial tasks like unloading the valkyries, making geological analysis and making sure the site was secured.

In the centre of it all was Kamenus, the most experienced geologist of their expedition. He, along with his fellow tech-priest assistant and several servitors equipped with a variety of scanning and drilling tools, took care of the geological survey and made sure that the organised chaos that was the landing site stayed organised.

"[Kamenus, how is your geological survey going?]" Asked Difindor as he approached his colleague, kastelan robots still surrounding him.

"[Exceptionally well security chief. I must say, the geology of this planet is truly fascinating. The orbital scans alone could be the basis for years of study, but now that we are on the surface, it's even more fascinating. In this sample alone, I found trace amounts of gold, platinum, radium, uranium and even iridium. If this planet were to become a mining world, we could create entire fleets out the minerals found on this planet alone. And that's not even mentioning that I already detected at least two rare gem deposits. Truly, this is the most fascinating and fantastical planet I have ever seen.]"

"[You found all this in the span of thirty minutes?]" Asked Difindor with doubt.

"[That is the fascinating part.]"

"[Anything else I should notified of before I leave you to your work?]"

"[Other than what I already said, not much.]" One of Kamenuses scanners installed on his back suddenly rotated and shifted, as if diverging its attention from the ground to some distant point over the horizon. "[But there is one more thing that I think you would find important.]"

"[And what is it?]" Asked Difindor, already sensing the potential danger that was sure to soon affect them.

"[There are two life signatures which I believe to be the of indigenous xeno pupulace who are walking straight towards us. I am sending their coordinates now.]"

"[I will take care of it. Now, return to your work.]" Ordered Difindor, already sending a squad of sicarian infiltrators to deal with them.

"[Arch Magos, do I have the permission to terminate indigenous xenos that discover the landing site?]" Asked Difindor the Arch Magos over the noosphere.

"[Permission granted.]" Answered the Arch Magos after a small pause.

"[Cease action!]" Interjected Scifionsa. "[Attempt to capture [indigenous xeno name of planet EQ-49100-5 here]. Resume action.]"

"[What is the value of importance of this side objective, Scifionsa?]" Difindor asked, already concerned if it could effect the safety of his mission.

"[[Value of captured xenos] = 43.72]"

"[Decrease value by 10. I will not risk the safety of this mission by being too greedy.]" Amended the Arch Magos.

"[I will take this new objective into account, Arch Magos. Now if you will excuse me, I have a mission to complete.]" With that, Difindor disconnected himself from the noosphere. But he still kept his inbox open to any messages, were the Arch Magos in need of something from him again.

Pick and Rocky walked towards Iron Valley, where they saw the "comets" land. Not caring, nor knowing that by now they would have been considered meteorites.

Meanwhile 5 sicarian infiltrators stalked in the background. Patiently waiting until they were close enough to their xeno prey to ambush them.

They were being cautious, as per Difindors orders, but to call sicarian infiltrators careful was a bit of a stretch. They were brutal, efficient and often cared only about their next kill, very much unlike their cold and methodical skitarii brethren.

The squad stalked closer. Too close even, as one of the xenos noticed the bright red of the bionics and cloak contrasting against the grey of the rocks.

"Did you see that?" Asked Pick Axe and pointed to the five red figures hiding behind a rock.

As Rocky turned to look at the couse of his friends surprise, said surprise raised their weapons, the stubcarbines. The stubcarabines are relatively small pistol like weapons that possess the firepower and ferocity of a heavy stubber packed into a form so small and efficient that it can be wielded in only one hand, provided the hand and arm are sufficiently augmented.

The dome like heads with numerous sensors and antennas glared at Rocky and Rocky glared at them back. In the split second he had to observe them, he already realised the danger he and his friends were in. Perhaps it was a simple gut feeling and intuition, perhaps it was the fact that Rocky could, even if only vaguely, recognise the objects they held as guns thanks to that one time he had been in Griffinstone and saw few in action, or perhaps it was just dumb luck.

Whatever it was, Rocky instantly knew what to do. As the first bullets exited the barrels, Rocky dived in front of his friend to shield him from the hail of lead.

The fire, while wildly inaccurate at such a short notice, still managed to shread Rocky into a colection of meat paste, bone sprinters and chuncks of body parts.

Pick Axe was, thanks to his friends noble sacrifice, spared from most of the damage. He only received few shots in the legs, one in the chest and his right ear was wholy shot off.

Not a moment later, before Pick Axe could even cry out for his friend, a horrible sensation overcome him. His eyes suddenly watered and burned, his now single ear ringed with unimaginably loud noise and his mouth was filled with the taste burned metal. While he was reasonably sure that the dome headed cyborgs had something to do with it, not that he could currently think about anything other than his mind shattering pain and the loss of his best friend, he couldn't possibly even try to understand the intricacies of the various transmittors and the waves they were emitting at him and the corpse of his friend.

The sicarian infiltrators prepared to charge the surviving xeno and finish him of with their power swords, but something stopped them.

"[I ordered you to try and capture the xenos. Why did you opened fire?]" Difindor asked. He sometimes disliked working with sicarian infiltrators, as they often cared only for slaughter. Not that they would directly disobey an order to state their sadistic urge. "[Explain yourself!]"

"[You Ordered us to be cautious and wary of the xenos unknown capabilities. Opening fire was was the surest way to deal with the xenos and eliminated the possibility of of them attacking back.]" Answered the Princeps, the leader of the squad.

Difindor decided not to ask why than they activated pre-charge cognition routes. To save himself the trouble and the half truth explanation he would certainly get. He also decided not to point out that, for all they knew, opening fire on the xenos could have been a death sentence, considering that they knew basically nothing about them.

But that was about to change, since they now had two fresh bodies, perfectly fit for dissection. Only for a quiet sob to come fron the pile of blood, bone and squirming and moaning bodies. Wait, squirming and moaning? Thought Difindor to himself. One of them is still alive!

"[Scan for life signatures!]" Ordered Difindor. Immediately, all of the sicarian infiltrators raised their weapons and pointed them at the pile. The scan had returned positive.

"[Princeps, cease violent actions and examin the alive xeno.]" Just as ordered, the princeps lowered his weapon and walked towards corpse covered xeno, his bionic feet now stained in blood. Not that he minded of course.

The various sensors on the dome head of the princeps focused on the surviving xeno and analysed it. Specifically looking at the health and battle capability, although other data was collected also.

"[Bleeding both external and minor internal, mising left ear and multiple broken bones and ribs detected.]" Muttered the princeps, almost as if disgusted that he would do something so low as to check the vital signs of a xeno.

"[Administer first aid attempt to stabilise the rate of bleeding. Biomeca is gonna get her test subject after all.]" Said Difindor happily, he wasn't happy because Biomeca would be glad to receive a new xenos to dissect, although she more often then not wanted to keep them alive for as long as possible, nor was he happy that he would soon get more information regarding the xenos. He was simply content that he completed his mission without any casualties.

Author's Note

Here we go another chapter! And it only took a couple of months. Although I suspect that once I actually release this story my rate of writing will increase somewhat, well for you I already released this story so just wait and see me fail, I mean succeed.

Also, you may have thought that I was joking about the servitor thing, but be sure that I was not. I already have two brand new servitors and if you continue to not correct me, not nearly as much as you are right now anyways, that number will only grow. Not that I am complaining about all those new servitors I am getting.