Author's Note

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1. Vendetta

“I do solemnly swear, on my honor, to defend Sol and her allies. I promise to obey any lawful order, and to protect the people of the Home world Coalition from all enemies, foreign and domestic, even at the cost of my own life. For I am the sword of justice, the shield of the innocent, and the hammer of reprisal.”

-Oath of the HCMC, spoken by every Marine upon graduating basic training.

<§>

Incoming Transmission:
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…
…
Transmission Received: Extracting
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Data Extracted!
View Data?: Y/N
Y
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Acknowledged. Displaying Data

Mission Briefing:
At [0947] local time unknown forces teleported/accessed (unclear) the Gillian Armories Shipyard on the Northwestern face of Olympus Mons. OPFOR appears to be xenobiology, unknown capabilities, unknown motives, unknown objectives. Hostiles observed taking prisoners, possibly for leverage as hostages.
Proceed with caution, but recapture the shipyard at all costs; it is vital for maintaining the Home Fleet.

CENTINT

Transmission End.
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Shipboard Intelligence [Titus] Acknowledges Orders.
Battlegroup Notified.
HCNS TTS-130 Deliverance of Justice: All hands. Battle stations!
Battlegroup En Route to AO. ETA: 2 hours, 11 minutes, 13 seconds until geosynchronous Martian orbit achieved.

<§>

Solar Storm smiled grimly. His unit had taken this foundry with little difficulty. The filthy humans had fled at the sight of them, while it filled him with great satisfaction it did make rounding them up more difficult. They were what he had come for after all, the Empire always needed more workers. What luck that the mages had discovered a way to travel to other worlds? Especially ones so ripe for culling.

Still, it was trivial work now; not the glorious victory he had hoped for but a good mark on his record nonetheless. His current second in command, a pegasus who's name he didn't bother remembering, had estimated that they would be done within the hour. Solar was excited, he had spent far too long away from Canterlot among the lesser races, he couldn't wait to get back to a proper unicorn city.

The no name pegasus was trotting over, he seemed anxious, Solar would have to flog that out of him, the pegasus saluted, solar returned it.
“What is it, feather brain, this better be worth my time.”
If anything the pegasus now looked even more anxious, shame. “Several patrols have failed to report back, sir, I sent more after them but have lost contact with those as well. I believe local forces have arrived and are preparing to-”
“Nonsense, imbecile, these are humans! Pathetic and weak, the soldiers have merely found something worth taking and are dividing it. Have them flogged when they return.”
Solar turned away from the warrior, this was not worth his time.
“If you say so, sir. Regardless, I have given the order to start moving the humans we have captured back to Equis.”

Solar blinked in surprise, he had not expected his second to take such initiative. Regardless of the impossibility of human resistance it was a wise decision. He would have to put the pegasus in for a commendation, maybe even bother to learn his name.

As he opened his mouth to reply, the foundry doors exploded.

The shockwave temporarily stunned Solar, disoriented he barely noticed as his second pulled him into cover. He did, however, see as his ponies died in sprays of blood, like whizzing hornets striking them. Already half his force was down, one thought kept running through his head ‘The sunscorched pegasus was right!’.

Recovering his senses, Solar turned to the pegasus, “WE ARE LEAVING NOW!” The shout was full of fear, but Solar didn't care. He and his ponies fled through the gate, as he ran he felt a sharp pain as something struck him. Falling to the ground he realized he couldn't move one of his hind legs.

‘This is it, this is how I die.’

The thought had a sense of horrible finality to it. He saw the humans, clad in strange black armor, advance before suddenly he was being dragged backwards, a quick glance told him that his second had saved him again. He almost had Solar’s respect for that. The human’s advance halted as Solar slid through the portal, for now, they stayed on their side of the door.

<§>

Carson Scullion was quite confused. He'd been dragged away from his duties in sickbay by some spook officer who wouldn't even tell Carson his name, he'd only asked him about his experience as a culchie veterinarian back in Ireland before enlisting. Maybe some bigwig’s pet got sick? The thought almost made Carson chuckle, but he restrained himself. Laughing in front of officers was a bad idea, intelligence officers even more so.

The spook finally stopped in front of the morgue, not good, and held the door open. As Carson entered the room the first thing he noticed was the smell, overly clean and sterile, the second thing he noticed was the colonel in a Coalition Intelligence Services uniform. Carson stopped and saluted the man, the colonel returned his salute and gestures to a seating area off to the side.

“Sit down, son, let's talk.”

Carson stiffened but obeyed anyways, while he couldn't think of anything he's done wrong, nobody wants to hear the words ‘let’s talk’ from a man who could probably make him disappear.

The colonel straightened his posture before speaking, “When you enlisted you swore to obey any lawfully given order?”

Carson nodded quickly, “Yes sir, that's correct.”

“And you understand that this includes the protection and preservation of classified materials?”

“Yis sir.”

“Excellent, now, as I understand it you were a veterinarian before you were a corpsman?”

CIS officers were highly trained and specialized, if this man was conducting interviews then he would be able to read Carson's body language like a book, honesty was his best choice.

“Yes sir, back on the isle, specialized in horses.”

The colonel looked at a data slate for a moment before speaking, “that's what your file says.” He paused, “What you are about to see is highly classified, you were the most qualified medical personal within a day’s travel. Nothing leaves this morgue. Understood?”

“Yes sir.”

They both stood and entered the autopsy room, the corpse on the slab looked equine, somewhat. It was small, only coming up to his upper chest if standing, and the proportions were wrong.

Also it had wings.

Carson paused, this was unlike anything he'd ever seen before, though he now understood why they wanted a vet. He faced the colonel with a dumbfounded expression and said, “Sir, is that a pegasus?”

The man nodded, “At 9:47 AM, local time, we detected a massive amount of energy in a shipyard on Olympus Mons. AI bugs inserted themselves into the security system and spotted a number of these creatures, though only some had wings, others had a horn or neither. At 12:03 the battlegroup achieved orbit above the incursion and deployed strike teams. They managed to eliminate a number of targets, capture live specimens, and force the hostiles back through a portal which had been what created the initial energy reading. However, some of the yard workers were taken prisoner and brought back through the portal. We intend to go through the portal, rescue our people, and ensure that no further incidents like this occur. As for you, we want you to perform an autopsy, gather information.”

It was quite a lot of information to take in, overwhelming even. Carson swallowed and spoke.

“Sir, are these aliens?”

The man’s face was grim.

“Almost certainly.”