Tartarus Divers

Chapters

Mission - Zero Zero Zero
Prelude
SDS: The King of Starlight
Mission - Zero Zero One
SDS: Shmoovement
Mission - Zero Zero Two
SDS: Maybe calm down just a litt-
Mission - Zero Zero Three
SDS: Mandatory Rest and Relaxation
Mission - Zero Zero Four
SDS: Aftershocks
Mission - Zero Zero Five

Mission - Zero Zero Zero

Hell Diver had barely grown up. She aged, sure, but she definitely didn't win the biological lottery. Her dark grey coat was hidden behind her armor's fabric and plates, her helmet equally covering her face and her mane. Ironically both matching colours of yellow and black hidden behind the armored face of the same colours.

The other cadet leaned over in her seat to her, "I can't believe we're finally going to become Tartarus Divers."

Hell didn't want to converse. That didn't bother the other pony though.

"Liberating the galaxy? Stomping bugs? Every foals dream." The mare bounced her hooves in front of her in excitement.

Before she could continue bothering the Hell Diver, Hell's helmet radio bleeped at her, and the pilot's voice came through, "Approaching the LZ, next recruit, prepare to dismount."

Hell leaned forwards against her restraints and unbuckled them. Falling onto the metal grating as the aircraft landed and the ramp opened. The mare continued, "Good luck out there." She waved towards Hell as she made her way out of the ship.

She heard a clipped, "See you on the front lines!" As the dropship took off again.

Stepping out into the harsh Mareshon sun, her helmet's smart lenses dimmed the light and she looked around as her radio bleeped again. "You're on your own from here recruit, use your map to find your way to the training facility."

She nodded to herself, and stomped her back right hoof to pull up her helmet's HUD. Her smart lenses went dark as a barely coloured map display covered them. Showing the relevant signal marker, and the nearby terrain.

Wasting no time, Hell turned and began trotting towards her destination. As she passed by the rocks and dead shrubs, a female voice bleeped over her helmet radio, "Ah, welcome to Tartarus Diver training, your instructor is waiting up ahead, please proceed."

Hell giggled in elation as she approached the training base. She stepped off the Mareshon sand and onto the concrete. Ignoring the flags of her home as a recording of her training instructor played for her. Saying all kinds of things.

As the gate opened, Hell recognized the simple training course, smirked to herself, then took off like a bullet.

She broke into a gallop, seeing the wire and mud ahead, she jumped; missing the wire by barely an inch, she hit the ground in a roll while shifting her weight onto her hooves and launching herself under the obstacle with her momentum instead of crawling through. Flaring her wings for the extra boost, she rushed up the steps: flap, front hooves, back hooves, flap. Then it was a galloping turn into a series of chest high vaults. She ran around the first one, stepped up onto the second, and threw herself over the third, her smaller wings flapping to give her the boost she needed.

Barely winded, she waited for the next door to open, smirking to herself at the recording's compliment.

It slid open, and she read the massive warning sign as she approached the overhang in a run. In front of her was a live fire pit with turrets pointed at her. Stepping on the ledge just before the pit, Hell threw herself as far as she could; hitting the deck and to her own pride, not even flinching as the machineguns began firing. She spent a couple of seconds wiggling forwards in the dust. Standing up as the machine guns stopped firing and the next door opened, the instructor began shouting about more details.

Taking a couple of steps up to the 'battlefield injury simulator' she clenched her jaw, knowing what was coming. She pressed her hoof down onto the little button with zero hesitation. Leaning forwards and tightening her form as a pointed stick of metal shoved itself in-between her armor plate and into her chest.

She stumbled away as it retracted, gasping as her lungs tried to adapt to the pressure.

The instructor said something else she wasn't paying attention to, and a drawer slid open under the injury simulator. She pulled one of the stims out and jammed it into her neck. The thing made a little hissing noise as the edges of her vision went white with magic. She'd known from the one time she'd gotten one of her hooves on these stims what they'd do to a pony. Her muscles began to vibrate as she felt her blood washing the chemicals into them. In an instant she was empty, her body felt so light that she felt like she could just step into the sky and float away.

Steeling her mind to stop herself from doing just that, she grit her teeth through the mental effects of the booster and tittered quietly to herself as she felt her skin folding out, the magic fixing the hole in her chest as the bloodied, dead parts fell out and onto the dirt. She took a deep breath, and cantered forwards towards the next section.

As she approached and the drugs began to wear off, her eyes went wide at the weapon on display for her. She'd always dreamed of holding one of these.

"A hoof mounted P-Two Peacemaker" She said quietly to herself

Lifting the gun out from its stand, she snapped her eyes to the giant black monster crawling out of a hole in a military style dirt enclosure surrounded with barbed wire and concrete. A red light began to flash along with a siren as the instructor explained the creature.

The thing was black and green, with jagged pointed features. It stood on four pointed legs operated with hydraulic muscles and had several blue compound eyes around its head.

Hell Diver didn't need an explanation. She lifted her hoof, took aim, and fired four rounds into the creature, the first broke off its front leg, spewing green ichor into the air. The next two went into its head, which disappeared in a shower of gore. Hell fired one more shot just for good measure.

As the instructor kept talking, Hell leaned down to her bandolier and grabbed a grenade in her mouth by the pin. Hefting it up, she grabbed it with her hoof and separated the pin and the grenade. She spat the pin onto the ground with the others, and kicked her front hoof forwards. The grenade bounced once on the rim of the hole, and then exploded three seconds later.

She folded the side arm into its 'mounted' position, and then ran forwards into the next section.

Looking up at the instructors 'instruction' Hell spotted a Super Destroyer and smiled beneath her helmet.

"Just a minute, and I'll be on one of those. Saving the galaxy..." She muttered to herself.

Stomping her back left hoof on the ground, her HUD came up again. She checked the display with the location, and then used the controls in her left front hoof guard to make adjustments to the trajectory, and the timing. Three beeps, and a small sphere rolled down off its attachment point from under her barrel and into her hoof, it enlarged once it was there, and turned red. Smiling, Hell chucked the thing at the mass of bugs, itching to get at her and tear her to shreds.

A sky reaching red beacon lit up the sky, and Hell smugly took a few steps back.

A boom drowned out the sounds of static and wiped her thoughts away. The helmet barely muting the sound just enough for her to not go deaf immediately. Hell sidestepped a chitinous head as it flopped to the ground next to her, its mandibles smoking, and the joint where its head connected to its organs sloping out the back of its neck. She smirked as she crushed the thing on her way out. Her hoof sinking into it, and the green ichor marking her hoof armor with death.

Moving past the just opened door and into a dirt field covered in Tartarus pods and a metal platform, a cardboard cut-out of a pony in the same Tartarus Diver gear as her rose from the ground and then subsequently exploded into pieces as the instructor recording went on.

Following the instructions, Hell stomped her back left hoof again, did the necessary calculations and adjustments on her HUD and called in the reinforcement stratagem, as the instructor had referred to it as.

After it landed, a new cardboard cut out rose with a, "Hello! Fellow Tartarus Diver!"

Hell chuckled and shook her head, already standing by the next door as it opened.

She trotted forward in glee as the three more weapon displays opened up for her

Her smile forced her muzzle against the sides of her helmet fabric as she spoke to herself enthusiastically, "An AR-Twenty Three!" She yelled, dancing in place as she took the thing from its stand.

She looked over to the other stands, grabbed the ammunition and loaded it in. She smiled, having seen the mechanism in manuals hundreds of times, but finally getting to eject and load a magazine herself was practically a dream come true. She stepped over to the other bin and grabbed a fresh grenade for her bandolier, then trotted up to the door.

She lifted the AR-Twenty Three Liberator up to her left shoulder, hitting the back of it on the rail right next to her neck where it locked into place on the ball joint built into the shoulder armor. Once her HUD registered the weapon attachment, she bounced her head to roll her universal trigger into her mouth; then she took the hoof mount in her leg and aimed it forwards, leaning her head through the iron sights with a cocky smile.

No walls this time. Her brain registered a slightly higher danger, but her higher functions reminded her of the hilariously powerful tool currently aimed at the danger, thus leading to zero anxiety.

A black bug crawled up from the hole. Seeing the light of Sol for probably the first time in years.

It fell to the dust in pieces as Hell unleashed the entire magazine into it. Just for fun.

Repeating the action of priming a grenade, she took several extra steps forwards and lobbed it. Another bug came up from the hole, and she quickly flipped her sidearm from her non dominant hoof and fired two rounds into its head, and one into its body as it fell to the ground.

She tried to restrain herself, but she couldn't. Doing a short four hoof dance in place as she yipped in glee.

"Hahah! Take that!" She yelled, shaking her hoof at the offending piles of currently deceased meat.

She thought to herself: I'm finally doing it... It's really happening.

Turning to the side with a smile still plastered on her face underneath her helmet, she approached the next section.

Stomping her back left hoof again, she dialed in the necessary details. Several beeps and boops sounded off as she chucked the two spheres onto the dirt. Two pillars of light stretched into the sky, and moments later two Tartarus pods hit the ground near her. Sending roiling cascades of force up her hooves as they shook the ground. Trotting forwards, she grabbed the front of the long machine gun in her hoof. No longer needing to express her excitement; merely taking the thing with joy.

She levered the front of it so that the length flipped up under her barrel, where it locked itself in place. The front of the gun hanging from just underneath the left side of her chest on the rail built into her armor.

Grabbing the box of ammunition, she slid the machine gun forwards on the rail, and flipped the front of it over her shoulder. Sitting back so she could reach the mechanism, she tossed the empty box, and added the far heftier machine gun ammunition. Sliding the action and discarding the nothing she slotted the box cartridge in place and then stood as she slid the gun back underneath her barrel, and trotted forwards over the dirt into the next section.

Hell put on her serious face at the open terrain and the bug holes off in the distance. Stepping up to the terminal screen as the instructor continued giving her instructions, she pressed the required functions. Clearly meant for showing recruits how the universal terminals functioned, and then hefted the front of the machine gun into her left hoof, rolling her trigger into her mouth.

She stepped around the terminal, flaring her wings out to keep herself stead on three legs as the bars surrounding her home's standard fell into the ground with a 'shhhrvvvvnnn' and a 'kerchunk'

She trotted up to it, scooped it up in her hoof, leaving her gun dangling, and then walked it up to the placement point, the flag pressed into her shoulder where her Liberator was mounted. To make it easier to carry, of course.

She slammed it into the metal, the indented plate parting for the much sturdier titanium pole. As she stepped back, she stomped both her front hooves and tensed her back, pointing her head up to the air as she took her front right hoof and crossed it across her chest.

Then the metal bug holes opened up and immediately, chitinous monsters began crawling out. From the left, came the large ones she'd seen before, to the right, tiny grubs, barely the size of her head chittered out, squealing as soon as they saw the sun. The larger ones hissed and immediately began closing the distance. Hell began backpedaling, with the machine gun in her left hoof, she bit down on the trigger and opened up.

Green ichor and bits of chitin began flying as she cheered while mowing down the bug unfortunate enough to be closest to her.

"Yeh-heah! Get some! You filthy bugs!" She screamed over the roar of the machine gun, slowly panning her arch of fire towards the little ones that had begun racing towards her. They didn't stand a chance. There weren't any parts left over of the tiny grubs, at least not any physical ones. The machine gun stopping power turned most of them into paste or gooey chunks after five or six rounds hit each one individually. Hell ran the machine gun dry, firing into the already mostly dead crowd.

Once it clicked, she took a deep breath of the stale air now filled with the scent of blood, death, and Equestrian Democracy. The instructor continued to congratulate her as she began to step forwards, her confident steps slowing as she approached the hall. On her right and left, statues of Tartarus Divers stood saluting next to banners. In the center of the open air hall was a cape. A Tartarus Diver cape.

"Wow..." She walked up to the stand, her mind far away from the space around her as she approached. "I can't believe..." She lifted a hoof and timidly touched the fabric. "It's... I'm really here."

She clenched her jaw and smiled, blinking away tears unformed as she pulled the cape down from its stand and latched it onto her shoulder as sparklers shot up from the ground around her. Ducking her head to latch it onto the opposite side, she took a deep breath as she stood straight to her slightly shorter than average height.

Unbeknownst to her, outside of a little tickle on her flanks; Hell Diver, at the age of nineteen, had just received her cutie mark.

As the next series of doors opened, Hell began trotting forwards with a bounce in her step, her hooves hitting the metal grate with confidence she felt running through her blood. In front of her was the cryo-rocket. The ship that would take her to her very own Super Destroyer, then to the Galactic War, and beyond.

Trotting up to the walkway, she approached the cryo pod and lifted herself up onto her hind legs. Doing a half pirouette, she slid her back into the pod, then stepped back into it as it closed. She gazed out through the glass onto the training facility as she felt the vents and the magic take hold of her body. Her smile froze onto her face as her mind fell away and her vision went black.

The last thought her theatrical mind came up with was this: Time to finally show them what I'm made of.

Level Up!
Level: One
Title: Cadet

Congratulations on completing your Tartarus Diver's Training! Now get out there and Dive!

Author's Note

Yes, the Thestral MC is named Hell Diver, no I couldn't resist. Yes I plan on packing this chock full of memes and 'lols' as I try to learn how to write combat scenes.

Please keep all hands and hooves inside at all times, enjoy the ride.

Prelude

A theme plays over an anouncement message that reads:

Equestria
Public Service Announcment

As the logo fades to black, a long shot of a planet is shown as the camera begins moving towards the sun and new music begins to play

"Equestria"

"Our Home."

The scene cuts to a cookie cutter series of exotic new age houses with green yards and clean windows

"Mama! It's starting!" A little thestral filly yells, not turning away from the screen as it continues to play, her face less than a hoof length away.

A voice comes echoing from somewhere else in the house, "I'm coming! I'm Comin!"

"Prosperity"

"Liberty"

The scene cuts to a blue and silver toned earth pony, waving to their neighbor

The dark grey and dirty yellow maned filly remains enraptured by the motion on the screen, mouthing along the words as the screen pans again.

"Democracy"

They say in unison, the filly whispering it with reverence

"Alright ya siren." A griffon came up behind the filly, "Let's have a look he-"

The filly barely turned her a head to the side and went, "SHHHH!"

The griffon just shook her head and sat behind the filly, pulling her into a hug and away from the television. The filly settled backwards, sitting upright in the larger creature's embrace as the screen continued.

The scene quickly shifts from a simple cut life shot to a horror scene as the blue earth pony's family get's slaughtered by a giant black chitinous monster and the pony screams in an unreadable emotion recognizable as 'acting'. The screen freezes, and the same pony walks onto the screen from the side as big letters take up the screen as it fades grey, they read: Invasion

"Look familar?"

"Scenes like these are happening all over the galaxy. Right now."

"You could be next."

"That is; unless you make the most important decision of your life."

The filly began wiggling in her mother's hug in excitement, clearly having seen the announcement before.

The scene instantaneously changes to a greenscreen flag of their homeworld, with the blue stallion now covered in armor.

"Prove to yourself that you have the strength and the courage. To be free."

"Join."

"The Tartarus Divers"

As the announcement continues, the filly jumps up from her place in front of her mother, clapping and jumping around as the screen shows 'Tartarus Diver' activity. Eventually running around her mother while making zooming noises, coming to a stop to cheer when a massive bug had its head strategically removed by a rocket launcher.

The filly stepped up towards the screen again as the music hit its crescendo. Speaking with the screen as it spoke to her.

"Become a hero."

She looked at the figure on the screen, imagining her reflection on it underneath the helmet.

"Become a legend." She whispered to herself at the same time the announcement did.

Reaching out to touch the screen, an already solidified dream was reinforced in the heart and soul of Diver.

"Become."

"A Tartarus Diver."

SDS: The King of Starlight

Hell awoke.

The sensation was fast, and the memory of the feeling was fleeting like a dream. Suddenly she was falling forwards from her pod, free of her restraints, the ice, and the magic. Her front hooves fell onto the ground with a clank of metal on metal. Taking a step forwards, she shrugged off the residual rigidness and then gasped like a filly at the candy store.

"AAA!" She jumped forwards past the diagnostics screen for the cryo pod to the guard rail slinging her forelegs over it while her back legs bounced up and down in an excited dance as she looked down the hanger of her very own Super Destroyer. The structure was a long open hallway organized in thick arching metal pillars, coated in dully reflective titanium plating. There was white mist pouring in along the hanger to keep the ground from icing up, and the general atmosphere screamed 'military operation'

There was a transport class spacer Pelican docked at the end of the hall, and a platform elevator in front of her to get down into the hangar, which had doors at the sides and the end to lead deeper into the Destroyer.

Hell turned once she saw movement, and spotted a pony standing at the top of the stairs to her side. Stepping away from the rail, she nearly saluted before the cream coloured unicorn mare saluted her first. "It's good to have you aboard Tartarus Diver."

Her address turned the gears in Hell's cryo sleeping mind to remind her that she was technically in charge of her. The mare at the stairs was her staff.

Pushing away the excitement and leaving only the responsibility, Hell quickly rose up the steps and evened out her expression even though it was hidden beneath her helmet. "It's good to be aboard. Those bugs won't know what hit them."

The mare smiled and dropped her salute. "I'm tasked with getting you acquainted with your vessel. First and foremost, what will you be naming him?"

"The King of Starlight." Hell said without hesitation, she'd been dreaming of this moment her whole life after all. "And a tour won't be necessary. I've run simulations, I read all the manuals. I know this model like the back of my hoof." Hell pointed out, subsequently towards each station and its section of screens.

Across from her position she pointed to the, "Super Destroyer management screens"

To her side she pointed at the, "Engineering bay."

Then to the hallway leading up to the bridge, "Armory, and equipment screens."

The cream mare nodded at each comment, "Well then." She stated, seemingly amused. "Good luck Tartarus Diver."

"Anything for Equestria." They both shared another salute, and then the mare returned to her position at the engineering bay. As she turned around, Hell spied her cutie mark when she turned, a series of bolts with stars on the heads; that, along with the mint green mane she had tied low behind her head, banishing Hell's initial assumption that the mare was maneless.

Another mare approached her, this one was dressed in officer's scrubs. Tan, tight fitting cloth that ran from her neck all the way to her tail and her ankles. She had a shoulder pauldron on, marking her as the standing officer for the ship. Before she could speak, Hell lifted her hoof to cut her off, "All due respect, but I believe I've wasted enough time; Democracy needs me." Without waiting for a response, Hell approached the bridge. Walking past the upright stand of armor and weapons mounted on the wall and straight towards the map and command center.

The bridge was a glass chamber with titanium braces along the sides of the walls, metal floor. There was a raised platform along the farthest end, where the Tartarus Pods were located. In the center was the holo screen, and the rest was decoration to Hell Diver.

Walking over the bridge past the operations crew down beneath her hooves to either side, she approached the console and the stallion in full armor. "Welcome Tartarus Diver. Liberation awaits."

Hell pushed down her excitement again as the stallion pulled his helmet off, his body shape was in a word, bulk. His face had surprisingly soft features though, a stern frown adorned his dark brown face, and his pink tinted buzz cut mane. He lifted a hoof, and without looking, activated the holographic projection of Equestria, the planet they were currently orbiting.

"Where are we heading?" She asked without looking away from the globe of Equestria

His response was just as terse as the rest of him, "As of now, the Tartarus Diver legions are currently assaulting Esker to gain access to the hyper lanes through it." The globe shifts to a map of the galaxy, and shifts and zooms towards the planet in question, and the one immediately after it. "The Ministry of Defense has marked key planets as strategic positions against the bug incursions; in order to take Erson Sands for Equestria, we must first capture Esker, in the name of freedom."

Hell nodded, "Then there's no time to wait." She used the hoof controls to zoom the map onto Esker, and spun it around to get a glance at the missions of importance, the hotspots and the other Tartarus Divers. Shifting the globe to select a node. A screen opened up with a tac map of the area.

Trivial Operation
Mission, forty minutes
Eliminate Brood Commanders
Track Down and Eliminate the Brood Commanders

Hell glanced over the mission warnings that said, 'acid storms' and 'intense heat', then pressed a digital button on the console twice, the dexterity coming from years of never knowing any other tactile feedback. Once to select, the second time to confirm. As she did, the PA system sounded out above her, "Mission coordinates locked."

Hell nodded once to the Democracy Officer while sideways walking towards the pods. Turning away entirely so she could see the stairs, she stepped up past the banner with the Tartarus Diver's perfect insignia, and towards the Tartarus Pods. Rearing up on her hind legs to get into position with balance that can only be trained, she stepped into the locking pads on the ground that chunked once as they solidly grabbed onto her combat shoes. Even through the enhanced metal and extra padding, she could still feel the pressure.

The PA sounded out something else, but Hell never got the chance to hear it as the platform she was now attached to sank into the ground fast enough for her to go weightless for a moment. Once she was settled, a clamp covered in metal wrapped around her barrel and wings in a way that made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Ignoring that, and the rest of the equipment designed to make sure her insides didn't turn to liquid as she breached atmosphere, she turned her attention to the equipment screen. Everything looked in order; it was all the equipment she used on the training grounds. That, and she had nothing else. She selected a location for drop on the tac map, then shimmed herself into a more comfortable standing position

Hell Diver took a deep breath, and then slammed her hoof over the launch button.

Through the open hole above her, she heard the PA system again, "Tartarus Pod launch, initiated."

Then the mechanical arms that held the topper lowered down over the hole and placed the metal pad over top. There was the sound of servos and metal grinding against each other, then silence that lasted for a split second before Hell felt her stomach lurch into her mouth as the Pod fired towards the planet. There was a solid six or seven seconds of shaking and trying to keep herself from vomiting before she blacked out from the G-forces

Mission - Zero Zero One

Hell slowly stirred, then quickly, immediately remembering her location and relative speed.

Just as she got her vision to stop swimming, she was hit with another wave of G-Forces as the Tartarus Pod fired its landing rockets. Gritting her teeth and clenching all of the muscles in her body she could consciously clench, she fought through the black encroaching at the edges of her vision to look at the cameras. She was about to hit the ground, before she could route the angle of landing, she did.

The force of striking the ground was jarring, but still far less than the entry forces. The shock absorption systems did their job to make sure the Pod didn't just become a meat smoothie. Hell vaguely had a sense for what was going on around her, enough that when the Pod cover's explosive charges sent it flying into the air, and the platform she was attached to raised up, she managed to maintain her balance.

Once she was on the surface, she landed down from the standing position and looked around.

She couldn't really see far. The air around her was thick with green acrid smoke. The dirt around the pod was filled with rocks and loose mud. Nearby was a puddle of liquid smoke, the green gas rolling around the surface of the puddle. That and a dead bush, and a rock formation about her size. The rest of the terrain within visual range was the same. Spread out strange rock formations, and pools of acid and sandy rock filled mud.

Based on the composition, Hell had the idle thought that this area may have been under water at some point.

Shaking her head, she pulled up the map over her visor and marked a pin to her heading. There was an orange hexagon with the picture of a pointy, low detail bug sitting on it within a range that her scanners had figured it would be in. Closing the map, and adjusting the direction she was facing until the marker appeared on the compass at the top of her vision, she began moving at a trotting pace. Maneuvering around the, seemingly, dying bush in her way.

The ground was exactly what she expected. Gross. Her hooves sank up to her fetlock unless she stepped directly on a rock; something she couldn't pay attention to, as she was busy scanning the few meters in front of her she could see for enemies.

Her hackles were definitely up. This was enemy territory. Bug territory. Everything she believed in was stood against right here. Which is what she was here to solve. Still, the anxiety of not being able to see the danger was beginning to poke and prod at the edges of her flight or fight instincts. In Hell's particular case, the fight instincts. Flight isn't really her thing, both literally, and metaphorically.

Not having something to shoot while she was this stressed was severely aggravating. The kind of aggravating that gave one the incentive to shoot something, which, obviously only propagated the issue.

Turning her trot into a sprint once she crested a hill into more open ground, she spotted what looked like tall spires and glowing green lights ahead of her. Through the acidic green mist, it was impossible to tell; though this was where her map was pointing her.

"For Liberty!" She ran down the hill, smiling all the while.

Halfway through the sprint towards the now recognizable bug hive material, she started to hear screeching. The telltale sound that there were bugs somewhere around her in the mist. Slowing to a stop, she rolled her short rifle trigger into her mouth, and used her left hoof to draw. The weapon connected at the front on her hoof, the stock locked into the ball joint on her shoulder pauldron.

She swiveled in place, trying to spot any enemies.

Stomping a hoof, she quickly brought up her HUD, only to see that she was surrounded by tiny red dots. Closing the map and shifting in place, she spun towards the sound of a gargling screech, and the sound of impact on rocks. As she turned, she got a face full of bug, as something black, green, and chitinous landed on her face.

"AAH!" She did the only viable thing to do in such a situation and began to backpedal and flail her head. Training taught her not to flinch or close her eyes, so she got a close up through her helmet visor of mandibles scraping through the mouth sockets in her helmet as several bits of her were sucked out of her mask before she threw the thing off of herself.

Failing to bite through the pain without teeth, Hell leveled her rifle at the thing now sprawled on the ground and turned it into paste. Luckily her jaw worked just enough to squeeze and subsequently hold down the trigger.

There was no Hell Diver anymore. Surrounded in green mist and bugs. There was only a complex pile of meat and honed instincts as her conscious mind fell away and her eyes locked onto the nearest targets, her armor covered tufted ears folding and marking targets she couldn't see. Her mouth filled with blood as she spun to her next target.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK

The sound of the gun mixed with cracking chitin and exploding meat only drew more bugs to her location. She kept spinning, kept firing.

CRACK-CRACK-tick

Until she was out.

Still with targets in front of her, Hell dove forwards over a rock while she drew her sidearm. The pistol folded out of its place in her right hoof armor as she hefted herself up and onto the rock as her makeshift cover. Taking less than a moment to identify her targets, pick a trail to cover, she began precision shooting one after another

CRACK

Hell tried to scream as she felt her back leg buckle, the pain causing her to tumble away from her cover. The blood in her mouth stopped the scream from sounding anything more like a gurgle as she stumbled sideways past the bug that had just tore a chunk out of her leg.

CRACK

The bug exploded as she tried to heft herself onto her legs again, only managing a slow crawl. With one limb aiming and the other out of order, she barely got to a standing position before another monstrous black and green, bulbous, chittering enemy crawled up to the crest of the rock she had just used as cover.

She fired three times in quick succession, yielding two misses and a click as the gun exclaimed its lack of ammunition. Without ammo, Hell turned to the next best thing.

On reflex, she threw her hoof into a viscous backswing just as the bug fell within range. It struggled and failed to grasp at her outstretched hoof as the pistol made of heavy metal alloy smacked into it and sent it flying a few meters to her side. Wasting no time, Hell kicked off from her leaning position with her single still functioning back hoof and drove the pistol into the bug like a spike. The thing squealed and writhed under the pressure before Hell lifted the pistol and cracked it down onto the wet and green part.

Two slams, followed by three more, probably unnecessary slams, ended with the bug mostly on Hell, rather than in its own body.

Still choking on blood, hell pulled up her map to see the pleasing lack of red dots.

She spit, trying to get enough out of her mouth so she could breathe again, and pulled out a stim with her pistol still drawn and dangling from her hoof. After jabbing it into her neck, her eyes nearly rolled back as the drugs hit her system. The pain rolled away like sparking ice on her fur and she nearly moaned at how good it felt to feel her teeth pop back into her mouth and her leg fold back into place as the magic filled the joint back.

Gasping through the combat stimulants designed to be used in combat; she began the process of reloading. She pulled a pistol clip from her bandolier, discarded the current clip, and popped in the new one. Then repeated the process for her short rifle.

By the time she was done, the stimulant began to wear off; much to her disappointment.

Still unconsciously standing, Hell pulled up her map again and oriented herself towards her destination.

She was shell shocked, but more, she was proud. If she wasn't in a combat situation, or if she hadn't just nearly died, she would have been celebrating. She had just killed bugs! Spread Liberty to those sections of rocks! She was really doing it! It wasn't like killing bugs in the training course, this was real honest to Democracy, Tartarus Diving.

It may have been the combat stimulants talking, but she smiled with her new teeth and skipped her walk into a trot as she began moving over slightly biological black bug matter. There were spires of the stuff rising around her with green bulbs growing off them at varying heights.

It would have been eerie if Hell wasn't so excited. This time, however, after learning her lesson of charging into bugs with reckless abandon, she kept her right side stuck to some structure, either stone or bug rock for cover. Coming around one such spire, Hell quickly stepped back into cover as soon as she spotted another bug. Still a small one, about the size of her barrel with the armor on. She pushed her head barely around the corner to get a good look at it.

It looked like a kind of beetle, with a black chitinous front, and an engorged backside glowing green. That's where its similarities to the beetles she used to crush at the schoolyard ended. The thing had crystalline blue wings under an elytra and large blue compound eyes that she could barely see the top of from where she was behind it. Parts of its chitin had strangely placed holes, with only more chitin underneath. It lacked antenna, which was probably why it couldn't smell her.

She was covered in blood and bug guts. She couldn't smell anything except for herself. It was a nice change of pace from the burning gaseous acid going down her nose, but Hell didn't waste the time trying to figure out which she liked better.

Carefully moving from out of cover so as to not disturb any of the rocks or make any sound, she came up behind the bug as it chittered over something in the ground. Once she was close enough, she reared up onto her back hooves. The change in light alerted the bug, but it was too slow to respond as Hell's front hooves came down with the force of a blacksmith's hammer on its exposed bulbous backside.

Hell grinned as her armor got splashed again with bug internals, and the thing let out a curtailed screech of pain that abruptly ended as it went twitchingly still.

She lifted a hoof to wipe the gunk out of her visor, and successfully only added more gunk. Flicking her hoof to get some of guts off, she then wiped again, and then looked down at the offending bug.

"That's what you get for being a dumb bug." She spat 'dumb bug' at the thing. Hoping that it understood when it died that it was on the wrong side of ideological and biological history.

Pulling up her map, Hell noticed the nearby red markers. There must have been at least five more of these things nearby, sitting in the mist. She realized that she was nearly as invisible to them as they were to her.

Except she had tech. She could spot them before they could spot her.

Mumbling praise to Equestria for providing her with the upper hoof, she sneaked her way towards her next bug. Dispatching it in a similar fashion.

While she was sneaking up to the next one, her radio crackled and a voice she didn't recognize came through. "This is Pegasus One. Thirty minutes remaining Tartarus Diver."

She made a small 'o' with her mouth. Having forgotten her Super Destroyer couldn't stay in low orbit forever. She quickened her pace to her next target. This one was facing towards her when she ran up to squash it. As she came down on the thing, it jumped forwards and tried to latch onto her chest, only to get sent into the ground with a satisfying splat.

Turning to the side, she could see the dim reflective glow of the next small bug and drew her pistol. As she was lining up the shot, her ear swiveled to her right to note a strange drumming noise. The bug she was currently aiming at let out a screech as she turned towards the slowly growing rhythmic sound.

Then, there was a head. A large one, coming from the mist from at least twice as high as her own height, charging towards Hell. She flared her wings in an open flap, jumping towards the small bug as she tried to dodge the charge. The thing twisted its head and clipped her back legs as she jumped, sending her spinning. She hit the ground on her side and rolled twice before coming to a stop facing the small bug that looked just as surprised to see her as she was to be suddenly this close to it.

CRACK

Luckily her gun hoof happened to be facing just the right direction, and she happened to have a faster reaction time than the small bug.

Rolling over its exploded body, and back onto her hooves, she turned to get a look at the massive creature stalking towards her in the mist.

It had six massive legs that looked like hooves near the base from where they came out of its sides. They turned into black chitinous spikes near the bottom, each filled with holes in seemingly random places. Its body was invisible behind its massive plated head, which Hell's quick thinking mind didn't have a good analogy for. Its face was just underneath the plated sections, with four silted green pupils, and an array of disgusting mouth parts, and two elongated serrated limbs stretching from underneath its neck currently reaching out to cut her in half.

Hell dove again, trying to get some distance as the thing lunged at where she was just standing. This time she was able to hit the ground on her stomach, and get back up near instantly. She shifted her weight and spun around on her right hoof, sheathing her sidearm while using her left to draw her short rifle.

From the side, she could see the green lined stomach of the thing, and its elytra, mutated to be far too small to ever gain flight. As it turned to lock onto her again, she saw a three part extension of soft flesh that looked kind of like a crown, each tendril had a little glowing green ball at the tip.

Starting there, Hell opened up, pointing her rifle at the crown, and dragging her firing line down the armored head towards its mouth and eyes before she settled into firing straight into its face.

"YEAH! GET SOME!" She screamed over the roar of her rifle. It wasn't a particularly loud weapon, but leaning over it into the sights on the front was enough to fill her ears with nothing but the reports of the weapon as she drained the magazine. She began walking backwards as she fired, not worrying about her aim since the bug in question was large enough to simply not miss.

About two thirds of the way through her ammunition, the thing's head exploded in a shower of gore; a good sign for Hell to stop firing. She took a breath, only to be interrupted as the body of the thing kept coming at her, the serrated claws diving for her as her eyes went wide.

The first one hit her armor, the second one went through her chest plate and gored her from just under her neck and down to just below her chest. She stumbled backwards as her vision flashed white and she was hit over the head by the bug's next swing. Luckily her helmet stopped her head from getting cut open, but she went tumbling onto her side and into the acidic muck as the monster continued swinging at where she was for a few moments before falling over, dead as a horseshoe nail.

Hell didn't notice, dazed as she was, trying to keep her organs inside her chest with a hoof. She shakily pulled another stim from her bag as she felt blood and bile rising into her throat from her injured chest.

The jam, followed by the hiss was just as euphoric as the last time. The magic filled her chest, pushing out the acidic liquids that had gotten into her wound, while sucking the important parts back in, and closing the slice wound like a zipper. She didn't even notice the dent in her skull until it folded back outwards and pushed against the dent in her helmet. There wasn't any discomfort though, the stims were responsible for that.

She tried to keep the bubbling giggle from her mouth as she coughed up and spat out the dead material sitting in her trachea. She managed one stimulant fueled laugh after clearing her throat, and checked her map.

She'd successfully taken out the Brood Commander, the orange marker was greyed out on her map.

Her radio crackled as she smiled and breathed deep, "This is Pegasus One, extract when ready Tartarus Diver."

Hell nodded to herself, and panned her map over to the extraction zone. Without further ado, she began her short excursion out of the bug's hive area. Once she was back out in muddy sandy acrid wetlands, she spotted the blue beacon of the extraction zone, and broke out into a sprint.

Nearly tripping over the first boulder she came across, she continued her pace through a pool of acid, which stung the fur and flesh on the back hoof the bug had bitten through, the armor no longer sealed and letting the acid into her suit.

She kept running undeterred, all the way until her chest started to burn with the exertion of the acid flowing into her lungs. Hell was a thestral, the heat never bothered her, she preferred it even. Though wet aerosol acid nearing boiling point was too much for her body to keep a full sprint, so she slowed down to a trot as she approached a raised section of rock away from the rest of the mud and gunk surrounding the rest of the terrain.

She could spot plenty of random equipment, metal tubes, rolled up wires, and a few abandoned tents.

Her HUD marked a packaged sample of biological material that she pocketed once she recognized its importance, followed by the second one within visual range.

Hell spun around with her rifle drawn as soon as she heard a hiss. Behind her was a trio of the larger bugs. Not the brood commanders, luckily, but still with thicker armor than the little ones. They were just about her size, if a little shorter and wider. Massive black and green chitinous monsters with blue segmented eyes.

Hell's head did the simple math, and opened fire.

CRACK-CRACK-tick

Hell glanced at her offending weapon before she realized she hadn't rearmed it after killing the brood commander. The two without any bullet holes in them screeched and ran at her, their visage becoming more clear as they approached. Hell was already halfway through turning around while arming a grenade. Once she spat out the pin, she let the grenade cook in her left hoof while she ran, the bugs hot on her tail. Once two seconds had passed in her head, she launched herself forwards onto her stomach with a flap of her wings as she spun in the air and kicked the grenade right in-between the two bugs.

They shared a look of surprise for a split second before the grenade went off between them. Throwing them both in opposite directions and pulverizing their insides with a wave of force that carried the deadly parts of a fragmentation grenade.

Hell landed on her back a split second later, her armor protecting her from grinding her spine into rocks, as she drew her pistol and aimed it at the third bug, stumbling forwards with one of its front legs missing.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK CRACK-CRACK-CRACK

Two three shot bursts and the bug went down, missing most of its head, and plenty of its limbs.

Hell got up and shook the daze out of her head from hitting the ground as she trotted up towards the beacon. Switching momentarily from a trot to a run she got up, muzzle close, to the screen. There were a few commands, and a data entry port for her Tartarus Diver details, confirmation of location and a tac-map data bridge for mapping out the landing details for the evac ship.

She heard screeching from behind her as she was midway through disconnecting, while putting in the rest of the information required to send the extraction team. With a quick jab onto the display to activate the beacon, Hell used her hoof to grip the screen to give her a balance point to spin around with her pistol drawn.

Her radio crackled as she spotted her targets, "Evac request confirmed, Pegasus One on the move, ETA, two minutes."

A hoof full of bugs, large and small. She holstered her pistol and ripped a grenade off her bandolier. Lifting it to her teeth and pulling the pin, she continued to back up to make distance as she aimed and kicked the grenade forwards to land a meter in front of the bugs in question. The grenade rolled into them, and one of the larger bugs was smart enough to jump to the side just as the weapon exploded; turning whatever was there into a pile of meat and broken chitin.

Hell whipped out her pistol and pointed it at the bug that had dodged the explosion. Her first shot missed, but the next to landed dead center in the thing's head. It stumbled forwards towards Hell, dazed and confused, before slouching down onto the ground, twitching in place as it died.

Hell smirked to herself. "Easiest Liberation I've ever seen."

"Pegasus One, ETA One minute, thirty seconds."

Hell looked around for any more targets. There weren't any.

She pulled up her map, to see if there were any targets. There weren't any.

So she simply elected to stand in place. Testing her recently destroyed and restored body with a few standing stretches as her evac ship continued to update her on its arrival time.

"This is Pegasus One. I see the drop zone, watch where you're standing, Tartarus Diver." Her radio buzzed in her ear.

Hell took a double take, realizing that she had only heard the radio transmission in one ear, rather than both. She reached up to rub at the spot on her helmet where her speaker was attached, and noticed pretty clearly the indentation from where she was hit in the head. She could feel the pressure through the broken plating on her helmet as she pushed down, understanding why her left side radio wasn't working.

"I'll have to get a new helmet." She said to herself, though the actual words were drowned out as the space worthy VTOL aircraft touched down in front of her and shut off its engine. The cargo bay folded open for her as she walked up underneath the tail of the craft and got in. Immediately the door began to fold up again, and she heard the pilot on the all channel again

"Extraction complete. Pegasus One, beginning ascent."

Hell could see the stallion in light pilot's gear in the cockpit from the fuselage as she rushed forwards to grab onto the harnesses as the craft whirred and began to move again. He was a yellow earth pony with a deep blue mane and orange stripe going through it. He had probably the biggest, fluffiest mane she'd ever seen on a pony, the strip crisscrossed everywhere through the bundle, and she was nearly too distracted to get in her seat before the aircraft lifted off, and she heard the Democracy Officer say over all-comms. "Liberty. Has been delivered."

She finished strapping in while the aircraft jerked around. Eventually coming to the normal yet still biologically strange upright sitting position.

"Hey!" The pony at the controls called back, "Good work down there Diver!" His voice was pitched, to get over the signal masking of the roaring engines.

Hell... was confused... Why was he talking to her without the comms? Did the ship take damage while landing?

"You okay back there?!" He called back again, without turning away from the controls.

Hell tapped her back hoof, which felt strange due to the sitting position, with a couple of HUD controls she switched on the comm network, and opened all-comms. "Is there something wrong with your communication system?"

She watched the stallion at the controls mouth something to himself. Something like 'dayum' before he waved his hoof in the air in a circular motion, then reached it forwards to the controls. Hell watched on in confusion until he twisted a dial and the sound of a speaker sparking filled her ears.

"Ah, there we go." He said, now directly into her ears.

Did he just open a private comm channel? Was that allowed?

He continued, "You've got quite the voice on you, miss?"

Hell didn't realize he was asking for her name, and simply responded to the compliment, "Thank you."

The line went silent, and she saw the stallion chuckle right before he spoke again, "What's your name Diver?"

Hell's ears perked up in an 'oh' gesture, still slightly confused by the nature of the interaction... Confused and suspicious. "Hell Diver. Sir."

"Ain't no need to sir me Diver." He nodded to himself, "And it sounds like you've got some patriotic parents. What does Hell mean though?"

This was a question she tended to answer a lot, one that she hadn't answered since joining boot and starting her training. Names didn't matter there, or supposedly here, yet he still asked, and she still answered. "Hell's a griffonian word, translated from 'Peraure' which is..." She decided to supplant the true name of the language, "-batpony; for Tartarus."

She'd gotten enough bullying in boot for being a flightless Thestral to know what and how to say certain things about their culture, to not spawn more of the politically ambiguous comments about her species.

"Hell Diver huh?" He mused to himself over the radio, "Thanks; you enjoy your first mission away from Equestria?"

Hell Diver's brow furrowed. "Is this an inspection of some sort? Of course I enjoyed it."

"Nah, just makin' conversation." He leaned forwards to click a couple dials as the ship breached atmosphere resistance.

Hell fell silent. She could have sworn fraternization with exterior branches was heavily discouraged in the Tartarus Diver ops manual. This wasn't some random citizen though, this was one of her crew members. They'd gone through military training the same as she had, albeit, probably less rigorous. Surely she must be missing something, or this wasn't actually against mission protocols.

He must've noticed her discomfort from the lack of a response, or maybe he was just done talking. Nonetheless, he didn't speak again, until Hell said, "What's your name?" The words didn't quite feel right as she spoke them. After they left her mouth, she felt like grabbing out to try and pull them back in, but she knew she couldn't.

"Horizon." He said over the radio, as he said it, he turned around in his seat to wave at her with a wide smile. Hell just leaned backwards into her seat, not having protocol to know how to interact with ponies meant she was flying in the dark. Bugs? Death? Holding in organs that were falling out of her chest? She knew all those. Shoot, don't die, keep those inside, as organs are important for a healthy voter.

She had no idea how to talk to ponies casually.

That must have been when he noticed her discomfort, because he turned away and then disconnected the private channel. The rest of the flight back to The King of Starlight was in silence.

SDS: Shmoovement

There was a physical series of clanking movements as the Pelican touched down inside the King of Starlight. She shook slightly in her seat as the magnets embedded in the floor guided the ship into position, and then flattened her ears. She was prepared for the hissing and the louder magical reverberation of the docking sequence, having read the landing procedure. The transport door opened at the end as the plane settled.

Horizon got out of his seat in what he felt was pretty good time. As he turned around to address Hell Diver, he only caught a glimpse of her dirty yellow tail disappearing around the corner of the Pelican's ramp.

Hell was on a mission to get a mission. The adrenaline was still running high and she wanted to get back into the fray. She trotted straight across the small spacer alloy defined hangar and to the rail guided platform. As soon as she stepped onto it, it jumped into movement, lifting her up to the deck she had originally woken up from.

She tilted her head as sparklers in the ground filled the air around the lift with bright lights.

"What the..." She mumbled in amusement.

"I don't think I've ever seen Liberty dispensed with such enthusiasm, Tartarus Diver." The standing officer said as she approached, a technical pad held in hoof around a band attached to her leg. She was maneless, like all officers were, but her well groomed fur was a soft shade of dark pink, almost maroon.

Hell saluted, and she did in kind. "I'm glad you took notice, appreciation for Democracy well served is always a good thing."

"Indeed. Now, if you have a moment?" The mare inclined her head.

Hell tried to remember if there was something important she had forgotten as she spoke, "Of course ma'am."

She nodded, "First and foremost, when you exit the transport craft, the science team will normally greet you to gather any samples you retrieved while planet side. For now, I will take them." She reached out her hoof, the one with the pad on it.

Hell nodded, having forgotten about them in her rush to get... somewhere. She reached for the full sample container on her belt, near her back legs. With a -click- and a twist, it came off; Hell deposited it on the pad, which beeped once when it recognized the container.

"Thank you. That will be all for now Tartarus Diver. Good luck out there."

Hell nodded and continued on her way to the situation room. The mare from before with the bolts cutie mark waved at her as she walked past. She didn't wave back, though she felt the muscles in her leg momentarily move to do so before she reminded herself that she needed to check the Tartarus Diver manual before interacting with her staff in less than a professional manner.

"Greetings Tartarus Diver. The bugs are still swarming this planet, choose what location to clear them out from, in the name of Managed Democracy." The Ministry of Truth officer said, again very sternly as she approached the command console.

This time, Hell didn't look over the globe again, struck in awe by the technology. It rotated momentarily, then the map came down and formed a terrain scan, with the details of the mission appearing on the console.

Easy Operation
Mission, Forty Minutes
Upload Escape Pod Data
a Crashed Escape Pod in the Area Contains Valuable Data

She pressed twice on the console, and the PA system sounded off another 'coordinates locked' as the map whirled. She nodded to the Ministry of Truth Officer and approached the stairs up to the Tartarus Pod launch platform, the grating making sharp but quiet metal on metal sounds as her combat shoes made contact.

She jumped with her front hooves, and leaned back into a standing position before stepping back onto the pad. Her wings tried to ruffle, unconsciously trying to maintain her balance so she could remain upright. The pad locked, the platform fell, and she picked a location on the smog filled radar that wasn't thinly veiled in red, but still close to her objective.

She heard the PA sounding off information in pace with her button pressing, the last one being 'Tartarus Pod launch confirmed' before her world was engulfed in momentum, and Hell passed out.

Mission - Zero Zero Two

Hell regained consciousness

Plummeting through the sky at just over the speed of sound with seconds before impact will do that.

This time, she didn't fiddle with the controls, just took a deep breath and watched through the exterior camera as the ground rushed up to meet her pod. She reflexively flopped her ears down, which only slightly worked within the interior of her helmet, luckily the sound of the crash was muted by the sensors.

There was a short delay before the pod lifted her up, and she fell onto her front hooves and took stock.

She made sure not to take a deep breath this time to avoid getting a mouthful of acid as she looked over the few meters she could see ahead of herself. She checked her weapons and her map, her main objective was nearby, closer than the brood commander was, but there was another marker in-between the two that she clicked on while looking at the map. The marker appeared at the top of her vision and she started walking.

Walking through the mist was just as gross as it was before. Her hooves sank in the mud, and her eyes stung along with the rest of her skin and mouth and nose.

Filthy bug planet She thought to herself, Once we take this for Equestria, The Ministry of Expansion will clear away all of this toxic mist and make this place a paradise.

Hell reminded herself of what she was fighting for, and looked up through the mist at the partially visible sky when a golden beam of light shot upwards. It was dim, clearly coming from a damaged pod, sending out a kind of distress signal she'd never seen before.

Breaking into a light run, and making sure not to trip over any of the rocks, she approached.

Cautiously. It wasn't going anywhere after all.

It was a good thing too, she ran up against a hole, slowing down to look into it. In front of her was a throw up building, damaged and abandoned, painted with the colours of Equestria. She wandered around the hole and spotted the staircase leading inside, but continued looking for the beacon. Scattered around was a series of ammo boxes and random useless objects, there was a pack of spare grenades that she took without hesitation and a sample she stored away for later.

She turned away from the building and made her way into the hole. There was some kind of metal storeroom embedded in the rock, with more random objects scattered around it, and some weird looking device with wheels and a metal fork extending from the front.

She tried the door. No latches, no openings. Just a metal sheet over something that was clearly hollow, she checked by tapping it with her hoof, the sound of reverberation that her combat boot made when it hit the cover was enough to tell her there was something inside.

"Hello? Is there somepony in here?" She knocked again. Nothing

"Welp." She stepped back and pulled one of the new grenades from her bandolier and tossed it forwards after pulling the pin. The blast sent the 'door' flying off of its welding points and opened the way for the closet. On the inside was a pair of samples and a medal.

Hell smiled to herself and stored the medal away in her smallest pocket. There was no better way to support capitalism then by engaging in it, tl:dr, finders keepers.

With nothing else out there, Hell ran back up the staircase and checked her map again before dropping a pin and running towards the next marker on the map.

If one of those things had money lying around in them, I wonder what the next one will have?

It didn't matter that she'd never seen an emergency beacon like that before, nor that she couldn't find its place of origin, it having apparently shut itself off as she approached. She was just excited to find secure loot for herself and her team, ignorant of the potential conjecture.

The next location was far more sobering. It was two gravestones she came upon. She didn't have to think for her run to slow itself to a stop as she approached.

It was a clear story. Three dead, with two buried, and one more lightly clad soldier holding a long weapon in his dead hooves, leaned up against the gravestones. There was a bug in pieces, melted and scorched meters away from him.

Hell stopped walking, her HUD had identified the flamethrower, and the two samples, but she spent a few precious moments saluting the hero who guarded his fallen comrades on this barren planet to the end.

She did eventually take the loot though, she was respectful; not overly moral, it was a flamethrower. Where else was she going to get one of those out here? The weapon came to rest on the rail under her barrel, where it could rest without interfering with her running, or making her center of gravity too high.

She opened her map again once the thing was settled and marked her primary objective and began running until she came up upon a hill. Happy to step off of the mud and gunk and onto solid rock, she ran up the side, only to peek over the top and see the other side was covered in grubs.

She flipped out her short rifle and dropped prone on top of the hill, leaning to the right to avoid resting her weight on the flamethrower. They hadn't seen her yet, so her eyes had time to mentally mark her targets. She aimed down the scope and then fired two shots at the closest bug.

Before they even knew what was going on, two more shots dispatched another one. Then three, the second having gone wide. There was a screech as they finally got a bead on Hell on top of the hill and began to charge forwards.

Hell continued to take precise shots, occasionally missing while the bugs rushed up the hill. One of them stayed behind and began to release some sort of barely visible pink chemical into the air, she snapped the rifle in its direction and fired four shots. Three ended up hitting, and whatever it was doing stopped when it died. She turned back towards the rest of the bugs and fired an individual shot into each one, now that they were close enough for her to aim for their bulbous ends.

There was a slight building of anxiety as they got closer, but with one more cracking report of the short rifle, everything in the clearing lay still.

Hell took a breath and stood up. A short reload later and she continued in the direction of her main objective, at least, she would have if she hadn't spotted pink smoke in the air over the acidic green mist. The telltale sign of an opening to one of the subterranean lairs of the disgusting bug scourge.

Turning in place, Hell began sprinting towards the smoke once she had the direction memorized. She instinctively spread her wings to help her stay cool as she ran. Her hooves tossed up mud as she ducked down to gain more speed.

She was getting closer, and shifted her gallop into a three legged run as she pulled up her stratagem system, pressing the buttons and sending her ID through the system, she got a ping back from her The King of Starlight as a targeting sphere rolled down from her chest into her hoof. The bugs screeched as she ran by, leaving a blur of Thestral mare and green acrid smoke as the little sphere bounced off the head of one of the larger bugs, then into the hole.

Two seconds passed once Hell came to a stop and whipped out her pistol, she aimed it towards the hole and waited. There was a sound like someone scraped a warbling sheet of aluminum past a microphone at the speed of sound, and an explosion that tossed up mud and rubble, the shockwave of sound and physical force reaching her through the ground and air a split second after the bug hole exploded in a shower of gore.

Only one grub made it out, missing a leg. She put a single pistol round into its head and it fell over gurgling on its own organs as its body failed.

Hell walked over to the hole, just out of curiosity. It was a collapsed tunnel surrounded by pulverized bug. She spat on the pile for good measure, then continued on her way.

There were no more obstructions to the crashed pod. Just mud and puddles of acid... you know, not obstacles.

The pod was half embedded in the ground, looks like it fell on a pretty decent trajectory and didn't explode. Her HUD showed her an alert as soon as she got close to it to trigger a data transfer, which she did, a few bleeps on her hoof mounted control system set that. Then she got to looking around. There were a few samples scattered around the pod, which was empty.

Otherwise? Nothing.

Hell grumbled to herself and tapped a hoof while she waited for the data transfer to finish. An agonizingly long time for her adrenaline addled body.

There was a beep an- "Finally!"

Hell Diver shifted on her hooves as her all-comms switched on, "Primary objective complete, good work Tartarus Diver, extract at your leisure."

She began trotting forwards before stopping, her head snapping up to a radio tower in the distance. "What the- How did I miss that?" She opened her map, marked the radar and kept moving towards it. As she walked, a grouping of quietly moving bugs slowly became visible through the mist.

Hell whipped out her pistol, and started firing into the crowd, two grubs went down, then she focused her firepower on a pair of larger bugs. Her eyes snapped away from her aim at a new bug type she'd not seen before and she missed a few shots. She shifted on her hooves and began backpedaling as she fired the rest of her pistol clip into the massive head of the new bug.

Its entire front side was covered in thick black plating, there was no green glow from eyes, only thin mandibles hanging down from the bottom. Each bullet ricocheted or outright stopped against the thing's head. At this point, the large bugs, 'drones' her mind dubbed them, had closed the distance. One of them took a swipe at her and Hell didn't wait to see if was going to connect. She threw herself into a roll with a flap of her wings, ending up on her side. As she rolled to her hooves she pulled a grenade from her bandolier and chucked it at the offending massive shield headed bug as she pulled the pin.

The grenade rolled under the thing, and it seemed to look at it in confusion momentarily before it exploded. The bug was far too sturdy, and instead of a shower of gore, the thing merely slumped in place, dead.

Hell drew her short rifle and emptied a clip into both of the drones at close range as they closed on her again, they didn't get close enough to get in another swing before their front halves were reduced to mush.

"What the buck was that." She said, walking up to the thing in question while she reloaded her drained weapons. The buck it was, was what looked like a drone, but with all of the armor on its face and front legs instead of... anywhere else. The rest of it was a gross glistening series of exposed, raw hydraulic muscles and pulverized meat. Hell's nose wrinkled in disgust and concern.

She trotted away, back towards the radio tower, ignoring the strange new creature.

The radio tower and its surrounding terrain were much better kept than the building she'd seen before, the lightweight reproducible plating made quiet tinking noises as she walked across towards the command console. She pressed the screen with her hoof, and the console began to whir to life as it turned on. There were a few flashing logos, but Hell ignored the data stream and let her equipment do its work, a few beeps later, and the radar dish was sliding up the metal strut on the other side of the structure.

Hell heard a screech and turned to face the wave of bugs rushing up towards her elevated position.

"Seems like a perfect time to test you o-" Whatever else she was going to say was drowned out by the spark of liquid flame exploding as she bit down on the support weapon trigger in her mouth. The flamethrower deposited a lovely amount of vibrant orange flame onto the enemy position, and in the next few seconds, if there were any bugs left alive down there; there would only be cooked meat soon.

"Nice." Hell Diver said to herself as the console began to beep from behind her, she turned back to it. It wanted her to manually turn the dish in the right direction, except the dish was already facing the right direction, so she just pressed the digital 'accept' button and it dinged and started a long wave data transmission. Her objective 'ding' noise dinged in her ear to commemorate the moment.

Hell shrugged and continued on, she was sad to leave the solid structures designed and produced by Equestria and return to the disgusting bug planet terrain, but then again, it was her job. Her calling even.

She caught a breath and sprinted up towards more pink smoke she saw.

Hell...

Hell felt something as she bore down on the monsters and their home. Her hooves hit the ground harder, her wings caught more air, she felt an electric smile coming to her face as she tore up the mud in a dash. One jump was all it took to clear the hole and toss a grenade into the hole. The bugs in question barely responding in time before being thrown away by the shockwave. She hit the ground and the impact sent a wave of adrenaline fueled blood through her muscles.

Her heart thumped in her chest as she sprinted towards the next hole, not even realizing she was holding a gallop with only three hooves. A grub ran into her path, and she punched it in the head with the lit grenade as she ran past it before throwing the grenade over the heads of the drones crawling out of the next bug hole. The next hole was straight ahead.

She wasn't out of breath, she wasn't even tired, her hooves didn't ache, and Hell felt no pain in her lungs as she ran faster, the grin on her face growing as she blitzed the bugs around her so fast they didn't even see her.

Her wings spread wider as she prepared another orbital strike, the targeting sphere rolled into her hoof as she jumped a distance she shouldn't've been able to jump. She dropped the ball straight into the hole as she cleared it and the bugs around it.

She hit the ground and spun on a single hoof while pulling out her short rifle and latching it onto the shoulder mount in one smooth motion, a split second later, and her eyes laser focused on her first targets, the bugs swarming towards her and the red beam now shooting up into the sky.

She opened fire, screaming and laughing. "WOOOOO! HAHAHA!"

Bugs exploded, and Hell dove backwards, throwing herself into an airborne corkscrew with her front hooves just as the sound of the orbital strike and the subsequent explosion of impact happened. The bugs rushing her got a face full of kinetic and explosive force, sending several of them into the air, and pulverizing the rest.

There was no more hissing, the whole series of events took less than ten seconds.

Hell took several deep breaths from her spot in the mud on her back. Blinking away the euphoria of what had just come over her.

"Whoah." She said to the sky, the very small starry section of it she could see through the acid.

She rolled onto her hooves and stood. In the distance, she caught sight of another golden beam struggling to light up the sky. It was only a little bit off of the path to extraction, so she veered off to the side towards it. The ground there was harder, the mud was splashed away, and there were several fires glittering in the darkness.

She walked up to a silhouette of a Pelican class transport VTOL. There were a couple of samples she scooped up from the dirt on the way, but the most notable was a strange... almost aerodynamic drone looking pod. The robotic kind, not the bug kind.

She crept up to it, and its blinker.

It had: 'salute for freedom' written in blue on it.

Well... When in Pone She thought, saluting to the pod. There was a hiss, and the front panel of the pod blew off, she ducked to avoid it. There was money inside!

"Woo!" She did a cute little dance to get close and scoop up the resources. I'm on fire!

"More capitalism is more good. That's what Grandmama Grella used to say." She nodded to herself and the saying as she closed her pouch and turned back towards extraction. Luckily, it was far closer than anything else had been so far. The fog there was light, and there wasn't any mud.

Equestria, she was getting very sick of slchotching through mud.

She opened her stratagem screen and punched in the details for a supply. Once she threw the orb to the ground, she turned towards the extraction beacon, lighting up the sky with equal parts technology and magic.

A few more console beeps later and her comms beeped before Horizon's voice filled the channel, "Extraction request confirmed, on the way Dive-" Hell stopped listening as her audio systems tuned out the voice in favour of the hissing coming from behind her. She spun around and whipped out her pistol just as a group of grubs turned around one of the throw up concrete and metal walls and her supply pod landed.

Five shots, and three were dead, but more were coming. She had already gotten some extra space while backing up, so she holstered her sidearm and drew her short rifle. The Liberator had a far higher stopping power than her sidearm, so... simple math is simple.

Several reports of her weapon and the bugs were dead. She began moving to the ammo box, but she heard more hissing. She turned again towards the raised area of rock behind her with more concrete barriers to see drones struggling to fit in-between the gap. She bit down on the heavy weapon trigger, and there was a flicker of sparks and a fwooshing noise for a second before the flamethrower burst into light.

She took a moment to adjust her stance, aiming it up towards the opening as she just emptied the tank onto the choke point. The sounds of screeches in pain were drowned out by the loud whirring noises of the
flamethrower dispatching hilariously pressurized liquid flame.

"Extraction ETA, one minute, thirty seconds."

Hell turned back towards the supply pod and spent the next thirty seconds refiling everything. New clip for her Liberator, new one for her pistol, and it took a minute of figuring, but she eventually found the release mechanism for the flamethrower. This one was a different model than the ones she'd seen before, but before long, the flamethrower happily took a fresh tank of liquid flame.

"Extraction ETA, one minute."

She stood back up, locking her short rifle to her shoulder and putting her head on a swivel.

Her sensitive ears could hear the sounds of moving rocks and sloshing liquid. There was something nearby. She pulled up her map and oriented herself towards the red dots that appeared. She looked up from her map just in time to see a strangely coloured, albino version of the small grubs. The colour wasn't the only difference though, the thing was thinner and more developed, it had flaps and an elytra that flickered with untraceable movement as it jumped around, coming around from her side.

There was another one circling around from the other side, going around the massive boulder in front of her, if her map was accurate. That, and the hooffull rushing her.

Hell opened up. Turning and moving backwards at the same time threw her aim all over the place, but enough shots hit to at least disable the closest white tinted bug. She turned straight and emptied the rest of her clip into the crowd in front of her. They all began jumping and diving out of the way, Hell only catching a few in her gunspray before her rifle clicked and she ran out of ammo.

She drew her sidearm just in time for the bug sneaking around to her side to jump and took a swipe at her helmet. She spotted the movement and turned with the blow, but it still hurt enough for her to call out in pain. She swung with her sidearm, but the bug hopped backwards, right into her line of fire. Two trigger squeezes over the pain in the side of her head, and the bug sank to the ground twitching and dribbling green ichor from the holes she'd just given it.

She turned her attention back towards the rest of the bugs and swung her hoof around. An unearthly focus came over her as she pulled the trigger as the pistol went past each individual. Four consecutive reports of gunfire went off within the same two seconds, and four more bugs slouched to the ground with bullets lodged in their heads.

That's when there was a spark from her helmet, and her vision went dark.

"Shit." She muttered, the sound not quite reaching her ears through the now audibly sealed helmet. She reached back with her hoof and pulled the E-release tab on the back, under the cloth that wrapped around her neck. There was a plastic click, and then a hiss as the helmet fell away from her face in pieces, the poor thing not able to take any more abuse. She pulled the chin guard and the mouthpiece off, delicately keeping the wires in place so she could still fire her weapons.

Manual fire was basically impossible so... not doing that.

Hell's short but full dirty yellow mane poofed out once it was free of the acidic confines of the helmet, and she wiped a forehoof over her head to clear away her mane and the sweat from her vision. The acid stung at her now exposed eyes and ears; she had to blink away tears as her eyes began to well up to keep the acid out.

She didn't hear the ETA reports, now that she was radio-less, but she did see the Robinson Jets of Pegasus One light up the sky as it breached the atmosphere and dropped towards the beacon.

It didn't take long for the beacon to sink into the ground and for the Pelican to touch down on the metal landing circle. Hell didn't wait to board, and the door closed behind her the second she stepped down onto the interior plating of the aircraft, the ship lifting up a split second later.

Horizon said something into the control systems, but Hell didn't hear it over strapping herself in and the roar of the VTOL from outside.

Horizon turned around, the confusion plastered on his face swept away as he got a good look at Hell Diver.

Like most mares in the Tartarus Diver program, Hell had no idea what she looked like when it came to attractiveness. Horizon on the other hoof, did know that, and ogled her on reflex for a moment before shaking his head and speaking into his microphone. He pressed several buttons, and the control stick slid forwards. He leaned across to the other seat and picked up a pair of headphones and tossed them back to her.

His aim was pristine, especially for being an earth pony, and on the interior of a moving supersonic spacecraft. He sat back down and grabbed the control stick again as Hell Diver, oblivious to the series of events that just happened in front of her, debated putting on the headphones at all.

Eventually she did.

"Great work down there Hell. The auto cannon couldn't even find a target while I was landing."

"Uh... Thanks."

"Dija lose your helmet down there?"

Hell shifted in her seat, "Yes, a bug struck it, and damaged the systems enough that I needed to remove it."

"You ain't hurt are you?"

"No."

Horizon laughed into the mic, "What's with the coldness? You ain't mad that I eyed you up are you?"

Oh so that's what that was.

"No, no. Uhm, nopony really looks at me like that, I think it's..."

"Flattering?" Horizon offered

"Yeah. Isn't it against system organizational code though? I don't want to break any of the rules." Figured that if she couldn't get her hooves on a manual to check, she may as well ask him. He wouldn't lie. Though it didn't cross her mind that if he was willing to breach protocols, he'd probably be willing to lie about it.

Horizon, to his credit, answered pretty quickly. "Oh don't worry, I've got my C-Zero One; and honestly, it was my mistake, didn't mean anything by it."

"No problem." Hell cringed. That's not what I meant to say

"Just keep comin' back alright? Twice is a pretty good number."

Hell tilted her head, glad he hadn't called her out on her verbal accident. "Coming- Well of course, I'm supposed to come back aren't I?"

Horizon laughed as if she had just told a joke, by then, they were close enough to the Super Destroyer for mission details to come in through all-comms, and the conversation ended there.

Level up!
Level: Two
Title: Cadet

New perk!

A real Tartarus Diver:
You were born for this, and the picture on your flanks says so! At maximum health, you have situational bonuses to all things Tartarus Diving! Stamina recovery, aim drift, maximum running speed and more!

Author's Note

I tried to take a lighter approach to gruesome combat with this one; to see how it turned out. While I'm amused and like the results, I'm not sure if it's... better or worse than the previous chapter, feels like it's about the same... Probably just need to sleep on it.

Anypony got any thoughts?

SDS: Maybe calm down just a litt-

Hell practically jumped out of the restraints as soon as Pelican One landed in the bay. The sounds of mechanical supports locking the craft in place mixed with hoofsteps on the metal grating as she walked right up to the ramp and waited as it lowered.

She knew basic safety regulations required the go ahead from the ground team before exiting, but she was so desperate to leave the awkwardness inside the craft behind that she took step as soon as the ramp was flat enough to walk across. She bounced a little as the ramp hit the ground with her on it, her wings flared out slightly, like a bird cooling itself down. Then she was off. One hoof went to her bandolier and retrieved her sample container, remembering the instruction she'd received last time.

A stallion approached, having looked up from his hoof mounted screen. He noticed Hell standing at the end of the ramp with a sample container. He had a buzzed mane, hidden beneath the grey green cap of the ground crew, and an equally drab green fur covered by the same coloured safety suit. "Right here." He said, waving and catching Hell's eye.

She took two long steps forwards, and gave him the container, then went to turn away.

"Hey, I've seen you twice before right? You the mare that came back the first time?"

Even though she was already half a step into leaving, Hell resisted the temptation to just ignore him and walk away. She put her hoof down and made eye contact. "Yeah. That's me."

He gave her a surprisingly warm smile, "Well good work out there. Two's a pretty good number. Just make sure you come back again, okay?"

"Hah! That's what I told 'er Boss!" Horizon laughed as he exited the ship just then, trailing a duffle over his shoulder.

Hell ignored the strange joke, "Thanks, I will." Then she turned to leave. The action of spinning around so fast banged the open mouth flamethrower against her inside hoof, making her wince. Not nearly as bad as when Horizon kept talking.

"Hey, where you goin'?" She heard him call. She looked over her shoulder, aware that she didn't have a helmet on to hide her expression. "Don't you wanna join us for some after action drinks?"

Of course not. Hell smiled through the rising anxiety, "Uh-no thanks. I've..." She idly pointed towards the bridge. "Gotta... get back out there. You know." Then she began walking away again. Yup, it was definitely a 'walk', or so she told herself through the feeling of getting stared at from behind.

Luckily for her, the platform up to the bridge was close enough. She only had to dip between a few ponies who gracefully didn't try to strike up a conversation with her before she reached the platform. Once it started to rise, she took a deep breath, relaxing her nerves just before the sparklers started and nearly made her jump out of her fur.

The end result was the platform reaching the top as she posed like a cat about to pounce, her wings outstretched and her teeth bared as she stared down the sparklers.

"Wow!" Spanner. The lead engineer, clapped from a few hooves away, the mare was probably a few years younger than Diver, barely a mare herself, hence why she was so easily impressed by the false theatrics of Hell looking like she was about to eat the sparkler.

Hell, knocked out of her strange heart-pounding focus glanced up at Spanner and shook her head. She had a spare helmet on her back. Perfect Hell thought, and she trotted forwards to meet the mare.

"You look super fearsome. A real Tartarus Diver. How was your last mission?" Star Spanner said, shaking her high ponytail away from her vision.

"It was alright." Hell was far more focused on getting back even though everypony seemed determined to slow her down. "Is that helmet for me?"

Spanner nodded like she was about to get a cookie. Why is she acting so... young? She didn't act like that before... "Though, I'm just now seeing the rest of your equipment. We'll have to get you refitted before you can go out again." She leaned her head forwards, and down, getting a little too close to the barrel of the flamethrower and Hell's chest to be comfortable. "Who's this beauty?" She said, smiling all the while.

"Uhhh" Hell said, slowly taking a step back.

Spanner looked up at her, and adjusted her goggles with her ears. "Mind if I...?"

"Oh, sure. Here." Hell rolled her back leg, setting the rail to the 'loose' function, and Spanner reached forwards without any more prompting and pulled the flamethrower off of the long rail.

She sat back, and held the weapon upright in her front hooves, giving it a once over. "Oooo... This is a..." She glanced to one side, and suddenly the ammo cartridge fell out into her waiting hoof. "FLAM-203 SeaF original." She put the cartridge back in, and two or three components slid, followed by more Hell didn't even realize could move. "Where'd you find this?"

Hell internally stammered, not prepared for the sudden question or attention. "The ground." Came out, before she had the chance to come up with anything else to say.

Spanner didn't seem to care. "Well that'll explain all the dust and material damage." She scooted across the floor, once again getting in Hell's face. "See this abrasion damage right here?" She said, pointing at some scuffed piece of metal.

Only basic training kept her locked ridged in her current stance.

"Well that means th-"

"Star Spanner, you're not accosting our Tartarus Diver, are you?"

Oh thank Equestria. Hell knew how to do this. She saluted.

"Oh! No ma'am!" Spanner saluted as well, though her response was a bit askance, due to her proximity to Hell, and the support weapon cradled in her other hoof.

Hell met the eyes of the standing officer, who returned her salute. The both held it for a moment before returning to parade rest, you know, aside from the proximity to Spanner.

The maroon mare spoke, "Good work down there Tartarus Diver. I see you lost your helmet?" She said, distinctly not asking Hell, instead, turning her head towards Spanner.

"Oh!" Spanner turned, and lifted the helmet from her back. Wait... how was it still on her back while she was sitting upright? She hefted the thing around and lifted it up towards Hell. She grabbed it with her mouth first, then repositioned the guard over the bottom before grabbing it in her hooves and rolling it onto her head.

The helmet was comfortable, new. It had that new helmet smell that only served to remind her of blood on her fur and poison in the air. At least it was safe, and now she didn't have to measure her expressions. "Thank you." Came her voice, slightly distorted by the helmet's fabric cover for her mouth.

She glanced towards the standing officer and nodded a tiny nod, then made her way towards the bridge after taking the flamethrower from Spanner, much to her disappointment.

"Hey wait, we still have to fix up the rest of your armor." Spanner said.

Hell looked over her shoulder, though the helmet may have changed the tone of what she said. "It's only superficial damage. I do not want to waste any resources."

That was when the maroon officer interrupted her walking away, stepping forwards with an eyebrow raised. "You know you get a time to rest, after completing a mission, correct?"

Hell did not know that, but she did now, and she wasn't about to admit it. "Yes ma'am." She said, but... kept walking, unable to come up with anything else to say. She missed Spanner's deep frown, and sad look, and the standing officer pursing her lips like she'd just consumed a particularly philosophical thought inducing lemon.

Passing into the bridge, Hell sent a salute to the Democracy Officer, who saluted right back. It was only when she approached the planetary map and the screens did he speak.

"Diver, it's good to see somepony so eager to swiftly bring down the hammer of Democracy onto our enemies." His voice was as deep and gravelly as it usually was. Though, despite the ever present neutral frown on his face, he sounded pleased.

She nodded, fiddling with the controls, "Anything for Equestria." She said with conviction, as much as she could fit into the three words. With a hoofstroke, the screen displayed the planet in question. Keeping in mind the several gaps in her armor, she backed out from the display, and selected a nearby planet.

Several beep-boops later, she had her mission.

Medium Impact Operation
Mission, forty minutes
Eliminate Chargers

SEAF in this region have reported sightings of Chargers exhibiting dangerous new mutations

These specimens must be eliminated before their mutant strain spreads

She caught a respectful nod out of the corner of her eye from the Democracy Officer as she turned for the pods. She wasted no time, getting up on her hind hooves and backing into the pod, and being submerged in screen lit darkness.

She picked a location, and took a deep breath. A shudder she didn't expect ran up her hoof when she pressed the launch button. The clamps were far more uncomfortable with a weapon attached to the long rail, but she was unconscious after a few seconds, so it didn't matter too much.

Mission - Zero Zero Three

Hell Diver woke up on her back, which was startling, as that was definitely not the position she expected to wake up in.

She flipped onto her hooves and took stock.

It was far darker than it should have been, the sky and ground were covered in dust, and angry stone monoliths surrounded her, blocking out what little she could see of the sky. Thestral night vision didn't mean much then, the ground and most of the air was tinted red with sand and dust similar to Mars.

She had fallen out of the pod. She hadn't even woken up on impact, instead, having been ejected and toppling onto her back. Her right wing ached from the impact, luckily nothing but a bruise, not anything stim worthy.

She wiped the dust off her front hooves and pulled up her map. Marking the first blue point of interest nearby, her HUD marked it as a 'mutant larva' and she began the trot out from around the rocks. They looked like massive sediment deposits that had spontaneously formed somehow. They weren't individually large enough to be present due to tectonic shifting, and equally, the rock was all compact sand, surface rock, rather than something deeper.

She wasn't a geologist though, she ignored it and kept moving.

The hike through the dark, desolate bug planet didn't go on long until she heard the bugs themselves. She sprinted around a corner and found a small rock to take cover behind as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at.

What are they doing? There was a destroyed series of metal structures, and the Flag of Equestria. A veritable hoard of mismatched chitinous monsters were fighting at the top of the hill the Flag rested on. There were a few she'd never even seen before. Where the normal drones and grubs had green accents, these had a green glow; they were spitting globs of steaming chemicals up the hill at something.

Well... It wasn't her job to think, it was her job to kill bugs. She prepped an orbital strike and a grenade, she sat back, targeting sphere and a grenade in her forehooves. The beacon went out first, and she waited a few seconds to time pulling the pin on the grenade and throwing it over the rock.

The sound of a projectile moving faster than sound and the quake of said projectile hitting stone and sand reached her just as she threw her grenade, it exploded in the air just as Hell jumped over her cover with her short rifle drawn. Her eyes tried to snap to the first approaching targets, but there weren't any.

They ignored her. What the- She ducked to the side, dodging out of the way of a globule of acid sent her way. Her eyes settled on the sender, and she returned a hooffull of bullets as a thank you. The thing exploded violently in a shower of acid and gore, the green muck sizzling loud enough for her to hear over the angry sounds of bugs really trying to kill something. Already, there was another grouping of at least ten at the top of the hill, so she primed and threw another grenade, trailing after it.

Bugs went flying, and she was hit with a chunk of meaty chiton that went flying from the blast as she ran up to the position.

Not wasting the time to question what her HUD marked as a mutant larva, she simply ran past, picked it up, threw it onto her shoulders and kept running. Distance would be the better weapon here, already the bugs were tailing her with all their symphonic screeching. She turned around just in time to punch a bug in the face, one that had disgustingly extended antenna and an engorged elytra. It staggered backwards while she drew her pistol and bit down on the trigger for her flamethrower.

Two shots rang out into the offending bug as the fire started to cover the hill, the bugs, stupid as they were, ran right into it.

Hell simply waited, pouring on the flame to the ones that got closer, and blanketing the area around with enough burning material to actually light up the clearing. It was enough for her to see the subtle difference in colour in sand from Mars to here, Erson. It was a more metallic, vibrant red; it looked rougher and lighter, more like dust than sand.

Eventually the flamer's ammo clicked dry, and the last few bugs stumbled forwards and died. Hell wasn't a personal fan of meat, but her nose told her otherwise. Growing up with a griffon for a mother was enough to have her acclimated to the scent, and despite the situation she was in, she found herself salivating at the smell of roasted bug.

She was hungry. Equestria was she starving. She didn't know how she hadn't realized it until just now, but the exhaustion came at her just as any enemy would have. She shook her head, spat the saliva out of her mouth and hurried away from the mess. Only when she was far enough away to only smell the coppery scent of the dust did she check her map again.

There was a massive orange circle surrounded by red hash marks to illuminate bug activity. Since she could actually see the terrain on the map due to the less intense atmospheric clouding, she took a moment to scrunch her eyes and actually scan the path up towards her main objective. She could pass through the red areas and on her way.

She sat back and pulled the thing off her back. It was some kind of fluid container, lighter than it looked, and filled to the brim with a lightly glowing blue fluid filled with sparkles, and a bug. An even more alien looking fetus looking thing. She grimaced and threw it over her shoulder again and went through the motions of properly latching it onto her back.

One quick flamethrower reload, and she was off.

More rocks, more angry red dust swirling around with the wind, and more trying not to trip on the jagged terrain. She occasionally slipped when her hoof went deeper into the sand than she expected. That and the occasional stumble due to the random hidden rocks that made the grown more solid than expected. It wasn't hard to avoid as much as it was annoying. Wide, side to side steps with her center of gravity kept low stopped her from falling while keeping pace, at the cost of slightly more work, and more exertion.

She spotted rising pink smoke, and calmed herself, saving her energy for the eventual confrontation. It was dark, and the air was filled with dust, so she snuck up around the side. A crevasse was present in-between two massive rock outcroppings, filled to the brim with sand, and a channel the bugs had seemingly made as a path to reach two holes nestled higher up than usual. She thought about trying to throw a grenade that distance before shunning the idea, she only had two left, she'd need to be precise, which meant she had to get close.

The area was, of course, littered with bugs meandering about. No grubs, only drones and the new glowing green monsters were guarding the area. Spitters, she dubbed them.

Hell lifted her short rifle, making sure it was lined up properly on her hoof with a prod of her other. Then she lifted herself up, resting her stomach on the rock she was hiding behind, she set her eyes on the green monsters first. She hadn't been hit by the globule earlier, they looked like they hurt, and she wasn't in the mood to test that theory.

A single burst of three shots fired off. The first glanced the dust, the second struck the bug and blew it to pieces, the third shot was unnecessary. "Volatile, aren't we?" She smirked, this was her element. Talking to ponies was freaky, shooting bugs was easy, simple even. She snapped her rifle to the next one, just as it was realizing where she was. It exploded too, and the one next to it fell on its side from the blast and began to leak acidic green ichor that Hell didn't see, since she was busy firing the rest of her clip at the now rushing drones.

The air filled with gunfire and screeching. Hell didn't bother switching weapons when her rifle clicked empty, she already had a spare clip on the rock to socket into place. More firing, and more bug heads exploding and plenty of new corpses filling the tiny clearing. As soon as there was enough space to move, Hell dove over the rock with a flap of her wings and made a break for the holes.

She crossed most of the distance in a blur, stopping to punch a bug in the face when it stumbled too close to her on its three remaining legs. Flapping her wings on nothing but instinct, she grit her teeth, dug her hooves into the dirt, and forced herself up the hill with the same speed.

This was as close as she'd ever been to a bug hole. It was disgusting, visually speaking. The outside ridges were made of jagged rocks, fused into the interior with black to gradient grey viscous... something, that was pock marked with glowing pink boules of energy, the same colour as the pink smoke radiating from the tunnel.

Fragrance wise, it had a mixed scent of water and chocolate, the non-sugary kind.

Hell threw a grenade at it, and turned around just in time to see one of the tiny malformed bugs flying through the air towards her. Luckily, her getting startled at the 'surprise bug to the face' resulted in her slipping and rolling down the hill, and out of the danger zone, several rotations of having a half-torso sized container of fluid smash into her back left her grunting in pain as she rolled to a stop at the bottom. Lifting herself back onto her legs as she stopped tumbling, she swallowed as much air as she could, filling her mouth with the dust in the air, and sprinted up the next hill.

Three drones crawled out, and she solved that problem with the flamethrower.

The angle was bad enough that most of the heat ended up just blowing back into her face, but it made space for her to throw the grenade on a wide arc that bounced off the rim and into the hole. Just as she sighed in relief that the explosive had arrived at its destination, she threw herself backwards on instinct to avoid getting her neck slashed open by one of the remaining drones that was still in the process of burning to death.

She fell down the hill, again.

"Flocking pidjin droppings!" She yelled as numerous rocks decided to say hello to her unarmored, leathery wings. "Ugh" She rolled over onto her stomach, slowly, as the sounds of bugs dying or attempting to kill her were replaced with only the wind. Her back hurt, bruised for sure, the initial pain was more surprising than damaging, especially after falling onto her back earlier.

She sprung up. "Okay!" Shook her head, "I'm okay. O.K."

She pulled up her map again, she was within the orange border now, close enough to the target that the map had identified several positions it may be in. She didn't know what a charger was, but she knew she'd probably need grenades. So she lifted her hoof, punched in the details, and called down a resupply. The blue from the beacon was a nice refreshing colour.

Twelve seconds went by, and the pod hit the sand right on target. She approached as the supplies lifted up out of the pod, and stopped when she saw writing on the side of one of the small crates. Seemingly carved into the side.

- From Star Spanner, with Love!

There was a little picture of a smiling stick pony figure with a helmet on. Inside, besides the other normal ammo, was an unmarked copper coloured ammo cartridge for the flamer. She didn't waste any time discarding the half filled cartridge and replacing it with the new one, giving off a short test trigger-pull. There was the normal 'puff puff' before the flamer started firing, it went from the normal flame to more of a jet that sprayed the flaming fuel far further.

"Sweet." She mumbled, feeling the heat, she had a real reason to thank Spanner now, aside from the helmet.

Collecting her grenades and fitting them onto her bandolier, she started moving again. As she got closer and closer to the first splotch of red on her map, quick stepping her way through the red dust, pillars of black stone started becoming more prevalent. Glowing green and pink markers didn't light up the area so much as make little shimmering nodes show just how much dust was in the air, and the spires became so common that she eventually came up to a wall of them. They were fused together around the edges, like they had been created and then bent inwards and melted to create a wall, the whole thing was jagged, without being sharp.

Target acquired... Hell tried not to be scared.

She followed the wall around in a circle, she found an intentional opening, the inside walls curving inwards into sharper points, and the entire interior floor covered in water and the same dark rock. There was a SeaF building, half submerged in the rock, and covered in grey goopy extensions that wrapped around it haphazardly. She approached, slowly; her hackles were up, it was far too quiet. The walls were blocking out the wind, and her ears, as sensitive as they were, strained to pick up anything.

She was tempted to take her helmet off again, in order to get a better sense for her surroundings, but remembered how the armor had saved her life at least twice already, and left it on. She crept forwards, her head on a swivel until movement caught her attention.

What she thought was a rock was breathing. Around the corner of the subdivided interior sections of the wall, there was a massive bug. It stood on four legs, rather than the usual six, and was covered head to pincer in spread, interlocking plates of black chitin that turned grey near its edges. With every breath, green ichor dribbled out from its mouth and onto the ground.

It was just standing there, and so was Hell, frozen in place. The thing was massive, at absolute minimum, four times her size without any of the armor.

She slowly stepped back, directly into a puddle.

The beast turned, and an air shuddering breath shook its form as it took a step she felt in her own hooves.

They met eyes for a second, hers widened, while its narrowed. Then it did what chargers do.

The thing lumber forwards, smashing into a rock and sending shrapnel of the structure into the air like it simply wasn't there. Hell started running, but the thing trailed after her gaining speed, turning with her as she started moving laterally.

Oh Equestria ohequestriaoh- She spun around at just the right moment to not get trampled, flapping her wings for the extra momentum and throwing herself into a roll, she dodged just around the corner of the building as the charger ran past. After breaking line of sight, she ran around the other end of the building and pulled up her stratagem screen.

The only weapon I have that can hurt that thing is the orbital strike. How am I going to- Her planning was interrupted as the building she had her back to exploded with the sounds of screaming metal against metal. The charger came barreling through, and Hell only had a moment to yelp as it brought its armored head down like a bull and threw her into the air.

She tried to arrest her momentum with her wings, but there was no point. She was tumbling through the air half dazed, and her wings flapped out of sync and in random directions. She only realized her back legs were broken after she landed and painfully tried to get up again, still dizzy from her short flight. The process of trying to stand and failing reminded her of the precious cargo on her back, cargo that was luckily still undamaged.

A practiced hoof went to her belt and pulled a stim from the bandolier, a second later, it was in her neck, and the edges of her vision went white as the audio of her bones snapping back into place was tuned out over the roar of blood filling her ears and her hooves.

She met eyes with the charger again, and it took several steps to the side, as did she. With the magic still flowing through her, she stamped her hoof on the ground twice, throwing up the dust and debris, a common warning of what would follow. The charger took the challenge and rushed forwards, Hell followed suit, the distance between the two disappearing in an instant. It reared up to crush her, which was exactly what she wanted.

Buffeting her wings, Hell dug her back hooves into the dust, and flipped. Almost an eighth of her body weight in sand went flying up into the roaring face under the charger's armor as she threw herself backwards. It crashed down on nothing, and threw even more sand into its face. It began to shake, and throw its legs out along with its armored head, blinded and thrashing in hopes that Hell was still nearby.

She was not. A ball had enlarged and rolled into her waiting hoof. She was already running as she punched in the details and made the connection. Just as the charger cleared the last of the dust from one of its eyes and looked up at Hell, she was dashing around its front leg, jumping up with a flap of her wings, and depositing the orbital targeting beacon along two of the grooves in its armor.

Just as she landed, it jumped to the side, impacting her and throwing her into the air again. A much shorter flight, ending with her sliding on her side in the sand.

As Hell came to a stop she rolled onto her hooves, she whipped out her rifle, with the hope of making time for the strike to hit, but it was unnecessary. The beast was still shaking, giving Hell an interesting look at how its armor plates slid over each other, and the bulbous unarmored section at the back. Its short legs came up to its head, as it-

Is it trying to get the beacon off? Hell watched in stunned silence as the beast tried and failed to reach the beacon. Its thrashing became more panicked and Hell's eyes widened as it roared at her without charging. Does it know what that is? How? Her internal musings were cut off by the scared roar and sound breaking. The impact shook her, and the beast had the majority of its armored back simply vaporized by the projectile, most of it went splashing onto Hell, but the beast was still alive.

It lumbered forwards, gasping with green blood exploding from the open section of its organs before falling forwards and going still. Hell heard a piece of meat fall from the spot it found on top of her helmet and onto the ground. Then everything was silent again.

The stim had worn off, and her heartbeat returned to normal.

"The..." She said allowed, trying to find the words for what she'd just seen.

Rage, defiance, tenacity, fear.

Bugs shouldn't... They can't, Hell reasoned to herself, Bugs aren't smart, they're adaptive, it's probably got... genetic code... or something, that tells it that the red light is a danger. She conveniently chose to ignore the oddity of it not attacking her as well.

She gave herself a shake, and used the fabric part of her armored hoof to wipe the green ichor away from her visor. Then she started trotting out of the area, leaving several body lengths between herself and the charger on her way back out of the enclosed area.

When she got back into the open air, she took a deep breath and spotted a SeaF artillery platform over the horizon.

"Thank you, terrain masking." She said sarcastically, trotting forwards towards the structure. There were luckily no more roadblocks besides the jagged terrain on the way there. As soon as she was over the cover positions, she spotted the control terminal, and moved over to it. With a few commands, and after using the corded extension from her armor into the terminal, code rushed by faster than she could read, and the terminal lit up with instructions to load the artillery piece just as she heard hissing from her side.

She spun, short rifle already outstretched. Her eyes locked onto a trio of drones, four of the small glowing green explosive bugs, and something. It was like the smaller bugs, spitters, her mind dubbed them, but it was massive. Almost as big as the charger. She threw a grenade over her shoulder as she turned and ran.

The explosion shook the bugs, and popped her ears as she jumped over the steel reinforced concrete embankment. Turning to the side, she did the same thing she had done before, pressed her stomach against the cover for support and aimed her rifle at the nearest target.

Four shots rang out as Hell exhaled and focused. Two went wide, the other two went straight into a drone head. It exploded, painting the other rushing bugs with gore. The small bugs had all exploded from the grenade, but the large one was lumbering and huffing and making angry alien noises as it dragged its disgustingly bulbous tail forwards, over the other side of the embankment.

Hell pulled out her pistol and fired until it clicked dry, equally opening up in full auto with the Liberator. Bullets went flying from her position, the drones went down, but the projectiles only bounced off of the front armor on the new monster. It lifted its head, and instinct alone told Hell to dive to the side, losing her commanding position. A horrible gurgling vomiting noise was followed by the concrete and steel underneath it disappearing in a wave of acid.

Hell's eyes went wide as the visceral image of watching her own flesh melt away from her bones wedged into her mind. She backstepped, watching the acid simply evaporate the metal from inside the embankment. Her mind only came back to her as the beast came over the lip and began rushing forwards towards her.

Hell bit down on the flamethrower trigger in a panic, her mind rebelling against the visual, but her training reminding her how to stay alive. Flame jetted from the weapon in a clean arc directly into the thing's face, it screeched and Hell kept stepping back as she burned it. It took far longer than it ought to, but eventually the bug stutter stepped and then slumped down onto its stomach.

Hell breathed heavily around the trigger in her mouth. She shook her head and mindlessly walked towards the embankment again, hefting herself up over the lip and setting down near an orange tipped artillery shell. It was something else to focus on, so she banished the swirling visuals of her own death and grabbed the shell and lugged it over to the loading bay. Rinse and repeat for four other shells, and she was back on her way to the control terminal. After a quick series of connection software issues, the artillery was broadcasting into her super destroyer.

She stood around to watch it point up at the sky, then, she took a deep breath and pulled up her map.

Get a hold of yourself Diver... She put down a marker towards the next mission objective. She wasn't excited to fight another charger, but she could do it. The idea is what put the motivation into her first few steps, which carried into a gallop as she began to make haste towards the pin floating around on her visor compass. Her pathing would lead her straight through another bug nest, so as she ran, she clamped down on the horrible visions, remembered her desensitization techniques, and enjoyed the scenery as it blurred past her helmet visor.

Her enjoyment of dim red sand in the dusk light was interrupted by the view of billowing pink smoke over a rock outcropping in front of her. She slowed to a trot, and poked her head around the rock face. There were another two holes, in a similar pattern. It looked like the bugs had tried to recreate the same raised hole strategy, but without the small valley in-between massive rocks. Instead, there were just two massive piles of sand with the black rock Hell was starting to associate with bug construction.

There was a mess of the usual, Hell marked them all in her head then leaned back, away from the cover. She flipped out her rifle, and did a quick check of all of her equipment before she turned the corner and started firing while she advanced.

The bugs were ill prepared for her aim, even while moving. The first two drones fell before anything responded, the four glowing green grubs were equally exploded via seven bullets between them, then her gun clicked dry. She rolled the trigger over in her mouth and fired the flamethrower at the remaining charging bugs as she made her way sideways up the sand towards the first bug hole.

Still firing the flamethrower down the hill at the new bugs that had clambered out of the opposite side of the two mounds, she lifted a grenade from her bandolier and caught the pin on an armor edge to pull it. She tossed it behind her into the hole she was next to, cut the flamethrower, and ran down the hill, making sure to avoid the still burning fuel and bugs.

She threw her weight forwards into more of a series of jumps rather than a run; due to the incredibly steep incline made of sand that she was desperately trying not to throw her face into. She got to the bottom, punched a bug in the face, then kicked a grenade up the hill where it bounced off a bug that had just crawled out of the hole. Both the bug and her watched as the grenade arced down towards where Hell was standing.

She dove, as she do.

There was an explosion, just after she rolled onto her back with her pistol drawn. At that point, they were close enough that aiming was far less important than rapidly firing the pistol into the nearest head, one after another. She missed most shots, ending with blowing off a leg, or getting a series of body shots; it wasn't perfect, but in the end, eventually everything lay still. She rolled back onto her hooves and clambered up the slope and tossed a lit grenade into the hole without delay.

She watched it explode, and the glowing parts pop as the black rock fell inwards.

"Weird." She commented. The rock didn't fall down, it fell inwards. Like it was designed to collapse that way. None of the sand she was standing on shifted downwards, or left any sort of impression that the space beneath it had collapsed.

She shook her head. Maybe I should take that break... I'm starting to see things, feel weird. She started walking again, making her way towards the pin on her compass.

It was a far shorter walk that took far longer. As soon as Hell found the bug made spires and walls, she slowed down, carefully sneaking around the black rock face so as to not get noticed by the charger inside.

She found it after a few minutes of wandering around, ducking between rocks and checking her corners. This one was exactly the same as the other, but a head taller, and covered in three times as much armor. The plating covered its face and curved down, blocking its neck and its unarmored underbelly.

Hell, currently knelt down on the other side of a rock, peaking out at the thing and its explosive breathing, narrowed her eyes and flipped out her flamethrower. "Let's see what this thing can do." She jumped up onto the rock and let loose. The charger noticed her just in time to get a face full of flames. The fuel coated its face, and moments later it was running towards her while burning.

Hell's teeth tightened down around the trigger as she spread her wings, still firing. The charger closed the distance, and Hell dove to the side, spinning around in the air with her wings just before she hit the ground to keep the flamer pointed and spewing fuel at the charger. It arrested its momentum, massive spiked legs digging into the ground and throwing dirt up into the air as it grunted in exertion. Hell got back onto her hooves, still firing the flamer and beginning to strafe towards more cover.

It roared after turning around and charged her again.

Too easy. She ducked down around its leg as it came down to try and crush her against the sand. It stumbled again, trying to stop its charge as she got an all too close of a look at its flaming hide. The heat flicked at her, causing her to step back just as the flamer ammunition cut out with an upsetting 'pfffsssst-click'.

As it spun around, Hell fell back onto her rump and armed two grenades. She cooked them both before kicking outwards and diving to the side just as the charger came up to try and squish her again. She hit the sand and covered her head with her hooves as the two grenades exploded right where she was previously, right underneath the head of the charger.

The grenades plus the continuous burning was too much for it. It grunted and heaved itself a few more times before collapsing. The smell of burning chitin was far worse than the smell of burning meat.

"Woo!" She pumped a hoof.

The voice of the Democracy Officer came over all-comms. "Primary objective complete, extract when ready Tartarus Diver."

Hell adjusted her chest plate, and smiled a winning smile that didn't reach her eyes. "That'll teach you." She nodded towards the dead hunk of meat and armor. Then she took a step. The violence flowed away, and Hell just... tuned out. She could see the blue beam of the extraction beacon, she had a direction, so she moved in the same meandering fashion, to avoid the rocks and larger piles of sand.

Hell's mind wandered. She didn't intend it of course, but as she found herself walking around the next batch of rising pink smoke over the next crest of rocks, her mind began to whirl in an attempt to bring up the details she'd observed. Unfortunately, her subconscious failed to break through her mental acuity training, leaving the remaining walk to the extraction beacon an empty experience filled with mental white noise.

She silently, both mentally, and tactically, made her way into a circular outcropping of tall rocks and openings into a defendable position where the beacon had landed.

Hell only came to after she had finished setting up the beacon coordinates, it was Horizon's voice that broke her from her melancholy.

"Extraction request confirmed, tally-ho Hell Diver. Two minutes out."

Hell found herself equally smiling and grimacing at the use of her actual name over all-comms. Somepony's definitely going to ask about that. Pony naming conventions were odd, but naming your filly after the occupation she eventually ended up in was a little too on the nose.

And she'd been made fun of in basic for it.

Also because she was a thestral mare.

She was broken from her slowly growing embarrassment by bugs.

Focus Hell! She planted her hooves and whipped out her pistol. She emptied the clip into the bugs coming over the crest of the dust. There was a pair of those massive monstrous green and black armored bugs that didn't take very kindly to their comrades getting peppered with bullets. The first one roared and started hucking dust up into the air behind it as it dragged its massive bulbous end across the ground at trotting speed. The other one lifted its head and fired a blast of acidic glowing green goo.

Hell's mind ground to a halt mid sidestep as her observation skills pieced together an important detail.

Magic?!

She threw a grenade at the head of the massive bug that was charging straight for her. It shrugged off the projectile and the explosion even as the shrapnel sunk into its side and staggered it. Hell whipped out her short rifle as she continued to backstep, a quarter of the clip disappeared before she realized its armor was too thick, that's also when it reared up.

Hell's breath caught in her throat as flashes of the stone getting melted away exploded into her vision, adrenaline hit her brain like a runaway airship. She knew she wouldn't be able to completely dodge the vile spewage from this range. With her heart in her chest, she made the only opportune option.

Hell ran forwards and punched it in the face.

The bug seemed as confused as she was, as the first half of its blast of acid went wide with the punch, and then cut off as it instead tried to skewer her with its front limbs. Hell was already away, dodging past a drone that had come up from the side with a hooffull of grubs. She pulled another grenade from her bandolier as she ran in a tight circle and dropped it behind her after pulling the pin.

She turned around and started emptying the rest of her short rifle magazine into the other green bug, Spewer, she mentally dubbed them. In the corner of her vision, she watched the bugs go around the lit grenade. The drone in front stopped and backed away while hissing at the grubs and the other drone, then they started strafing it until it exploded and charged once more at Hell as her short rifle gave the sad click that it was out of ammo.

Ignoring the strange behavior in exchange for her current peril, Hell dropped her short rifle, letting it dangle from the shoulder mount. She flipped her pistol from its resting position at the bottom of her hoof, reared up, cracked the first grub over the head with the weapon while flipping a clip out with the other hoof. In a smooth motion, just after the bug she hit slumped dead with a cavity in its skull, Hell discarded the empty clip, inserted the new one, and fired five shots into the drone that was close enough for her to see its eyes widen as the barrel of the pistol leveled at its head.

Hell dove forwards as soon as its head disappeared in a shower of gore, sliding underneath and kicking upwards as it lunged forwards to kill her. Her hoof sank into broken bug flesh, and she twisted and rolled just in time to use the corpse to block a wave of acid.

Apparently bug chitin was quite a good defense against acid.

Hell rolled over onto her hooves and took off, her wings flapping unconsciously to give her a tiny boost of speed as she made distance. Once she felt she was far enough away, she reached for her rifle, but it was gone.

"Buck!" Hell yelled, ducking the attack of the other drone. She punched it in the nose as it swung, or whatever constituted a nose on these things. Once it stumbled, she took advantage and punched it again, and again, it squealed as it kept reversing away from her, unfortunately towards the two spewers still lumbering after her.

Hell narrowed her eyes and pulled a grenade from her bandolier and waited.

The bug reared up again and she kicked out.

The grenade flew right into its mouth. Whether it was the acid, or the fact that the grenade was already primed didn't matter, the thing's head disappeared in a flash of light and shrapnel. "AH!" Hell fell backwards, peppered by the hot metal, she felt crimson dribbling down her chest and a shortness of breath as she tried to stand again. She grunted in pain, and looked up just in time to greet her supposed incoming death with a glare.

The second spewer lifted its head just in time to have its entire backside removed by an autocannon round.

Horizon's voice crackled over all-comms, "Looks like I arrived just in time. Watch where you're standing, Tartarus Diver."

Hell pulled out a stim and jammed it into her neck, she breathed a heavy sigh, nearly a groan as the metal shrapnel was pushed out of her chest by healthy tissues. The ringing in her head disappeared, replaced by energy.

Hell started to laugh.

"Hah! Take that ya dumb bug!" She was suddenly standing in front of the corpse. She didn't remember moving there, but she wanted to kick it, so she did. "Woo!" She kicked it again, only this time, she didn't have any exertion to scream at the thing. She just resigned herself to heavy breathing while Pelican One landed in front of her.

Once the ramp was opening, she remembered she had to board from the back and started moving. She got inside once the magic in the stim began to wear out, but she was still breathing heavily, and half collapsed into the seat as black viscously and spontaneously tried to send her into unconsciousness.

"Hey! Are you okay?"

"Huh?" She said into her helmet, shaking her head to get rid of the dizziness. "Wha-Whoa!" If one could have jumped out of their armor, Hell would have just then; Horizon was right in front of her, close enough for her to touch. In fact, he was touching her, securing her belts as the ship broke atmosphere. He had a vest with a line attached to the ground by a thick cord and a couple of metal buckles.

Horizon looked worried. The frown didn't suit him.

"Hell? You in there?" He said again.

Oh, right. I'm wearing a helmet. She was about to reach up to remove it before thinking better of it. "Yes. I'm fine. What happened?"

"You got to the seat and just donked out. I had to set up your harness. Are you sure you're okay?" The ship rattled, and Horizon nearly fell, but he just stepped to the side and grabbed onto another loose harness to her side.

Hell frowned and went to reprimand him, "Yes! Sit down, get back to the pilot's seat. You know it isn't safe to stand around a-"

Horizon met her gaze through the helmet's visor, and the steel in his eyes shut her up. She wasn't sure if she missed him saying something, but it didn't matter. All she had to know was the way he was looking at her. It reminded her of her dad when she left for basic.

"Now don't lie to me, Hell. Are you okay? Cause the Officer's gonna have a word with you at the ramp." Horizon managed to speak in a low tone, despite the volume of the space worthy VTOL engines and the rattling of the chassis as it scraped against the upper atmosphere.

"The..." She trailed off, not knowing what to say, simply withering under his glare.

"Are. You. Okay."

Hell took a breath, "Yes. I'm fine. I just needed a second to catch my breath." It wasn't a lie, but she still felt the creeping exhaustion behind her eyes, the oncoming migraine in the back of her head.

"Good." He nodded to himself, and the angry and upset look on his face melted away into a smile as he started moving his way up against the inertia gradient into the cockpit. There were hoof holds on the frame that made the motion look like climbing a ladder as the ship continued to pitch up.

Once he was in the seat, his voice came through her helmet. "Sorry for going all drill on ya."

"It's okay." She said, "Thank you for worrying about me." She said a little quieter.

"So the Democracy Officer."

Hell adjusted the boot on her front left hoof. It was trying to fall off due to the ruined fabric running up her chest. "What about him?"

"Dunno, but there's a big thing going on. We got hit with an all-operations hard-stop by the Ministry of Defense, Truth, and Science. The Officer's in a tizzy, and he wants to see you the second you're off this ship." Hell's eyes continued to widen till the end when Horizon looked over her shoulder at him from the console. "Thought I should give you a heads up."

Three of the nine ministries... Hell opened her mouth, but the words didn't come. The news was a bit much, and Hell was tired. "Did... did they say anything? I'm... I'm not in trouble am I?"

"I don't think so." Horizon said simply, after a short mental deliberation. "But hey, I'll vouch for you. If I can." She could hear the smirky smile in his voice.

"Thanks." Her body tried to yawn, but she clamped down on it. There wasn't enough space for that in the helmet.

Author's Note

Something's off about these bugs...

SDS: Mandatory Rest and Relaxation

Hell took a breath like she always did when the Pelican locked in and shifted twice as the mechanical connectors attached it to the hull of The King of Starlight. The secondary inertia thrusters cut out and the whole thing fell about a hoof into shock absorbers that bounced the craft in place.

She extricated herself from the upright seat and the harness, and just as Horizon had said, the Democracy Officer was revealed as the ramp lowered. There was a tiny crowd of ponies standing just on the outskirts of the black and yellow landing marking strips. The Officer himself stood ramrod straight right in front of the lowering platform, and didn't flinch or blink when it came within a hair of his nose.

Once the ramp was fully lowered, and she was standing in front, but slightly elevated inside the Pelican, he spoke. "Tartarus Diver. Please remove your armor."

Uhhh Of all the things she was wondering about, that was definitely not it. She wasn't about to refute a direct order from a Democracy Officer though, not without a compelling reason to. Horizon came up next to her as she removed her helmet. Despite the presence of clothing on most ponies in the vicinity, there was still something deeply awkward about taking off a suit of armor around other ponies.

After the helmet came the armor plates, versatile things that could fit inside most models, then it was just a matter of clips and zippers. She undid the zipper down her stomach, and half stepped out of the sleeve that kept most of the armor in place, the tear along the front made it particularly easy. The combat boots remained firmly attached to her hooves, as they were nailed in. She tried not to look over at Horizon.

The Officer took a few rigid steps forwards while eyeing her up. "Exactly as the Ministries suspected." He shifted to the side, and looked over her flanks. "Congratulations Tartarus Diver."

Her eyes were drawn to what he was looking at, there, right on her dirty grey fur was a cutie mark. A yellow skull the same colour as her mane and tail, in the shape of the Tartarus Diver symbol. Her eyes went wide. She snapped her gaze over to Horizon, who was looking on in barely restrained worry.

The Democracy Officer's declaration pulled her away from Horizon's confusing expression. "As per procedure, Divers with destinies aligned to their calling to defend Equestria are invaluable resources. Go get some rest, and know that you, personally, will be pushing the boundaries of Equestrian Civilization." He snapped a salute so fast that it ruffled her mane, "I will have a briefing prepared for you when you have completed your minimum of twelve hours of rest."

On reflex, and mostly due to her exhaustion, she snapped a salute back without hesitation. Then the Officer nodded and walked back down the ramp, out and away from her field of vision.

"Looks like you're off the clock." Horizon said with a mix of sarcasm, and the worry bleeding into his voice.

She turned to look at him again, and he cringed.

"Geez, Hell. You look like you're about to drop."

Hell's ears wiggled at the sound of metal on metal, something moving elsewhere in the hangar. "Huh?"

All of that was way too much for Hell's mind. She was awake, sure, but that didn't mean she had the capacity to understand anything that just happened, or that she had a cutiemark. Tartarus Divers get breaks? Where have I heard that before?

"Hey uh, Hell, do you know where the crew cabins are?" Horizon tried softly.

Hell blinked away her thoughts, "Me? Yeah, I know where they are... they're..." She pointed a hoof towards one of the walls on the ship. "That way?"

Horizon chuckled and leaned forwards, he grasped her hoof and turned it towards the other side of the hangar. "That way."

Hell tried to fight off a blush. She didn't have a helmet on. He's gonna see you doofus! "Thanks!" She said, her wings unconsciously flapping as she made a hasty retreat. Leaving all of her equipment behind. She half power walked over to the nearest entrance into the bowels of the Super Destroyer from the hangar, past the main internal gangways and into the multipurpose structural hub of the ship.

She didn't get the moment of peace she was looking for, a blue buzz cut stallion wearing grey operations apparel approached from the widened space she had just stumbled into. "Hey, you're Hell Diver, right?" He swayed himself up to her, nearly sashaying.

While tempted to say no, Hell wasn't much of a liar. "Yeah, that's me... How do you know who I am?"

He waved a hoof exaggeratedly. "Oh you know, scuttlebutt is the only thing faster than light." Then he elbowed her, "And Super Destroyers, ahmaright?" He laughed out loud to himself.

"Yeah. Yeah..." She said, slowly leaning away as his laugh carried on for a worryingly long amount of time.

He wiped a false tear from his eye. "Say, what are you doing back here?"

"I was just looking for the crew quarters." She said, followed by, "I was given a mandatory twelve hour rest period."

The stallion's eyebrows did a near series of acrobatics and he stepped away. "Oh-oh-oh. I'm sorry for holding you up then. Don't let me get in the way of Democracy." He kept stepping back until he was totally out of her way.

"Actually." Hell fought down more flushing. Everypony being almost a head taller than her was irritating enough in basic, being a fully fledged Tartarus Diver and everypony still being taller than her was bordering on embarrassing. "Could you point me to the lodgings? I-"

"Say no more!" A bombastic smile covered his features, and he approached again in a zip and took her by the shoulder. His height advantage simply allowed for him to tow her along, as she stumbled not to fall. "You see, we actually had them moved over from the opposite side of the ship. Two separate lodgings, mares and stallions. You'll be in with the mares, of course, unless there's nothing you're not telling me?" He tossed an invisible mane and then laughed before she had any response. "Oh ho! Come now, Hell, be honest, what do you think of it all?"

"The-"

"I mean seriously. Among the military operations, you're the only pony here that's actually seen the ground with her own eyes, the lasers, the monsters, the cracking of bullets. Four years in the operations program and I haven't even seen a gun yet!" He kept towing her along, still rambling on and on. Eventually he led her out from the main area and into the thin hallway that marked the bunks and supply closets for the staff bathrooms. It was odd, seeing something so... modern, inside of a battleship.

"Anyways, here we are. I'll leave you to it!" He did half a salute, tipping his hoof up instead of down, and then simply disappeared in a blur of matte grey and blue.

Hell put a hoof down, as her mouth tried to work through a response to the first question he had asked.

"Uhh..."

The... what? Her mind caught up. At least she was in the crew cabin, the hall was metal, as was the rest of the ship. Each individual bunk door was roughly two body lengths across from each next one. Right next to the sliding metal plates was a plaque with a tag with names and numbers.

Hell, dazedly, walked the hallway until she found her name, and then walked into the room. It was a simple affair, as close quarters as possible, with two individual beds, both bunks, and a locker up against the wall in-between them all. If she was careful, she probably could have stood in the center of the room without touching any of the mattresses.

From the top right bed, there was a vibrant green and orange tail twitching over the rim, and a brighter orange coat of a mare sleeping away with several loud snores. Hell's mouth set itself into a line, and she stepped inside the room, the automatic door shutting behind her. She took two steps forwards, poked the mattress to test it, forgot what she was doing, then passed out on the floor.

Hell woke up in a ball, gripping something between her forehooves. The cold metal she was laying on had warmed slightly due to her body heat, and there was a paper thin blanket up to her neck that had been tossed over her.

"Wuhuh?" She moved the pillow she had snuggled in her sleep over, and rolled onto her hooves. The blanket fell from her shoulders as she did so. The lights on the ship had dimmed, signifying the night cycle of the atmospheric regulations systems. The mare snoring away in the top bunk was gone. She must have given me the pillow and the blanket on her way out.

She would have felt well rested if she wasn't absolutely starving. The pain was a good sign though, she had read once that ponies who couldn't feel how hungry they were anymore were the ones that were in danger of permanent damage. Nonetheless, a hoof went to her stomach the moment she was standing as she cringed.

There wasn't really any space to turn around, so she just awkwardly backed out of the doorway and into the hall again. It was empty, just like it was when that crazy stallion dragged her here. Now, with a clearer mind, she gave a half-smirk half-smile at the antics. Concerning, at first, endearing at se- er... that's not how that phrase goes. Maybe she was still asleep. Just a little.

Food should sort that out

She wandered towards the internal gangway, and followed a grated staircase down past all of the tubes and internal workings of the Super Destroyer until she found the bulkhead door that led to the galley. The promising smell of food was enough to overcome the menagerie of colourful ponies filling the dining hall glancing at her as she entered. She ignored the looks and walked straight up to the mare mareing the counter. Luckily, unlike most places, the counter here was short enough to not be a constant reminder of her age.

The mare was fiddling around with something under the counter, so Hell tapped her hoof on the metal plate. "Excuse me?"

The mare pulled herself out from the cabinet, or hole, Hell couldn't see for sure. She was a white mare, wearing a smock that hung all the way down to the tops of her hooves. There was a hairnet involved, keeping her almost aggressively green mane in check.

"Oh!" She spoke with an accent, one Hell recognized from her home world. "You must be Hell Diver. What can I do you for?"

"Uhm..." Does everypony know who I am already? "Can I have soup? Something with broth?"

The mare gave her a sideways look. The kind of look Hell was used to getting when somepony recognized the tufted ears, extruding fangs, and batwings. "Yes ma'am. I can make one noodle soup, just give me a moment." She smiled, then disappeared behind the wall and pushed the door that hung up behind them.

"Hey!"

Hell jumped, nearly leaving her fur behind. She took a swing at the pony that was suddenly standing next to her, though she missed, the swipe left an audible 'frrzzt' as it passed through the air.

It was the same blue stallion from before. "Whoah! Careful there Diver, you almost sent me to the infirmary."

Hell stumbled backwards, hoof over her heart as the blood rushed up into her ears. She took several shaky deep breaths to steady herself.

"Say, did you find your bunk okay? Didja? I'd hope so, I mean, I led you right to the stack!" He continued to invade her personal space.

She reached out the hoof that was desperately trying to calm her heart and pushed him away. She sent him a glare in addition to making some space between them. "Yes. I did."

"Well I'll say. You look less like you're about to keel over and die on the spot." He smiled wide, "You must have slept well!" Despite the distance, he still clapped a hoof over her back, "I'm glad! You need the most 'are 'en 'are out of any of us, you know?"

Hell ducked away from his hoof, and turned to face him directly. Her wings spread out a little as she bared her teeth at him and hissed. Immediately his expression dropped from glee to guilt, his ears pinned back and he stepped away.

"Personal space." She said, straightening up.

"You're not bothering the help are you Jay?" The white mare came back around the corner. "I hope you remember what I 'old ya." She tilted her back to the side, letting a metal bowl slide off her back and onto the counter. Hell's sinuses filled with the delicious smell of chicken broth and boiled carrots.

His eyes went a little wide at the white mare's comment. "Yeah! Yeah of course I do. I wasn't bothering her, I really wasn't." He turned to her, "Right? I'm sorry, if I was. I don't mean anything by it, I was just excited to see you in better straits."

Hell pulled her attention away from the soup. "Uh-yeah, that's right. Just reminding him about personal space." She offhoofedly stated, far more interested in food.

"Uh-huh." The mare brandished a wooden spoon at 'Jay' clearly unconvinced. Hell wasn't sure where she got the spoon from, but she had it, and Jay apparently felt very threatened, if his body language was anything to go by. "That's all I better hear ya hear?"

He nodded and held up his right hoof. "Yes ma'am."

Holy Equestria, only two words in one sentence? Hell reached forwards for the bowl.

"Oh, here you go dear." The mare used the wooden spoon to push the bowl forwards, and then turned away from the pair. Hell got her soup and stuck her nose over the fumes to get a sense for how hot it was, in addition to filling her nose with the scent. Her eyelids fluttered a little when she did, and her mouth filled with saliva. There may have also been a slight purring noise.

"What is that?" Jay said, leaning forwards, still a little in her personal space, but apparently trying to dodge the bubble by only using his head. "Smells funny."

"Right." Hell's ears folded down, "Listen, thanks and all for being so nice, but I'm gonn-"

"Wait, wait." He sat back and moved his hooves into a time out gesture, "I know I'm a little annoying. A little." He emphasized in a low voice, "Lemme make it up to you, would you come sit with me? Us?" He pointed off to the side, and Hell followed his hoof to see one of the square tables occupied by the unmistakable mess of hair that was Horizon, and Star Spanner, who waved her hoof frantically with a wide smile once they met gazes.

The request was probably the most genuine she'd heard him be. Not that she was a great judge of character, but... Ugh... Just go over and say hello, at least.

"Okay. Sure." She pulled the annoyed frown off her face, something that slowly transitioned into a smile as Spanner started to gush as soon as they were both close enough.

"Hi! Hey, did that new fuel blend work out for you? The three oh one's always use a more viscous solution, and I didn't really have anything on hoof to-"

"Calm down Spanner." Horizon gently said, poking at her side with a hoof. He turned to Hell, "Hey, go ahead and take a seat."

Hell's smile turned forced, "Oh, no. I wouldn't want to impose, I just thought I-"

The steel came into Horizon's eyes again. "Please?" Mismatched away from his tone, which sounded almost desperate.

Hell put her bowl down on the table and sat down on the highly reproducible cushion that could barely be called a seat. Jay followed suit a second later, and Horizon turned to him with a tired look. "I told you to go get her, not antagonize her."

Jay shrugged. "Well it worked, didn't it?"

Hell spoke after blowing over her soup. "Is everypony that works here this colourful?"

"Not nearly as much as me!" Jay half shouted, beaming with pride.

Spanner rolled her eyes, "Only because you have no shame."

"Not even a drop." He retorted and then turned to her, "So what is it? You never told me?"

Hell opened her mouth, but Spanner beat her to it. "Chicken Noodle Soup. Roasted carrots, MTE pasta noodles, chicken broth, and spring onion." Spanner wiped her nose, "I didn't even think we had spring onion. Aether must really like you."

Hell met eyes with Horizon, who sent her a calm smile as Jay started questioning Spanner on the nature of chicken broth.

"Well if it isn't the mare with golden flanks." A tray roughly landed down next to her bowl of soup. It would have surprised her had she not heard the approaching hoofsteps on the metal grating. The mare from her bunk sat down next to her on the floor, rather than the cushion; now Hell could see she was a pegasus. "Didn't think we'd see you down here, what with how you passed out up there."

Hell moved her soup a little to the side, "Thanks for the blanket."

The mare lifted an apple in her hoof and bit into it, talking with her mouth open. "'unno whach you meemn"

Okay. The table was getting increasingly crowded with ponies turning away from their own meal to scooch towards their table. Hell turned back to Horizon who was tracking another mare who had just entered, it was the standing officer of the ship in all her maroon glory. Hell grasped her soup bowl a little tighter as the mare approached, and most ponies went back to what they were doing. She came right up to the table and sat down without a word.

"Well that's not ominous at all." Jay chimed in to break the silence as he rested his head in his hoof.

"I'll say. You sure know how to make an entrance." Said the orange pegasus.

Hell watched the ghost of a smirk appear on the mare's face before she spoke to hide it away. "I hope nothing... Code defying is happening here, I'm off the clock, and wouldn't be able to stop it." She said towards Horizon.

He nodded, "It's a good thing too, we wouldn't want anyone else listening in right? Getting the wrong idea?"

She just nodded.

Spanner breathed a sigh of relief.

Jay spoke in a deeper tone than Hell thought was possible, "How much time do we have?"

Hell was getting increasingly bad vibes from this particular situation. "I'm sorry. What is going on right now?"

It was the standing officer who responded with, "For now, it can wait. You're hungry aren't you? You're clutching that soup like it's going to save your life."

Hell's stomach took that particular moment to angrily grumble: 'There is soup right there, eat it mare!'

Hell leaned forwards to take a sip, despite the looks from the other ponies at the table. The sip turned into a gulp, despite how hot the fluid was. Her eyes closed of their own accord, and she savored the first thing she had enter her mouth in nearly a whole day.

The first thing that wasn't blood, at least.

"So what's the deal? Huh?" Said the orange mare.

"I'm sorry, but who are you?" Came the officer's near aggressive retort.

"Airwing Five." She held out a hoof over the table. "Name's Cross Fire. I'm the transfer pilot."

The officer's eyebrows raised in an 'ah' as she reached over and they met hooves. "Beach." They shook.

"A pleasure." Cross Fire rolled her eyes.

Horizon waved a hoof to get the other ponies attention. "I think we can answer Hell's question now?" He asked Beach.

"We can. We're doing something a little off the books." She said into the air, not looking at anypony. "Horizon came to me with a personal request after you took off on your third mission."

"You did?" Hell pulled the bowl closer until it was touching her chest. Combat shoes weren't very good for manipulation, she mostly had to rely on tilting the bowl with her nose. That being said, the environment suddenly felt like she was surrounded, and pulling the thing in her hooves closer to her was a subconscious choice.

"I did." Horizon said simply.

Jay cut in, leaning forwards over the table, "Remember how I tol-"

Spanner shushed him, "Quieter Blue."

His ears flopped around as he mimed what he said back to her, but he nonetheless spoke quieter. "Remember how I said I've been working here for four years?"

Hell nodded.

"Hell, you've been on ice for that long." Horizon said in a low voice.

What? Her mind immediately tried to rationalize that, it only came up with questions and excuses. "But-" Her ears pinned back of their own accord, "Isn't this Destroyer equipped with a TDPCD? How could the journey have taken four years?"

"It didn't." He said, "You were rejected by the algorithm for that long because..."

"You're smaller." Jay said monotone.

"I don't-" Her mind glazed over the vague insult, her soup was forgotten, just something she was holding to her chest. "I don't understand..."

Beach spoke, softly, but with a sternness that brooked no argument, and no lies. Exactly what one would expect from a mare with her stony demeanor. "This Super Destroyer has been dropping Tartarus Divers along the front lines, not only you. You're part of the third contingent we've fielded. There's maybe... Fourteen more Divers frozen in the rocket. You were frozen four years ago, and have been waiting for the algorithm to wake you up, and send you out to die."

"What?" Hell choked out, more in confusion than anything else.

"Geez. Take it easy on the poor girl. She just woke up." Came the voice of reason from Cross Fire. She reached out with a wing and placed it over Hell's back. "Listen, it isn't your fault. None of it is. We do what we do for Equestria, even though it's..."

"Grim." Horizon interrupted, "The word you're looking for is grim."

Hell shook her head, and leaned away from the wing and the comfort that came with it. Unlike Jay, Cross Fire recognized the movement and folded her wing back up. "Wh- what? What?" Hell looked around, all she saw was sympathy. "I don't..." What really sent the message home was the barely visible tears in Star Spanner's eyes.

"Can I try to explain it to her?" Jay said, turning towards Horizon.

The stress rushed into her muscles as all of the confusion decided to express itself as frustration. Hell smashed a hoof against the table. "I don't want it explained!"

There were looks of shock that passed around the table, both at her outburst, and the dent she left in the solid metal table. Hell's mind was whirling. What are they-what does it mean-are they telling the truth?-why would the standing officer lie?-four years?-wha- Hell gasped, "My mom and dad."

Several ears flopped down.

"Basic, they were weeks away from their relocation papers. I left for basic when they were moving to a larger colony. It's been four years." Hell looked up, "What happened to them? Where are they?"

"I'm sorry Hell, but the program you joined?" Horizon led.

Spanner finished, "They were likely sent a note of your death the moment you passed your training course."

Hell's eyes went wide.

"That's what we're trying to tell you." Jay said, "Tartarus Divers aren't supposed to come back."

Cross Fire leaned over the table and growled, "Hey, cool it. What did I say, huh? Dial it back a bit."

"I know it's probably hard for her to he-"

"I don't care! Look at h-"

Hell tuned out their arguing. The pieces came together, and now the cryogenics made sense, the way ponies talked about resources. How there was a functioning ship without their technical Tartarus Diving captain. The ringing and adrenaline of the battlefield filled her ears and chest, but she didn't realize it.

Her home, gone probably. They told my parents I died. She didn't have any friends back home, but she'd never see a familiar face again. I wasn't supposed to come back.

Why would they fire her in a steel coffin directly towards the enemy with nothing but a basic tac map and a pistol if she was meant to come back? What was so important that investing the technical captain of the ship into fighting the monsters was a viable strategy?

They lied to her. I'm not in control of this vessel, I'm the bullet, fired and discarded. They told her she'd be a hero. I wasn't supposed to come back.

"Hell?"

I wasn't supposed to come back.

"Hell?"

I wasn't supposed to come back.

"Should I get a medic?"

Hell was starting to feel light headed, in-between circular thoughts and visions of flashing lights. I wasn't supposed to come back. She felt weightless, like she was trapped inside a Tartarus Pod that wouldn't eject her.

"Give her some space!"

"Hell!"

Hell blinked

"Hell." Horizon was taking up her vision, she met eyes with him as her breathing slowed. "Hey..." He patted the side of her neck with his hoof. "You okay?"

She had soup dribbling down her chest, the bowl had been upturned, and the open side was pressed tight enough against her fur that the metal was digging into the skin. She let go and the bowl rolled down onto the table again.

Jay appeared with a stack of napkins in hoof, and Hell just looked away as everypony at the table breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'll go get you some more soup." Spanner moved to get up.

"N-" Hell coughed once, her throat hurt. "No thanks. I'm not hungry anymore." She watched plenty of ponies scattered around turn back to their food and conversations. Her ears burned. I wish I could be a unicorn, invisibility would be perfect right now.

"Still, you should eat." Beach said.

"Actually. I have to go." Hell stood up, and grabbed the stack of napkins from Jay in her teeth as she walked past. The protests of the table were drowned out by her trot that turned into a run as soon as she reached the bulkhead. The blood and muscles in her legs flowed, and she ran. She ran so hard that the sound of her boots on the metal drowned out her heavy breathing. She just wanted away. Anywhere else from there.

She came to a stop when the tears won out over the air blowing into her face. She flopped down onto the grating and cried. Her tail came up over her haunches, her wings spread up over her neck and shoulders, and she fell onto her side and curled into a ball and cried.

They just have to be lying... It can't be true... She'd known about the Tartarus Divers for years. She'd thought they were an elite sting operation, black ops team of elites. They're just throwing fillies at tactical objectives behind enemy lines. She'd known something was up since they unfroze her, she just hadn't accepted it. It was that easy to shatter her perceptions, her dream.

Hell wasn't a very good liar. That included, to herself, despite how much she wanted to believe otherwise.

Quiet tears fell from her slitted eyes. She pressed herself up against the wall as she heard hoofsteps on metal

"Hey girl." Came Cross Fire's voice. "I know you're going through a lot right now, but we really can't be out here."

"Go away." Hell said from underneath her wings.

"Heh. Alright." There were more hoofsteps, and Hell flipped open her wings to see the orange mare stepping in place with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, I thought so." She walked up towards Hell. "Cmon girl, up you come." She reached a hoof around Hell's front leg and hefted her up.

"Hey-" Hell tried

"No arguing." Cross Fire snapped out. "I don't want you getting in trouble on top of everything else, cmon."

Cross Fire started to pull, and Hell went along with her, it was that, or falling over. Cross Fire was strong. "How'd you find me?" Hell asked in a quiet voice, still trying to brush the tears away from her face with her hoof in-between steps.

Cross Fire smirked, "You left a trail of napkins."

"Oh."

A corner, and then into a sliding door, and Hell was pushed into a single bathroom. Cross followed her inside and shut the door behind them, pressing on the console in the wall to lock the door. "There. Privacy. There's only one camera in here, no audio, and it doesn't point into the shower." Cross walked up to the open door with tile flooring and beckoned Hell to follow her in. A step later, Cross turned on the water. "Cmon Hell, let's get you cleaned up, you smell like soup."

Hell joined her, and let the lukewarm water take precedent for thought. Cross silently cleaned her off, no soap or anything, just rubbing at her fur to get the grime and blood out. There was a lot of dried blood. Only when the water around their hooves started going down the drain with nothing but near fully red hues, did she realize just how attention grabbing she must have been, walking around covered in blood.

"Thank you." Hell said quietly, as Cross had at some point, stopped washing her, and was just massaging her back.

"Don't mention it." Cross went silent for a moment, "What I'd give to have wings I don't have to preen."

Hell scoffed, "At least you get to fly."

"Yeah. Sucks to be born with wings, but no flight."

"Was everything they said true?"

"Nah."

Hell's ears perked up, "Really?"

"Don't get so excited." Cross reprimanded, "What they were saying was right, but they way they were tellin' you was wrong. They tried to give you a picture of your tombstone and thought you'd be able to handle it. Except you already came back two times more than every Tartarus Diver I've ever seen."

Hell drooped again, after that.

"Remember, you're fighting for Equestria. That's what matters." The massage stopped and Cross stepped up towards Hell and sat down next to her.

"Why are we hiding from the cameras?"

Cross smirked, "To make ponies think something else is happening in here." The smirk dropped, "Privacy, mostly. You don't want to catch the ire of the Democracy Officer. He's the real head honcho around here, and he doesn't take anything sideways. He'd probably would throw you back to Equestria with a dishonorable discharge if he found you crying on the gangway."

"I wasn't crying." Hell huffed.

Cross rolled her eyes. "You're right. Dunno what I was thinking."

They lapsed back into silence, silence and the pitter patter of water.

"They all got together to help you. You know." Cross rubbed the back of her neck with a wing, "I kinda jumped in at the end, but I'm just as gung ho as everypony else to see you come back again. They had good intentions."

"Thanks..." Hell shifted in place. Am I... It's not that simple is it?

Maybe it all wasn't going to hell, no pun intended. Maybe she could just... keep doing what she was doing. Protect Equestria, be what she thought she was. Become the dream she had for herself.

"Don't thank me yet. Next time we get a spare hour, you're doing me next." She bumped Hell playfully. "I promise that G-force fluids are twice as bad as blood, and they smell a lot more."

The water was still running, and a smile worked its way onto Hell's face.

For now, she could forget about it all.

"You're a pilot? You said?" She asked

"Apparently, I'm your new pilot, Hell."

"What do you fly?"

Cross Fire smirked, and rubbed a hoof against her wet chest floof. "I don't mean to brag, but I can fly anything Equestria has on assembly line."

Hell giggled, "I mean, what are you flying here."

"Dunno yet. Maybe I'll be Horizon's co-pilot. Pretty sure there's a working order for an Eagle, a ten thirty model." She made a whooshing noise and spread her wings, "Real nice stuff." She tossed her wet mane, "Not top of the line, obviously, but reliable, and fast. Fast is my favorite."

Hell let out some of the tension along with her growing smile. "I hadn't been able to guess that about you."

She gave an exaggerated shrug, "Well what can I say? I'm one of the quiet ones." She stood and turned in one fluid motion, the water cut off in the next moment, and Hell got up herself to open the door. "Hold on a sec, you've never showered with a pegasus before have you?"

Hell shuffled, hoof falling away from the latch, "Not any nice ones. Not like you."

"I ain't nice." She grumbled, rolling her eyes, "I'm cashing in on this favour to you later, don't get it twisted." She spread her wings and beckoned Hell over to her. "Give yourself a good shake, and enjoy the temperature." Once Hell was close enough, Cross began what looked like a weird tribal dance, flapping her mane along with her wings, spraying water everywhere. In a second, Hell registered the sudden updraft in the room, as her own fur started getting blown upwards by a gust of cool air. Her mane followed suit a second later, floating up in the little closet of a shower.

She shook it out, enjoying the refreshing cooling temperature as told.

"There you go." Cross said, after they were done. She opened the latch and they both stepped out into the bathroom again. "You look like a million credits Hell."

Hell tried to push her mane back, "I look like a hairball." All of her fur was poofing out, having filled with air and static.

Cross tossed her own mane back, it settled into exactly the same position it was in before it was vaguely washed. Messy and not in her eyes was apparently enough for the orange mare. "Ahhh- you just need some brushing. Or some rushing, activity of any kind really. Cmon, let's get outta here girl." She said, giving Hell a few pat downs to smooth out the fur on her face.

They trotted out together, and Hell steadied herself as she recognized Cross leading her towards the hangar. They were already in the gangways, so it didn't take long. Several ponies looked up to see Hell enter with Cross, she caught several smiles and nods, but that was it.

"Alright Hell." Cross flipped a wing up, "Get up there, show 'em how it's done."

Hell smiled, despite the weight that settled in her chest. "I will."

Hell trotted on, Cross stayed behind.

One trip up the elevator, one without sparkles this time, and Hell was greeted with the slightly worried look of: Star Spanner, the normally stone faced Beach, the Democracy Officer, and another Tartarus Diver. At least, Hell thought so, they were wearing all the armor. The pony in question tilted their head when Hell trotted forwards to meet the group, and Hell swore she heard a scoff.

"Tartarus Diver." The Democracy Officer was the first to address her, stepping forwards and snapping a salute. "I trust that you have adequately taken care of yourself within your allotted time to do so?"

Hell lowered her own hoof from the salute, her stomach grumbled as she sniffed the air and smelled warm bread. "I uh- missed dinner sir. An issue with my facilities."

"Ms. Breach said as much. Ma'am?" He looked towards the mare in question, who stepped forwards and produced a loaf of bread. Hell... awkwardly took the food in her hoof and just held it there in mild confusion. Am I supposed to eat this now?

The Democracy Officer continued, "In light of your emergent destiny, Equestria and the Ministry of Defense have taken an interest in your operations. Already, combat footage has been reviewed, and the powers that guide our hooves are impressed with your prowess on the field of battle." He gestured to the other pony, "As such, in accordance with standard high value operations procedure, and in order to better utilize the full might of this Super Destroyer; you are being placed in charge of a squad of two. This Tartarus Diver is now under your command, and together, you will be the hammer and anvil of Justice that our enemies find themselves crushed between."

Hell slowly took a bite of the bread while he was talking.

He didn't seem to mind.

"In addition, you are being given streamlined access to more potent stratagems and equipment. I saw that you already met our transfer from Airwing Five? She will be piloting your new fast response strike craft. Several management systems are already in place to increase our relative power, but remember, Democracy does not come free Tartarus Diver. You will have to continue to gather resources and complete objectives on the battlefield in order to convince The Ministry of Prosperity of the value of continued investment in this Super Destroyer."

"I understand, sir." She said into the silence after swallowing another bite.

"Good. Then there is no time to wait." He turned towards Star Spanner, equally just as rocky in movement as Beach was in demeanor. Are those servos? "The Chief Engineer has been given the go ahead to give you a full armor refit so you can be your best out in the field. Suit up Tartarus Diver." With that command, he spun around, and walked back up into the command room.

The Standing Officer gave her a respectful nod, and then looked down at her hoof pad. Star Spanner started walking over to the armory. Hell followed, bread in hoof.

"Horizon did us the favor of collecting all of your equipment when you left the hangar, so I was able to get a good look at it, and clean up all of your weapons." She said, levitating a fresh armor suit over to Hell. Hell's original thought that Star would simply give the suit to Hell was confounded when Star instead continued holding the suit in her glow, open from the back.

Alright. Hell stepped inside the suit, and spent a moment wiggling her hooves and larger combat shoes down the sleeves until her front hooves were flush with the floor. Once she was on the ground, the suit surged forwards and wrapped around her tail. She felt it get lifted up and out of the suit, the same with her wings as the sleeve was roughly shoved onto her body.

Hell made a face of discomfort.

"Oh! Sorry Hell!" Spanner turned and the glow from her horn became less intense, and the pressure subsided. "I'm still getting used to how big you are. Normally ponies are way heavier."

"Uh-huh. Thanks." Spanner had the decency to look sheepish as Hell used her wings to pull at the sleeve to smooth it out.

Several metal inserts and attachments came floating her way in sequence, and she made quick work of either attaching them all, or slotting them into place along the folds of the armor sleeve. Once they were in place, Spanner used her magic to attach the three rails and ball joints to Hell, then came the weapons. Spanner handled clicking the flamethrower into place under Hell's barrel, and Hell sorted the short rifle and...

"Hey, what is this?" She said, hefting up the sleek white pistol to get a feel for it. It was the general shape of a civilian weapon, but she could tell by the balance on it alone that it definitely wasn't. It had a smooth white and grey barrel, an ammo clip, and a latch on the side to attach it to her non dominant hoof.

"That's the new Verdict oh one. We were voluntold to give it to you as part of its testing process." Spanner finished attaching the flamethrower with a 'click-chunk'. "I'm not a fan of sending ponies out into the field with untested gear, so I had some mares run a live fire exercise with it. Expect better stopping power, more accuracy, but a reduced ammunition capacity. Seems fine to me, well designed."

"It's a pretty little thing." Hell turned it over, before using her other hoof to latch it into place. When she looked up, Spanner was giving her an odd look she couldn't read. "What?"

Spanner blushed and shook her head, "Nothing, sorry." She levitated a helmet off the shelf, "And here's the finisher."

Hell pulled the helmet on, and the rubber seal grabbed onto the sleeve that ran up her neck before the HUD ran through its loading procedures. Brand new helmet, got that new helmet smell. She wiggled it down a little bit more, until her ears were properly in their containers.

"You look great Hell." Spanner said, her voice coming in two since Hell could hear her through the air, and through the helmet's speaker system.

"Thanks for the help Spanner, and for the specialty ammo. It does really do wonders." Hell took a step forwards to walk into the prep room, but Spanner held a hoof to stop her.

"Hey... sorry about... before." She said, her ears folding down.

"It's okay... I think I needed to hear all of that." Hell responded in a low tone. Low for her, since she had that telltale thestral squeaking noise along with her higher pitched voice.

"Stay safe out there, okay?" Spanner gave her a knock on the shoulder plate, "I'll miss you if you die, you know."

Hell chuckled, "I'll take the advice under consideration." Then she walked up through the metal walkway, and into the situation room. She got a passive stare from the other Tartarus Diver, and a respectful nod from the DO. Several beep boops went by as she managed the screen's systems and the planetary tac map in front of her until she settled on a mission.

Challenging Operation
Mission, Forty Minutes
Launch ICBM

The Monstrous bug swarm has descended on this planet and Threatens to Infest it.

We must repel this Vile Incursion before it is too late!

"Mission parameters locked, preparing Tartarus Pods." Came the robotic voice of the PA system.

Hell joined the other Tartarus Diver on the way up the metal stairs to the pods in question. He was a stallion, if she was guessing right from how tall he was, and his broader shoulders. He had a stubby SMG at his side and a lengthy long rifle slung underneath his barrel. He turned around and they met helmet visors for a second before he snapped his head away and got into the pod without a word.

Great. One of these... She did the same, and the tac map appeared, along with red zones, and markers from their objective scanners. She saw a smooth path they could take, and selected their drop point. The plate came down over the pod as the PA system announced the launching procedure. Hell braced herself for the launch, and this time, probably due to her slightly full stomach and rest; she passed out a nice twenty one seconds after hitting the atmosphere.

Mission - Zero Zero Four

Dropping through the atmosphere while well rested was a far better experience than doing so in a mild daze. The arms and springs designed to stop her from turning into pony paste were far more uncomfortable than she remembered, but Hell wasn't here to be comfortable, in fact, the discomfort of the main restraint wrapped around her stomach was a calming reminder that the Tartarus Pod was the safest place she'd be for the next hour or so.

The pod slammed down into the rock and dust like it was supposed to. The fear sitting in the back of her head that the pod's thrusters would malfunction and send her spinning to an early death, casket already provided, went silent as she landed safely. As the platform raised her up on her hindlegs, she heard a dull thwump of the other pod landing, and her momentum delirious mind remembered that there was another pony here with her.

Step one, group up with Diver, check tac map, make a plan of attack. They had to be organized, of course. What was the point of both of them being here if they didn't work together?

She trotted her way over to his pod, checking her weapons as she went, everything was in order, but the sound of rock on rock caught her ear. Her head swiveled on the pinpointed location, and all she saw was settling dust, and a tiny, tiny little avalanche of rocks sliding down off an outcropping in the sand. She stared for a moment, waiting for any more movement to catch her eye. She checked the map, but there weren't any enemy contacts. Pod's must've disturbed the terrain.

"Hey! Are we doing this or what?"

He was up, and she turned and approached, ignoring the rocks. "Thought I heard something, so-"

"Yeah, okay." He interrupted her, "How are you with those weapons? You a decent shot?" He asked non-committedly while adjusting his own weapons, specifically the long rifle slung under his barrel.

"Yes." She let the hesitation enter her voice. "I've been on three missions already, I'd think I know what I'm doing by now."

"You'd think that." He slotted a bullet into the chamber and cocked the weapon. "I actually plan on seeing this through, and if you don't want to die either, you'll follow my lead." Then he had the audacity to just walk off.

"Wait-" Hell moved to step with him. "We should really make a pl-"

"I have a plan." He argued, sounding more annoyed by the minute.

Hell frowned and narrowed her eyes from behind her helmet visor. "Command put me in charge of this operation."

He whirled on her, which, with his near head of extra height, and the long rifle barrel pointing directly at her chest, was particularly intimidating. "I'm not taking orders from a flightless bat bitch like you. You're barely half of a Tartarus Diver."

Hell, with the wind essentially sucked straight out of her sails, didn't respond. He took that as the opportunity to scoff, turn, and continue walking. She followed a moment after, subdued. A short walk led them to a hill, and Hell saw the pink smoke rising over it. A bug nest was apparently their first target.

He came to rest at the top of the hill, and she came up next to him. It was a bigger nest than she'd seen before, there was a partially recessed landscape covered in the same bug rock she'd seen before. A SEAF storage shelter was melted into the side, and partially sunk into the ground. There were plenty of bugs milling around.

"How do you want to play this?" She asked over the radio.

He turned to look at her with what she assumed was a raised eyebrow, from his posture.

"Ugh." She was used to playing tiny subdued thestral to all her superiors in boot, there was something about going under the radar, keeping quiet, and not drawing attention to yourself that did her good while she was in training. Being the instructors 'special friend' for the day was a role she knew well, until she started figuring out how to get out of it. Here though, there were no such restrictions. This was a battlefield, this was Hell's mission, and she wasn't going to be bullied by some jock who was just unfrozen.

She jumped, and used the momentum to slide down the hill, she flapped her wings, hoping to recreate what she saw Cross Fire do. While not nearly as potent, and likely not similar at all, the result was a tiny little storm of dust following her down the hill as she slid. As she ran, she spoke into the radio again, "I'll be marking heavy prio's on the HUD. Cover would be appreciated."

Just as she ran out of the cloud, she heard a groan from over the mic, and she plowed into a bug that had just turned the corner to investigate the hoof thumping. She punched it in the bug equivalent of a nose, flipped out her pistol, and put two rounds in its head at close range. The new vindicator was exactly what she'd hoped, and the warrior's head simply exploded from its neck up. It slashed at where she was, but she was already gone.

She may be small, but Hell was fast.

Two small bugs fell to her stomps before any of the rest realized what was happening. She scanned the area, her eyes passed over a commander, just as it noticed her. She rolled the mouth trigger and a red marker appeared over the commander on her HUD. She pulled a grenade from her bandolier, armed it, and tossed it backwards, and kept running.

She cut across the nest, firing her pistol wildly as she ran, she wasn't sure if she hit anything, but she probably clipped something. The report of the long rifle went off just as she tossed another grenade into another bug hole. She spun around and leapt away from the detonation, jumping up onto a rock and biting down on her trigger again. The flamethrower spurted once, and then began blasting liquid flame, like flamethrowers do. All the bugs that were chasing her ran straight into the flames, and she watched the commander, sans leg, take another long rifle shot to the back of the head and stumble in confusion. Its already dead body took another few more steps into the flames before slumping.

Hell looked to the side and cut the stream of flame. She jumped down off the rock and made short work of the next two bug holes. It meant that she was out of grenades, something that made her a tad bit uncomfortable, but such was Tartarus Diving.

The stallion took a slower path down the hill, and Hell walked up to the half buried SEAF supply shed. There were two samples, marked by her HUD, and a box of ammunition she didn't need. She did reload her pistol while she waited for him to arrive. He did so silently, looking at the scorched bodies and the single target he'd taken out. She approached him, stomping just a little bit and flaring her wings.

"I don't care." She cut him off, sensing he was about to speak, and continued, "You already said you don't want to die out here. The first step in that is working together." She waved her hoof to cut him off again, "Shut up. I don't care. Take all the credit, say you commanded the mission, whatever, but we have to work as a team, understand?"

He went a few seconds of staring on in silence, and then nodded slowly.

She tossed the ammo box at him. "Here. Where are we going next?"

He stowed away the ammo while talking, tentatively, he said "There's another nest over the ridge"

"Alright, that's a start, hoof me your grenades. I'll deal with the holes if you cover me."

"Sure." Instead of handing her each one, he just handed her his bandolier.

She finally remembered to lower her wings. Not that having them spread made her any more intimidating, but the ire she was carrying around fell away enough that she didn't feel the need to. He's working with me. At least a little. I can work with it. She turned, and they started making their way up the wastes. Once out of the bug nest, it was all dunes and rock outcroppings until the next ridge.

"So what's your name?" She pinged over the radio.

"Alex Sharp." Was the curt reply.

Alex Sharp? Hell smiled to herself, city colt huh? "So you're from the central colonies?"

"I don't see how this is important."

She wanted to grumble, but dropped the subject. Once they crested the hill, Hell got a good look at a SEAF artillery platform, sans bugs. It was swallowed by the unnatural looking bug rock that stretched up in spires and obscured the platform, but it was definitely there. Hell kept moving, and Sharp stopped at the crest. "What is that?"

Hell didn't turn around, and pushed down the desire to mock him for not knowing. She simply answered, "An old artillery platform, this'll give us some better firepower for the field, c'mon." She was already halfway to it when he started moving again.

The platform was marred deeply. There were... scorch marks. Hell opened her radio again, "Be advised, spewers present on the field. Large green, bulbous bugs that spew devastating acid at range." If he didn't know the SEAF structural identifiers, he probably also wouldn't know all of the bug types. I know I didn't... why... why isn't there a manual for that? The question went unsolved in her head, why wasn't there an info packet about the bugs Divers would see in the field? That made perfect sense to make, and it's not like they didn't know... so why?

She shook her head and grabbed the first shell and slung it over her back, it clicked into place, and she reached for another and started rolling it towards the artillery piece.

"What are you doing?" Came Sharp's less than polite inquiry.

"Loading the weapon. Here, make yourself useful, there's two more down there." She tossed her head in the direction, and kept moving. He grunted, but complied. She arranged the shells from most to least useful, then waited for him to make his way up. He'd gotten three, and had one slung under his leg. She didn't comment when he tossed them all at her hooves, just nodded towards the console, "Start her up for me, will you?"

He moved to do as she asked, though she could tell he was hating every second of it. Stomping around like a grumpy foal...

The piece to her side whirred to life, spinning around and pointing towards the sky, she wasted no time loading it, and then opened the comms channel as soon as she was done. "All good." There were a few more mechanical whirrs, and then her HUD marked the location as 'complete'.

Her radio crackled to life. "We got bugs."

Hell went stiff, and immediately, silently, sped her way over to Sharp. He was peeking around a corner at a pack of grubs and warriors, at least twenty of them. She lifted a hoof to his shoulder and tried to pull him back, but he snarled and whisper shouted at her. "Don't touch me!"

Hell grit her teeth. "Let's just go. We don't have to fight them, but we have to go now."

He turned with her, and they both quietly snuck their way in the opposite direction of the bug patrol. Moving between the pillars of bug rock until they were back out on the sand. Hell took the opportunity to gaze over the landscape, desert wasn't really her preferred biome, but it sucked less than fields of acid smoke. Though, the sight wasn't anything impressive, no glittering sand dunes or beautiful spires of rock.

Just kinda red sand, and kinda red rocks as far as the eye could see.

"There's another nest, North-West, that direction." Sharp said from the side, he pointed towards the direction of a pin that appeared on her compass.

Hell nodded, choosing not to speak, as that seemed to bother him, as much as that bothered her. Just keep the peace Hell. She also waited for him to move first, hopefully that would improve his attitude, her showing deference. Ponies like this were always a toss up. Sometimes they didn't care, and just wanted something to hate. He moved, she followed.

She also didn't say anything when he stumbled over a hidden rock under the dust. He was an earth pony, he should be able to notice stuff like that, Hell walked around light on her hooves, so stumbling was easily avoided by just moving her hoof over. He spent every step getting proper hoofing, thus, wasted most of his time during their short walk over the next crest.

This bug nest was small, a recessed crater into a hole covered with bug rock, and pouring with pink smoke. There was a single shielded bug standing on the outside. Hell reached down for a stratagem ball, "How good is your bucking aim?"

He flabbergastingly responded with "Excuse me?"

"Your buck." She clarified, holding the glowing red stratagem ball into his line of sight. "How good is your aim?"

"You want me to kick that over there from here?"

I'll take that as a no. Hell turned, "Just shoot the bug guarding the front as I approach." Then she took a deep breath and started the run. There was no dust cloud to cover her advance this time, and the bug saw her about halfway there. She tagged using her trigger, and hoped Sharp had a better aim than his buck.

She got closer, and two reports of the long rifle sounded out in sequence with two bullets finding their home in the bug's head. It had already raised the alarm, so Hell stopped short and whispered a silent hope as she kicked the stratagem ball forwards with her front hoof.

It landed on the head of a warrior that poked its head over the lip of the crevice, and then disappeared down into the hole. The bugs began to scramble out as the red beacon shot up into the sky, and Hell clicked on her flamethrower again to cover the exit point with fire.

It was simple. The bugs trying to escape, burned in the flames, the ones gunning for her did the same. A few seconds later, the hum of the projectile reached her ears, and the crack of it slamming through the bug rock and into the ground was blocked out by the audio sensors, yet, she was still close enough to hear it through the helmet. There was an explosion of rock and bug parts and she felt the quake in her hooves.

Then everything went silent again. Everything except Hell's breathing. She shook her head and steadied herself, averting her gaze from the still cooking bugs and towards the samples marked by her HUD. She picked up the gooey clumps on sticks, and shoved them into her sample canister, then sat back and caught her breath as she reloaded her flamer.

Sharp came up behind her, chuckling a 'dumb bugs' and kicking at a pile of meat.

They're smarter than we think. He wasn't there, watching them try and rush out of the hole. They recognized the beacon. She cooked them as they tried to run, some of them weren't even going for her, they just split off while burning to death.

"What are you looking at?"

Hell wrenched herself out of her thoughts and finished adjusting the flamer before sliding it back under her barrel and standing up. "Waiting for our next heading." She tried not to snark back at him. She couldn't understand why somepony would be so pointlessly abrasive. Especially a fellow Tartarus Diver.

He lifted up his hoof, he had one of those leg band screens. Another marker appeared on her compass, and she turned with him as he started walking. He went past her without a word. Hell frowned. There's a surprising lack of appreciation for me doing all the work. Hell went to press a hoof to the bridge of her muzzle, remembered she had a helmet, and elected for an annoyed snort instead. She followed after, albeit, in a quiet huff as he lead on.

Cresting over the hill, Hell got another wide view of the landscape, and the rocks that lay beyond it. It looked like the area was practically devoid of sand, with a few pockets here and there. Only upright or uncovered rust red plinths of rock and darker bug marked surface stone, sloping at odd angles and jutting out in random places. Hell followed Sharp down the hill with her head on a swivel. She had good ears, but nothing was better at picking out hostiles than her eyes.

They made their way through the garden of natural rocks, looming over their heads. Sharp seemed to be totally ignorant to the danger of moving so quickly through a space with so many blind spots, Hell was struggling to keep herself from jumping at the odd shadow that kinda looked like a bug if you tilted your head sideways and blurred your eyes.

Eventually they came to a crashed escape pod. When Hell turned the corner, Sharp was already downloading the vital data, and collecting the samples around the pod. She let out a sigh of relief that he wasn't going to try and make her do it, just to make her. Maybe there's hope for him after all.

He glanced up from his arm band and said, "See that beacon over there?"

Hell looked in the direction he tossed his head in and spotted it.

"That's our next goal, call down a supply while my system works over the data transfer."

Hell nodded and punched in the right details into her own system, as the stratagem ball lit up and rolled down into her hoof, she let it fall onto the ground and took a step back. Her HUD displayed fifteen seconds before the impact.

There was a pregnant silence between the two of them after Hell made the mistake of looking over at him, and seemingly caught his eye from behind the helmet. She'd been in training for this for a while, with other divers like her, there was a certain way one could tell the expressions of the pony behind the visor. He at least didn't look mad, more inquisitive, if she had to put a label on it.

They still silently stared at each other until the pod landed though.

Hell closed her eyes for the impact on reflex, but she opened them wide to watch the Tartarus Pod fold out and up, hoping to catch a glimpse on how it worked. The manuals were very cut and dry, and surprisingly lacking on any actual technical details. Sharp pulled open a box without pulling it out of the shelf, and Hell went for the special ammo cartridge for the flamer, once again labeled with a cartoony smiling unicorn by Spanner.

"Hey, are you seeing this?" He had his armband lifted up, and he gave it a little shake as his visor lifted to look at her.

Hell opened up her own tac map and immediately saw what he was referencing, there was a swarm of dots moving in on them from three different directions. Hell grabbed a grenade from one of the open boxes and jumped around the corner, "With me." She said simply, followed by, "Trail behind and use me as cover, call out any flanks." Then she ducked down, using her even lower stance to weave around the stone pillars silently.

Hell came around one just in time to get a face full of bug attempting to do the same thing, with spiked limbs, it was far easier to move silently. Hell was just quicker on the draw, there was a spark from her flamer just as she kicked the equally surprised bug in the face on instinct, in the next second, the tiny path between the rocks was bathed in red light and heat.

She felt Sharp run across behind her, and heard the 'pt-t-t-t-t-t-t-' of his SMG firing into the flames as he crossed the opening in cover, towards the open clearing out of the forest of rock spires. Hell continued side stepping until she spotted glowing green highlights from around one of the tips of the farthest rock spires.

"Spewer!" She shouted, hoping that either the comms or her voice would let Sharp know without her having to point it out.

"Flank right!" He called back, and Hell turned just in time to get another face full of bug. The armored black head of the bug in question slammed into her at ramming speed and threw her into one of the pillars, the impact knocked the breath from her barrel, and she wheezed and sank to the ground.

She didn't have an angle to shoot it, she couldn't kick through the armored head, and it was bearing down on her.

Then it took a .5 centimeter lead rifle slug to its center of mass and slid as it fell to its side, dead as a doornail. Hell wrenched her eyes away from the corpse back in the direction it came from and spotted two more spewers. She roughly got her hooves under her and sprinted out of the rocks and into the dusty clearing where Sharp was laying down covering fire. Just as she cleared the last rock, Sharp's stubby SMG clicked dry; he settled into a wider stance and started taking potshots at the spewers weaving their way out of the rocks, desperately screeching for their blood.

The overwhelming adrenaline response to move filled Hell out of nowhere, and she leapt on instinct just in time to dodge the ball of acid that melted a hole in the dust where she was just standing. She rolled her short rifle out of its mount and spun around with the momentum to have it land in her outstretched hoof. Originally she had planned to throw the spare grenade she took from the supply box at the first heavy target she saw, but that plan was thrown at a rock plinth and lost in the chaos.

"Keep backing up!" She shouted over the roar of her short rifle. Most of the bullets went wide as she kept backpedaling up the hill, but the few that landed on the glowing green ball of armor and meat crumpled or bounced off the black chitin. She shifted her aim towards its bulbous backside, and the bullets that landed started creating arcs of green blood that sprayed out in geysers every time one hit.

Hell's short rifle clicked, and the spewer was still moving.

"Switch! Now!" Hell rolled, and Sharp jumped, they switched positions in a move that Hell would have, in post, called superfluous, unnecessary, and awesome. The vindicator flipped open onto the end of her opposite hoof, two shots rang out and popped the head off the nearest warrior, with a shout, she slammed the pistol down on the nearest grub and then fired one more bullet into it just to be sure. The other two warriors at the bottom of the hill continued to approach, and Hell simply rolled the trigger in her mouth like she was using an auto-fire weapon. The pistol emptied in less than a second, and both bugs fell to the ground with eight new holes between them.

Hell looked to the side at the spewer that had seemingly exploded. She'd tunnel visioned on her section of the fight, and missed the pressure wave that came from popping those things like balloons. Sharp was already the rest of the way up the hill, and she joined him shortly.

"Keep moving, I'd like to dodge that other patrol." He did as he said, he kept moving.

Hell was getting tired of walking, she was always tired of walking, what with having wings but not getting to use them. The short burst of life or death adrenaline rushes, followed by a serene stroll through an alien country side was starting to mess with her head. Her limbs were twitchy, and the overbearing desire to fly consumed her thoughts like it usually did. Despite how hard her heart was beating, she knew there wasn't a point. Thestrals can't fly filly.

"There it is." Sharp said from in front of her, pulling her from her thoughts again. Ahead of them was a destroyed SEAF outpost. A tower that had been toppled over, fences that had holes in them... bodies.

Hell decided to use the energy in her limbs for something. "You stay here and keep a wide look out. I'll go get the launch codes." She did just that, sprinting past him. The rhythmic movement of a gallop put her right back in the state her body wanted to be in. It felt better to be exerting herself, rather than taking the moment to rest. Exertion had already solidified itself as 'safety' in her subconscious mind.

She slowed down when she got to the piles of scrap. It looked like the bugs had moved the debris out of the way and piled them up in random spots in the destroyed outpost. Bodies of ponies wearing the SEAF army military uniform were scattered about in the piles, both in pieces, bones, or otherwise scattered around the place. Hell tried her best to ignore the smell, and instead focused on sweeping the ground and the piles for the data pad that she was here looking for.

Hell found it under a body. A headless one, clutching the large pad with their front hooves like their lives depended on it. Hell waited a moment, hoping to transfer some amount of respect in her timing for their sacrifice. This pony hadn't given up their duty of protecting the data, not even after they had been killed.

She took the pad, and the limbs stayed limp, letting her slide it out of their grip with ease. She used the cord that extended from the pad to wire it into the native suit systems, and in short order, her HUD displayed a message telling her that the data had been successfully retrieved.

Sharp started moving towards the destroyed outpost, and Hell left the graveyard to meet him out in the dust. As soon as they met up again, he started talking, and Hell wondered if he knew their radio's had range over the whole of the mission OA. "Beacon's just over that ridge." He pointed. "I say we go there next."

"We should probably look for the next nest. We don't want to get caught out like that again." Was her counter offer. She wasn't trying to argue, and really tried to let that seep into her tone. She even pitched her voice up.

He shrugged and started moving. "Nope. This first. It's on the way, anyways."

Hell let out another long suffering sigh and followed after him. Right as she spotted the next SEAF outpost, Sharp started blind firing his rifle towards a nearby grub. It, of course, noticed the stray shots, and started spraying pink smoke into the air, along with a bug style alarm call.

Hell's eyes widened, and she ran forwards to try and stop the bug, but she was far too late. A rumble passed through the ground, and thicker pink smoke erupted from the ground nearby, along with rocks, dust and bugs. Hell had yet to reload anything, so she quickly ejected her mostly empty tank while priming a grenade with her other hoof. The blast pulverized or scattered the bugs that had just crawled out of the hole, and Sharp was busy firing at the approaching bugs on their flank.

Hell got the new fluid tank in position in time to lay down liquid fire all over the approaching bugs. While laying out a constant stream, Hell did her best to angle the liquid to the sides so she could stride forwards. A pair of grubs dodged the initial blast and began biting at her front hooves. The first one latched onto her front leg, and the second made the mistake of getting close to her back legs, and getting tossed through the air after a stray kick sent it to an early headless grave.

The flames cut out as Hell screamed. She was lucky that the bug hadn't severed her leg completely in two, it just sunk its mandibles into her leg and then started trying to scrape her insides out instead. Her other front hoof came down on the bug twice, three times before enough of it was paste for her to focus on firing the flamethrower again. She'd waded into the burning by then, and simply pointed the flamer at the pink smoke erupting from the ground as a spewer parted the sinkhole of sand and rock.

It, having just exited a hole, and now on fire, screeched and gave out a deep, rib shaking roar and started charging Hell. Hell, having no reason to let go of the trigger, began coating every inch of its armor plates with fire. The heat was already baking her inside her armor. The thing was breathable, but wasn't designed to deal with a pony standing in open flame. She wasn't on fire herself, but she was standing in the roiling air she was cooking.

She started to back up when it didn't die. She kept backing up when it continued to not die, and with a tiny whimper that sounded more like somepony tried to put a cheese grater through a plate glass window, it slumped down, stopped moving, and the fight was over.

Hell had to wait for the fire around her to use up all of the fuel before she could do anything else. She was considering throttling Sharp for blind firing a long rifle with a scope on it, but was able to calm herself down while the flames burned themselves out, her leg still had a mandible sticking out of it, and it stung like a... mandible impaling her leg. She took a few limping steps before noticing, and reached down with her other hoof before cracking an armored boot over it. The mandible came loose, and she tore it out in the next moment; it made the wound far worse. Except that's what stims are for.

One such device went into her leg, and she let out a long exhale as the magic and chemicals washed over her body. Oh yeah... that's the stuff. She blinked away the white from the edges of her vision, but held onto the euphoria for as long as she could as she trotted towards Sharp's position at the abandoned SEAF supply structure. It was the closest she'd ever felt to flying, gliding around her hooves like she barely weighed anything.

Sharp fired a round from his long rifle into something metal, and Hell's heightened senses heard the sound of metal bouncing around on the rock as Sharp disappeared below her line of sight.

She snorted at his 'antics' and checked her tac map. There was an orange marker shaped like a missile, off to the side was a wide reaching red splotch that she left a marker pin on. She was already standing outside the supply cabinet when the tac map fled from her visor overlay. "You done in there?"

"Stow it." He said, backing out of the cabinet. "Let's go get this over with."

"Actually, we should probably handle that bug nest first, to the east." She pointed. Barely over the next ridge, she could spot the raised bug rock spires, built around the natural rock formations.

Sharp rolled his neck around, looking over the ridge. "We can do it after." he monotoned.

"No." Hell adjusted her leg sleeve and stepped forwards a bit, "The last thing we want is a whole swarm bearing down on us while we're preparing the ICBM. They could destroy it, or kill us, or both." He moved to interrupt her, but she continued with a firm application of raising her voice, "You know the sound is going to attract bugs alone. So let's deal with them now, while we have the element of surprise."

"Fine." He walked off in the direction of the bug nest without another word.

Hell trailed behind him again. Let's not do this. "Hey. Listen." She started, and she moved up to his side. Despite his longer stride, she was still easily quicker on her hooves. "Hey." She tried to step in front of him, but he kept moving. "Sharp, hey, stop."

He stopped. "What?" Came out with near petulance.

"Just-" Hell stood in front of him fully and reached for the helmet release, taking it off in a smooth motion. She tried her best to look him in the eye. "I don't know what you have against me, but I need you to know that I've got your back regardless. Do whatever you need to feel superior all you like, I'll still die for you." Hell's words surprised herself. That's not- well, yes... that's true. It felt like the intensity of the phrase didn't meet the context, it felt wrong to just lunge at him with hope that he'd personally connect with her.

Maybe she missed her boot camp team more than she thought she did.

He seemed to be just as surprised at the genuine tone of voice. "Uh... yeah. Okay" He gave her a solid nod and tentatively started moving again. She moved out of his way and put her helmet back on. She trotted in place for a second to get the blood flowing again, and try and bring her focus back to the active combat zone.

"Alright Hell." She gave a few exhales and then paced herself back up to Sharp. He matched her speed, and they made their way towards the rising pink smoke. The rock plinths in the distance resolved into bug rock spires and a sunken hole filled with bugs. The black chitinous monsters were idling, Hell could see a hoof full simply staring at the top of the ridge, five total holes. The main issue was the charger, standing guard in the middle. Hell could take it, but she'd need to deal with the other bugs first.

"How do you wanna play this?" Sharp said from next to her.

Hell, taking the question with grace, started to reload her pistol while she talked aloud. "See the big guy in the middle?"

"Can't miss it." He said, less monotone than before.

"That's our last target. From the front, I can circle around and draw their attention, clear out the holes and line them up for you. You take the hole closest to us, and once the holes are closed I can cook the charger alive in its own armor." She hefted the flamethrower and pushed him in the shoulder lightly with her own. He was solid, far too solid for her push to be anything other than her just pressing into his side. "Stay hidden until I draw them away, then blow the hole, and then prioritize armored targets first, the spewers especially."

He pushed her back, and she nearly fell over. "And take pot shots at anything that gets close to you."

Hell got her hoofing and started a slow trot as she smiled under her helmet, "Yes please." The trot turned into a gallop, and Hell steeled herself for the upcoming life or death situation. She felt the thumping of her hooves on the dust reverberating in her back and her shoulders, the blood in her ears. There was a kind of solace she could take in knowing what she was doing here. Sorta. Guns blazing, bug kicking, that was her thing. She'd never taken the 'talking to ponies' training course.

She shifted her run into three hooves and pulled a grenade from her bandolier as she approached the lip. Already, alarmed bug screeches were sounding off. Her wings spread on instinct as she reached the edge and jumped. She got to experience a short moment of weightlessness before chucking the grenade mid air towards one of the bug holes beneath her. Her throw turned her fall into a spin, and she twisted to land hooves first into a grub that was just in the middle of spraying pink mist into the air before gravity and a thestral mare sent it to an early grave.

Hell stumbled before regaining her momentum. Her eyes scanned around her, mostly focusing on a path, or how to make one. Quickly, she visualized a line in her head, already halfway through the first pattern of a gallop. She started precariously running at an angle to make a sharp running turn, then skid to a stop in front of a warrior that got a face full of sand and a punch to the face. Hell whipped out her pistol and spun around, firing an individual bullet into anything she could see, hoping for any debilitating damage. Her pistol hoof dropped back down and she reared up her back legs, coiling them up for a buck straight into the head of the warrior that had just recovered from her staggering it.

Her metal combat shoes cracked the chitin, and the warrior behind her fell backwards, dead. The slot that contained the joints that attached the bug's head to its body had been replaced with its head. Her hooves came back covered in green ichor, and she started running. A cursory glance told her that she'd missed her first grenade throw, and that the charger was already bearing down on her.

She ran around a warrior as it lunged for her, barely swiping at her tail hairs, another grenade came off the bandolier. She hit the quick release lever and chucked it down into the depths of the next bug hole as she ran past it. There was a dull thwump she missed as she ducked around a particularly spry grub that had jumped for her neck. The grub in question was squashed by the charger as Hell kicked herself off a rock and out of the path of imminent destruction.

As she landed, she folded her short rifle down into her hoof and started walking forwards while taking measured shots into the heads or legs of the warriors in front of her. As soon as there was a path, she let the rifle dangle and then sprinted forwards again to dodge the spray of acid from a spewer to her right. Her breath was coming in heavy bursts, and she could feel the exertion in her limbs. She was alive.

I'm barely even warmed up. She thought in mild surprise. Another grenade went flying toward the next hole, and she heard the charger roar again as it started to do what the name implied. Hell continued running. Two down, one grenade left. Hell twisted, hoping to throw off the charger, it curved after her, and she felt the thumping of it's shimmering black chitin ripping gouges of rock out of the as it tried to arrest its momentum to go after her. She watched out of the corner of her eye as it stopped completely and started to turn again.

Just like that, Hell was surrounded. Charger at her back, grubs, warriors, and spewers approaching from all sides. The charger had pushed her towards the center, and now there was nowhere left for her to run.

Hell's mind went blank.

The dangling rifle came up and emptied itself in bursts, popping heads or blowing off legs. Then it clicked dry.

Hell flipped up her pistol with such velocity that the initial strike to the warrior behind her ripped its mandibles out, the bullet that came after went through its eye. The pistol fired into the crowd until Hell felt the thumping of the charger. To her left, a spewers head exploded, and the report of a long rifle signaled her throwing herself over her shoulder with an instinctual flap of her wings.

The charger threw its weight down on where she was, sending a grub into the air and into a ball of mush as it impacted the stone on the opposite end of the clearing. Hell hit the ground at the same time, throwing up what little sand was there as she twisted to get a line of sight onto her next target. Two warriors fell before her pistol clicked dry, and she rolled onto her hooves and bit down hard enough on her support weapon trigger to feel the polymer crack under her teeth.

The main issue was staying close enough to the charger that the spewers couldn’t shoot at her, without actually getting close enough that the charger could simply whack her.

The charger staggered as soon as the flames coated its side, but it twisted all the same, and bore down on Hell. She kept backing up, obviously it was faster, but the extra space was extra time to burn. Her eyes narrowed, she and the charger experienced a moving standoff with angry orange burning fuel in-between them for a few moments before the charger closed the distance and reared up to turn Hell into glue.

Hell tucked and rolled, obviously not interested in being turned into glue.

Somewhere behind her, another spewer head exploded.

Hell kept stepping back, the charger started to slow. With more flames coating its armor, and the smell of cooking chitin and melting rock reaching her wrinkling muzzle, the charger began to stagger to the side. It slammed its legs down on nothing, desperately trying to hit anything, before slouching down to the side and going still. Hell took a deep, chest rattling breath as the world came back into focus.

She stood in place for a second, just breathing. Looking at the trail of fire and corpses.

Hell tried to let go of the trigger, but the indentation she left in it from the force of her bite forced it to stick to her teeth. She rolled her eyes and trotted around the charger corpse, preparing another grenade for the last bug hole. Sharp had apparently dealt with the one she missed, and the one closest to the ridge. As she got up to the rim, close enough to not miss, her ears tried to flick in agitation to the tumbling stone noises of bugs crawling up the hole. She tossed the grenade and took a few steps back. A dull thwump and the sound of collapsing tunnels signaled the success.

Hell took another deep breath, the blood slowing and the quieting thumping in her ears didn't lend her to feeling any different. She recognized the sensation, she'd always struggled with desensitization practice, but now she could see the point of it.

"Hey!"

Hell spun to the side, slowing to a stop as she noted the yell wasn't a warning. Wait, yelling? Hell wiggled her ears, the speakers in her helmet were broken again. Sharp finished sliding down the hill as Hell noted the damage to her armor. Apparently she'd taken a glancing blow from that spewer, her armor all down her right side was half melted. It was littered with pockmarks of where individual drops of acid had landed and slid down her armor plating,

I nearly died. If I'd been even a split second slower, that would have been it. Sharp finished trotting up to her and held out a hoof, breaking her from her focus. "Good work."

Hell bumped his outstretched limb, happy to have something else to focus on, "Thanks, and the same to you. I don't think I've seen you miss a shot yet." You know, except for all the shots you've missed. He seemed to appreciate the praise though, lie or not.

She sat back, and went through the process of reloading all of her equipment. One of these days, I'm going to get something belt fed. How she would have loved a sixty six minigun, slung under her barrel, to simply mow down anything she wanted.

Those were a bit heavy for her though.

Hell heard the snark in his voice, it was better than vitriol. "Yeah well, we're not supposed to miss."

Hell smiled. "Where to next? Launch pad?"

With a nod, Sharp started through the clearing, and up towards the ridge. Hell followed after, making the effort to strain her hearing with the speaker system out. Aside from all of the rocks settling, and the ambient noise of the wind, there was nothing of note along the short walk through more arid rockface. Hell was starting to get dust mixing into the holes in her armor, grinding away at the joints on her right side.

"There it is." Sharp said from in front, cresting the hill. Hell trotted forwards, matching him kneeling down. He was looking through the scope of the long rifle, getting a better look at the things nearby.

"What can you see?"

"More of those big green thin-"

"Spewers." Hell corrected.

He turned to look at her.

"What?" She protested.

He shook his head and pulled up the HUD for the long rifle scope. After a few swivels he said, "There's an ambush." in mild confusion. He leaned over and pointed. "See how the rocks lift up over the launch area?"

"Mhm."

"There's bugs back there. Hiding just out of line of sight." He looked back in the scope, and Hell heard the lingering confusion. "I didn't know bugs knew how to take cover... They're not hiding their shadows though."

"Odd." Hell agreed, Except. Is it? Her thoughts went back to the charger that had recognized the stratagem ball. "Do you th-"

Hell's question was cut off by Sharp letting out a scream of agony. Hell's head turned as Sharp was lifted off the ground. The white monstrosity looming over him resolved into visibility as another serrated limb came down into his back. The flesh and armor parted as it went all the way through him, sending him slamming back into the ground. His scream cut off, and in the moment Hell's mind kicked into gear, the first serrated claw came back down on his head.

Hell didn't look. She wanted to scream, but if she did, she wouldn't have been able to hold the trigger. Four bullets left her short rifle before the thing lunged at her. Tendrils colored like tongues shot out like bullets, several bounced off her chest plate, but the rest sank into her shoulders and reached into her body. The talon that had sunk into Sharp's head whipped up and smacked her across the face, it ripped her helmet and her off her hooves and into the air from the force alone. All Hell knew while flying was flashing white, pain and blood rushing up her throat.

She hit the ground limply, the dust barely cushioning her. Her eyes went wide and her heart fought against the hole currently in it. The adrenaline filled her everything, and she stood without thought as the monster jumped at her again.

She jumped back at it, without the trigger in her helmet, there wasn't a quick way to fire any of her weapons. The two collided in midair, the bug having over extended its reach, reared back to try and split her in half with its bullet quick arms.

Hell bit into its face. Blood of her own and its mixed with shards of breaking chitin and any soft bits of flesh she could grind her incisors into. Her limbs flashed with the speed of someone fighting death, something important ripped on both of them. The beast stumbled backwards, missing its head. It swung in the air once before dying properly.

Hell stared as green ichor dripped from her face, waiting for the next thing to fight. Then her brain reminded her that she was bleeding out, and she fumbled a stim as she started to fall over. With darkening vision, she managed to get the stim pressed into her neck with barely any dexterity. As the automatic plunger pressed the fluid into her neck, everything came back to her.

"Sharp!" She didn't need to look, she just remembered where he'd fallen. She ran to him, and stopped half way, “Sharp.” She said tonelessly, the energy draining from the shout.

Even from there, it was clear that sharp was not getting back up.

We're not supposed to come back.

Hell turned and started walking towards the ICBM.

The rest of the mission went by in a flash. Sharp's call for the ambush led to a pit full of roasted bugs, she had to manually fire her flamer, but it worked in the end with a careful application of the SEAF HE shell. They'd already cleared out the rest of the nests nearby, so the ICBM firing sequence didn't have any bugs to attract. It fired, and Hell ignored the beautiful flashing lights of destruction until the shock wave of force from the blast required her to hunker down to avoid getting blown away in the wind.

It was a silent extraction too. She detailed in additional wind data from her suit, despite the lack of a HUD, she still figured it out. Then she waited. Watching the dust and the ominous towering cloud of smoke on the horizon. At least, she understood how it worked now.

He wasn't supposed to come back. He was fodder to keep me alive, which was exactly what happened.

Hell waited in the desolate waste, surrounded by the rock spires and the blue shining beacon, she couldn't hear Horizion's call outs as his ETA shortened, no helmet... again. The shining near red hills weren't beautiful anymore, Hell just wanted to leave.

As soon as the Pelican landed, and the ramp lowered, Hell robotically drove herself into the ship and slung herself into the harness.

"Lost your helmet again?" Horizon said jovially.

Hell didn't meet his eyes. She stared down at the grating instead. She was a failure, sure the mission was a great success, but... Is this the cost? The real cost of democracy? Is this what being a Tartarus Diver is? Constant sacrifice for... minimal gains? Hell didn't cry, she was more confused than anything. She wished she would cry, just to get all of the sensations she didn't understand out, but death wasn't a surprise to her. It was just... her fault this time.

The ramp went up as the Pelican started to lift off. Without a headset, Hell wouldn't have been able to hear anything Horizon said in flight; she tentatively lifted her head to look for one. On the seat next to her, there it was. Horizon had a great throwing hoof, clearly.

She unfolded her ears and slipped on the top wide headset.

"You're gonna irk Spanner something fierce, what with you needing another whole new set of armor plates." He joked as soon as she switched on the channel.

Hell didn't need to restrain a smile, one didn't come, but she did respond. "I don't need a new one. Really doesn't seem like it does all that much anyways."

"It's better than getting your fur pockmarked with acid though."

Hell nodded, her tone missing its somber timber since she had to yell over the jets. "I probably would have been fast enough to dodge it fully without the plates weighing me down."

"And the helmet?" Hell could hear the eyebrow raise.

"I'm keeping the helmets. Seems like bugs love going for the head." Imagery of Sharp's impaled skull aggressively flashed in Hell's mind. She winced and nearly turned off the comms. Her heartbeat accelerated a tad as the ship breached the atmosphere.

Horizon kept her from tuning it all out. Something about his voice being the only other thing was enough to keep her from going into a full freak-out. Her body had figured out she was safe, and was trying to do something with all the stress it was just under. "Reminds me of this one engineer I used to know. Real rulebreaker, constantly trying things, hoofing the line, all sorts; but she'd yell. And I mean really scream, give ponies a talking to about wearing helmets, she always had hers on, a lot of us joked that she'd wear it to bed. Turns out? She did."

Horizon turned around to look at Hell staring intently at him. There was understanding that he sent to her, through his eyes. Then he just kept talking, kept sharing random stories, or rambling on about the next thing that popped into his head for the rest of the flight.

Level up!
Level: Three
Title: Space Cadet

New perk!

Bug stomper:
Bug? Meet hoof and a hard place. Something about crushing bugs feels so right to you. When striking a weak point on a bug, you automatically critically strike for three times damage!

SDS: Aftershocks

Hell was awake for the landing sequence this time. Her eyes wandered around the cargo bay, trying to focus on anything other than the three empty seats. Like the last time she was aware, the ship went through its sequences of beeps, clanks and cer-shunks as it entered the gravity space and locked down onto the runway.

She worked the harness open with the hoof catch releases as Horizon went through the shut down procedures. She wished the door would stick. Maybe something simple could go wrong, and Hell could be stuck in here for a few hours; then she wouldn't have to do anything else, or think.

But the door did come down, and Hell hopped up on muscle memory and half shrugged one of the falling-out armor plates back into position over her shoulder as her combat shoes thunked their way down the ramp. There was no DO to meet her at the ramp this time, and - functioning mostly on assumption - Hell figured that the next steps were: food, rest, food, outfit, mission.

Then I'll have another chance to get someone else killed.

The thought was an accident, a mistake, really. She had only just gotten him to stop giving her attitude.

Bugs.

Hell repressed a snarl and shivered with barely containable emotion as Horizon came down the ramp and closed it up.

"So Hell..."

Hell took the leading question for what it was. She turned towards him, broken polymers of her armor, sharpened by acid, digging slightly into her suit sleeve. Words didn't come. Horizon, for his part, seemed to look through her, his orange eyes cut right through her visor, and he smiled a smile of empathy that reached through the helmet along with his gaze.

"You wanna get cleaned up and meet us in the mess hall?"

Hell quieted her swirling thoughts. "Sure, I'll be down in twenty."

A task.

Hell was built for doing specific things. She was a soldier, born and bred. She turned off towards the stacks and lifted a hoof before remembering to take off her armor first. Horizon waited to go until she was on her way, not watching, but being around. There was another plane in the hangar now too, supposedly what Cross Fire would by flying.

After shrugging off the last of her armor plates, Hell started working the welded zipper down the sleeve and said, "So... How long have you been flying?"

Horizon responded instantly, filling the void of conversation, but not the static audio of the hanger Hell was tuning out. "I got around here 'bout a year after Jay. Think Beach has been with this SD since it was fielded, but I'm only a graduate of three years in the making, and I'm pretty lucky too, most Pelican pi-" He cut himself off, "Well you know... I'm pretty good at what I do."

Hell wasn't looking at him, but she called over her shoulder as she worked the sleeve down over her combat shoes, "Confirmed kill count?"

Horizon chuckled, "We transport pilots don't keep official kill counts."

Hell, without missing a beat, made eye contact and rebutted with, "Unofficial confirmed kill count?"

Horizon looked towards the ceiling and began to whistle non-descriptly. "six hundred and ninety nine."

Hell did her own whistle, except, she didn't have to purse her lips, she could make it with the top of her throat. "Damn flyboy. I've heard of worse kill counts for longer deployments."

"Oh yeah?"

Hell nodded, "This one sarge, he had a four month rotation from a drop post out in Miranda, he killed plenty of flies, but not nearly as many to make up seven hundred. Real grumpy about it too, the other drills always brought it up to bait the newbies into trying to call the sarge out on his commitment." Hell flipped a wing, "Obviously that never went well."

Horizon met her with a confused look, "Sarge? You mean like a sergeant? I didn't... think Divers got anything more complex than the training course?"

"We don't." Hell shook off the last of the sleeve and stacked it up with her armor plates on a box. "I trained to join up with the SEA forces before I could become a Tartarus Diver, because of my... Race... and size."

"Wait- You're SEAF?"

"Mhm, got my military ID in my personal... effects..." Hell took a short double take, "Actually, where is all my stuff?"

"Uhhhhhhhhh-" Horizon plastered on a smile, "I'll go ask Beach while you clean yourself off. No offence Hell, but even without the armor, you still smell like you bathed in animal parts."

Hell sniffed the air. She creased her brown and sniffed a little harder.

"Oh."

A few blinks followed the realization.

"I can't smell anything."

Horizon matched her confused look, "What- you mean anything?"

Hell pushed away the raging thoughts, "It's probably not anything to worry about, maybe just a side effect from the stimpacks. I'm gonna-"

"Oh, yeah, of course, I'll go-"

"And-"

"Yup-"

Hell and Horizon exchanged a dance of trying to step around one another.

"I'm going this way." Hell pointed with a wing, Horizon stepped to the other side with a silly smile and Hell trotted off to the stacks for a shower, wishing she didn't have to leave his conversation. Pipes and grating made for far worse company. She made for far worse company, and her thoughts made sure she remembered that fact all the way through the gangways.

She wanted to get bothered by Jay again, he was loud. That was annoying, but something.

Why. Are. My. Thoughts. SO. loud...

But the sounds of the hangar in operation slowly turned into echoes, and then all that was left were her hoofsteps. She made sure to stomp extra loud and point her ears right at the walls so she'd catch the reverberation. She ignored the looks, the whispers she could hear, one kind pony tried to congratulate her on her third successful mission, and for a split second, she saw Sharp's face with the extra hole run down the middle, and she stomped away.

When she got where she was going she pushed them down again, simple instructions. Water, soap, scrub the blood out of her coat. Rinse. Rinse. Rinse. Rinse until the blood comes out. Rinse until the blood comes out. Scrub the blood out of her coat, scrub it off of her hooves, out of her mouth, out of her eyes. Rinse. Rinse. Rinse the blood out.

Why won't it come out.

Hell ignored most of the crying. Shaking made washing very difficult, you know.

Twenty minutes later and only slightly lighter, but far more poofy, Hell clomped her way into mess.

Last time Hell was here, the first thing she noticed were the scents. The food, the ponies, the twisting of carbs in the air mixed with grease and that weird metallic smell that you only got when you were walking around with your hooves scuffing up metal all day.

Now it was just air.

"Hey! Why-"

Hell jumped, and Blue Jay made eye contact with the base of her hoof as she went to cave in his skull. She luckily stopped, and Jay didn't seem to mind.

"Why do you look all sad?"

Hell fixed her ears and calmed her heart. "I don't. Stop sneaking up on me like that, you could have been seriously hurt." She tried to scold him.

He laughed, like the very idea was ridiculous. "You would never hurt me Hell," and he gestured at her hoof, still inches away from his face. "See?"

All Hell could see was the hole she almost kicked into his eye. Her combat shoes were made for cracking open ceramics and keratin; she could have sent him into an early retirement if she really kicked him in the face... or an early grave.

She lowered her limb, and walked into the room.

"Hey- where you goin'?" He sidled up next to her, "Hungry?"

"Yes." Hell's gaze passed around the room, and a breath came out shakier than she intended after her mind forced her to breathe in a little harder to try and smell the room. Habit.

It'll fix itself. Just stress.

"Whatcha hungry for?"

Hell scoffed, "Is silence on the menu?"

"Silence?" Jay tapped a hoof against his chin, "Dunno, but we can ask!" He bounded forwards, prancing around a few tables and up to the counter. The white mare from before was still at the counter and said a few choice words to Jay for interrupting her conversation with the jarringly yellow stallion at the counter.

Hell stared in confusion. She couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Two hooves in front of the other and she crossed the distance.

"Aaaa~! There she is, you're looking lovely-" She caught her own voice, "And thin! Look at you! What are you hungry for, let me-"

"Silence?" Jay interrupted, half answering, half asking. "That's what she asked for."

Hell blinked. Aether sent her a look that said it all, followed by lowering her muzzle down and raising her eyebrows up higher than Hell thought was possible while she stared down Blue Jay. To his credit, he figured it out.

"Ah." A step back, "My bad. I- Silence isn't a cultural dish?"

Hell openly gawked. "... I don't think so."

"This isn't important, Jay- Shoo! Go on, your lunch break isn't in for an hour anyways, what are you even down here for?"

Jay sent Hell an apologetic smile then twisted around and made a hasty retreat.

"Uh-huh. That's what I thought." The mare turned her gaze back towards Hell, "So wha'd'ya want dearie? More soup?"

"Actually-uhm. Do you have anything heartier? Vegetables? Stew? Something like that?"

She smiled wide, "Aye, a challenge? I can do that. How hearty are we talkin' from a scale of 'set the season's snowfall on fire' to 'El-Seven's ridged leg'?"

Hell... Had no idea what to make of that.

"Hearty it is." She winked.

"Thank you- Aether? Right?"

She moved her head in one big, singular nod. "That's my name, do me a favor and don't wear it out for me, will you?"

"Will do." Hell's response was mostly toneless. Her mind was still trying to figure out what in the wide world of Super Equestria the mare had just asked her. The affirmation was mostly reflex drilled into her by boot camp. Her thoughts drifted back towards her ID, and the fact that she hadn't seen Horizon on her way in. Aether disappeared behind the counter and the flappy metal doors behind it without another word.

Hell turned around. Jay was gone from sight; a few ponies averted their gazes from her as she turned around. A few sent her winks or waves or smiles. Somehow, in a room full of ponies, Hell felt alone. She blinked at the dust that felt like it was blowing into her eyes and went to take a seat at an empty table. She checked again if she could smell. She couldn't. The table and seating was just as 'meh' as it was before. She sat there, ignoring herself and the rest of the room until Cross Fire walked in, tailed by Beach and Horizon.

Hell's anxiety of being stared at was replaced by a different kind of anxiety as she waved at Cross, who smiled and started walking over. Hell tried to work her expression into something schooled, but respectable. Anything other than the pout she'd been wearing the whole time.

"I got some good news for ya girly." Cross flopped down into the seat next to her and flared her wings in a wide stretch. The impression that she was about to lay one over Hell's back turned into disappointment when Hell realized she was only stretching. "Eagle's in, and all the engine tests are full-green."

Horizon walked past the table towards the counter with the food.

Beach sat down, moving all robotic like and staring stock straight ahead, doing her best to not make eye contact with anyone. "Cross Fire will be joining you on your next mission."

"What?!" Hell nearly upturned the table. Her shout quieted the room and she shied back from the looks as she realized what Beach had meant. "Oh. You mean in the plane."

"Yeah. What, you thought I'd be on the ground?"

Hell remained silent.

Beach, on the other hoof, remained stoic. "There was an official briefing, but I may as well tell you now. The Ministry of Defense saw fit to grant us access to a brand new Eagle and according armaments for strafing and airstrikes."

"The A-forty's a real beauty." Cross Fire took over. "Spinally mounted, wing belt fed ammo drives with full system actuators, seven hundred rounds per minute that could punch through solid Achresteel." She finished with a hoof in the air, almost dreamily projecting. "It takes up three eights of the weight allotment for the plane itself."

Hell was... sucked into her mood. How this mare could be so excited about a weapon reminded her of when she picked up her Liberator for the first time. The awe, the reverence. It didn't feel all that special now that she'd killed with it. Still, a smile rose to her face, a soft one, to meet with Cross's "What I'd give to have one of those in the field."

Cross winked, "Technically? Now you do, and if you tried to hold one it would turn you into jelly, trust me. That's also why it's only for strafing. Fire it too long and the recoil drops the Eagle out of the sky. Even with entry speed."

Beach frowned a little deeper. Her resting face turned more into a scowl. "This is why we have a technical briefing."

Hell wondered why she was here.

"Incoming." Horizon said from far enough away that it wasn't startling. Hell turned over her back to see the balancing pot on his back, and Aether fretting over it as he walked it over. Hell could see the steam.

Which would have to be enough.

The pot was set down on the table under a rag that had suddenly appeared there, and Aether set down a massive stack of bowls made of thin, polished metal; perfectly nestled inside of each other in a stack of ten. "They're we go filly. The heartiest veggie broth me and the girls could make up." She patted her on the shoulder and then turned away, back to the counter.

Horizon was the first to dip a bowl into the pot itself and sit back with a helping of steaming white, with carrots and asparagus and alfalfa poking out of the top. Hell couldn't smell it, but the steam and the view was enough to get her tiny stomach rumbling. She lifted herself up, mostly onto the table, for her own bowl. Cross grabbed hers too and waited for Hell to sit back before tilting the pot down over her bowl instead of dipping it inside.

That looks way easier...

Beach didn't move, and Hell caught her unblinking stare and held it.

Beach's response was to continue staring.

"Are..." Hell wasn't intimidated, her mouth just went dry. It wasn't her fault, Beach was just being... really intense for some reason. "Are you not hungry?"

Beach's eyes snapped to the pot and then back to Hell before she could blink. "This is for you. It would be wrong for me to-"

"Ah shut your mouth." Cross lazily interrupted, licking her lips. "Get a bowl, stuff your face. You don't mind, do you Hell?"

She didn't. In fact, why would Beach believe eating food would be wrong? "Of course not."

"See?" Cross apparently felt as though the tiny little argument was over, and shoved her muzzle back into her bowl and slurped loud and proud.

Horizon shook his head at the mare's antics. "Blunt force instrument much?"

"Potato pot-" Cross coughed, and put a hoof to her chest as she hacked up a carrot that had gone down the wrong pipe.

Horizon laughed at her.

Hell and Beach were still staring at each other in a silent battle of wills. One that Beach eventually conceded. She did her due diligence of moving her own bowl and getting stew in front of her without spilling a drop, only then did Hell look away and tune back into Horizon and Cross arguing about whose plane was better.

"Yeah-well, at least I can fire my main weapon without dropping out of the sky."

Do they... always do this after someone dies?

"Hah!" Cross pointed, "That piddly autocannon? I've seen bigger-"

"Okay you two." Beach interrupted, calm as ever. "That's plenty."

Horizon waggled his eyebrows, and Cross glared at having been the one to get cut off.

Hell lifted the stew to her lips and got distracted for the next ten or so seconds, draining the bowl in one go. It didn't matter that most of the taste was missing, the earthy flavor was enough to break through whatever was wrong with her senses, that, and her mouth was still slightly soapy; so it didn't matter anyways. She had to chew most of the carrots and solids that she couldn't swallow straight away, which was the only thing that stopped her from climbing onto the table and dunking her head in the pot. Simple instructions. Soldiers knew, good food? Stop asking questions, full stop.

Hell chewed, and went for another, conversation-be-damned. She was hungry. Had it been days? Two? Three? Since she'd actually eaten anything other than bread, and whatever was in her stomach before she was frozen four years ago.

And stims. They were designed to grant some kind of long lasting energy too.

They weren't near a replacement for real food though, spiced, broth, food, carrots, taste; Hell lost herself for those thirty seconds, at least until the second bowl was missing and her body gave her a warning to slow down. It was a nice thirty seconds of nothing but flavor. The gunshots and the visions and barely cemented memories gave her peace to eat. Boot was good for something at least, when there's food in front of you, and you have time, nothing else matters.

"Whoah, Hell, slow down, you tryin'a choke or something?"

Horizon's voice brought Hell back down to earth, she set the bowl down; containing herself from going for a third straight away.

Cross Fire waved her wing, "Ah- let her eat how she wants."

"Says you, straw muzzle." Horizon shot back.

Cross held her hoof over her chest and turned her ears in mock surprise. "Goodness, was that a whole sentence? You're really improving!"

Hell found her voice, wanting to join in on the conversation. "Do you two always do this?"

"Nah, I'm new, remember?" She shrugged, "Horizon's got a wit to 'im."

"Same to you." He interrupted, "we're both pilots. It's basically in the code book that different field pilots have to bicker."

Cross clarified, "Transport and fighter-" gesturing to him and then herself, "are sworn enemies."

"They're only joking. To be clear. That is not code." Beach commented, not looking up from her stew. She was spinning it around with her hoof, idly, watching the chunks rotate at a different speed than the rest of the liquid. Hell looked up towards the next set of incoming hoofsteps to spot Spanner, who smiled a massive smile and sped up her trot around the table until she plopped down in the other spot next to Hell.

"Hey guys, Hell? How was your mission?"

Hell kept herself from shaking. "A success. I suppose."

Spanner's face turned to match Hell's upset demeanor, a sign she'd picked up on her blunt attempt at conversation. "I saw the acid damage down the side of your armor plates, you're gonna need a new suit."

Hell nodded slowly.

"Oh-" Horizon leaned forwards, "pay attention to this one Hell, you're about to hear th-"

Spanner waved her hoof in-between the two of them, "Okay! I don't ever get to do this." and sent Horizon a grumpy pout. She turned back, "Normally we have the simple outfit for most divers as they come through, which is why the training base on mars uses everything but the fancy pistol you have." She took a breath, "Soooo~ because you're bringing your equipment back in-tact, we got the go ahead to not only run experimental, buuuuut~" She giggled over herself, enjoying her presentation. "We're taking requests. Tartarus Diver experience is scarce, and feedback is important. So what do you think about your current equipment?"

Her horn lit, and a pad and pen rose up and set themselves on the desk. "I'll pass up anything important and we'll get it fixed before you go back out into the field, and if you want, you can make requests, like Horizon was saying." She tossed her head towards Beach, "Beach is in charge of all of the numbers, but Dither wants me to read over your suggestions before anything gets put in the system."

Hell tilted her head, "Dither?"

"The lead for the engineering department." Horizon answered.

"Oh," Hell shrugged, "I thought Star Spanner was the lead engineer."

"Me?" Her excitement bled into bashfulness, "No, there's so many moving parts. I'm just the Diver Associate."

"Because she's so personable." Cross Fire added, chuckling when Spanner coughed.

"Anyways-" The pen floated up, "So?"

All eyes looked to her, she rolled the taste of stew around her mouth for a second. "All of them need a supplementary hoof trigger, or something similar, the new Verdict itself needs a wire in for if the mouth trigger gets damaged. I lost it when my jaw got torn out, and had to run a manual fire with the Liberator."

There were a few blinks at 'jaw got torn out'.

"Something like the older battle saddle models with an alternate firing mechanism. I have wings so... I could roll a trigger at my side, command inputs be damned, I need to fire my gun. That being said, I could do with one of those leg bands, just in case. Something simpler than the full tac map and all the features. Some basic hardware to work my suit if something gets damaged. Twice now the speakers have gone off on me, and the only recourse was taking the helmet off."

Spanner continued to scribble.

Hell kept talking, she felt like she had to. Spanner looked so excited. "I could also do with something lighter. A lot of the armor plating is... superfluous when the bugs can-" Images of the inside Sharp's skull assailed her. "the... I mean- they can cut through the armor plates pretty good, and the acid is very dangerous..."

Hell didn't mean to trail off, her mouth closed on its own.

"Were you thinking about some kind of anti-corrosion mesh for the sleeve?" Spanner said, still scribbling down everything Hell had said.

Horizon looked concerned, having caught why Hell had stumbled.

"Hey Hell, pass me another bowl wouldya?" Cross Fire waved her hoof. Despite not knowing why she needed a second bowl, Hell still reached over and moved to her awaiting hoof.

"Hell?" Spanner asked, tapping the pen on the pad.

"Huh? Oh- uh- no, I don't know. I have no clue how something mi- I-" Hell shook her head, "I don't know. Reflex Armors tend to be immobile, that means dead. It'd be nice to not worry ab-" Hell watched solid concrete melt before her eyes, and her heart skipped a beat, as if wondering what the acid would have done to her had she not moved in time, "... It- maybe. Something lighter, so I can move faster. The plates don't help much."

Cross chuckled, "First mare I've ever heard of wanting less armor; how fast are you moving down there anyways?"

"Pretty fast." Horizon answered, "I've seen her run."

I wasn't fast enough.

"Are we just not gonna talk about it?" Hell asked, blurted more like. She wanted to snatch the words back from the air as soon as she realized she was saying them, but it was too late. She said it, she couldn't pretend she could ignore it anymore. She couldn't do whatever they were doing.

Spanner's ears swiveled. "Talk about what?"

Beach clarified in monotone, "That one of these seats is empty."

Cross frowned at Beach, Spanner's ears folded down, "Oh."

Hell... waited... for some response. They all looked away from her, even Horizon. A beat passed, a sickening moment where Hell realized that they weren't going to say anything. "He-He, and... None of you even said anything."

"His name is on the wall of martyrs. He died for Equestria." Beach responded dismissively.

Hell snarled and met Beach's iron gaze with one of her own, "He died because we didn't get a tactical description of the bugs we might see out in the field. Monsters that can turn invisible? If we knew, if I knew, he could have made it."

Beach set her jaw, not breaking the aggressive staring contest. She statued herself and Hell turned towards Spanner. When Spanner kept looking at the ground, Hell snorted. "So what? We- what? That's it? He's dead? We'll get another one?"

"Hey- Don't disparage the dead." Cross interrupted Hell's incoming explosion of emotion, "and don't make assumptions of us. We've been out here too, we see ponies not come back. We're used to it. None of us thought he was coming back. We made our peace with that before he left."

"What does that say about how you think of me then?" Hell snapped back.

Cross shied away.

"Hell." Beach said succinctly. "You came back. This is war. Things are different."

Hell sat back down, not having realized she had stood. She pulled in a breath and tried to relax. "I want a monster manual, or something; to read over before I take anyone else out into the field."

"That can be arranged. I'll talk to the D.O. and get you a file."

"I'm sorry, Hell." Horizon interjected. "None of us... We want you to come back."

"I don't know how you do it." Spanner finally looked up. "You're like a superhero. Sometimes we have to send down pony after pony to complete a mission, our average is two and a half lives per operation parameters, and you just go and complete the whole thing and come back."

Beach raised her hoof to cut off Spanner, "We are all here to aid with your mental stability. Divers struggle with such, and look at it this way: you're our chance to finally care."

"That's why Spanner's got a pad and paper out to take requests. We want to help you. You're practically the first pony we can." Horizon gestured at the mare in question, who worked a smile onto her face.

Hell didn't like the dismissal of her grief with the entire process, even though what they were saying made sense. She didn't understand the theory, didn't grasp the reason; she felt like she was being fooled by her own logic failing her. She had so many words, so many words to say and none of them fit in her mouth. She had nearly died, she had killed, she had watched Sharp's brains explode from his face and would probably see it again. All she had to hope for until she died was that she could make it last as long as possible.

For the first time, Hell wondered what it would be like to not be a Diver.

She was barely old enough to drink on private property. A piece of her mind had subconsciously made the judgment call to just not think about it, but there were ponies right there who had thought about it. They weren't happy, or brave, or heroes or villains. They were only ponies. Hell was just a single tiny little pony, and all of it was just too much for her to solve. The whole thing was... sad.

Ponies dying for Equestria looked good on paper, they were heroes. They were brave. Hell didn't feel brave. She felt...

Not scared, but... alone. Depressed.

The energy to claw and fight at what wasn't fair just wouldn't come, because she would go out again, she'd fight the monsters, and maybe she'd even win.

Then she'd die, and from these ponies' perspectives, that would be it. They'd wake up the next Diver, share another pot of stew, smile and write on pads until they retired.

Hell choked and stuttered on words churning and emotions blurring in her head that wouldn't make any sense no matter how much she willed them to. Her mouth still tasted like blood. There was fire that baked her fur and made the bones inside her body press against the muscles in a way that imperceptibly hurt. She felt the reverberation, the impact, the crack of gunfire and the-

"HELL!"

Hell's hoof stopped. Her heart didn't. Her breathing dropped into gasping. Her wings shook as she tumbled back onto her flanks. The table was upturned, the stew was everywhere, Cross Fire slid away from underneath where Hell had pinned her.

"Wha- What." Was all she had to say between heaving. She was hollow, and her eyes looking out into the world didn't seem quite right.

"Behind you Hell." Horizon said, and Hell turned to look. He stepped up a little closer, being desperately careful not to startle her. "You're safe, okay? There's no bugs. Just relax."

Hell looked between the mess and Cross Fire, who was straightening out her wings, then back to Horizon. "What just happened?"

"Intense post traumatic stress response to our conversation." Beach answered. After stepping in front of Horizon, her look turned into a glare. "Be completely silent."

Seconds later, Hell caught the sound of whirring and metal boot presses similar to her own combat shoes, but heavier. The democracy officer entered the hall, scowling. It wasn't like the 'drill sergeant' scowl Hell was used to, it was the look of someone about to get revenge for something grave, and he was armed. His look passed across the room and his voice boomed out, "What in the name of Super Equestria is going on in here?" He settled on Beach. "Officer Breach. Explain. Now."

She stiffened up, "A conversational breach of conduct sir."

He snorted, not moving from the gangway exit. Hell realized that there was only one convenient way to leave the mess hall. "I said. Explain."

Beach took a shaky breath. "An altercation between two of our associates, Hell Diver and Cross Fire. The latter insulted the former, and the conversation came to blows, although neither were injured. Mrs. Fire was referring to Ms. Diver's species in her insult, sir."

His gaze passed to Cross Fire, "Is this true?"

"Yes Sir."

What.

A beat passed of him trying to bore a hole through Cross Fire's head through stare alone. Hell would have been frightened, had she not already nearly died so many times. He snorted again, "Since you are required, I'll have no choice but to send you to-"

"Wait- Sir." Hell interrupted.

He turned to her slowly, a creepy door opening with the associated freaky feeling.

Thinking quickly under the gaze, Hell worked something out of her mouth. "I overreacted. Neither of us were injured, there's no need for punishment, I made my point already." Luckily, Hell had plenty of practice making up nonsense to dodge the consequences of someone else's actions, only in this case, she was at fault.

"Hmph." A hoof raised with the force of hydraulic servos. "If that's the case, then I'm putting you on hall detailing for the remainder of your presence on this ship." He said to Cross. "If I hear of any more insults to your fellows, you will be terminated immediately, and with no chance of repeal. Be thankful that our resident Tartarus Diver is the forgiving sort, for I am not." He nodded towards Beach. "As you were Officer Breach."

He turned around and stomped back up the hallway.

Several ponies let out held breaths.

"Why did you do that?" Was the first noise to fill the silence. Hell wondered why she had spoken at all.

"You heard us didn't you?" Cross Fire jovially trotted up to her and offered a hoof. "We're gonna help you out."

Beach straightened her dress uniform, "If the D.O. learned that you were experiencing mental deficiencies, you would have simply been discharged."

"Discharged, you mean, I would have..."

Gone home? Home is gone stupid filly.

"Dead." Horizon clarified.

Oh.

"Dead drops happen." Cross Fire stated, "I've heard of one from a buddy of mine in ASC, traitors go in with no way back out."

Hell silently chose to ignore that. Despite the moral implications, traitors deserved as such. She turned up towards Cross Fire and took her hoof. "I'm sorry I hit you."

Then Cross Fire punched Hell in the shoulder hard enough to get Hell to stand up in a panic. "There, even. No apologies necessary." Cross Fire leaned in and smirked, "Bet it was fun being on top though wasn't it?"

Hell, caught off guard by the non sequitur, leaned back and felt her face get warm.

"Stop it, Cross." Beach interjected.

As soon as Hell heard Beach's voice, something clicked. "Was he saying your name wrong, Officer Beach?" Hell asked, "Or did I just remember it wrong?"

"My name is Beach, yes."

Cross chuckled.

"Don't you dare."

Between giggles, Cross said, "Her full name is 'Beach Berries'."

'Beach Berries' sighed a long suffering sigh of never being able to live something down.

"My stew!" Aether shouted in dismay, having come around the counter to see what was going on, only to see her work plastered all over the floor.

Cross shrugged, "I'll go get the mop."

"Hell Diver had a short PTSD episode." Beach clarified, at Aether's continued dismay.

Hell cringed, but the kitchen mare's disposition flipped on a bit with almost uncomfortable speed. "Oh? Oh- Well that's no worry then. We'll get this cleaned up and get you somethin' else filly."

Horizon hefted up the fallen table and set it back on its post.

"Actually..." Hell trailed off as everyone looked at her, "I'm- I think I need to go lay down, I'm..." She faked a yawn, "Reeeally tired."

Beach didn't miss a beat, still staring, "I will bring you the codex entry for bug species when it's available."

"See you then." Horizon said as Hell took her first few steps towards the only exit. She shot him a short smile.

Leaving. It was hard, she was lucky mess was so empty, but she could still feel the eyes on the back of her head as she walked out. Fortunately, Cross was walking back in with the mop and associated rolling bucket. Crossing paths with Cross, who let the mop out of her mouth.

"Going already?"

"Yeah..."

"Tired?"

"Yeah..."

"I'll see you in a few hours then." Cross walked past.

Hell stepped up onto the gangway and made her way through the ship. Everywhere was quiet. Even the hangar, fresh with a new Eagle Hell didn't stop to look at, it seemed like the crew was on low alert, or at least, there was some kind of 'night' time shift cycle Hell didn't know about. Despite the... embarrassment, and the emotional exhaustion. Hell felt better-ish. At the very least, she could pretend she felt better.

Until she got to her bunk, and heard the pair of voices from within. The door slid open and the chatter stopped as the two other mares inside, silhouetted by the lamp light on the nightstand, turned to look at her. The mare on the top bunk was a blatantly normal looking mare of some mix of dirt and hay browns. On the lower bunk was a lanky mare, soft pink fur, and bald like Jay. She had red eyes that cut through the gloom of the tiny bunk.

"Hi!" The brown mare waved, leaning down from the top bunk a little further to wave. "You're our fourth, right?"

Hell stepped inside, briefly considering just going to sleep on the floor outside the door. "Yup, that's me."

"Haven't seen you around before, you new?"

They don't know who I am?

Hell hopped up onto the bottom bunk, on the opposite side of the pink mare, the beginnings of a plan starting to form in her mind. "Yeah..." She was a Tartarus Diver. Less than a few days ago, she would have screamed it from a rooftop. "Yeah." She said a little more confidently.

The mare on the top bunk dangled herself down, her front hooves waving around. "Well I'm Butterscotch, this is Rayalia."

Hell sniffed, "Rayalia? That's pretty, are you from the core?"

The pink mare in question leaned forwards and sniffed Hell back, "Asteroid colonies." Was her simple answer.

"I'm Hell Diver." Which was where this conversation could turn.

Butterscotch snorted, "Hell Diver? Well, your parents didn't find much humour in that did they?"

Rayalia, much more subdued, commented, "Seems cruel to name a little thestral filly after one of the most revered military positions in Super Equestria."

"Hey, be nice you grump. She probably knows that already."

Hell raised an eyebrow, "Both of you recognize the word?"

"Thestrali for Tartarus, no?" Rayalia quirked her own brow.

Butterscotch waved a hoof and rolled back onto her bunk. "We work with a lot of loading crews."

Hell waited for further explanation.

Butterscotch stared on.

Hell summarized her comprehension of the moment. "Okay."

"What are you? Sleepy? It's barely post-shift!"

Rayalia snorted and sent Hell a knowing look. "She never lets me go to bed either."

They did say these ponies were all just as colorful as they are.

"So what's your deal anyways?" Butterscotch flipped onto her back. The ceiling was close enough that she could press her hooves to it, and keep herself from falling off. "What'd'ya'do?"

"Me?"

"No-" Butterscotch rolled her eyes and flipped a hoof, "The mare underneath me- yes! You. I haven't seen you before, which means you've gotta be on the other side of the ship or something! You're an engineer? Come on, I bet that tiny frame is great for fitting between the duct workings."

"I- I'm really new. I only started a day ago." Hell tried to work out how to lie without lying.

"What's up with the mystery? Just spit it out already!"

"Scotch, relax. If she doesn't want to tell us, she doesn't have to."

"But-"

"Leave her be."

Hell interrupted the tension. "It's okay Rayalia... The thing is... I'm-" A breath, "A Tartarus Diver."

Letting it out felt wrong, of course it did. Hell was trying to hide it... why? She'd already been told about the lives she'd saved by doing as well as she had. Spanner called her a hero. Why did she feel so guilty? Why did she feel so ashamed?

Butterscotch laughed, "Oh! And I'm the Democracy Officer!"

Rayalia looked confused, and she leaned forwards a bit more into the light of the mass produced electric lamp. The taller pink mare went through a few expressions as she got a good look at Hell. Her brow furrowed, her nose twitched, it looked like words wanted to flow out of her mouth but she kept her jaw clenched shut. Some idea of understanding passed between her eyes, and she leaned back silently.

"Whatever, you're a riot." Butterscotch chuckled again, "Diver, blimey, a tiny thing like you?"

Rayalia rolled her eyes, "That's enough Scotch."

As the brown mare went to retort, there was a knock at the door. Hell rolled to her side and her combat shoes hit the metal with enough reverberation to make the light flicker. She opened the door, getting an eye full of Beach standing with her muzzle directly against where the door was.

"Oh, hello."

There was a scramble of hooves as Butterscotch yelped 'commander breach' and fell out of the bunk trying to salute.

"Here." Beach hoofed a small but thick booklet forwards into Hell's chest. Hell didn't have a chance to respond before Beach opened her mouth again, then closed it, turned and trotted away down the hall. Hell watched her leave for a moment, then closed the door, still holding the book against her chest. Butterscotch was verbally stuck being flabbergasted by the turn of events and Rayalia had a tiny little satisfied smirk on her face.

Hell grabbed the first response to the silent question from her head and threw it out into the air. "She owed me a favor." She waved the booklet in question, and then rolled past Butterscotch onto her bunk and flipped it open to the first page.

"But-"

"Quiet please." Hell corrected.

Rayalia laughed quietly, and then rolled over.

Butterscotch blinked, her gaze flipping from the pink mare to this new pony that apparently had the standing officer wound behind favors. "Uhhhhhoookay." She got back in her own bunk, and Hell adjusted the lamp a few minutes later when she finally got past the sections warning about the dangers of reading.

"Hell."

Hell grumbled, and swatted at the hoof poking her shoulder.

"Get up girl. If I have to be up, so do you."

Hell blinked her eyes open, and removed her face from a laminated page. "Huh?"

Cross Fire, her mane also mostly disheveled and, what Hell was starting to recognize as a joking smirk, stood over her. "You snore like a fire alarm Hell."

Hell blinked, "No I don't."

"A. Fire. Alarm." Cross enunciated, poking Hell in the shoulder once for each word.

Hell looked over at the other two bunks. Both of the other mares were gone. Hell rubbed her eye. "I'm up." Cross made space as Hell rolled out of the bunk and onto her hooves.

Cross pushed a brush into her legs immediately. "Clean up, I'm gonna go get you something to eat. Priority mission came in a few minutes ago..." She had something else to say. "Just clean up." She backed her way out of the stack and into the hall.

Hell brushed her mane back a total of three times. Hard enough to pull some of her mane out. She jumped up, and stormed out the door. Duty had come calling, unfortunately while she was still half asleep. The soldiering part of her mind took over and she wasn't willing to wait for the mission briefing. She made her way out of the stack and into the hangar, where the quiet had been summarily banished by power tools, magic, ponies calling out to each other, and the general preparation that came hours before it was required.

A flicker of green on orange drew her over to Cross, carrying what looked like an impact helmet under her wing and weaving through the hoof traffic. Hell made a light straight for her, "Cross Fire!" She shouted over the cacophony, "What's going on?"

The mare caught her eye and stopped, reaching down under her barrel to a pocket, pulling out a rectangular prism, and tossing it to Hell, who caught it in her front hoof. Cross stepped up to her, light on her hooves, tapping in place like she had to use the bathroom, "Nutrient brick, Beach pulled them outta storage for you."

Hell turned it over, "Thanks-"

"I'd really love to talk more girl, but we both have to get moving."

Hell blinked, and made pace with Cross as she had already started half trotting away. "Wha- where are you going?"

Of course, after asking the question, was exactly when Hell remembered where she was going. That didn't stop Cross from sending her a humored look, "You forget already? Your CAS ain't gonna fly itself!" She jostled the tolerance helmet in her hoof for emphasis.

"Right." Hell nodded and fixed her face with determination. Cross barely had time to be confused by the expression as Hell launched herself forwards to hug the taller mare. Just as quickly as she did it, she retracted. Hell spun on her hoof and called over her shoulder, "I'll see you out there!" Hell didn't look backwards to check the orange pegasus' response.

A quick trot up to the elevator brought her face to face with Spanner. "Hey, I couldn't get anything oth-"

"Spanner." Hell stopped her before she could get going. "Sleeve first, work and talk."

"Sorry." Spanner blushed and lit her horn, the sleeve came floating over, much like before, only the process of having it be applied was far less rough. Armor plates began floating over for Hell to start fitting down over the sleeve as Spanner started again, "No actuators, and we couldn't figure a viable work around trigger for the Verdict model, but I could get you an 'arm' screen. It's backwards compatible with your visor but..." She levitated the thing over to Hell as she pushed her combat shoe through the leg brace. "The team didn't have time to work on the software, so only the visor or the screen will work at a time."

"Got it. Only use one at a time." Hell repeated.

A beat passed.

Spanner levitated another fresh helmet into Hell's hooves.

Hell stared before putting it on.

"Be careful."

"I will be."

Hell put on her helmet, suddenly, there was no more 'panic' or anxiety. She was a Tartarus Diver again, hidden behind a visor, toting Super Equestria's greatest in modular armor suits. Despite all she'd lost, she was still alive, still the best of the best. It was enough for her to not listen to the part of her quietly whispering to run her way out of that hall. She steeled herself with as much confidence as she could as she strode into the command room.

There was another mare in the same stark black and yellow striped armor Hell was wearing standing over the map. Beach was pouring over her data pad, and the Democracy Officer raised to his full height as soon as Hell entered. "Greetings Tartarus Diver, Super Equestria requires your aid."

Beach lifted her nose from the pad, "Fourty three minutes ago, a covert research station sent out a distress beacon. They detected massive E-710 readings encroaching on their position, a swarm thousands strong. The SEAF forces in the area that we rerouted are already reporting scouting pods by the tens." While Beach was talking, Hell came up to the table and took a look at the mission parameters.

Hard Operation
Mission, Ten Minutes
Extract Vital Scientific Personnel

A High Value Covert Research base occupied by a Patriot of great Scientific Importance has come under threat from a Cowardly Surprise Attack conducted by a massive Swarm of Vile Bugs.

Deploy and retrieve this pony before the Vile Bug Swarms overrun the base and the Scientific Mind is lost to Democracy for good.

"The Ministry of Science and Defense sent us a warning personally for the incoming attack. Another test of your skill in the field, and another chance to halt the tyrannical nature of the vile monsters bent on destroying our way of life." He went on, tapping his hoof on the screen to his side, leading to a photo of a badge lighting itself on screen. "This is Ferrous Storm, a lead scientist on the 'Shift Engine' project and a true democratic citizen."

"Learn the face, you'll be pulling him out, this is an extraction mission." Beach listed off.

Hell nodded, scanning the map with her eyes and frowning. "Why isn't the outpost on the map and why dispatch a team at all? Can't we fly a pelican in and extract the personnel that way?"

Beach was the one who responded by flipping her tablet around to show a loose map of the structure sitting on top of a sprawling network of tunnels. "The research outpost is a delicate series of scientific structures built into previously thought abandoned bug warrens. There is nowhere to land anywhere near the base itself without collapsing the entire terrain; and we believe that the only reason the bugs haven't converged yet is because they're unsure of where the base is to begin with. Taking time to find a landing point manually would alert them for sure."

The D.O. snorted. "Time is running short. It's only a matter of chance before one of those monsters escapes the SEAF troopers and leads the rest of its kind to the base."

"If that's the case, let's stop waiting around." The other Diver said, she sounded old or at least rough by comparison to how young Hell sounded. Hell nodded and tapped a few settings into the map for their drop point, the automatic P.A. system started to announce to the rest of the ship that the mission was about to begin and Beach sent her this look Hell didn't have time to decipher as she made her way up the grating to the Tartarus Pods.

The other mare had already gone in, so Hell didn't waste any time hefting herself up onto her back legs and locking herself in. It was dark in moments, with nothing but the screen near her chest to light up the tiny space. Hell popped open the pocket on the front of her vest and leaned down to nibble at the nutrient block as the final preparations began and the top plate of the Pod was sealed in with rivets.

Hell felt her hooves tingle moments before the 'chuck-thwump' of being launched into low atmosphere. She counted out thirty seconds to herself before passing out.

Mission - Zero Zero Five

Hell's body reasserted itself as the retrograde thrusters opened and fired. She blinked the pressure out of her eyes and looked down at the flickering display for the camera feed outside. The ground looked just as flat as anywhere else so she let the pod drift straight and tried to relax for the impact dampeners when the pod struck the ground. After she regained her senses, she steadied herself, the platform lifted to let her out.

The first thing of note was the coppery terrain and the hole she was in, the landing Tartarus Pods had sunk into the rock and collapsed a tunnel to leave a thin ravine that blocked out the light of Sol, that and the dust. Stale air greeted her, along with what was left of the surface as rubble. Hell turned to try and spy a way out when she heard the other diver land. Felt, more like, the walls shook and another patch of rubble fell into itself to reveal some subterranean cave that went down too far for Hell to see.

It also pushed down enough rock that Hell thought she might be able to make her way up the side. Luckily, her shoes were built for stuff like this. Hopping up a few rocks, lifting herself over a ledge, then it was only a hop skip and a jump until she was out. As her eyes caught the light and her surroundings, she gawked. There were... upright plates of rock, spires, that delicately held flattened time capsules of stone into the air like they were trying to reach into the sky.

It looked like the land she'd fallen under had only been here for so long. sedimentary lines indicated that the terrain used to be up much higher than it was; the tunnels had just collapsed down to something flat enough to mistake for ground level. The rock beneath her felt far less steady when she considered the stories of empty space beneath her hooves, she was lucky her Pod didn't end up totally underground. She checked her map, glancing to see the other diver doing the same. there was a circular field in the direction the base was supposed to be, apparently it was their job to find it.

Okay Hell. Deep breath, let's get this done. Hell took the first few steps in the direction they were headed, marking the direction with a pin. The other mare moved in tandem, coming up to her side with her far longer strides. "So what's the deal with you?" She asked, with no further explanation for her question, just a head tilt to follow the silence of their trot.

"I'm not sure what you mean." Hell responded honestly.

"Well you're a tiny little thing." The mare pointed out, and she wasn't wrong. Hell was easily a head shorter than she was, maybe more. "But I got a stern word about 'following your orders'." She chuckled, "Why'd they put you in charge, huh?"

Oh.

"Experience." Was her single answer.

The mare snrked, "Oh, so I take it you're the first thestral to figure out how to use those weird leathery flaps at your side then? You can fly?" Hell remained silent, and the mare snorted again, "Yeah, I thought so. I don't care what the officers say, stay out of my way when the bullets start flying and you might survive."

Hell, despite wearing a helmet, fought to keep her expression neutral. "I'm glad we understand each other." She ruffled her wings and quickened her pace. The mare hadn't even given Hell her name and there was already hatred passing through the air as easy as she wanted. Hell tried to ignore the visualizations of the mare dying. The whistling wind and her hoof steps kept her company as she passed through the shadow of one of the taller pillars. The terrain was covered in invisible hills that Hell made sure to avoid, keeping to the highest ground available as they traveled.

It was quiet.

Too Quiet.

Hell pulled up her scanner and switched her HUD over to the map view.

Red dots surrounded her.

Hell cut the screen from her visor and looked around for targets. The other mare noticed and tilted her head as Hell drew her short rifle on nothing. "What are yo-"

"SHHHHH" Hell whisper screeched over the comms channel, "Check your screens, we have contacts, right on top of us."

The mare's voice took on a deeper timber, her hackles rising just the same as she got a look at the swarm of angry red dots. "I don't see anything." She countered, though, she drew her short rifle as well. The doubt seemed less than honest as she took several steps closer to Hell, her ears on a swivel for anything. "Think they're underneath us?" She whispered back over comms.

Hell's eyes narrowed at the ground and the shadows. There was a flicker of movement, and her head snapped up towards what was casting the shadow. The rock pillar, from the surface, curving down the edge was a spongy substrate. Along the sides hung countless bugs, like the warriors, but missing all of the armor and half the meat, stringy winged monsters with bulbous heads covered in angry faceted lenses.

Hell took a slow breath as she made eye contact with one of them. It cocked its body like a caterpillar with a knife. A screech filled the air.

"Shriekers!" Hell shouted. The call was only the first of many; the sound setting into a cascade of screaming as the swarm of flying bugs launched themselves from the pillar. There were enough to solidly expand the shadow. The other mare lifted her rifle awkwardly, and Hell's hooves hit the stone. "Don't shoot! Run!"

"What!?"

Hell had read the article on shriekers, on all bugs. They had hive intelligence, hunting instincts; a swarm of shriekers would act like wolves, surrounding their prey and attacking from whatever direction they weren't looking. The only option to deal with a swarm that size was to run to line them all up for shooting. She just didn't know how to say all of that in a few words. The mare wasn't going to do what she said, so Hell dug in her hooves and scraped her gallop to a halt and spun around.

She emptied her rifle into the swarm. The bullets clipped a few, and one head exploded into a tiny puff of antennae and green blood, but the swarm majoritively parted around her aim. Hell reloaded, "Move!"

"Like Tartarus I'm listening to you!" She yelled back over the crackling gun reports of her firing into the air. She was missing just as badly. The swarm was too big, and they were nearing the ground. Hell didn't have any more time. Visions of Sharp's head exploding, the sound of gunfire; Hell screamed.

"MOVE OR YOU WILL DIE!"

Whether it was her gun clicking dry, or the deafening command from Hell, the mare turned and ran towards Hell. A single shrieker dove down and scraped at her back as she ran under it, she cried out, Hell saw blood spray and an armor plate fly up into the air as the shrieker nose dove itself into the ground from the momentum of the hit. Hell's hooves vibrated the rock, the other diver shouted expletives as she rolled and the storm of shriekers dove in for what should have been an easy kill.

Should have, because Hell was standing over the fallen pony in less than a moment. She hadn't realized how she'd gotten there, but the gouges torn into the solid rock and her aching joints were a good indication. She used her open hoof to jab a stim down into the other mare while pointing her Liberator Rifle into the air as she reared up and pirouetted. Not trying to hit anything, only spinning to spray enough bullets in the air to keep the bugs off them. Plenty pulled from their swooping dives to dodge the bullets as Hell stepped back and ducked under another brave shrieker that tore up her mane as it went past. She trained her rifle on it as it tried to get away and used the rest of her magazine to turn it to parts.

The other mare stood and started running. Hell stowed her rifle and joined her. The shriekers repositioned, and chased them anew, gaining due to their superior aerodynamics.

"Reload!" Hell shouted, struggling to reload her own short rifle.

The other mare shoved her head down and pulled out a magazine, turning into the wind for a three legged gallop as she ditched her old magazine and worked in the new one.

"On three, slide and I'll take left and curve in, you take right!"

"Copy!" The mare yelled back.

Hell caught the sound of a screech and a whistle of parting air and dodged left. A shrieker swooped in between the two of them, and Hell got a look at the shining metallic claws slung under the black carapace.

"One, Two, Three!" Hell said in quick sequence, there was no time for theatrics. Hell's hoof caught a rock, she used the momentum to spin around on one hoof and lift her Liberator up with the other. The other mare did the same, Hell's eyes caught the left edge of the shrieker swarm and pointed her rifle down the length of her nose.

The speakers system deafened the reports to 'tap tap taps' as she carefully fired down the length of the swarm. Without moving and with them all coming at her from one direction, their keening battle cries started turning to death wails. Missed shots turned into accidentals as they passed deep into the swarm and dropped bugs behind the ones she was aiming for.

And then the swarm hit. Hell reached over and grabbed the other mare by the back of the neck and threw them both into the dust while spinning onto her back. She bit down and pushed up with her front hooves, pointing the flamethrower on her belly into the sky just as it ignited. Screeching followed the sound of air being cut through flame, Hell counted out three seconds before she spun back onto her hooves, "Up! Cmon!" She reached over to help the other mare up and nearly stumbled. The earth pony mare was heavy.

"Next wave incoming! Reload! Now!" Hell was already midway through the action as she barked the command, she didn't look to see if the other mare listened. Her eyes were drawn to the pile of burning corpses, strewn out in a line from where they had tried to gut her. The swooping monsters were close to the ground now, swirling around them both, neither of them would be running away now. "Left!" Hell called, as the first few broke from formation and dove towards them. The mare stepped to her side, together they picked each bug out of the sky. Hell spun around and locked her eyes with the claws of the shrieker that had snuck up on them.

Impact sent her onto her back, her ears rung, but the force from the bug still lodged in her face kept her from staggering. Her hooves came up, a beak poked through the armor and sank into the joint at her knee, her other hoof punched the thing across the face and squished it into the ground in one fluid motion. More reports of gunfire called out as Hell lifted her rifle and started taking potshots at the circling monsters while she fumbled with a stim in her other hoof.

There was blood leaking out of her helmet from the impact, into her face, under her eyes, she breathed in but choked on more of it. Then the stim found its place under her fur.

The edges of her vision went white and suddenly she was standing. Suddenly she'd reloaded her weapon, muscle memory took over; she fired. She may have also screamed, the sounds around her were drowned out by the blood pumping in her ears. Her gun clicked dry, but was immediately replaced by the Verdict as she simply stepped around bugs that swooped down at her, when that clicked dry, she began swinging. The first two that got close enough went into the dirt with caved in chests from the butt of her pistol, the third managed to tear the weapon out of her hoof, but had forgotten that Hell also had teeth, teeth which were dangerously close to its body.

Hell didn't think, she bit down on the carapace. A combination of Hell pulling and it trying to escape led to the separation of its wing and the spilling of organs and green ichor onto the stone. It screamed as it died, a gurgling cry as the parts that let it make the noise were sucked out of its torso by the force of its spine being removed.

Hell breathed heavily as the clearing went quiet.

The other mare picked herself off the ground and Hell could practically see the wide eyes under the visor staring back at her.

Hell spat a wad of green blood mixed with carapace out of her mouth and rolled her shoulders. "Let's get moving, we're already low on time." Hell worked her back into a trotting position, ignoring the lingering phantom pains her body was warning her of. Her hoof wasn't gutted open anymore, but her body was still screaming through the painkillers that it was.

The other mare silently fell into step behind her. Hell slowed her pace, as she came across the pistol that had been thrown to the ground in the combat. She scooped it up and clicked it back into its holster after she reloaded it. Reloading a weapon while walking was a bit of an exercise in patience, but Hell had spent the better part of three months practicing. She checked her tac map. There was a red outline up ahead, markings of a bug nest.

Hell held up one of her wings and sat back to reload her flamer. "Hey, you okay?"

The other mare came up to her and took a second to respond. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm straight."

"What kind of ordinance do you have? Grenades? Explosives?"

"The standard."

Hell only now noticed the mare staring at the green blood dripping from the nose of her helmet.

"What's your name?"

"Huh?"

Hell rolled her eyes behind her mask, "Your name. You got one?" Hell's ear tried to flick against the helmet interior, in response, she curved her muzzle to the side and looked out towards the nest, being careful to also check up as her flamer fuel stopped being difficult and satisfyingly clicked into place.

"Emerald." Was her single word response. The mare was stiff, shell shocked from having the bones in her spine viciously realigned.

Hell looked away and sighed, "We're gonna make it out of here Emerald. Super Equestria will sleep soundly when we both make it out alive." She clenched her eyes shut and folded the flamer back under the rail. "The last pony who I fought with-"

"Ohkay." Emerald whistled. "I do not want to hear whatever sob story you have prepared, I'm here to kill bugs, not make friends." She stomped a hoof twice, pawing at the dust. "But... thanks for saving me." And a little more confidently, "I've got your back."

"That's all I needed to hear." Hell stood, pressing herself into a gallop. She could hear the thumping steps behind her as they approached the bug nest.

Hell's com flicked open, "Wait-" Came Emeralds voice. "The terrain just changed." Hell slowed and Emerald started pointing it out. "Look at those pillars, the solid rock from the bottom, and the lack of dust."

Hell stomped a hoof, "Solid ground."

"Ordinance?" Emerald asked.

Hell smiled and let a stratagem ball roll down into her hoof. "I'll need an angle, watch my right flank."

Emerald nodded and broke right. Hell approached the rising groove on the hill, where the sound of chittering and hissing was coming from. First, the pink smoke, then the rim itself, then she had a clear view of the pit. Five holes, two on her side, three on the other. A charger, and a smattering of grubs and warriors of all shapes and sizes; every bug she'd seen had been identical outside of species, these were variants, some had bigger heads, an extra leg, some of their eyes were blue rather than black and instead of standing around, the pit was a bustle of activity. Like the bee farms back home, bugs passed each other while carrying rocks, chittering, some were eating.

Hell punched in the coordinates and let the weather data filter in from her suit sensors and then pulled her nose back down the other side of the lip, wound up her hoof, then chucked it in an arch she hoped would land right on the charger. Before the beacon went up, Hell rolled down another stratagem ball, sent out a wide sweep for the terrain data and then set it down on the ridge as the beacon went up and the bugs started to screech. She turned around and bucked the ball right on the trigger as hard as she could. It went soaring onto the other side of the pit, not that Hell could see exactly where it landed. She backed up as the first group of bugs poked their disgusting faces over the ridge.

Their alert was masked by the cracking of air and the wail of a charger taking a supersonic tungsten rod to the back.

Hell flipped out her pistol and started loosely firing at the ridge while she regained her balance. Her comms clicked again, this time filled with static and the sound of Cross Fire's voice. "Coordinates confirmed, wave run, six-two." Hell's Verdict clicked dry, the wave of bugs had doubled coming over the edge, she bit down and hefted her flamer, there was the signature click of the lead, followed by the trigger blowing wafts of orange out from just beneath her muzzle.

She kept backing up from the charging, flaming bugs; counting down the six seconds. Her speakers caught the supersonic craft cutting through the air first, dimming her senses but not removing the hum from the air as Cross Fire dove to less than one hundred feet from ground level. The two second run started, explosive canisters dropped from the craft faster than Hell could see.

She couldn't miss the explosions though, a carpet of fire and exploded rock rose over the rim of the pit, obscuring the horizon right in front of her as the plane simply vanished with a flash of acceleration that left another boom reverberating in its wake. Hell turned right, running towards the cracking reports of a Liberator rifle.

Emerald was down the slope, near the crevice opening at ground level, firing into a line of bugs spreading out around her. Hell was watching a kill box from around the other mare but felt no exertion, no panic. She saw a line, little spots in the rock to place her hooves to move down the hill the fastest without tripping, so she did just that.

Hell moved.

Like a blur, she zipped down the hill and broke through the side line on Emerald's left flank by smashing her hooves down on the back of a confused warrior and pressing down. She stamped and rolled her shoulder, pushing her Liberator down into her hoof and spinning to the side. Little tics sounded off in bursts as two warriors fell to lost limbs, and two grubs simply stopped moving or looking like grubs at all, reduced to puddles of green goo and black shards of broken chitin. The warrior she was half standing on hefted itself up and tried to throw Hell off.

Hell responded by pointing her rifle down at the back of its head. Two shots and it fell forward, the laws of physics responding by spraying Hell's visor with the ichor from the holes now present in its brain. Hell leapt off the side, landing on the only moving grub on her right, it squealed and futilely scraped at her boot until she moved again, bursting into another gallop with a flare of her wings, Hell came sliding next to Emerald as the mare's weapon clicked empty. "Duck!"

Hell's short rifle barrel came over Emerald's head in a wide sweep, blasting away chunks of chitin and staggering the swarm on the opposite side then taking a few carefully aimed headshots as she counted down the remainder of her magazine. There was a click from beneath her and Emerald rose up, still walking backwards, now accompanied by the 'tic tic' of her Liberator being silenced by the audio sensors in Hell's helmet. Hell lowered her own head down and reloaded, her ears twitched as her comms came on, she heard the staticky voice of Beach on the other end but the quality was ruined by the active gunfire next to her head.

"Command to-" Hell slammed her hoof down on a grub, "N-One to command, currently engaged, repeat broadcast, over!" She reached up and ticked the audio settings on the side of her helmet while gunning down the last warrior. "Move those hooves Emerald! We've gotta close those holes!"

Beach's voice was still wreathed in static, but clear enough to understand. "Command to N-One, SEA forces indicate a shift in the bug behavior, you are out of time. The swarm is coming sooner than expected."

Hell huffed, matching her run with a breath for talking. "Copy command." She switched com channels, "Hear that Emerald?"

"Yes." She grunted while splitting off towards the far hole Cross's airstrike missed.

Hell turned to focus on her own side. The two holes nearest to where she started, as her eyes scanned the terrain, she caught sight of exactly where; marked clearly by the viscera and mangled and burned bodies of bugs that had tried to do the same to her once they figured out where she was.

Hell ignored the scene, pulling a grenade from her bandolier and removing the pin in one fluid motion, tossing the ordinance into the hole as she ran past it, then the next one. Unhook, unpin, look, toss, run. She reached the other end of the pit at the same time Emerald did.

"Clean." Emerald said out loud, over than comms. She seemed prideful, at least that was something.

"We need to find that base." Hell shot out, "Right now."

Emerald pointed, "You mean that?"

Hell followed her point. "Oh yeah. That's it right there."

The base looked like a tree house covered in wires rather than a military installment. There was a trio of stone stalks rising so far above the landscape that the shadows from the platforms they were holding up changed the level of light pervading the air. Along the sides, built on a series of: metal scaffolding, black trusses, catwalks, and stability cables was the base, built right onto the sides of the stalks themselves in a scattered wide concept room design that stretched all the way to the base of the stone stalks.

There were shriekers accosting the base already, and orange streaks of heavy tracer fire continuously lit up the space, carefully trying to avoid the supports the shriekers were swirling around. That was all Hell needed to get her heart beating again, ponies were in danger, she ran. "Come on!"

The run took them back onto the jagged, barely stable plates of landscape pockmarked with holes that lead down deeper into the planet than Hell wanted to think about. They kept a steady pace the whole time, Emerald kept slowing down, apparently under the impression that Hell would need to rest at some point.

She did not.

Hell ran.

The base and the associated spires went from being landmarks to looming monoliths as they got closer to the fenced off base of the base on the ground. More orange tracer fire, and the signature blue caps of SEA forces dotted the edges of the torn open security fences from above as the soldiers made a fighting retreat to what looked like a scouting party of warriors. They were dodging, jumping around and ducking and diving while they advanced on the retreating group of troopers.

Emerald slowed and pulled out her rifle, "What's the-"

Hell's gallop picked up into a sprint. Her body lowered with her head to reduce the recoil of hitting the ground, her hooves turned into a blurring dynamo of force, her wings spread on instinct; Hell experienced true weightlessness for the first time as her momentum started to outpace gravity. The wind whistled on the tips of her outstretched wings, each breath was a gasp, forced in and out in sequence with her hoofsteps.

The security fence rattled as she jumped through it, a grub turned around and got a face full of blur as it was simply squished and thrown aside with a comical delay of 'splat' followed by 'yeet'. The rest of the bugs noticed the incoming blur of yellow and black and screeched their gargling challenge.

Hell bashed into the first with the full weight of her sprint, her combat shoes went through the head and the reverberation snapped several things in the body as she screamed, heaved, and crashed against it. She twisted with the momentum, throwing the body to the side and into another warrior. Two dove for her, she responded by rolling her trigger down her teeth, emptying her Verdict roughly 'in that direction' in less than a second. At such a close range, Hell got another dose of green ichor covering her visor. At the 'click' of the Verdict, Hell unsheathed the flamer under her barrel and spun after lighting the lead.

The spinning flame didn't bother the now flaming bugs, who rushed in through the fire to surround her. Hell danced her hooves away from the first mandibles that tried to gut her. The next set caught her in the back leg and yanked her backwards off of her hooves, she bucked with her other free leg as she fell and shoved her front legs back underneath her only to take a swipe across the chest. The force threw her to the ground, the armor plate held.

Impact smacked into the side of her head, the world rang. Screeching reached her ears and Hell stood as quick as she could, the world spun back into focus she leaned back and by purely muscle memory, started firing her Liberator vaguely in the direction of the moving black and green blurs as her eyes refocused on the screen behind her visor.

She blinked away the pain and locked eyes with a trio of grubs rushing around her side as she smacked the butt of her rifle into the warrior coming onto her left side and fired into its head until the Liberator clicked dry. She spun around to face the grubs as the first two jumped at her. There was a pressure wave like a crack of thunder and a blue suited SEAF pegasus speared the first one through the middle at the tail end of a dive bomb while throwing the second away with the wind wake of the landing. "Come on then!" She shouted, pointing her bayoneted rifle forwards and rushing with the oncoming wave of SEAF troopers.

What was left of the grubs was trampled by the contingent as they rode out from the line Hell had broken through for them. She sat back onto her haunches as she realized the battle was over, a single hoof unconsciously checking her chest for organs falling out. It was just the armor, missing fur, and she'd need a new armor sleeve, but there was no blood. Maybe armor plating is worth something after all.

Emerald crossed the battlefield, making her way up towards Hell. She probably shouldn't have left her, it wasn't portal science though, ponies were in danger, she was a Diver, there was no bravery involved; just her duty to her ponies. Emerald was giving her a silent, confounded look by body language on approach. Leading to her silently standing in place, Hell simply nodded and stood, "Experience." She tried to say more confidently than it probably sounded.

"Divers!" Both Hell's and Emerald's heads pivoted over to the approach of a gangly grey earth pony stallion in a sharp officer's uniform. "Thank Super Equestria you arrived just in time."

Emerald's snark resurfaced, "Who's the kid?"

Hell stood up and removed her helmet in one fluid motion. Next step was the under hoofed salute, a pair of stomps and raising her chin. "First Officer! Lieutenant Hell Diver of the nineteen oh first, reporting for VIP extraction sir!" That got her a few looks, as the nearby troopers’ expressions grew a little brighter. A few hooves slung into shoulders and the officer stood a fraction taller and maybe just a little bit straighter.

"It's good to see another Seapony out here, Diver, right this way, we already have him on the ground floor." He turned, and obviously the subtle, 'we're out of time' went unsaid, but not unfelt in his pace. He rounded a turret emplacement, and Hell nodded to the mare operating the thing. The mare was silver, freckled, probably around Hell's age; she waved down with a fake smile and a piercing stare look that could have curdled milk at fifty yards.

Hell walked on, Emerald taking up the rear, when they got close to one of the lower sheds, she heard the yelling. "I demand an explanation! What's taking so long! I should have been evacuated from this dust hole hours ago!" Followed by strained indoor voice talking as the officer opened the door, Hell got a look at the face of her VIP. His tensed, spittle spitting face, inches away from a SEAF trooper marked as the sergeant at arms. "You're just as incompetent as those bugs! You muscly goon!"

"Ferrous Storm-"

The officer was immediately interrupted by the scientists yelling, and his exaggerated flapping blonde mane as he spun. "You! Where have you been!" His gaze turned towards Emerald and Hell, "You!? Where have you been?!"

The sergeant at arms took a step forwards, "Sir-"

"Shut up! Two Tartarus Divers? Where's the evac ship?! I'm not-"

And then Hell punched him in the nose. He was a scientist, not a soldier, so she didn't hit him that hard; just enough to knock him onto his flanks and leave a nasty bruise. His blustering immediately came to a dead stop as he clutched his face and stared up at her snarling, pointed teeth.

Hell's mind flashed through all the angry ponies who ever yelled at her for being what she was born as, and she channeled that inwards into her best impression of her drill sergeant from boot camp. "Traitorous insubordination won't be tolerated. This is your only warning. I will drag your unconscious body to evac, you will not insult this team or its ponies, or you will spend the rest of your tenure as a doctor in a cell. Get up, we need to move." Then Hell fitted her helmet on.

I probably should not have done that... Hell thought as she stood ramrod straight. The doctor got up slowly, staring daggers at her but keeping quiet. The sergeant at arms looked pleased, at the very least. The officer had the decency to hide his smile. She made a half salute towards the sergeant and reached down for the buckle attaching her arm screen under her armor plating. "Sir? Can I have your name and your SEAFNID?"

"Sergeant Bradford, X403301" He parroted.

Hell reached up towards her radio settings, "This is N-one actual to CAS, come in CAS."

"Reading you three by three, this is CAS, over."

"Overriding protocol seven, I'm hoofing you over to Sergeant Bradford, X403301, over."

"Copy that, altering controls, ranging course. Good luck out there Tartarus Diver, over and out." Then Cross Fire's voice clicked dead over the band.

Hell tossed the arm band and a quintet of stratagem spheres towards the sergeant, who caught them in a pale yellow levitation. His horn was cleverly hidden under his hat. "You need these more than we do, the path back is clear."

"Appreciation Diver. I'll make them co-"

Screaming from outside, "BUGS! BUGS! BUGS!" Multiple voices cried out.

Hell spun out the door with a single rotation of steps, Ferrous was doing a tiny little dance. She addressed him curtly. "You are to follow behind Emerald at all times and follow every instruction she gives you. If you're missing all of your legs and she tells you to run... You'd best figure it out." He gulped, and Hell turned towards Emerald, "Watch him."

She nodded.

Hell tracked the wave of troopers making their way from the bunks, the dropped packets of food left behind from the tiny moments of reprieve. Hell made pace, running with the group out towards the forward defensive line. She stopped, stutter stepping as she saw the horde.

The horizon was jagged with the shape of the monsters. The terrain was covered, as was the sky. shriekers, and enough bugs to make the ground look like it was alive and moving. Chargers and brutes, easily mistaken for a hoard of rolling boulders made in scattered formation through the mess.

These SEAF troopers were going to die here.

Hell felt as though the band wasn't enough.

She caught a breath trying to escape her throat and turned. Running away from the maelstrom of monsters, towards the marker on her HUD compass Emerald had placed for extraction, opposite their landing point. After Ferrous stumbled for the third time going down the encampment slope, Hell and Emerald exchanged a concerned glance as they both realized Ferrous wasn't going to be able to keep pace. Hell once again considered carrying him, only both of them would need a full range of movement if they got into any trouble.

Said trouble which was on approach. Another patrol was dead ahead, just over the next ridge of rock. "I'm going to clear a path!" Hell shouted over comms. "Do not stop running! Priority one is the VIP!"

Emerald responded by breaking left, still sprinting up the hill. Hell broke right, for the back end of the scouting group. Cresting the hill clarified the dots into targets, and her for them as well. A pair of queens screeched out a warning and all of the bugs turned to face her as she made a headlong charge towards their group. A few seconds passed in the visual stalemate before the warriors made an about face and simply started skittering the other direction. One of the queens lowered its head and matched Hell's charge, the rest of the scouting group started to beeline for Emerald and Ferrous. "They're coming for you!" Hell shouted into her comms.

She turned into the weight of her gallop, breaking back towards Emerald. The queen began to strafe to cut her off; it was fast, too fast for Hell to get around. She switched to a three legged run and carefully pointed her liberator and let loose. Desperately trying to manage the recoil while running lopsided. Most of her shots went far too high as the seconds closed and the distance between them disappeared. The monster staggered and something inside it broke as Hell's rifle clicked dry. The triangular head, now with about twelve extra holes, slumped and twisted to the side. It hung from barely attached sinews as the beast continued to charge.

Hell was prepared this time.

Instead of the bug slumping over and dying like it was supposed to, it twitched in sequence. Hell took a deeper pair of breaths and rushed up under its claws as the bug doubled in speed. She hit the ground, throwing herself onto her side and sliding into one of the needle black legs. The bug, having no clue where Hell had just gone and off balance due to the leg kicking, toppled over and started writhing against the ground, chunking gouges out of the ground with the mandibles that still worked - none of which Hell saw, as she was already on her hooves again, running towards the sounds of gunfire.

As she got closer, she made out the quick shapes of Emerald and Ferrous dodging up the slanted stone surface away from the bugs. One half was running after them, the other had broken off to cut off their run. Hell rushed towards the second group, skidding to a stop when she was close enough while flipping out her pistol. She took two deep breaths to steady her hooves and fired off one bullet.

The carefully managed arc led to a single dead grub, its bulbous green backside popping like a balloon. Second bullet, and the same thing happened to the grub next to it. The warriors turned their heads and Hell followed the same procedure, inhale, fire, exhale. Several heads popped as she fired in rhythm, bugs smashing into the ground as they fell; in a few cases, the warriors sped up, rushing towards her in a burst of adrenaline.

All the while, Hell was looking at the range and wondering: Why don't I try sniping more often? To which the universe answered her in the form of a bug raising its head to the sky and letting out a horrific scream, sending pink mist into the air as it compressed its body in a rhythmic, alien motion. Hell fired a single bullet into its side, to which the universe added on an extra slice of irony, as that was the last bullet in her magazine. Her eyes widened.

She reloaded faster than she'd ever done before, while walking towards the bug in question as it finished its call. A trio of shots put it down and it slumped over as the ground started to shake. A blast of rock followed nearby, streams of pink smoke burst from the seams underneath; then the ground started to collapse. The rocky substrate did its best impression of sand as the sinkhole spread outwards, the ground sloughing away and obscuring the pink mist.

Hell didn't have any time to call out, she had already started running. Hell was fast, but mother nature was faster. First, she felt her back hoof go down to strike against the ground only to find air. She stumbled and half caught herself, but the ground beneath her other hoof gave way. She grabbed into the rock as it split in front of her, desperately trying to cling to the surface as it broke apart, her heart filled her throat as her entire body realized she was about to fall.

And then she did.

About six hooves. A silvery glow surrounded her, halting her momentum, her flailing came to a stop and her eyes were drawn towards the beacon of white from where Emerald was standing. Ferrous had caught her. The ground was still falling away; she could feel herself drifting forwards slowly and from her spot in the air, Hell could see the last few bugs getting their innards turned into outards by Emerald.

Although winged, Hell did not enjoy being airborne. There was something about having no ground under her hooves that scratched at the space where her wings connected to her back and ran all the way down to the tips of her hooves. It felt like air was getting into her body, swirling around and promising imminent death. Hell was still drifting towards the edge, occasionally jerking downwards as the aura failed to hold her weight.

Hell made the mistake of looking down.

Not only could she barely see the still settling rocks tumbling over each other and throwing up dust, but a deep, ominous green glow started to pervade the cloud of debris. Hell found herself visually locked onto the sight as the glow grew brighter, scattering outwards through the cloud as it settled around a massive shape. It rose, peaking its torso from the cloud of dust and raising its head for a wail that had to be deafened by her suit speakers. A roar she felt.

A bile titan, aptly named, rose from the rubble. With a jagged length torso twice the size of a pelican, head, abdomen, thorax; all articulated by pulsing green musculature and surrounded in pitch black chitin. Near the height of the crater itself, it began moving its legs, shoving building width spires of black chitin into the collapsed rock, bringing itself forwards towards the edge of the crater while staring at Hell the whole time.

Hell inched closer to the edge, "Come on come on come oncomeoncomeoncomeon!" body lengths turned into one, the aura flickered one more time, the titan roared again, sending vibrations up her armor and into her hooves. Then the magic flickered out entirely. Hell's back hooves kicked and her wings flapped on instinct as she pushed against nothing and desperately grabbed at the side of the crater as she slammed into it. Rock parted into dust under her hooves as she ran up nothing without moving until her front left caught on something hard.

Adrenaline was the only thing on her mind, the titan behind her, mostly gravity. Her back hooves kept scraping against the rock as her front hooves tore at the hard point and she pulled herself over the edge. Her eyes caught the sight of Emerald moving towards the crater, as she was lifting herself over and kicking into a gallop, she yelled over comms, "Run!" Which was exactly when the head of the bile titan peaked over the rim of the crater.

Eyes the size of her head focused down on her back as she broke into a sprint. The ground shook as the titan clawed its own hard points into the side of the crater it had made. Emerald screamed, at least, Hell thought Emerald had screamed, she couldn't really hear over her own breathing. The reverberations behind her, her own hooves striking the ground.

Ferrous was falling behind.

Even with the head start they had, Hell was briskly catching up to Ferrous, Emerald had left him, running as fast as she could. Hell glanced over her shoulder to see the monster less than three steps back, for it the distance between the crater was less than a single rippling articulation of all of its four story tall legs.

Hell rushed up to him and stopped in front, kneeling her back legs while still running, "Get on!"

Between heaving, "What!?"

Hell bore her teeth, "DO AS I SAY!"

Hell staggered herself until she was directly in front of him and then crouched as if she were about to pounce. He jumped over her shoulders, kicking and wrapping his hooves around her neck. As he did so, Hell reached for a stim, and shoved it into her leg, the plunger went down and within one beat of her heart, Hell saw white.

A moment passed that felt like sucking in one single eternal breath, her body filling with energy as reality came crashing back into focus. She was catching up to Emerald, the white at the edge of her vision was fading around the corners of her periphery. Her running became more pony-like, as opposed to the strange jumping she had unconsciously started doing. Her breathing started to hurt, the weight of Ferrous on her joints started to settle in her mind as the run continued.

Hell carefully reached for a stratagem ball as she ran. The ground and the miniature hills were uneven, tripping meant death, if the intensity of the rumbling was to be believed. She got halfway through working the data for an orbital strike as the feed cut out and Beach's voice sounded over all comms. "Destroyer leaving low orbit Divers, dispatching emergency extraction shuttle."

"It's gaining on us!" Emerald shouted.

Hell tossed the stratagem ball and flicked the all comms channel open with her ear. "Get me Horizon!"

Seconds later, "I'm here? What's-"

"I need air support, danger close! Repeat, AS-Zero Zero!"

"Hell!" Emerald shouted.

Hell sidestepped a knife the size of her torso. It hit the rock and sank down, the black, ridged chitin parting the stone like butter until the width went from 'torso sized' to 'studio apartment sized'. Hell almost fell over, skidding sideways as she felt something under her hoof crack and snap. The muscles forced her to stay upright as her hoof twisted inside her combat boot, the pain was very clear on what had just happened.

Hell reached for another stim as she caught the audio of Ferrous screaming into her ears as another spire of black chitin came down in front of her. Hell turned on her good hoof, slamming her bad one into the ground as she rotated her momentum to glide around the edge of the leg as it sunk the rock under her hooves. She didn't scream, she couldn't. Not with Ferrous choking her, not for the pain, it hurt so much that she couldn't think of anything else. Horizon said something over the radio channel, but her mind simply couldn't process it.

As soon as she was clear of the roaring, another stim went into her leg. She did scream the instant her bone snapped back into place, tearing into the muscles in her ankle as the stim stitched those back together too. The seconds after that faded away into the same state the stims always inflicted. Floating weightlessness as her mind jumped back down from survival autopilot. She saw the blue beacon and Emerald running towards it. Hell made pace, riding the high of the magical stimulants until she was running with Emerald again.

Her body then reminded her of how far she was pushing herself. Her chest seized as she continued to heave in as much air as she could into her mouth; it was like drowning. Shoveling air into her face, but it just wasn't enough, the burning the pain in her legs and could this idiot please stop CHOKING ME!

Hell took a split second to bite into Ferrous' leg. His response was to jerk it back and give Hell the necessary space to continue breathing normally, she ducked her head down and tried her best to speed up. A horrific, gargling echo sounded out from behind them, both Emerald and Hell turned to look over their shoulders to get a good look at a stream of flaming acid streaming through the air towards them.

Hell shut her eyes and ran.

She heard a scream more akin to a yip. Some instinctual part of her mind snapped her eyes open to see Emerald collapse into the dust. The rest of her mind knew what came after and she looked away. Vision blurred, Hell continued running, she could feel the blood in her mouth from the exertion, balling up in the corners of her mouth and hitting the back of her throat with every heave of breath.

Hell kept running.

When she got close enough to see the beacon, she flicked on her comms again. "Whe-" A cough tore blood from her mouth as she spat, "Where's that air support!?" Hell kept running.

An explosion of static filled the other end of the radio as Horizon's voice was marred and mixed with the sound of turbulence. "Ten seconds." Still fit through the static, full of iron and determination. Hell turned her gaze up, and her HUD caught the IFF of the pelican on entry. Then she looked over her shoulder to see the titan had fallen far behind her. She stopped sprinting and immediately felt the transition of her blood pressure shooting up. Her heart thumping hard enough to feel in her tail.

"Why did you stop!?" Ferrous yelled into her ears.

Hell shifted her weight and looked him in the eye. Likely, some combination of the black screen over her eyes and her mouth dripping her own blood over her canines was enough to silence him. Hell trotted up the hill and looked back at the titan again. It wasn't looking at her; a pair of gears clinked together in her head. The sound of the pelican's thrusters roiled through the air as Hell finished her trot up to the platform. She stared at the titan as it thumped forwards and the pelican landed next to her.

She backed into it. Ferrous was quick to get off of her and jump inside.

Hell stopped with one hoof inside, staring over the hydraulics at the titan as it approached.

It wasn't looking at her.

"Hell!" Horizon yelled back over the comms, she turned over her shoulder to see him peering out of the cockpit. "What are you doing? Strap in! We need to go! Now!"

Hell stared back for a second as the ramp she was standing on groaned and lifted her up. Then her hoof hit the emergency release button on the side of the door. There was a buzz as the ramp flopped back down onto the ground and Hell stepped out and reloaded her short rifle.

"Hell!"

Hell ignored him and lined up her rifle, the first time she'd ever used the scope. She got a perfect view of the monster's head, the segmented blue eyes, the black chitin, the hinges on the side of its jaw and its gaping mouth. Pew. And she fired the first shot. The bullet traveled the distance for a second before passing by silently. She adjusted, a second crack found the bullet closer; a third, closer; a fourth, dead on target.

Then she emptied the magazine. She watched through the scope as every single bullet bounced off the carapace like it was nothing, the yellowish streams of bullet fragments and ricochets pairing with the cracking noise right next to her face. The gun clicked dry and her hoof flung into motion. She pulled the release with the side of her mouth, slammed in the next magazine, threw her shoulder forwards to cock the weapon, then emptied another magazine into the titan's head.

She's still out there. Bounced through Hell's mind.

She wasn't leaving.

'Click-clatter-flip-snap-chk-shk' followed as Hell reloaded again. She caught a blur of green in the corner of her HUD as Emerald crested the hill. She could feel the reverberations from the titan as it got closer. Hell kept firing, the monster continued to roar and try to step on her squad mate. She saw a few bullets not break open, the constant fire leaving bullets embedded in the armor.

She caught Horizon's voice as she jumped into a run "Hell! Get in! Automated systems are launching in twenty seconds!"

The titan was getting in spitting range of the ship.

Hell's eyes widened with focus as Emerald got closer.

Horizon yelled through the comms. "HELL!"

But Hell wasn't thinking. Emerald was missing half of her helmet, and it looked like most of her mane was missing. She'd taken a glancing splash of acid to the side of her head. Hell closed the distance in seconds and skid across the ground while her hoof screamed at her. She drifted across the rock, her wings flapping and trying to twist the air around her with no success, her hooves came up as she slid to a stop in front of Emerald and snapped her tail out to the mare as she stabbed down into her neck with her last stim.

Teeth met tail and Hell sprinted up the hill, nearly pulling Emerald off of her hooves as the mare desperately clung onto Hell's tail for the little extra speed that it granted her. Hell may have been tossing debris from her hooves directly into Emerald's face, but it didn't matter. The gurgling echo of the titan preparing to blast another stream of acid sounded out, Hell swung herself, skidding again as Emerald came crashing into her from the side as Hell's eyes locked onto the pelican ramp.

Her front hoof wrapped around Emerald as she twisted her momentum, and Hell dove.

The two mares flew forwards, slamming into the grating inside the pelican with enough force for Hell to see stars. "GO!"

The keening wail of the titan mixed with the angry thrusters of the pelican hitting maximum power in under a second. Hell was thrown to the side as the pelican turned nearly horizontal to avoid the acid. As both of them were thrown to the side, Hell gripped Emerald around the head to protect the open side of her helmet. They impacted the side of the pelican, Hell's wings uncomfortably scraping against the grating as her back found a comfortable spot wedged inside a hard piece of metal.

Emerald sagged on top of her as the weight shifted with the g-forces of the pelican leveling out. Eventually they were flying straight, and Emerald rolled off of her. Injured, tired, probably traumatized, but alive.

Hell snorted, and got a bit of blood in her nose.

She caught the look from Emerald, what with half of her helmet missing, as she blinked the stars out of her eyes.

Hell laughed, relieved. Charged with success, with victory. The breathlessness led it to be mostly quiet chuckling, but eventually Emerald came around enough to sigh into her own laughter. The two acid and blood covered mares laughed their manes up as Horizon tried to keep the pelican steady and Ferrous looked at the two crazy mares on the floor with a look half bordering on fear.

"No-" Emerald was interrupted by a cough slipping into a longer sigh and laugh as she chuckled off her failure to speak. "Not bad for a cave pony." Emerald made no move to get up, nor did she take her eyes off Hell.

Hell got her giggles under control long enough to say, "Experience." with a straight face. Not that it mattered, Emerald couldn't see her face. Nonetheless, a second went by before both of them burst out into pained giggling again.

Ferrous came to some kind of mental apotheosis, "You're both insane." He settled out loud.

"Both of you strap in!" Horizon shouted over the engines and the turbulence.

Hell shakily stood, lifting herself up with a mix of the wall and a hoof hold. Emerald slapped her over the shoulder and used her weight to help them both stand up together. They strapped in next to each other in time for the pelican to breach the atmosphere.

Level up!
Level: Four
Title: Space Cadet

New perk!

Faster!
Why go slow when you could go fast instead? Increased maximum speed!

Author's Note

My attempt to write something a bit longer, with far more detail, along with a specialty mission of my own design. New characters in the foreground, extra extra details and more, while adhering to the more descriptive side of combat without being as gruesome or hard as nails on the Divers. That, and a slightly happier ending.

I'm not exactly sure how well I wrote this chapter, but I really like the idea I tried to write out.

Lemme know what you think, creative, mean, silly, or otherwise 'criticisms' or advice are welcomed and encouraged!