Tartarus Divers

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!