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...