Phantoms Of The Past

    Luna was nervous, she couldn’t get the thought out of her head that whatever had crashed could have hit the Crystal Empire or landed close enough to cause significant damage. The Empire had only come back recently and she would be horrified if it disappeared just as quickly.

    That’s why she insisted to her sister that she come and investigate personally even though Celestia disproved of this reckless act and had the commander escort her personally for her well being. Though on the upside, her being here means she could help relay a message back to Canterlot faster than what it normally would take and if everything turned out to be fine, she could get to study whatever object had crash landed somewhere within the Crystal Mountains, of course, if that’s where it landed.

    “Calm yourself, Princess. I’m sure if anything had happened to the Empire we would have gotten a message before we had even gotten half way here.” Princess Luna turned her head to look at the royal guard commander sitting next to her in the chariot.

He was the new replacement for Shining Armor when he left to stand by Cadence’s side in the Crystal Empire, and whose looks told her he had a lot of experience, the very rugged looking unicorn stallion had a dark grey coat and a black mane with white streaks in it but the main features that caught every ponies eyes was that half his horn was missing, being lost to a new weapon the Griffons had developed in the last war with Equestria almost three decades ago. Luna couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was called. There was also distracting fact of a deep scar that ran down from the left side of his brow and across his left eye which was hidden at the moment by an eye patch. Luna yet had to hear the story on how he had come across that.

“ Commander Redoubt with all respect, it is hard to stay calm with so much uncertainty in the air at this time.” She replied to the commander .

“Princess, like I said, if something were to happen we would have heard of something by now, and the scouts should be back with a report any moment.”  Not too long after the commander had spoken one of the escorting Pegasus  nearby shouted over to the commander.

“Commander, one of the scouts are on their way back!” Sure enough ,a light green Pegasus up a head of the escort started to bank and maneuver his way next to the chariot that held the Princess and the commander.

“Sir, reporting on the Crystal Empire, the object from the sky missed the royal city and landed within the mountains to the north west about 85 kilometers away, but the Empire’s own scouts report that it doesn’t look anything like a rock, instead resembling something artificially made.” Luna breathed a sigh of relief that the Crystal Empire was unscathed but she was now puzzled at what the object could be, if it wasn’t a meteor or part of the comet.

“Thank you for the report, Soldier. Head out towards the crash site and tell the ground teams there to expect us within 45 minutes”, the commander told the Scout, and with that, the scout flew off ahead to the crash site to have them prepare for their arrival.

Hunter awoke but was groggy, looking out of his visor everything was a blurred mess he could hardly concentrate on any single object without feeling light headed, as he tried to move a massive hot spike of pain shot up his side causing him to black out again.

They were nearing the crash site, now coming in behind it following the massive furrows it left in the ground stretching for almost three kilometers. When they had first met up with a scout to show them to the crash site she had lead them through a gap in the peaks. Once they reached the other side Luna had noticed below them were massive chunks of rocks that looked freshly broken off due to the lack of snow accumulating around them. She realized that whatever had come crashing down had plowed straight through the peaks causing a massive land-slide. Whatever caused this must have been massive. As they neared, she could see smoke rising and started to spot numerous pieces of debris strewn about everywhere. Luna was fixated on the damage below her that she never to bother to look ahead until the commander had gasped: “ By harmony, its massive!”

Luna looked forward to see them approaching a massive object that was at least 300 meters long and about 60 meters high, but it was too difficult to tell from the odd shape of it how wide it was.

Once they landed an indigo pony approached them and made a quick bow towards Luna. “Greetings, Princess Luna and Commander Redoubt. I am Lieutenant Gallant of the Crystal guards.“

“Greetings Lieutenant, is there anything you can tell us of this uh…?”

The lieutenant finished her sentence. “ By what we have gathered it seems to be a airship, but were not sure who or what made it but we have found that towards what seems to be the bow,” He said, circling his hoof toward the front of the ship. “There seems to be runes and they look to be the same ones we use and it almost sounds like a name for the ship.” Grabbing a piece of parchment off the table, Lieutenant Gallant read the translated name: “ The name, or whatever it is painted on the bow reads: “UESS Unto The Breach”.

The lieutenant finished and handed the parchment to Luna. After Luna was done looking at it she placed it back on the table and asked the lieutenant.

“Have you or any pony found a way into this… ship?”. She mimicked the motion the lieutenant had done early when pointing at the name of the object.

The indigo pony replied: “We have found several breaches large enough to squeeze through to get into the structure itself. They were caused from the hard landing it took, but we haven’t been able to make great progress as the insides are strewn with debris and it seems most of the lower floors are collapsed or crushed from the landing.”

Luna eyed the ship. It had taken a lot of damage on landing, most of the bottom she could see was crushed and mangled but otherwise seemed fairly intact considering the outer hull was still on and not ripped off from the impact from the peaks. However, the sides farther up were a different story. Cracks and rends were everywhere some almost looked like some great beast tried to rip it apart.

“If you two follow me I believe some of the groups have made headway on the starboard side where one of the wings have been ripped off and we might be able to get in from there”

Luna and the Commander followed the indigo pony to the right side of the ship, where she could finally start to see the inside of the ship.

“It seems it hit the peaks on this side ripping the wing off and tearing off chunks of its hull, and I can’t even fathom what kind of punishment this thing was truly designed for, it has a double hull with many reinforcement struts that look to be designed to crumple, and the hull plating itself is about one and one half  meters thick for the outer hull and about one meter thick on the inner hull.

“You seem very versed in ship design, Lieutenant.” Luna remarked.

“ My family owned a small sail-boat that we would take up and down the Eastern coast. I had helped my father build it. He loved that boat, loved how we smiled when we were on it with him, until Sombra rose to power. His heart sank with that ship… but enough about my gloomy past, we have a ship of alien design sitting here that needs to be secured on the inside.”

Leading them forward the lieutenant motioned for a cerise unicorn pony to come over. “This is Star Whistle, she’s been leading the research team. If you’ll excuse me, I have other duties I need to attend to, so I’ll turn you over to her”

Once the lieutenant started to walk away Star Whistle gave a quick bow. “An honor to meet you, Princess and you, Commander”

Luna gave a nod of her head before talking. “Have you anything noteworthy to offer on this ship?” Luna asked the cerise unicorn.

“Well to start, it’s definitely not pony-made nor does it seem to be anything from any other Empire and even for griffons it’s just way too advanced, but so far, all the words we’ve come across we can understand fine. You’d think if it were truly an alien vessel we would not be able to understand it. Also, something this large should house hundreds of living things if not thousands, yet we’ve found no trace of anything living coming out and what parts we have explored inside show nothing either, nor have we seen any kind of corpse, and a crash like this should have produced some kind of casualty. Luna didn’t like the sound of there possibly being thousands of aliens, especially if they didn’t know if they were friendly or not.

“Perhaps, if there are survivors, they could possibly be in a part of the ship that would be more resistant to the crash?” the Princess asked.

“It’s plausible that they could be in the center or perhaps the upper floors they seem to have taken little to no damage out here, if you’re not busy I could show you the inside?”  Star Whistle offered. Before Luna could reply the commander finally spoke up after standing idly listening to the conversations.

     “Princess, with respect I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to blindly move around an alien ship when we hardly know anything about it, for all we know anything that survived could attack out of panic or just instinct if there a hostile race”

Luna turned towards the commander standing behind her: “Commander I respect your concern for my wellbeing, but I can handle myself, and since I’m representing the kingdom of Equestria while my sister is dealing with any back-lash from the sighting of this thing, it’s in our best interest to pursue diplomacy, If we can understand their writing, there’s a good chance they can understand what we’re saying and the last thing we want is to become enemies with beings that can build an airship, that can travel through space, and who can tell what other advanced technologies they can wield. If it makes you feel any better, stay to the front of me and bring some of the escort with us.”  Luna stood her ground.

“I’m guessing I’m never going to win this argument, but I’ll go along with your plan but only if I’m at the front.” The Commander said while motioning to the escort a bit behind them, having several of them move up.  Once the entourage was formed they began to head toward a break into the ship that would allow them access once they were inside lanterns were given out to provide light so they could see in the dark corridors.

    Hunter awoke again this time a lot less groggy but still having a hard time making out shapes. The pain in his side was powerful and felt like someone was stabbing him with several hot pokers, trying not to move his body too much he reached over and felt his side it was slick. Bringing his hand closer to his visor and turning on a flashlight on his helmet he saw it was crimson, reaching over again to try and feel the extent of the wound only to find resistance. It dawned on him he was impaled on something, which was troubling, the force it would take for him to get impaled on something that could punch through the thin but overlapping titanium plates and also get through the ballistic Nano layer, the Nano layer itself was built to withstand upwards to several fifty caliber armor piercing rounds before it began to fail.

“Fuck, this day does get better doesn’t it, Athena, you still with me?” He asked aloud in a cracking voice but received no response from the AI “Athena?” Hunter asked again, but again silence. “Damn crash must have knocked everything offline.”

He thought aloud “Gonna have to either pull this damn thing out or pull myself off of it before I bleed out any more”.

Speaking aloud to himself again Hunter pulled on the thing he was impaled on but it showed no sign of budging

“Lovely, looks I get to have all the fun today” Hunter reached out to find something firm to gain leverage on, once he found it he prepared to pull himself off the piece of metal he was impaled on. With the added strength from the artificial muscle the Nano layer gave Hunter he wrenched himself off the impromptu spike before letting out a howl of pain.

“Did you hear that?” Luna asked to no particular pony.

“Sounds like something survived and it sounds like it’s in a lot of pain.”  Star Whistle answered.

“All the reason not to find it, last thing we want to do is corner a wounded beast.” The commander responded.

“Or we could try and help it to show it we mean no harm. Like I said, it might understand us, every word we have seen in this ship we can understand what’s not to think it won’t understand us?” The princess remarked to the commander.

“Nothing good will come out of chasing down an injured creature, but if we do find it and it shows any aggression you're leaving even if the rest of the guards have to drag you out” Redoubt snorted before leading the group on again.

    Hunter was clasping his side trying to find the medical station any normal person would have bled out by now but unlike a normal soldier who only had a basic neural implant Hunter and the rest of his team had several augmentations, with most useful being billions of nanite robots swimming through his bloodstreams supplying almost seventy times more oxygen than a normal blood cell would hold, plus they boosted him immune system by assisting his normal immune system attacking foreign objects  and the best part, which was helping him stay alive was they also assisted in greatly speeding up tissue repair. As Hunter rounded a corner he was briefly blinded by a light overloading his visors LLE (low light enhancement). Hunter threw his arms in front of his visor to block most of the light.

They had heard heavy thumps coming closer but before they could tell where it was coming from a massive bipedal figure came around the corner standing easily over two meters tall encased in a black metallic suit. Once it lowered its forelegs from in front of its face, Luna saw what seemed to be a massive blue eye set within the upper part of what almost looked like some kind of helmet that also had what seemed to be a white skull painted on the front of its helmet that made her freeze in place terrified, until something else caught her eye on its left side. It seemed to be leaking some reddish liquid, and it dawned on her it was bleeding and by the amount of blood everywhere it was a very serious wound.

Hunter was baffled when his visor adjusted to the light he saw at least a dozen what looked to be horses in several shapes and colors but what was truly was crazy was that there were lanterns hovering in front of them.  Once the initial shock was gone Hunter took off in a hobbled jog trying to get away from…whatever he saw “ I gotta be hallucinating from all this blood loss no way in hell would a dozen horses be roaming around a ship with armor and lanterns in front of them hovering” he said to himself. Hunter managed to find one of the medical wings before collapsing to a knee he could feel the blackness of unconsciousness creeping up on him, he fought with all his willpower to push it back he crawled to a medical cabinet and ripped the doors of the hinge’s trying to find the medical salve to stop the bleeding but his will power ran out as he had grasped the container and collapse to the floor.

The group had followed the trail of blood to what looked like a medical wing where they heard a crashing noise, Luna managed to nudge her way to the front of the group before Redoubt could complain and pull her back Luna had squeezed by and entered the room to find the alien face down in pile of what seemed to be medical supplies that had fallen out of  cabinet that now hung loosely from the wall Luna walk up to it slowly and nudged it foreleg it didn’t respond but she could hear what sounded like sporadic breathing she quickly turned to the group now pouring into the room.

“If we don’t help it now it’s going to die, help me clear away the mess and somepony find something that can be used as a bandage!” she looked back at the poor creature bleeding out in front of her “If we do save this thing what are we going to do princess when it wakes up?” the commander asked Luna in a concerned tone, but Luna wasn’t paying attention to what the commander had asked her, she was fixated on what the creature had in its hoof wait no claw? Or is it a paw? Luna decided against trying to figure out what it was and more on what it decided to grab before passing out she picked it up with her magic and looked at it, it read *Class A Medical Salve High strength, fast acting –Critical wounds only.* She knew that it had to have grabbed this for its wound opening the top of it she was hit by a very powerful smell that she couldn’t place, putting a hoof in front of her nose to block the smell she poured the contents onto the wound and used her magic to spread it evenly, quickly she noticed that that wound stopped bleeding and the gel started to harden into a protective cast moments later his breathing seemed to become normal.

One of the guards managed to find bandages and placed them in front of her. “help me roll him over so we can get these bandaged on him secured” she told the ponies standing around her. Several of the guards made their way over to the creatures good side and started to push. Luna helped with her magic and realized that the creature in all of this armor weighs a good quarter ton. After getting its wounds dressed and getting several unicorns inside to help move the creature outside.

Once it was outside and on level ground the lieutenant came running up: “I can’t believe it you managed to find one alive?! Were there any others?” the lieutenant stammered.

“This is the only one we’ve seen so far.” Somepony responded.

“Why does it have a skull painted on its face? What would possess a creature to put something so horrid onto itself?”  Star Whistle asked.

“Who knows, probably a warning of some kind to scare off predators or anything that was being hostile to it or it could just be, y’know, a way to demoralize an enemy, throw him off with such a ghastly display.” The commander offered his insight.

Luna spoke: “Either way we need to get him to Canterlot so it can get medical attention and hopefully and peacefully get some answers from it.”

“Why not the Crystal Empire? It’s a lot closer than Canterlot or any place in Equestria at the moment.” The lieutenant pointed out.

Luna responded: “Because the Crystal Empire is still piecing itself together after being gone for a thousand years! I don’t want to risk upsetting all the work Cadence and Shining have done because of this creature. Also, on the way back to Canterlot, I can send a letter to my sister and have everything prepared in time for arrival.”

“Point taken, Princess. I’ll have word sent to bring some more reinforcements to secure the wreck and hopefully contain any situation if we find another one of the creatures.”

After Luna wrote a quick letter to her sister, she help the others get the creature secured in the chariot. Several more pegasi had to be brought up to be able to move the massive creature, leaving several of the guards stranded, as there weren’t enough now to pull the other chariot’s and to the commander’s distaste, he was forced to ride another one as there wasn’t enough room on Luna’s with the creature on it.