War of the Assemblyby Tower of 0ChaptersA Brief History Lesson on AssemblyOur MissionOn the Surface of NovaWhat We Found on Delta-9A Brief History Lesson on Assembly Assembly all started many years ago by an Earth pony with a brilliant Idea. That idea was to unite all Changelings, Crytal, Griffions, Pegasi, Unicorns, Zebras, and Earth under one symbol. It actually took some time to convince Chrysalis to join the original Assembly Program, but her and rest of the changlings steadily got behind the idea of Assembly and eventually joined in on the project. The years that followed the newly formed Assembly produced prosperity, development, and what seemed like an everlasting peace for everypony. OR, atleast, that's what it seemed for a long time. Chrysalis had tried to get any information as she could on the Assembly Program, only with what little resources the program had the time. She had failed ultimately and gave up, accepting that Assembly would be best for her Changelings. Several big corporations rose under the growing Assembly Program. Corporations like: Equiero Aeromatics; a Griffion aircraft manufacturer, PlasLite; a Unicorn run research group, Titanite; an armor press group that made new royal gaurd armor, and lastly Uroara Shielding; A mixed group of smarts that developed shields for Assembly to test and use. Yet, all were proudly sponsored by Assembly. Under the guidence of that Earth pony led to the world's beginning of it's space age. Assembly started building Star Soarers, their apptly named spacecraft, after the passing of their founder. Titanite supplied the ships' plating. Equiero supplied the plans to build the ships. Assembly supplied their own thrusters for their ships. After all the hard work of their engineers, the first space faring vessel was born, named the 'Legacy,' in honor of the founder and set off with it's first space faring speices group. But then, something happened, Legacy was not only the first craft buildt by ponies, it was the first to make alien contact. They had the unfortunate end of meeting the Hawkers, and nasty race of infectious creatures with unknown origin or reason. They were bloodthirsty monsters that either killed or infected their victims. They would even infect machinery somehow, but only for a limited amount of time before it fell apart completely. After that, this encounter became know as the 'Legacy Incident' and rallied many to call out for their leaders to take action against their new threat. Assembly had to get involved in the conflict at hand, it was their ship that made the alien contact. Assembly called a summit with Celestia, Luna, an advisor from the Griffions, Chysalis, and a Zebra spokesman. During the summit, there were arguments of whether or not war should be declared. If it were to be decalred, who would fight it. The current Assembly CEO stayed nuetral, until he hatched a plan. He called proposition 'Orange Winter' for many reasons. The plan would allow Assembly to go from a program to a trained militia to fight for their homeworld, not one pony kind would be fighting one-on-one, but all would stand together, fight together, and if neccessary, fall together. This appealed to their leaders seein as it had no flaw. All resources were being pooled in Assembly, PlasLite started to produce weapons for Assembly usage. Equiero started building fighters. Titanite decided that they would train soldiers of all types. Assembly stepped into the stage of war, preparing themselves for the worst. They built many classes of star soarers anf launched them to colonize other planets and combat the Hawker menace. The years that followed this war seemed long, but Assembly was determined to win, no matter the impossibility of their foes. The Unicorns were always researching and eventually made a suit that could harness the elements around the user, a rifle that unicorns could use to make their magic more lethal against Hawkers, and a special defence for colonies. Now, the current status of the war seemed to be at an inevitable win for the Assembly. They built a facility that could be activated by a key, nopony knew what that key was. Two new Star Soarers arose as recent projects, a sister and brother. Theirs names were Tempest, the big sister, and Ark, the brother. Those who worked on either never saw the other leave for any reason, Tempest and Ark were always side-by-side for protection. But little do they know that the line of seccession for either of the ships run deep, each with their own plan. Now, on Tempest, there is a specialist group of three, one Changeling, one Griffion, and one Pegsus. Together, they were the best of friends, watching the other's back to the best of their ability, and doing a damn good job of it. Tempest and Ark were well on their way to a checkpoint colony for supplies, both ship ran off solar rays but needed to resupply after several months or more. The first Heavy Freighter Star Soarer along with the first Light Bombardment Star Soarer. Their story begins here, where the journey really starts. Our Mission Did you enjoy that little history on Assembly? Hope you did 'cause that's written by me and stuck to my wall. I'm Blaze, by the way, the Griffion that was mentioned in the history. Well, anyway, Tempest is on its merry way to Nova with Ark, Nova is a colony planet many have said to be a bit like Dodge Junction back in the day. I wouldn't know what to tell you though, I've never been to Nova myself. Oh, before I forget, I'm actually a tactical engineer on my squad as well as it's leader, the other two are a demolition expert and a marksmen, both quite capable at their jobs. As much of value they were to Aseembly, they were still my best friends on the entire ship. Although... this may be an Assembly military Star Soarer, the indivual rooms for each pony was a bit much for the project when it was being built. Sure they're nice and all, big enought space for a bed, a couch, even has it's own washroom. I guess it was with the consideration of those that don't like to be open. "Attention, Tempest will be approaching Nova shortly. All engineers should be at their stations" That annoying computer bitch repeats that every thirty minutes. All I want to do is sleep a bit longer before I have to meet up with Twitch and Flare at the commons for our usual breakfast. That WAS my initial plan until a knock came to my door. So I had decided to lazily flop out of bed and slowly trek over to the door. I crakced it atleast, not trying to be rude or anything, and peered through. It was a changeling, Twitch to be specific, I had noticed his missing left fang and the scars over his right eye. "You're late, again." He said to me, his tone not quite as pleasurable. He was wearing our squad's uniform as he he glared at me. "Now now, is that anyway to talk to a firend, let alone the squad captain?" I simply said right back, opening the door to reveal my current bearings, which was a tank top and panties. "Can you please get ready, Flare didn't think you'd ever wake up to eat with us." Twitches look toned down a bit, but he was like that. Mad at you for one second, then happy with you the next. I guess that's what we liked about him. "I'll be there, just let me get ready and I'll be there in a few." I reassured Twitch, his look towards me toning down even more and continued down the hall towards the commons. I lightly closed my door and started up my shower. Like I said to Twitch before, I was there in less than fifteen minutes, in uniform. I was ready to dine in to something delicious, I don't how, but Tempst's chefs could even make something that looked gross taste it's best. As I sat down at our usual table, I could hear Flare adressing her voice towards me, Flares full name in Solar Flare, but she prefers Flare. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't get you feathered behind out of bed." I heard from her muzzle, rather mouth if you ask me, but one helluva shot. "Yeah, I heard from Mister Mcgee over here." I nodded my head over towards Twitch. "Anyway, what are we all having?" "Hay Pancakes sounds delicious at the moment." Is all I hear from Flare. "I think I'll get a latte instead" Flare and mine mouths dropped like dead weights as we stared in awe at Twitch's response. "You drink coffee?" I asked nearly in my seat, he looked up from the menu with slight glare. "It's not coffee, a latte. To answer you question, yes. Maybe if you two girls would actuall pay attention to your surroundings, you wouldn't be surprised" Twitch out down his menu and ordered his latte, Flare order the hay Pancakes, I decided to get some eggs. "I do pay attention to my surroundings, how else would you guys get you asses out of tough situations?" I said to Twitch with the biggest smirk on my face. "Making googley eyes at an engineer you don't know isn't paying attention to surroundings" Flare quickly snapped at me. The smirk on me quickly disapeared as I turned to her. "I'm not in love with him, I don't trust him." I had glared at Flare for her comment. There was a pegasus engineer on Tempest who always looks suspicious, he always had a satchel on his left side, always looking over his shoulder as if he was being stalked or something. His type of personality is usually the one's that cause a lot of troube, and what makes it worse, he doesn't talk to anypony on board. Not to mention that the pegasus spends most of his time on the matienance deck, even after hours. "Attention all Tempest passengers, we are now approaching the Colony of Nova. Please stand by for departure." That damned computer went off again. But atleast we get time to strech out our limbs while Tempest loads up its supplies. It was nice to get off of Tempest every once and a while, usually. There are those occassional planets full ofscrap, murderous machines, and what not that's deadly. Maybe we could check out a Nova cider hole if we get to step off Tempest. Flare was bit a drinker, cound't down a whole lot, but when she started, it was hard to get her to quit. I mean, seriously, three drink and she's tipsy. Twitch didn't really touch hard cider often, he found ordinary cider just to his liking. Tempest started to shake rapidly, causing Discord to fall from nowhere. Literally, just showed up and fell next to our table. I'm surprised he hasn't aged in years, being a spirit of chaos probably has that effect, seeing as chaos is eternal and all. But he has been know to go a bit overboard with his antics. He was liked by most of the ponies on here, and he liked it. Having friends really makes a change on ponies I guess. Twitch talked to Disord whenever he could, Discord has a thing about mention a pony that was his first true friend. Her name escapes me at the moment, I'll probably remember sometime later, but for, I get to go to the surface of Nova. On the Surface of Nova The three of us stepped into the dust below claws and hooves. Flare was quick to run off from the rest of us, she usually enjoyed getting off Tempest as much as we did. Flare was the first to get excited and run off like she was till a filly or something. She was a bit unpredictable when it came to new places. Twitch and I usually stuck together due to his lack of direction, plus, last time he tried to keep up with Flare, he lost her in a matter of seconds. I just happened to find him in a cardboard box that his ass didn't even fit in. He was dizzied as shit and barely kept his balance, embarassing for him that I had to carry him around, we eventually came across Flare stumbling out of a cider hole, as usual. I had my own little quirk about visiting new colonies, which was to locate a general goods and purchase myself a little snowglobe. It's like a stamp, only more solid and can be moved. I had myself quite a collection of snowglobes adorning my room. Nova was as ponies said, taking up looks after Dodge Junction. Ponies and Changeling in rancher hats, walking around and greeting visitors with hospitality. Griffions were present also, but not quite as open like most on the colony. I was kind of diappointed that the other griffions were more kept to themselves than most. Then again, I am from our homeworld and I've only heard that colony life was different. Different as in what kind of planet the colony was on, but just so happened that Nove was on a dust ball of a planet. Ah, good, Nova does have a general store. Twitch and I enter the store, it wasn't long before he stepped back outside and sat on the steps. I guess he doesn't like the fact that there are shelves taller than himself. I was quick to locate the stand of snowglobes and inspected one in my claw. The structure that was supposed to represent Nova is the sheriff's office somewhere on the colony. I shook the globe to watch those little white puffs swish around in their liquid and smiled slightly. "Incoming request from Tempest Captain." "What does he want now?" I groaned activating what looked like a watch to put the captain on a screen below. "Blaze, something has come up that requires your team to investigate." He started to breif her. "Wait... what the hell happened that require US to investigate... whatever it is." I stopped him before he could go on. "We lost several scouts on one of the nearby moons that orbit Nova." He responded to my question, about to continue. "And you suspect that it may be some unnatrual occurance or some other serious matter like an inserection?" I interupted the captain again. "Well.... yeah. How fast can you get your team together?" He had to ask, didnt he? It took me some thought as to how long it would take Twitch and myself to get Flare out of the saloon here. "It might just be Twitch and me. Flare ran off as soon as we stepped on Nova's surface. You get her back on Tempest and the two of us will worry about the problem." I usually had to assure him about our capabilities, he never trusted just two/thirds of my squad going out on his missions. Yet, there were several occasions where we proved him wrong. I made my purchase and went outside to grab hold of Twitch. He was startled when I grabbed him then realised it was me and calmed himself down. "C'mon, Twitch, we got some work to do." I told him, continueing down the street towards Tempest. "Uh... what about Flare? She's still around here, somewhere." Twitch tried to keep up with my fast pace as he gazed around for our friend. "The captain will find her, it's just you and me on a mission to one of Nova's moons." Was my answer to his question, Twitch didn't speak another word while we walked back to Tempest. We both made way towards the Tempest Armory to suit up for our little trip to one of the moons. Guess whatever we might find there could be nasty. Twitch might be scared of what could happen, but that pony can make one hell of a nice fire show from explosive charges. After Twitch and myself got our armor on, we made way for the hangars with helmets in hand, and intent on finding out what's exactly going on over with that moon. Well, Twitch hasn't been fully informed yet, but I'll tell him when we board the carrier. Standard Assembly carriers were named 'Eagles', although they were smaller than the supply barges, they have been known to out-manuver fighters depending on their pilots. Overall, armored slightly better, with specific weapons to enable ground support and surpression. The best kind were the ones with the hot-shot pilots, pulling tricks as if they belonged in an air show. Our pilot turned out to be an unicorn with the name of Dynamo Spark. He was an air jockey all right, even had the personality of one. Ever since he joined Assembly's air division, Dynamo has won every Assembly Annual Air Show. He may be one of the best, but he gloats a lot about it. Twitch and I boarded his Eagle, Twitch sat in one of the hold seats while I went to go see if Dynamo knew where we were going. "Hey, bird for brains, know where we are going?" I asked, he was used to the usual taunts I gave him. "Captain filled me in, Nave moon Delta-9. For specific reasons." He seemed to have ignored my initial attempt, but oh well. I went back to the Eagle hold and sat across from Twitch. Twitch seemd to have spaced out in deep thought. "Hey, buddy, you okay over there?" I interupted him, he shook his head a bit then looked at me. "What if the Hawkers found Nova? What if we're just getting sent to our deaths?" I hated when he did this. "Twitch, we've survived many encounters with those retchid creatures. Just calm down. How is your trick coming along?" I did my best to distract him from those thoughts, appareantly his trick usually worked. Twitch's trick was the fact that he could morph specific parts on his body. For example, he could generate a mane and tail without changing much of anything else. "Why, quite good actually." Was Twitch's response as he broke into a smile. I could hear the Eagle warming up for take off. "You two sit tight back there, we're leaving in 5." Dynamo warned Twitch and myself "I think NightMare Night this year is going to be more fun." Twitch stated. Last year's NightMare Night costume for Twitch was him changing himself into a pure black pony with white eyes. He went around, sneaking up on unsuspecting ponies and scaring the shit out of them. I'm pretty sure he had a blast last year. Twitch told me the best ones he scared were the groups of ponies. What We Found on Delta-9 It didn't take Dynamo too long to take us to Delta-9, the darkest moon in the Nova system. Rather scary to say the least too. All this moon was just a bunch of jagged mountains and rocks, really, not much to look at. "All right you two," I heard Dyanmo Spark start, "Make it quick, I don't want to be here longer than you guys. do." Strange thing is that he was right, none of us liked the thought of Delta-9 in the first place. Twitch and I put our helmets on whiel Dynamo sealed off the pilot's area so we could exit into the low atmoshpere of this dark moon. "All right Twitch, let's see what we can find. You cover my back and I'll cover yours." I told him and he responded with a nod. As the back of the Eagle lowered to reveal the landscape before us, I checked our rifes and hopped out, big mistake. I thought this moon would have a lower gravitational pull, but when I jumped it immeadiately puled me back down. "This... doesn't seem right." Twitch observed, walking down the ramp. He helped me back up and dusted off my armor. "Truly, but where are the other Eagles that were supposed to be here?" I was looking around and only noticed our Eagle, not more. "Dynamo!" I contacted the pilot over a frequency, "Did you land in the right spot?" "Of course I did, the coordinates of the same sites that were here. I-" Is all I heard before static hit. "Blaze.... something's here, and I don't like it...." Twitch stepped closer to my side. "Keep alert." I started to wlak forward in a steady, slow pace. Twitch was keeping up just fine until we lost sight of Dynamo's Eagle, that's when he started to loose his cool. I simply just turned around smacked him across his face, the impact surely did reach through his helmet. "Keep it together dammit! You're better than this!" I sternly told him, I could see those worried eyes beyond his visor. Before I could say anything else I was interupted by a hissing sound off to our left. Boy, what we found wasn't exactly a pretty sight. It resembled a pony, earth, but had bald patches all over with no definable gender. We were warned about Hawker's ability to infect. Twitch pulled up his rifle and readied himself for an attack from the infected pony. "Halt." That simple word seemed to have stopped the Hawker Pony from making any further moves towards us. The voice that said it sounded like a male's voice, twisted just a tiny bit. "That's no way to treat our visitor's, like many others you have come across." The voice said again, this time, it's origin came into our view. "Well, if it isn't the Assembly, the sworn enemies of the Hawkers. What brings you all the way out here to the dank reaches of this moon?" The creature asked us, eyeing me with three eyes on one side of it's face. "We're here to investigate disappearences of scouts here, thought a rebel group might be stationed here. Attacking whomever they think is with us." I responded to his question. This one seems to have more brains, but the absense of jagged teeth in his mouth like his companion. "I had no idea you were fighting rebels. Alas, no, it's just my companion and me on this moon. Atleast I know know who she's been attacking." "That thing is a she?" I heard Twitch asked out of surprise. "Oh how rude. She was once an Earth pony until something got a hold of her. As for myself, I was once a proud pegasus stallion, like any other. Now look at me." He seemed to state then went on to explain his situation. "So, let me get this straight," I started, "you can't remember your previous life or name other than this 'metamorphisis' phase you went through. When you woke up from your 'pod,' you were still able to speak, think, and not have a bloodlust, but manage to keep your companion in check." He simply nodded, closing his eyes and grimmacing slightly at his life. "She woke up with me out of metamorphisis, Hawker work like a hiveminded cult of aliens. Apparently, only her and I share that quality." "You might have been a failed experiment." Twitch hypothosised. "Or the greatest asset Assmebly can obtain." He twisted that idea into play. I smiled, only because he might have been right. "I'll get our captain on the horn. Excuse me for a few." The Hawker excused me and I managed to get Tempest captain back on the line for debreifing and our findings. "Blaze, what'd you find on Delta-9?" He immeeadiately asked me before I could get a single word about of my beak. "I think they might be something you want to see for yourself." I heard myself reply, feeling a slight smirk eminating. "I'll take your word for it, nothing too dangerous is it?" Why did he decide to ask that? Just. Why? "You'll see, sir." Were my final words to him before I went back to Twitch and the two Hawkers. Surprisingly, Twitch was still standing and the Hawkers didn't leave. "So... what did this... captain... of yours say about us coming aboard his ship?" I heard the lead Hawker ask as soon as he saw me. "I told him that he'll just have see what we we found for himself. C'mon you two, we're going on a little trip." I smiled a bit as I said that. Twitch walked over to my side and we started walking. The two Hawkers joining us as we headed back towards Dynamo's Eagle.
A Brief History Lesson on Assembly Assembly all started many years ago by an Earth pony with a brilliant Idea. That idea was to unite all Changelings, Crytal, Griffions, Pegasi, Unicorns, Zebras, and Earth under one symbol. It actually took some time to convince Chrysalis to join the original Assembly Program, but her and rest of the changlings steadily got behind the idea of Assembly and eventually joined in on the project. The years that followed the newly formed Assembly produced prosperity, development, and what seemed like an everlasting peace for everypony. OR, atleast, that's what it seemed for a long time. Chrysalis had tried to get any information as she could on the Assembly Program, only with what little resources the program had the time. She had failed ultimately and gave up, accepting that Assembly would be best for her Changelings. Several big corporations rose under the growing Assembly Program. Corporations like: Equiero Aeromatics; a Griffion aircraft manufacturer, PlasLite; a Unicorn run research group, Titanite; an armor press group that made new royal gaurd armor, and lastly Uroara Shielding; A mixed group of smarts that developed shields for Assembly to test and use. Yet, all were proudly sponsored by Assembly. Under the guidence of that Earth pony led to the world's beginning of it's space age. Assembly started building Star Soarers, their apptly named spacecraft, after the passing of their founder. Titanite supplied the ships' plating. Equiero supplied the plans to build the ships. Assembly supplied their own thrusters for their ships. After all the hard work of their engineers, the first space faring vessel was born, named the 'Legacy,' in honor of the founder and set off with it's first space faring speices group. But then, something happened, Legacy was not only the first craft buildt by ponies, it was the first to make alien contact. They had the unfortunate end of meeting the Hawkers, and nasty race of infectious creatures with unknown origin or reason. They were bloodthirsty monsters that either killed or infected their victims. They would even infect machinery somehow, but only for a limited amount of time before it fell apart completely. After that, this encounter became know as the 'Legacy Incident' and rallied many to call out for their leaders to take action against their new threat. Assembly had to get involved in the conflict at hand, it was their ship that made the alien contact. Assembly called a summit with Celestia, Luna, an advisor from the Griffions, Chysalis, and a Zebra spokesman. During the summit, there were arguments of whether or not war should be declared. If it were to be decalred, who would fight it. The current Assembly CEO stayed nuetral, until he hatched a plan. He called proposition 'Orange Winter' for many reasons. The plan would allow Assembly to go from a program to a trained militia to fight for their homeworld, not one pony kind would be fighting one-on-one, but all would stand together, fight together, and if neccessary, fall together. This appealed to their leaders seein as it had no flaw. All resources were being pooled in Assembly, PlasLite started to produce weapons for Assembly usage. Equiero started building fighters. Titanite decided that they would train soldiers of all types. Assembly stepped into the stage of war, preparing themselves for the worst. They built many classes of star soarers anf launched them to colonize other planets and combat the Hawker menace. The years that followed this war seemed long, but Assembly was determined to win, no matter the impossibility of their foes. The Unicorns were always researching and eventually made a suit that could harness the elements around the user, a rifle that unicorns could use to make their magic more lethal against Hawkers, and a special defence for colonies. Now, the current status of the war seemed to be at an inevitable win for the Assembly. They built a facility that could be activated by a key, nopony knew what that key was. Two new Star Soarers arose as recent projects, a sister and brother. Theirs names were Tempest, the big sister, and Ark, the brother. Those who worked on either never saw the other leave for any reason, Tempest and Ark were always side-by-side for protection. But little do they know that the line of seccession for either of the ships run deep, each with their own plan. Now, on Tempest, there is a specialist group of three, one Changeling, one Griffion, and one Pegsus. Together, they were the best of friends, watching the other's back to the best of their ability, and doing a damn good job of it. Tempest and Ark were well on their way to a checkpoint colony for supplies, both ship ran off solar rays but needed to resupply after several months or more. The first Heavy Freighter Star Soarer along with the first Light Bombardment Star Soarer. Their story begins here, where the journey really starts.
Our Mission Did you enjoy that little history on Assembly? Hope you did 'cause that's written by me and stuck to my wall. I'm Blaze, by the way, the Griffion that was mentioned in the history. Well, anyway, Tempest is on its merry way to Nova with Ark, Nova is a colony planet many have said to be a bit like Dodge Junction back in the day. I wouldn't know what to tell you though, I've never been to Nova myself. Oh, before I forget, I'm actually a tactical engineer on my squad as well as it's leader, the other two are a demolition expert and a marksmen, both quite capable at their jobs. As much of value they were to Aseembly, they were still my best friends on the entire ship. Although... this may be an Assembly military Star Soarer, the indivual rooms for each pony was a bit much for the project when it was being built. Sure they're nice and all, big enought space for a bed, a couch, even has it's own washroom. I guess it was with the consideration of those that don't like to be open. "Attention, Tempest will be approaching Nova shortly. All engineers should be at their stations" That annoying computer bitch repeats that every thirty minutes. All I want to do is sleep a bit longer before I have to meet up with Twitch and Flare at the commons for our usual breakfast. That WAS my initial plan until a knock came to my door. So I had decided to lazily flop out of bed and slowly trek over to the door. I crakced it atleast, not trying to be rude or anything, and peered through. It was a changeling, Twitch to be specific, I had noticed his missing left fang and the scars over his right eye. "You're late, again." He said to me, his tone not quite as pleasurable. He was wearing our squad's uniform as he he glared at me. "Now now, is that anyway to talk to a firend, let alone the squad captain?" I simply said right back, opening the door to reveal my current bearings, which was a tank top and panties. "Can you please get ready, Flare didn't think you'd ever wake up to eat with us." Twitches look toned down a bit, but he was like that. Mad at you for one second, then happy with you the next. I guess that's what we liked about him. "I'll be there, just let me get ready and I'll be there in a few." I reassured Twitch, his look towards me toning down even more and continued down the hall towards the commons. I lightly closed my door and started up my shower. Like I said to Twitch before, I was there in less than fifteen minutes, in uniform. I was ready to dine in to something delicious, I don't how, but Tempst's chefs could even make something that looked gross taste it's best. As I sat down at our usual table, I could hear Flare adressing her voice towards me, Flares full name in Solar Flare, but she prefers Flare. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't get you feathered behind out of bed." I heard from her muzzle, rather mouth if you ask me, but one helluva shot. "Yeah, I heard from Mister Mcgee over here." I nodded my head over towards Twitch. "Anyway, what are we all having?" "Hay Pancakes sounds delicious at the moment." Is all I hear from Flare. "I think I'll get a latte instead" Flare and mine mouths dropped like dead weights as we stared in awe at Twitch's response. "You drink coffee?" I asked nearly in my seat, he looked up from the menu with slight glare. "It's not coffee, a latte. To answer you question, yes. Maybe if you two girls would actuall pay attention to your surroundings, you wouldn't be surprised" Twitch out down his menu and ordered his latte, Flare order the hay Pancakes, I decided to get some eggs. "I do pay attention to my surroundings, how else would you guys get you asses out of tough situations?" I said to Twitch with the biggest smirk on my face. "Making googley eyes at an engineer you don't know isn't paying attention to surroundings" Flare quickly snapped at me. The smirk on me quickly disapeared as I turned to her. "I'm not in love with him, I don't trust him." I had glared at Flare for her comment. There was a pegasus engineer on Tempest who always looks suspicious, he always had a satchel on his left side, always looking over his shoulder as if he was being stalked or something. His type of personality is usually the one's that cause a lot of troube, and what makes it worse, he doesn't talk to anypony on board. Not to mention that the pegasus spends most of his time on the matienance deck, even after hours. "Attention all Tempest passengers, we are now approaching the Colony of Nova. Please stand by for departure." That damned computer went off again. But atleast we get time to strech out our limbs while Tempest loads up its supplies. It was nice to get off of Tempest every once and a while, usually. There are those occassional planets full ofscrap, murderous machines, and what not that's deadly. Maybe we could check out a Nova cider hole if we get to step off Tempest. Flare was bit a drinker, cound't down a whole lot, but when she started, it was hard to get her to quit. I mean, seriously, three drink and she's tipsy. Twitch didn't really touch hard cider often, he found ordinary cider just to his liking. Tempest started to shake rapidly, causing Discord to fall from nowhere. Literally, just showed up and fell next to our table. I'm surprised he hasn't aged in years, being a spirit of chaos probably has that effect, seeing as chaos is eternal and all. But he has been know to go a bit overboard with his antics. He was liked by most of the ponies on here, and he liked it. Having friends really makes a change on ponies I guess. Twitch talked to Disord whenever he could, Discord has a thing about mention a pony that was his first true friend. Her name escapes me at the moment, I'll probably remember sometime later, but for, I get to go to the surface of Nova.
On the Surface of Nova The three of us stepped into the dust below claws and hooves. Flare was quick to run off from the rest of us, she usually enjoyed getting off Tempest as much as we did. Flare was the first to get excited and run off like she was till a filly or something. She was a bit unpredictable when it came to new places. Twitch and I usually stuck together due to his lack of direction, plus, last time he tried to keep up with Flare, he lost her in a matter of seconds. I just happened to find him in a cardboard box that his ass didn't even fit in. He was dizzied as shit and barely kept his balance, embarassing for him that I had to carry him around, we eventually came across Flare stumbling out of a cider hole, as usual. I had my own little quirk about visiting new colonies, which was to locate a general goods and purchase myself a little snowglobe. It's like a stamp, only more solid and can be moved. I had myself quite a collection of snowglobes adorning my room. Nova was as ponies said, taking up looks after Dodge Junction. Ponies and Changeling in rancher hats, walking around and greeting visitors with hospitality. Griffions were present also, but not quite as open like most on the colony. I was kind of diappointed that the other griffions were more kept to themselves than most. Then again, I am from our homeworld and I've only heard that colony life was different. Different as in what kind of planet the colony was on, but just so happened that Nove was on a dust ball of a planet. Ah, good, Nova does have a general store. Twitch and I enter the store, it wasn't long before he stepped back outside and sat on the steps. I guess he doesn't like the fact that there are shelves taller than himself. I was quick to locate the stand of snowglobes and inspected one in my claw. The structure that was supposed to represent Nova is the sheriff's office somewhere on the colony. I shook the globe to watch those little white puffs swish around in their liquid and smiled slightly. "Incoming request from Tempest Captain." "What does he want now?" I groaned activating what looked like a watch to put the captain on a screen below. "Blaze, something has come up that requires your team to investigate." He started to breif her. "Wait... what the hell happened that require US to investigate... whatever it is." I stopped him before he could go on. "We lost several scouts on one of the nearby moons that orbit Nova." He responded to my question, about to continue. "And you suspect that it may be some unnatrual occurance or some other serious matter like an inserection?" I interupted the captain again. "Well.... yeah. How fast can you get your team together?" He had to ask, didnt he? It took me some thought as to how long it would take Twitch and myself to get Flare out of the saloon here. "It might just be Twitch and me. Flare ran off as soon as we stepped on Nova's surface. You get her back on Tempest and the two of us will worry about the problem." I usually had to assure him about our capabilities, he never trusted just two/thirds of my squad going out on his missions. Yet, there were several occasions where we proved him wrong. I made my purchase and went outside to grab hold of Twitch. He was startled when I grabbed him then realised it was me and calmed himself down. "C'mon, Twitch, we got some work to do." I told him, continueing down the street towards Tempest. "Uh... what about Flare? She's still around here, somewhere." Twitch tried to keep up with my fast pace as he gazed around for our friend. "The captain will find her, it's just you and me on a mission to one of Nova's moons." Was my answer to his question, Twitch didn't speak another word while we walked back to Tempest. We both made way towards the Tempest Armory to suit up for our little trip to one of the moons. Guess whatever we might find there could be nasty. Twitch might be scared of what could happen, but that pony can make one hell of a nice fire show from explosive charges. After Twitch and myself got our armor on, we made way for the hangars with helmets in hand, and intent on finding out what's exactly going on over with that moon. Well, Twitch hasn't been fully informed yet, but I'll tell him when we board the carrier. Standard Assembly carriers were named 'Eagles', although they were smaller than the supply barges, they have been known to out-manuver fighters depending on their pilots. Overall, armored slightly better, with specific weapons to enable ground support and surpression. The best kind were the ones with the hot-shot pilots, pulling tricks as if they belonged in an air show. Our pilot turned out to be an unicorn with the name of Dynamo Spark. He was an air jockey all right, even had the personality of one. Ever since he joined Assembly's air division, Dynamo has won every Assembly Annual Air Show. He may be one of the best, but he gloats a lot about it. Twitch and I boarded his Eagle, Twitch sat in one of the hold seats while I went to go see if Dynamo knew where we were going. "Hey, bird for brains, know where we are going?" I asked, he was used to the usual taunts I gave him. "Captain filled me in, Nave moon Delta-9. For specific reasons." He seemed to have ignored my initial attempt, but oh well. I went back to the Eagle hold and sat across from Twitch. Twitch seemd to have spaced out in deep thought. "Hey, buddy, you okay over there?" I interupted him, he shook his head a bit then looked at me. "What if the Hawkers found Nova? What if we're just getting sent to our deaths?" I hated when he did this. "Twitch, we've survived many encounters with those retchid creatures. Just calm down. How is your trick coming along?" I did my best to distract him from those thoughts, appareantly his trick usually worked. Twitch's trick was the fact that he could morph specific parts on his body. For example, he could generate a mane and tail without changing much of anything else. "Why, quite good actually." Was Twitch's response as he broke into a smile. I could hear the Eagle warming up for take off. "You two sit tight back there, we're leaving in 5." Dynamo warned Twitch and myself "I think NightMare Night this year is going to be more fun." Twitch stated. Last year's NightMare Night costume for Twitch was him changing himself into a pure black pony with white eyes. He went around, sneaking up on unsuspecting ponies and scaring the shit out of them. I'm pretty sure he had a blast last year. Twitch told me the best ones he scared were the groups of ponies.
What We Found on Delta-9 It didn't take Dynamo too long to take us to Delta-9, the darkest moon in the Nova system. Rather scary to say the least too. All this moon was just a bunch of jagged mountains and rocks, really, not much to look at. "All right you two," I heard Dyanmo Spark start, "Make it quick, I don't want to be here longer than you guys. do." Strange thing is that he was right, none of us liked the thought of Delta-9 in the first place. Twitch and I put our helmets on whiel Dynamo sealed off the pilot's area so we could exit into the low atmoshpere of this dark moon. "All right Twitch, let's see what we can find. You cover my back and I'll cover yours." I told him and he responded with a nod. As the back of the Eagle lowered to reveal the landscape before us, I checked our rifes and hopped out, big mistake. I thought this moon would have a lower gravitational pull, but when I jumped it immeadiately puled me back down. "This... doesn't seem right." Twitch observed, walking down the ramp. He helped me back up and dusted off my armor. "Truly, but where are the other Eagles that were supposed to be here?" I was looking around and only noticed our Eagle, not more. "Dynamo!" I contacted the pilot over a frequency, "Did you land in the right spot?" "Of course I did, the coordinates of the same sites that were here. I-" Is all I heard before static hit. "Blaze.... something's here, and I don't like it...." Twitch stepped closer to my side. "Keep alert." I started to wlak forward in a steady, slow pace. Twitch was keeping up just fine until we lost sight of Dynamo's Eagle, that's when he started to loose his cool. I simply just turned around smacked him across his face, the impact surely did reach through his helmet. "Keep it together dammit! You're better than this!" I sternly told him, I could see those worried eyes beyond his visor. Before I could say anything else I was interupted by a hissing sound off to our left. Boy, what we found wasn't exactly a pretty sight. It resembled a pony, earth, but had bald patches all over with no definable gender. We were warned about Hawker's ability to infect. Twitch pulled up his rifle and readied himself for an attack from the infected pony. "Halt." That simple word seemed to have stopped the Hawker Pony from making any further moves towards us. The voice that said it sounded like a male's voice, twisted just a tiny bit. "That's no way to treat our visitor's, like many others you have come across." The voice said again, this time, it's origin came into our view. "Well, if it isn't the Assembly, the sworn enemies of the Hawkers. What brings you all the way out here to the dank reaches of this moon?" The creature asked us, eyeing me with three eyes on one side of it's face. "We're here to investigate disappearences of scouts here, thought a rebel group might be stationed here. Attacking whomever they think is with us." I responded to his question. This one seems to have more brains, but the absense of jagged teeth in his mouth like his companion. "I had no idea you were fighting rebels. Alas, no, it's just my companion and me on this moon. Atleast I know know who she's been attacking." "That thing is a she?" I heard Twitch asked out of surprise. "Oh how rude. She was once an Earth pony until something got a hold of her. As for myself, I was once a proud pegasus stallion, like any other. Now look at me." He seemed to state then went on to explain his situation. "So, let me get this straight," I started, "you can't remember your previous life or name other than this 'metamorphisis' phase you went through. When you woke up from your 'pod,' you were still able to speak, think, and not have a bloodlust, but manage to keep your companion in check." He simply nodded, closing his eyes and grimmacing slightly at his life. "She woke up with me out of metamorphisis, Hawker work like a hiveminded cult of aliens. Apparently, only her and I share that quality." "You might have been a failed experiment." Twitch hypothosised. "Or the greatest asset Assmebly can obtain." He twisted that idea into play. I smiled, only because he might have been right. "I'll get our captain on the horn. Excuse me for a few." The Hawker excused me and I managed to get Tempest captain back on the line for debreifing and our findings. "Blaze, what'd you find on Delta-9?" He immeeadiately asked me before I could get a single word about of my beak. "I think they might be something you want to see for yourself." I heard myself reply, feeling a slight smirk eminating. "I'll take your word for it, nothing too dangerous is it?" Why did he decide to ask that? Just. Why? "You'll see, sir." Were my final words to him before I went back to Twitch and the two Hawkers. Surprisingly, Twitch was still standing and the Hawkers didn't leave. "So... what did this... captain... of yours say about us coming aboard his ship?" I heard the lead Hawker ask as soon as he saw me. "I told him that he'll just have see what we we found for himself. C'mon you two, we're going on a little trip." I smiled a bit as I said that. Twitch walked over to my side and we started walking. The two Hawkers joining us as we headed back towards Dynamo's Eagle.
