Warriors

by PseudoFiction

“Keep your head down, this is gonna suck!”

Twilight sat quietly, shifting the added weight on her head from side to side with some amusement. Marko had assured her the helmet would keep her grape mostly intact should the plasma and bullets start flying. The princess wasn’t entirely sure how though. She’d worn her brother Shining Armor’s helmet a few times when he got into the Royal Guard and it was three times the weight of Twilight Sparkle’s headgear. She expected the light helmet now on her head to peel away like tissue paper should a plasma round strike it.

And what if she got shot somewhere else? Wouldn’t that be bad as well? Shouldn’t she be wearing full body armour?

All she had was a few web-belts modified to fit over her back like a set of saddle-bags. Pouches were weaved along her sides so she could carry some extra ammo packs for Marko and Ishmir.

Speaking of whom, the Spartans sat nearby. Marko was a few metres to her left, down on one knee and keeping his weapon cradled across his chest as he scanned one way down the street. Twilight Sparkle was supposed to be watching the other way while Ishmir fussed with some sort of vehicle behind them.

He slammed down the hood of the strange looking four-wheeled chariot then moved around the side to press a button in the cockpit. A chugging whine rang out before Ishmir gave a frustrated sigh and slid underneath the vehicle to check something else.

“What’s Ishmir doing?” Twilight asked.

“Keep those eyes on that sector,” Marko warned and the princess quickly watched in the direction she was supposed to be looking. “He’s trying to get that warthog running.”

Twilight Sparkle felt her eyes drawn back to Ishmir and the vehicle. “What’s a ‘warthog’?”

“Eyes.” Twilight quickly righted her gaze again. “It’s a light reconnaissance vehicle. It’ll get us to our objective faster,” Marko explained.

“Are we in a hurry?”

“We sure are!” Ishmir called from under the vehicle.

Twilight looked at Marko this time. “Why are we in a hurry?”

“Keep your eyes on target, Warlock,” Marko was starting to sound like a cracked record. “We need to de-ass this area with a quickness. Last word from the fob before it was overrun was that the Covenant are glassing the planet sector by sector. We only have a matter of hours before we’re caught in that hellstorm.”

“Fob?”

“Forward operating base. It’s where the guys with the higher pay-grade hang out and tell us what to do.”

“And what’s glassing?”

Marko snorted. “You know, of all your traits, this is the one I missed the least. Glassing is when the Covenant bomb a planet from orbit.”

“With enough force to crack the planet’s crust open and turn dirt to glass. Hence, glassing,” Ishmir added as he slid out from under the warthog and twisted the ignition.

“Oh… that sounds bad.” Twilight paused to listen to the engine of the vehicle whine and choke. “Do you think they’ll do that to Equestria if they reach the planet?”

“They won’t get that far,” Marko assured her.

Ishmir added, “They won’t get that close.”

In the brief moment of comfort their ears were exposed to the comforting tones of the petrol engine roaring to life and purring happily under the battered bonnet. Satisfied all systems were coming up green, Ishmir beckoned his watchers over and climbed into the back of the vehicle. Marko helped Twilight Sparkle flutter into the passenger seat and slid himself behind the wheel.

The transmission clicked into action and they took off. Twilight was dazzled for a moment as the force of the acceleration sucked her into the cushions of her seat. But soon her racing heartbeat settled and she gave in to the swooping rollercoaster feeling in her stomach as they went racing through the abandoned streets of the city. The shattered buildings suddenly didn’t seem so scary anymore. They were just a blur of motion as twilight stuck her head out the side of the vehicle and let the wind whip at her mane.

“Wooo-hoooo!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “This is amazing!”

Looking down, Ishmir caught Marko looking sideways at the princess and noted the subtle bob of his helmet indicating a chuckle. Marko may have been a government sanctioned sociopath, but that didn’t mean he was full psycho. There was something fiercely protective in him whenever he was around Twilight Sparkle. He’d noticed it when they had been fighting Covenant in Equestria, and the way he’d rushed into tackle the elite that threatened Twilight’s well-being earlier.

Despite their close relationship, Ishmir knew nothing of Marko’s life from before the Spartan-III programme, and vice versa. This was the first time Ishmir actually wondered about Marko’s pre-Spartan life. He was pretty sure Marko must have had siblings, probably a younger sister.

The joy of their ride was very suddenly, and very rudely interrupted why the whine of anti-gravity engines. Ishmir immediately cast his eyes to the sky and brought the heavy mounted gun to bear, the spooling of the barrels matching the sound of the Covenant drop-ship’s engines.

Gliding through the air in their wake was a ship about the average size of a pelican drop-ship, but with all the typical Covenant aesthetics. It had a two pronged hull facing forward with the swivelling gun mounted bar back on the tail giving it a tuning-fork silhouette against the sky.

“Marko, pedal faster!” Ishmir reported as he tracked the enemy craft banking low over the rooftops to their flank for cover. “Incoming drop-ship!”

Marko didn’t take his eyes off the road, weaving around parked vehicles and obstacles. “Beetle or tuning-fork?”

“Tuning-fork!” Ishmir replied to describe the spirit drop-ship.

“What is that?” Twilight cried when she caught sight of the craft pulling up alongside them.

“Covenant drop-ship!” Marko reached over and pushed the princess down into the footwell. “Keep your head down, this is gonna suck!”

“That’s like the ship you used to leave Equestria!” she added as she was pushed into cover.

Ishmir nodded. “Yeah! But unfortunately this is the un-killable big-brother!”

Twilight felt her teeth rattle in her skull as the heavy machine gun manned by the red clad Spartan belted out a heavy boom-boom-boom, the armoured belt rattling and shaking as it fed rounds in one side and bits of brass and metal out the other side. Empty shells rattled in the bed around Ishmir’s boots forming a carpet of brass. But not one of the titanium tipped rounds designed to turn hard-targets to swiss-cheese and soft ones to pain punched through the spirit.

They flattened or sparked harmlessly against the sleek hull. The return fire was a wash of crimson plasma that heated Twilight’s face like she was standing in front of a raging hearth. Enemy projectiles raced from the drop-ship’s cannon and splashed the road. The heat melted the parked cars Marko weaved them between causing windows to blow out and gas tanks to pop like firecrackers.

One car exploded up onto its front bumper and balanced there for a moment as Marko swung them around. His side mirror clipped the monument, causing it to slowly spin before crashing back down to the deck.

Ishmir paused his bursts and ducked down as heat caused his shields to shimmer. As they were recharging the side panels of the Covenant ship swung open and looking up past Marko, the pony princess saw the familiar faces of the Covenant soldiers.

Jackals and grunts hung out of their crash seats yelling a war cry. The jackals, hateful as ever looking saurians with slight avian features swung their carbines in challenge as the short little hard-suit clad grunts chittered and hissed excitedly, their plasma pistols letting off stray flashes of light that left streaks in Twilight’s eyes.

Ishmir swung the anti-aircraft gun around and raked them with rounds. Torsos and heads exploded, painting the interior of the spirit with alien gore. But in the mess of blood and bone was a spark of light. It tumble down from the very front of the ‘troop prong’ and hit the front of the warthog with a heavy enough thud to buckle the hood.

The Covenant elite had timed his jump well, escaping Ishmir’s deadly funnel of fire and landing right on their speeding vehicle. The rear wheels popped off the asphalt for a moment as the roaring alien held on tight partially obscuring Marko’s view.

“Hey, no hitchikers!” the driver yelled as he tugged the wheel sideways.

They veered off the road and slammed headlong into a solid wall. The sudden stop forced the racing spirit to overshoot and the crushing impact pinning the elite’s legs in place made the alien howl with agony.

Marko bounced off the steering wheel with the impact, Twilight sucked down deeper into the foot well of the side-seat where she was pretty sure she’d been turned upside down. Even Ishmir recoiled, slipping from the gun and slumping heavily over the warthog’s roll-cage.

But even though the alien was pinned his hand went down for his sidearm.

Ishmir scrambled for the gun, but he knew he wouldn’t be fast enough. And even if he was he wouldn’t be able to angle the machine gun into the elite. “Pop that hinge-head in the chin!”

As if Marko even needed telling. His sidearm cleared the holster faster than the elite’s and he clapped the motherfucker straight through the warthog windscreen. Holes punched through the glass as spiderwebs spread through the surface. On the other side rounds peppered the elite, working a bloody line of dots up the chest before the alien’s head snapped back and he slumped dead over the bonnet.

Marko dropped his pistol on the dashboard and flipped the warthog into reverse. They backed out, peeling the dead elite from the bonnet then sped off again before the spirit came around.

In fact, the ship didn’t even have to come around really. Further up the road the spirit pivoted on a central axis and raced directly at them. Ishmir brought the gun around and opened fire at the same time as the drop ship.

Marko weaved hard right around a stationary lorry. Enemy fire was blocked by the cargo compartment, shielding them as they raced by and opening a new angle of attack for Ishmir. But the moment his line of sight cleared, Marko was dodging again to keep that swivelling plasma cannon guessing.

“Stop moving you son-of-a-bitch!” Ishmir yelled as his shots went wide to one side.

“Fuck you!”

“Not you! Him!”

Heat washed over Twilight Sparkle again and looking up she saw the tuning-fork silhouette slash past them.

The drop-ship had over-shot them again, giving the warthog crew some breathing room. Enough for Marko to re-orient himself and navigate in the direction of the objective. He pulled them into a side road and started an ascent into the outer city built up along the mountainside. Streets and alleys tightened. The amount of abandoned vehicles were replaced by market stalls and piles of rubble for them to plough through.

Before long they were racing up the streets of a favela, the poorest district in the city hidden by the skyline, and ironically the least ravaged by the Covenant thus far. The aliens had focused their efforts on the better defended parts of the planet so far, but it would only be a matter of time before the favela was too turned to glass.

The ride didn’t stay easy.

“Here he comes! Go-go-go!”

“Hang on!” Marko yelled as he rotated the steering wheel to the right, cranking it as far as it would go one-handed. At the same time he reached down to the column between the driver and passenger seat, yanking up the emergency-brake with a ‘cr-i-i-i-ikkk!’

The warthog’s front wheels locked but the rear swung out to the left, whipping the vehicle around a corner and into the next street. At the same time he dropped the brake and pounded his boot into the floor-board, quickly turning the wheel two-handed to counter-steer out of the sudden, sharp drift.

All four wheels spun, belching up smoke as they were yanked forward, completing the ninety-degree veer.

“How’s it look?”

“Good for now!” Ishmir grimaced as the dropship sped past the warthog, moving too quickly to match its fishtail turn. The spirit splashed the street with angry, errant blasts, then disappeared around a cluster of satellite dishes and aerials sprouting from a rooftop. “Probably about thirty seconds of breathing room!”

The dishes and aerials suddenly bent and broke as the hull of the spirit smashed clean through them. The drop-ship backed up to the junction again then swivelled to resume its pursuit.

“Fuck! Make that five seconds! Incoming!”

Plasma smashed the roadside, traced up along the building and cut just over Ishmir’s head as he unloaded everything the M41 LAAG had left into the drop-ship. Twilight’s ears throbbed with pain and she wanted to scream, for whatever good it would have done.

“Fuck, Ish!” Marko screamed for her. “Would you just kill that-…?”

Marko didn’t get to finish, cut off by an enormous boom. Looking in his rear-view mirror he caught the edge of the fiery explosion that sheared the spirit drop-ship in two. One of the long pronged bays dropped to the deck and slammed into the street behind them, spinning into a cartwheel that sprayed debris and bodies of the crew still scrambling to escape.

The other half fell somewhere into a cluster of rooftops.

“Go it!” Ishmir called off-handedly like it was just another thing.

As the spirit blossomed into a fiery explosion of twisted metal behind them the party raced over the ridge marking the top of the favela and moved beyond the city limits.

Marko steered the warthog off the tarmac, bouncing lightly onto a dirt track. The vehicle took to the new road sideways for a good dozen metres before the worn tyres got some purchase and Marko was able to straighten them out.

Within a matter of seconds the terrifying chase had once again turned into a joyride as Marko sent them careening down the winding dirt path leading away from the city and deeper into the country side. Instead of curling up in her seat with fear, Twilight was sat up again, leaning out the side of the vehicle to feel the wind whip at her face and watch the billowing clouds of brown dust kicked up in their wake.

Looking back she saw Ishmir seemingly nod to himself before he leaned over the roll cage and patted Marko on the helmet.

“I just let orbital know we’re out of the city and approaching our objective,” Ishmir said. “They’ve got major contact and are bugging out. We’re the last official boots on the ground.”

“Ah, that familiar old feeling.”

“It also means our extraction window is closing,” Ishmir reminded. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”

Marko answered as he slammed the warthog into the next gear and threw the vehicle into a fresh sprint. “Let’s find out.”

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