//------------------------------// // Chapter 19: Briefing // Story: Lazarus: The Rise of Man // by Immortan Joe //------------------------------// The Edge of the Everfree, October 16th, 09:35 Out from a bush, a rabbit hopped its way into an open field, a gentle breeze wafted over the landscape causing the grass to gently sway from side to side. The rabbit’s ears perked up before it stood up onto its hind legs, nose twitching at an unfamiliar smell: smoke. A twig snapped on its right and the rabbit whirled around before freezing in place, its ears drooping as a large boot came down in front of it, casting a large shadow over the poor little bunny. The rabbit’s eyes turned to wide glossy globes as they trailed up the creature's legs, whatever it was, it stood tall. Its body was black and sleek, along its edges shined a blue light, trailing behind it was a purple cape which flapped in the wind, and gazing down at the rabbit was a single slim blue eye. The rabbit’s heart caught in its throat and it began to hightail it in the direction of the open valley. The creature began to follow, but instead of sprinting after the rabbit like it thought it would, the monster simply walked. The rabbit scampered its way up a nearby hill, reaching the top, the rabbit could see large metal railway lines. In the distance, a shunting train could be heard. The bunny shot a look over its shoulder, the creature was stepping up the hill. The rabbit hopped over the railings and hid on the other side just as the train made itself visible on the far right. The train blew its whistle and began to increase its speed. The bunny peeked over the railing, the tall dark creature had reached the top of the hill. It was starting to make its way over to the rabbit, it was only a matter of time before the creature would reach it and take the poor bunny away. The train then came screaming by and each car zipped by one by one in a blur with the muffled voices of ponies fading in and out with it. When it was gone, so was the creature. Gripping onto the side of the train, the tall armored creature had snatched onto the railing on the end of the last car. Its metallic grip causing the pathetic railing to bend and groan, under the creature’s weight. As the train rounded the crest of a hill, it’s lone blue eye locked onto the tall, gleaming structure in the distance. A castle on the side of a mountain. Or as the locals called it, Canterlot. :[-]: Horizon Briefing Hall October 16th, 10:00 Admiral Watson sat back in his red velvet chair positioned behind his oak wood desk. His eyes glancing around the briefing room filled with multiple individuals who headed Horizon’s countless other branches. He took a deep breath and glanced over at the head commanding officer on his left. “Are we ready to start this morning’s briefing?” He asked the man. The soldier nodded. “Yes Sir, everyone is here and accounted for.” Watson took a small breath and leaned back in his leather seat, his fingers tapping impatiently on the wooden desk. “Well alright then.” The old man leaned forward and grabbed a binder filled to the brim with the most detailed reports of each department's briefing. “Like usual we’ll start from the top and work our way down. As always we’ll begin with maintenance,” Watson said as he glanced up at the head engineer of the Horizon’s maintenance. “Yes Sir,” The man nodded his head and was already standing at attention. “Maintenance would like to report that since our rough landing, deck six has been rendered uninhabitable due to the breach and contamination. We’ve been trying our best to seal the breach and pump the pathogen out, but it’s as if every time we start to vent it out it just reappears.” Watson sighed as he went over the more detailed explanation in his binder, the news wasn’t great. Deck six held a majority of the crew’s food stores and other supplies, the ammunitions would most likely be unaffected, but as for the clothing or food. Clothing could be decontaminated but that’d take time, the food however...that was just a whole other can of worms Watson didn’t want to deal with. “How are we for power?” He asked the man. “Well, seeing that we all have hair and are not growing a third arm, the naval reactor was not damaged upon reentry.” The man stated. Watson nodded his head slowly and took a breath. “I’m asking how long will the reactor last for?” he asked once more. The man nodded. “Well since we’re not running shifts and therefore having to run the reactor full time. We could power a small town for over twenty years till we’ll need to swap out the cores.” “Twenty years?” Watson chuckled at that. “And I take it that’s if we don’t run into any issues.” The man nodded. “Well, at least that’s good, anything else?” The man shook his head. “Alright then, how are things going in reconstruction?” Watson turned the page to the next department, a young woman stood up from her chair. “Most of the no longer needed life support systems have been dismantled and recycled for Engineering to use. Just yesterday we got most of the habitat modules up and decontaminated for the use of outside operations and living quarters.” The woman stated firmly. “Have there been any issues venting out the habitats?” Watson straightened himself out, his mind drifting back to what the head of maintenance stated. The woman shook her head and Watson took a deep breath. “I want you and your boys to quadruple check those habitats just in case there is any form of contamination before we start putting our marines in there.” The woman nodded. “Is there anything else, habitational?” She shook her head. “Okay then, Communications?” A scrawny man stood up and cleared his throat. “A-as of now, Sir.” The man stuttered a bit. “With the discovery of the-the uh... Leviathans. My crew a-and I––” “Take a drink, Communications,” Watson said sternly as the man’s stuttering had been getting to him. The man briskly nodded before grabbing the water that everyone had right beside him and took a big drink. He then set the glass aside and hummed. “To help keep our comms chatter clear or to offset any unnecessary audience members, my team and I have been developing a new set of codes that’ll be produced and handed out to everyone for studying. It should be available within the coming days.” Watson nodded and leaned back a bit, his finger tapping his chin. “Alright, that’s nice to hear. Anything else you’d wish to inform me, Communications?” The man arched his back a bit and popped his lower spine, he gave a small sigh of relief and said, “My team and I have yet to make contact with the remaining combat division: Kiryu-Kai; however, we have been able to make out a few lost transmissions along with what seems to be a distress signal coming from Victor Nineteen.” Watson nodded his head. “That’s below the Equine Capital isn’t it?” He wondered aloud and looked over to see the commissioned officer nodding his head. “Have you been able to interpret the transmissions?” “We sent the data to Intelligence,” The man said firmly. Watson leaned forward in his seat. “And what exactly did Intelligence extract?” A second man, that Watson recognized as Bryan Hunsinger from his previous visit to the Intelligence Department, stood up with his back also straight. “What we were able to obtain from the distress was that the Kiryu-Kai had been awoken at least a dozen years or so before our return. The message is the exact same distress they were ordered to broadcast after we issued the waking frequency.” “And communications stated that we couldn’t contact them...” Watson rubbed the back of his head, his mind now troubling him. The vaults were built to house a hundred thousand sleeping souls. If all of them woke a dozen years ago... “If they managed to figure out how to feed those many people, I’ll eat my boot.” He muttered quietly. “Admiral.” Watson’s head perked up and he noticed Master Sergeant Peter Van Throne standing up. “Do you have anything to report, Master Sergeant?” Watson raised an eyebrow and glanced down at his reports, so far he didn’t see anything relating to special ops or any other form of missions. “Actually Sir. I have a request.” Thorne brought his hands behind his back and stood with his back straight. “And what is it that you’d like to request, Marine?” Watson asked the well-respected soldier. He knew full well of Master Sergeant Thorne, or as what his squadmates preferred to call him: “Kong”, and that sometimes even Watson himself should listen to when the lad was talking. “I wish to request that my squad and I go and investigate Victor--” Watson immediately interrupted Kong, “Denied.” Peter did a double take and bit his lower lip. “Sir, with all due respect--” “Master Sergeant, I must remind you that Victor Nineteen as of now is well within Equine borders. Without permission from the hierarchy, we do not have the authority to send an armed team to investigate the vault, which I may remind you is deep beneath the Equine Capital.” Watson explained. “And with how limited our communications is at the moment, it’ll most likely be at least... Intelligence how long will it take to fully decipher the Equine language?” The head of intelligence, Bryan Hunsinger, stood once more. “At least a month or two, Sir, but it’ll be at least a year or two for even the brightest of us to hope to master the art of speaking it.” “Well...” The commissioned officer muttered quietly, yet Watson caught his voice. Watson glanced over. “Yes, Lieutenant?” Watson said looking at the man. The officer straightened himself out. “We do have Commander Keshiner.” Watson went to say something but stopped. “You’re right...we do. Where is the Commander now?” He asked. “In the holding cell down in quarantine. Exactly where we left him.” The officer told him. “And checking my reports, nothing has happened over the past twenty-four hours while in containment?” Watson asked as he doubled checked all his typed reports from every department. The officer shook his head. “From what I’ve been told and seen he had just been relaxing and talking with the guards...quite casually too, despite his predicament. Though, the guards have reported him speaking to himself in the Equine tongue, presumably practicing.” “Actually Admiral.” Bryan Hunsinger stood back up. “There was one thing I had forgotten to put down in my report.” Watson frowned, great, whenever he heard the words ‘I forgot’ a deep pit formed in his gut. Just the phrase alone was a major pet peeve of his. Especially with how things were going nowadays. With three hundred regular humans on this ship, there wasn’t time in the world for an ‘I forgot’. The world they lived in now that term could mean life or death in any circumstance. With that in mind, the Admiral took a deep breath. “What is it, Intelligence?” Having heard Watson’s frustration the headman shuffled a bit. “Over the past twenty-four hours, my crew and I performed a few tests with the Commander.” He said warily. Watson straightened his back and scooted forward in his seat. “What kind of tests?” “Tr-translations, Sir. That book Doctor Miller found during the first recon mission, we tried to have Commander Keshiner read it for us.” Bryan explained as he adjusted his posture. Watson tilted his head a tad. “And how did that turn out?” He asked sternly as he did not appreciate the man’s lack of composure. ‘If those Sleeper sons of bitches attacked us right now, this man would surely be the first to snap.’ Watson couldn’t help but think to himself. ‘How the fuck did the U.N. think it’d be smart to stick him with us?’ Bryan gulped. “He couldn’t read it. If I’m exact his words were, ‘I can’t read the scribbles, Hon.’” For some reason, a few men in the room chuckled at those words. Watson pursed his lips. “So he can speak their tongue but cannot read it. Duly noted. Thank you Intelligence.” The man nodded and took a seat, Watson took a deep breath and leaned forward, his hand rubbing his forehead. “Is that all?” He glanced around the room. “Negative Sir.” The officer said. Watson nodded. “Excellent, This concludes this morning’s briefing, I think it’s time we’ve all had a drink and discuss our next order of actions with the council.” He said to the officer who in turn nodded back to his response. :[-]: Horizon Containment Facility October 16th, 12:44 Commander William Keshiner laid on his cot, eyes fixated on the ceiling above him. Taking a deep breath he sighed as he went over the events of the past few days. He couldn’t believe that it had only been three days since they had crashed landed on Earth. Really...he couldn’t believe it. Three days and everything just seemed so out of order. Who would’ve thought that during their road trip through the cosmos that an alien... were they aliens? He couldn’t remember, so much shit on his mind. Yet, who would’ve thought another intelligent species, or species? Would’ve taken control of the planet during their absence? At least on a cosmic scale, if he can recall correctly during his school years, twelve thousand years is nothing. They might as well just gone to the corner store down the street and buy some galactic space milk or some shit. Not only that, another thing that kept bothering him was Shawn. One of his oldest squadmates from back during the war when before he was demoted from Naval Commander to basically a grunt in charge of a few rambles, taken out by a fucking bear in a house. Like seriously, what the flying fuck was a bear doing in a house? Who the fuck has a bear-like, Jesus! Couldn’t a dog have just been enough? Now like...okay, Shawn wasn’t dead. Yet if those lab coats were correct, the air outside these steel walls was contaminated with whatever created the Sleepers. Not only that, the...magic as the Equines called it, was also infested with the same stuff. William bit his lower lip. If that was the case...wasn’t he technically infected? Like literally, that Princess or whatever, literally went into his fucking mind. Downloaded their language into him as if he was some Windows PC, she literally tampered with his thoughts and mind like a computer program! William felt a bit of sweat forming over him, the thoughts terrifying him to the core. What the hell are these things? What are they even dealing with; like seriously, these ponies, their magic, it’s the same shit the Archangel used against them. And well... he was all on his own and fucked with us enough that the United Nations thought it’d be the wisest fucking choice to declare M.A.D was a good choice! Oh no, you wrecked a few cities and killed a few million people, I guess now is a good choice to blow up the fucking planet! William groaned and rubbed his face. If these ponies had the power to literally fuck with his mind and potentially infect him with whatever affected the rest of the world...who gives a shit if they had guns, ammo, mechs or even tanks. Archangel fucked everything up over the course of a few months. Who’s to say these ponies couldn’t do the same if they happened to rub off on them in some bad way? Like well...the smaller ones probably couldn’t do much, but those two larger ones at the castle. The blue-ish black one that tampered with his thoughts. Who’s to say she couldn’t have just killed him and everyone else in his squad just by flipping a few switches in their head? Not even a single bullet would’ve been fired, no blood spilled, just flip this and everyone just slumps over like a machine in a factory after you pull the plug. Jesus Christ, that’s fucking terrifying. Yet, he knew that for now, they were fine. The meeting went well, he didn’t fuck up and everything seemed to be going fine. Not only that, he had heard that they’d sorta made contact with some other humans, ones that seemed to be heading this one on massive ships. Like holy shit, everyone should be rejoicing. He even recalled two British paras talking outside the door about how Master Sergeant Thorne and his squad were able to take down a girl in some sick ass armor. So the paratroopers put it. It almost sounded...William hated to think of it like this, but it sounded fake to him. Like some trooper in the mess hall exaggerating the story so he’d look cool for the tough girls in the marine corps. Then again, though, everyone that had gone by his containment cell had all mentioned it. Matter of fact, they said she was on the ship and from what he had heard. She would only be a few cells further down from him. The sound of a metal deadbolt coming loose alerted William that someone was gaining entry to his cell. Sitting up on his cot he looked over and saw the airlock door come undone and two soldiers in NBCs came walking into the room, assault rifles in hands. “I know it’s protocol and all but...do you guys seriously have to have those things constantly on you at all times?” William said tiredly as he pointed to the AK-107s in both of the men’s hands. “Like really, I’m one man, I think your handguns would’ve suited the job just fine.” “Sir, we’re gonna need you to stand up and step through decontamination.” The first guy on the left said, his voice rather young, probably in his early twenties. William blinked. “Oh wow? Am I free to go?” He asked despite knowing it wouldn’t be that easy, yet the little bit of hope was just enough to permit him asking. “We haven’t been told much, Sir. All we know is that the suits are planning a mission that’ll be taking you back to the Equine Hierarchy. Something to do with Victor Nineteen.” The young lad explained. “Now if you could please comply, it’d make my job a whole lot easier.” William took a deep breath. “Wow, okay. Wasn’t expecting to be sent back out after being threatened with Court Martial,” He muttered, but then again, Horizon did only have a limited crew and he doubted the council would be stupid enough to cast aside a high ranking officer such as himself. “Perhaps they’re offering you some way to redeem yourself,” The soldier suggested. “For putting our first foot into actual diplomacy?” William said sarcastically with a shrug. “Well alright, that’s fine by me, just let me pack my belongings first.” He said as he got up. Turning around he picked up the pillow on his cot and grabbed his wallet. Opening it for a brief moment he glanced at the photo of him standing next to his wife and daughter. He smirked at the image before stuffing it into his pocket. “Alright, I’m ready.” He said to the men. :[-]: To William decontamination was the fucking worst, despite the procedure being necessary, he hated every second of it. Step into a room, hold your arms out, get sprayed with some sort of fucking cleaning agent, sometimes water, half the time whatever they shot out smelt like shitty off brand Febreze, he didn’t fucking know. He'd turn around, possibly get sprayed again. This procedure went on for some time before finally they politely dry him off, then he’s free to go. Now it doesn’t sound too bad, just a little tedious. However, on the Horizon ship. You have to go through the process almost every. Fucking. The time you go into a new room, at least within the medical and research wing of the ship. Not only that, the assholes that run the decontamination air locks hardly warn the subject when they’re about to be sprayed. Sometimes you have that cool guy that gives you a warning or a countdown, but then you have the fucking retards who sit around all day and do it unexpectedly out of sheer boredom because they want a funny reaction. They tend to add a little bit of suspense, they wait, and wait for what seems like God damn hours and then suddenly you’re sprayed! For most people, like William, who hardly ever ventured through this part of the ship it would fucking startle the shit out of them. Thus prompting the boys in the other room to laugh their fuckin’ asses off. What’s so funny about making a person jump anyways? Especially when you’re doing it all goddamn day? Well...as William walked with his armed guards towards the briefing room and thought about this, he couldn’t really blame the boys or girls in those rooms. Nowadays, there wasn’t any really good form of entertainment. Obviously, there’s no more cable television, there were some video games in the rec room. Though back during construction, the council and other generals and shit highly objected to such objects, however, popular vote overruled them. The boys and girls needed any form of entertainment they could get. You didn’t want three hundred or so people to go fucking mad on a ship in space, and productivity forms of work or entertainment could only take someone so far. Running the same combat simulation over and over for sixteen thousand years or so gets really fucking dull after awhile. Sometimes sitting down at a console with some pals for thirty minutes and shooting up zombies or aliens just took the edge off. Oh yeah, and that’s right. Thirty minutes, every crew member is only allowed that amount of time, and only once or twice per day at that. But...after the crash landing nobody is gonna be watching T.V. or playing their shoot’em up games for awhile. When the ship went down, unprioritized rooms that weren’t really hunkered down ended up getting completely trashed. Let's just say a lot of shit went flying when the ship made contact with the surface. So now, boys and girls around the ship are kinda screwed in terms of what they can do that’s not work related. It’s funny for some people to think, especially civilian, that people perceive soldiers a lot of the times as mindless, stupid grunts. That all they can do is point and shoot a gun, or operate a radio and speak gibberish which was actually some kind of secret code. That all they do is take orders mindlessly without thought and run around for hours without losing any energy. Yet most people back in the day before the world went to shit only thought that because of what they saw on T.V. or games. It’s like they tend to forget that soldiers, like William, were human. Which would probably be a huge shock to his squadmates, William actually enjoyed those thirty minutes of sitting down and losing himself to those games. Or even when he sat down and watched the pre-recorded shows that Horizon has downloaded into her network. Hell, he even enjoyed the mindless banter his squadmates constantly shot at each other. Though most of the time he’d tell them to shut up, he actually really loved hearing them, because despite everything that’s happened; all the shit they been through, it was actually relieving to see his men and women cracking jokes. It made things seem relatively normal, it allowed William to be at ease because again, despite looking and acting like a tough Commander. William, like everyone else, was Human, and deep down...he was fucking terrified of this new world. “Alright, Commander, here we are.” The young soldier on his left said as he took out a key card and opened a panel on the wall, surprising William with the fact that it still worked despite the rough impact. The soldier input the code after swiping the card, and a loud thud rang out through the hallway as the deadbolt came undone. Grabbing the rotating handle the soldier cranked the door open with a grunt and pushed it open. He then stepped over the air tight seal which resembled something like a knee knocker. Glancing back at William the guard motioned with an arm for him to follow, nodding his head William stepped over the seal and glanced about the room. A large table sat in the center, surrounding said table were a handful of men and women dressed in business attire. The Council. “Good morning, Commander.” Came Watson’s voice from William’s right, looking over, William found the older navy admiral was standing right beside him, hands behind his back. William straightened up. “Admiral.” He nodded, Watson gestured towards the table. “Please, Commander. Have a seat, the Council wishes to make a proposal.” Watson told him before turning and heading over to his own spot at the far, opposite end of the table. William gulped and nodded once more and walked over to his spot. Taking his seat he glanced over at all the members of the council, each of them representing the past and now dead nation. Directly across from William beside Watson was one of the head council members, Hiro Takanao. “Good morning, Commander.” The man said, his voice light but serious. “Morning, Sir.” William shifted in his seat. “Might I ask why I’m here?” He leaned forward a bit and noticed the glass of water beside him. “I was just about to get to that,” Hiro said as William took a large gulp, the liquid cooling his throat. “You see, Commander, we here in the Council have been informed of your new found ability.” William took a deep breath and sat the water down, wiping his face he glanced at Takanao and raised an eyebrow. “And what would that be?” He asked already expecting the answer. Hiro also took in a breath, his hand rubbing the back of his neck, he blinked his eyes once or twice, possibly caught some dust. “Your ability to speak the Equine language of course.” He wiped his eyes and glanced at William. “Isn’t that also the reason why I was locked up?” William cocked an eyebrow. “Or threatened with court martial because I disobeyed an order that brought us here?” “Now, Commander,” A new voice said, glancing over William say it was Senator Riley, a fat southern democrat from the United States. “There’s no need to get smart with us.” “Well clearly I do because all of you are fuck––” “Keshiner!” Watson snapped immediately throwing William back into line. “Thank you, Admiral.” The democrat nodded. “Commander, I hope you can understand that we admit that what we chose to do after the fact was a valid decision.” That made William scowl and bite his tongue, allowing the fat bastard to continue. “Not only did you disobey a direct order, you were also exposed to the elements of what we could only presume was mind control.” William sighed, he understood why they locked him up. Yet that still didn’t explain why they wished to suspend him. Yes, he disobeyed a direct order, however, because he disobeyed they were able to advance negotiations. He personally didn’t see the issue in that. Again William bit his tongue and nodded. “Alright,” he muttered. “However, Commander,” Takanao spoke up. “Now that we understand this new advancement of yours, we’re offering to repeal your mistake if you happen to agree to help us.” “So you’re bribing me?” William cocked an eyebrow but retracted when he noticed the fiery gaze from Watson. Takanao smirked. “Essentially.” William straightened out more and leaned forward. “Okay then...” he shrugged. “Lay it on me, what do you need?” Takanao nodded his head. “Commander, as you may have already known the location of the Victor Nineteen is held beneath the Equine capital.” William shifted in his seat and nodded. “And of course the whole point of Horizon’s mission was to return to Earth and resurrect those who remained beneath the surface. However, with Victor Nineteen no longer within our sphere of influence we must figure out a way to communicate with the Equines, and you Commander, are the only one who has been able to fluently speak with them.” William mulled the information over in his head and nodded. “Alright. So you need me to convince them to let us crack open the vault?” Takanao nodded along with the others, William responded with his own and fell silent once more. “Sir...if you don’t mind me asking, why Victor Nineteen? It’s not even a civilian shelter, matter of fact last I recall it’s a Self Defence Force headquarters.” Senator Riley shook his head and straightened up in his seat. “The information we were able to gather from the supply vault that the Equine troops broke into stated that Victor Nineteen before the cataclysm was handed over to the Kiryu-Kai.” William blinked. “Wait what? Kiryu-Kai? You mean...” “Yes, Commander.” Takanao straightened himself out. “One of the top fighting divisions in the world that held out the longest against the Archangel is stationed deep within that vault. Thousands of sleeping soldiers, scientists, and engineers of the like, ready to be woken from their slumber and used to help establish our footprint on this planet once more.” William bit his lower lip. “But...we don’t need more soldiers and scientists. What we need now is farmers, construction workers, plumbers. Y’know the people that can help establish some basic infrastructure––” William was silenced by Takanao raising his hand. “And we fully understand that, Commander. Though due to your recent lock up, a lot has happened over the past twenty-four hours. Something that has disturbed us.” The man took a deep breath and straightened out his back before reaching over and taking a sip from his cup of water. William bit his lower lip and glanced at Watson. The Council was always frightened, especially over the stupidest of shit and the Admiral should have known that as well. Half the time William could see it on his face, but now...he saw nothing but the same look every other man shared in here. Seriousness along with a bit of concern. Something had everyone on edge, and now it was starting to frighten William as well. William wanted to ask the Council about what was bothering them but knew as of now that would not be appropriate. He took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his head before reaching over and taking another long drink. “Alright...” He said taking on a similar expression and tone of the others. “When will I be heading out?” Takanao smirked once more. “The second you leave this room.”