//------------------------------// // Raining Death // Story: My Little Engineer // by Soren Mercer //------------------------------// Date: 02/05/2406 11:04 While Dash and Fleetfoot occupied the enemies with the superior firepower of the Wyvern, I ripped upwards through the skies next to Luna and her powerfully large wings while the rest of the Wonderbolts all flew in formation behind me. Breaking through the cloud cover of the mountain, the sight of the extraordinarily large automated Laser Shipyard sticking out of the side of the mountain like a sore thumb greeted us. It was almost finished, I just had to set it up to the conveyor system of the mining platform, the laser drill of which was still hard at work but would have to be deactivated in order to let the shipyard work. I’d also have to build the projector and set it up for the construction but that’d be fairly easy. “What is that?” Spitfire asked from near to me, her eyes roaming over the strange thin frame that’d build something extraordinary. “That is my shipyard. It’ll let me build the massive ship to keep mining from above and as well the ships that’ll get us all into orbit.” I replied, being repeated by Luna who shouted back over the sound of our flight. Landing on the deck of the mining platform, I disconnected my helmet and set it on it’s hook on my hip before retrieving my welder. Luna took the hint and produced hers from her magical storage while I approached the cargo pod near me to retrieve a bunch of spare welders for the ponies. “What’re these?” Soarin wondered, looking over the welder in his wing’s grasp. “Those’re welders like that of mine and Luna’s. We’re going to need all of your help finishing up the shipyard before it can get building. After that, I’m going to need all of you to man the stations in the ship so I hope you’ve all been studying.” “But sir, we’re not builder ponies. We don’t know the first thing about welding!” A Wonderbolt near to the back complained before being silenced by Luna. “We’ll both teach you everything you need to know. The tool is quite intuitive for new Engineers.” she explained before I instructed her to take the bolts to the unfinished conveyor system and get it finished while I worked on the Projector system. ~*~*~ “Coming up on the coordinates now!” Fleetfoot reported from her position in the navigator’s cockpit. With a flick of the switch, all three turrets on the ship fired up and immediately highlighted targets of interest in the approaching mass of changelings, Minotaurs and Griffons loyal to the Griffon Ambassador. “I want you to take control of one of the turrets!” Rainbow commanded from up front while she worked on keeping the ship level. “I don’t know what the Pilot has planned, but I seriously doubt that we’ll have the firepower to fight all those guys for long!” “I’m sure we’ll be fine!” Fleetfoot grinned back and loaded up the Fire Control program for the left side turret. “He wouldn’t send us to our deaths if he’s been trying to help us survive!” “I hope to Celestia you’re right.” Dash mumbled back over the radio before giving the order, “open fire!” Both turrets on the side of the ship unloaded their rounds into the enemies below, carving swaths of death through the grounded forces. Most of those grounded forces didn’t remain there for long, though, as the Griffons and Changelings both took off and approached from head on, triggering the anti-aircraft turret on the top. Pings against the hull of the ship and it’s cockpits had Dash begin darting around in evasive maneuvers, screaming and cursing at the slow movements of the ship over the power of her own flight. “Come on! Get some!” Fleetfoot shrieked maniacally as she unloaded another round into the ground forces before lining up a highlighted shot on a nearby group of changelings as they began to transform into actual Wyverns or Manticores. “That’s it, become a bigger target for me!” she screamed and had a shot taken by the top turret before she could pull the trigger. A sudden incoming warning alerted Fleetfoot, distracting her long enough to relay the message to the pilot. “Dash! Incoming manticore from the rear! Evade!” “I see it!” Dash shouted back, dropping the ship down in altitude suddenly and at the last moment. Doing so let the turret lock on and blast it from the sky, shaking the craft with the nearby explosion. From both sides, white and blue wyverns crashed into the ship, knocking it off it’s flight plan and injuring its lateral engines enough to knock three of them out on each side. “Keep them off me!” “I’m trying but they’re just squirreling around out there, I can’t get a lock!” Fleetfoot called back and narrowly missed another warning of Incoming. “From the right!” “Got it!” Dash groaned back and boosted the height of the ship, narrowly going over the incoming manticore. If anything was keeping records, it’d show that the ship was close enough to the manticore that it tried to automatically lock the landing gears. Another hit from Dash’s 11 o’clock cracked her windshield, making her roar out in reply and turn the guns on the ship bear before opening fire herself. Shredding through the manticore and it’s friends behind it, Dash lined up a shot with a large pack of griffons all taking aim with their own rifles. Before they got a shot off, Dash unloaded a barrage of missile fire into the group. The gore rained down over those still below who ignored the sky battle entirely and kept their march towards the Mining town and Ponyville. “Fuck! They’re everywhere!” Fleetfoot announced, her warnings flashing from all sides as hits from Griffons, Changelings and all manner of other flying beast swarmed the Wyvern ship, striking it with their bodies repeatedly. “Get them off us!” “Hang on, i’m going to light up the Hydrogen thrusters! Try and knock them off by aiming for orbit!” Rainbow announced and hit the appropriate switches. The hydrogen thrusters all fired up, instantly giving the ship an incredible speed boost which forced the ponies back into their seats more than they already were. Dash aimed the ship’s nose upwards and put all throttle into acceleration, watching the altimeter rise higher and higher as more and more creatures fell away to where there was oxygen. All of a sudden, coming out of nowhere, a massive force struck the back of the ship, knocking out the main hydrogen thruster at the back. With less than necessary force to rise any higher, the ship stalled out and begun to plummet towards the planet. “Shit, shit shit shit shit shit!” Dash screamed as she fought with her controls to get the engines firing again. Fleetfoot, in the back, was doing the same, trying to prime the engines for Dash to ignite but fail at doing so. All the while, the altimeter was counting down rapidly, falling past 2000 meters already. “Fucking work!” Dash kicked at the console at 900 meters then swung her forehoof down and jump started the engines. The inertial dampeners kicked in just in time to let Dash bring the straight down fall into a more diagonal one, starting up the rear thrust engines and get them barely skimming the ground at 15m which had the effect of removing quite a few enemies’ heads with the ship. With blood and gore splattering over the canopy, Dash was completely blind but kept the nose pulled upwards. “Level out, you’re going to drag the tail!” Fleetfoot warned, but it was too late. The tail caught a pile of bodies and snagged, ripping off the engines as well as the entire back end of the craft. With mares screaming as they crashed, the vessel flew for a few dozen more feet before it bottomed out and hit the ground, sending what remained of the back end of the craft over their heads while pushing the cockpits into the ground while the ship rolled and bounced on the ground. The remains of the ship rolled for another couple hundred meters before coming to a rest, with the canopies completely destroyed the cockpits remained intact. With a groan, Dash roused from brief unconsciousness and rubbed at her head with her hooves. “Holy shit.” she groaned and yelped at a flash of pain as she tried to move her rear legs. Looking down, she found that not only was one leg turned the wrong way, looking like a human’s forwards facing knees, but the other one, the right one, was gone completely. Giving a scream at the sight of the stump left behind, the leg having been torn off at the knee and tossed free of the craft, Dash forced herself to calm down when the sound of a large group of something approaching told her she had to protect herself and Fleetfoot as well as to destroy the rest of the ship in order to prevent it’s highly advanced technologies from getting into the wrong hands. Checking that her wings still worked, only one of which actually responded while the other hung limp at her side, Dash reached back and drew the magnum rail pistol tucked away behind the seat and checked it’s load. Taking slight solace in the fifteen rounds it provided, and knowing that each round would pierce through the heaviest of body armour, Dash unhooked herself from the seat and fell limp to the ground beneath her with a second yelp and a groan. Crawling out of the craft on her belly, Dash took a quick look towards the rear of the ship and watched a massive horde, still nowhere near the size of the main force, of minotaurs and transformed changelings approaching looking quite proud of what they’d accomplished. Working herself up, Dash crawled up to Fleetfoot’s cockpit however reeled at the sight of a massive shard of canopy glass sticking through most of the pegasus’ upper body, severing her nearly in half. “Celestia fucking dammit!” Dash felt fresh tears burst forth at the sight of her friend having been murdered like that. There would be time for mourning, but now was not it; if she even survived this in the first place that is. Crawling up the canopy onto the side facing the sky, Dash crawled towards the back of the ship, navigating around the remains of the engine wings to the passenger/cargo section. Dropping herself into the hole, Dash ensured she still had her weapon at her side when she landed and got herself onto her back, breathing heavily and doing her best to ignore the pain. Raising her weapon, Dash took the safety off and kept the muzzle pointed at the only opening to her hiding hole while she worked at trying to set the distress beacon to emit its signal to any friendly persons hopefully coming to rescue her. Once the beacon was lit and steadily pulsing it’s message, Dash turned back to the hole and waited while biting her lip to keep from screaming out in pain at the lack of a leg and broken wing and hind leg. “I think she’s in there!” a male voice announced, its origin denoting its close proximity to the crashed ship. “Get her!” “The rest of you, scavenge this ship and take what you can back to base!” another voice, further off commanded. That’s right, Dash was supposed to blow the ship up by overloading its reactors. “I found another one! It’s dead already!” a third voice announced, having discovered the body of the Wonderbolt. “Leave it and get the live one! We’ll ensure she pays for what she’s done!” the first one remarked as a Griffon’s head appeared at the floor of the ship and grinned. “Hello you piece of shit pony.” “Hey back.” Dash grinned and lined up the shot and pulled the trigger while her hooves fought with the panel near to her to get the reactors to overload as designed. The shot wasn’t so much of an explosion as it was an electrical buzzing suddenly cut short by the Griffon’s head exploding. “She’s got a weapon! Get her before she kills you!” another griffon squawked as a trio of griffons appeared over the hole, stacked up on top of each other for protection. “Come here you little bitch!” “Why don’t you come get me!” Dash shot back and fired again, the round piercing through all three enemies with ease and continuing up into the air. Thirteen shots left and who knows how many enemies were outside that ship or what kind of explosives they had. One explosive dropped in the hole and Dash was doomed. Of course, setting the reactors to explode like she had just done would do the same thing, but dammit, she’d die on her terms! Breathing heavily now from blood loss, Dash fought to keep the pistol raised and aimed properly as another couple sets of heads all appeared at the opening. Her wing faltered and her aim went wide when she shot, though the bullet instead of punching through the skull, instead punched through the floor of the craft itself and tore a massive hole through the chest of the griffon. Repeating the action, Dash was left with only four bullets by the time the griffons smartened up and left her in her hole. “Fuck it, she’s not worth the effort!” the leader griffon announced, signalling the end of the coming forces as they continued to try and tear down the ship. “Why hasn’t anyone scavenged anything yet? What’s taking so long?” “Sir,” a female griffon remarked, “It’s like the whole thing is built as one solid unit! We don’t have the tools to break it down!” “Warning,” the computer announced over loud speakers, transmitting the broadcast in all Equestrian languages it could actually speak. “Reactor meltdown in T minus one minute. Please stand clear of explosion!” “Fuck! The little bitch rigged it to explode! Evacuate!” the griffon commander shrieked before the entire flock of griffons and Changelings all took off in all directions, trying to get as far away from the hazard as possible. “Well, looks like I'm coming to meet you in the afterlife, Brother.” Dash sighed in resignation and dropped her pistol to her side before curling up with her wings as best she could. “Reactor meltdown in T minus forty-five seconds. Please evacuate the area.” the computer warned. “Would if I could, computer. Would if I could.” Dash groaned and let the lightheaded feeling she felt begin to sweep over her. If she died by blood loss before death by explosion, that would be acceptable in Rainbow Dash’s mind. An awesome death for the greatest flier in Equestria. “Reactor Meltdown in T minus fifteen seconds. Your chance to evacuate has passed.” the computer announced, as though it actually cared about what happened to Dash. “Yep. Now I can sleep.” Dash mumbled back. “I’m so… sleepy…”