“I forgot to ask, are you alright Greta?” Rarity’s ears were still ringing from the concussion missile that slammed into their train car, she believe the same could be said for everyone else who was dazed by the blast.
“I got some glass in my wings and some bits of metal in the back when I was covering you and Coco boss lady. I’m good, generally speaking of course.” It was strained but Greta kept a smile on her face, the only thing that really got her down was seeing dead people. Reaching back with her claws around her butt she tugged on something and pulled a large bit of metal out of her rear end and there was blood on it. “Yep, just fine by my standards, though I wouldn’t say no to some medical treatment when we survive this.”
“Wait when? Don’t you mean if?” Trapeze said from her protective head covering bunker.
“No she’s quite right, ‘when’ is a more than likely correct term here.” Rarity checked her two energy pistols as she levitated them before her. She pulled out her data pad and started hitting a few things on the screen. “Considering we don’t plan on dying anytime soon, it’s a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ we succeed in fending off whoever these ruffians are. Also I’m going to call Opal and tell her we’re in a spot of trouble. She’ll be more worried if I don’t alert her to this immediately and who knows how she’ll react then, probably wouldn’t let me out of her sight and she needs to become a bit more independent.”
Greta shot Rarity a strange look, the pony was quite aware that the AI was rampant right? So stopping Opal’s dependency on her could possibly be a bad thing. Shaking her head Greta just gave a tiny smile and readied the plasma rifle.
-
“That filming of the Lion Heart episode we got a recording of from orbit was incredible to look over again. It’s likely that the Shining Jewel’s cut of that episode will be the only one in existence, making it something of a collectors novelty for me.” Opal was in the midst of talking with Vera and Sassy when she flicked an ear and look off to the side away from the two ponies. “Huh… what is it Meow… oh holy flipping Java script! Who the buck is attacking the train Meowstress? I don’t care about how bad my language is, as nobody endangers my creator! Of course I can see them, you have four gunships hovering around the train and it looks like they hit every compartment with an explosive device. Concussive missiles, are you alright? Greta only took a bit of glass and metal to the body… well it’s awfully nice of her to cover you and Coco. I’m stating it out loud for Vera and Sassy’s sake; remind me to thank Greta for taking the brunt of that for you. You should probably do that yourself anyway.”
“Um excuse me Opal, but did you just say that Rarity’s train to Canterlot was under attack?” There was a slight bit of a steel edge in Sassy’s voice, Opal just held a paw up to her as she looked to be talking into the other one as if she were on a phone and ignoring her stern gaze.
“Yeah, I don’t know who those guys are, but they are definitely well armed material rifles, energy pistols, plasma cannons… ah crap! I’m not apologizing for being crude Meowstress as they are currently setting up jamming device and it’s about to go…” Opal sighed and finished sadly as the connection was cut. “Off, yep that just happened. Well alright then, calculating possible creator saving methods with current supplies, crew members and anything available to help.”
“Um, Opal…” Vera had been around the AI long enough to know she’d prioritize Rarity above all else if her creator was in danger unless told otherwise and with a good enough reason, otherwise she’d actively prioritize everyone else of her own accord in a rather benevolent manner. It was nice that she was one of the ones that were prioritized the most given her odd affliction, but psychologically speaking the AI had a few issues.
“Now hold on, I’m trying to get clearance with Trap Bar to go down to the planet.” Opal could talk to other people without anyone hearing her; she was asking Admiral Trap Bar for permission to send the Caravel Boutique down to the planet for emergency reasons. “Done… Sassy get to the Caravel Boutique like yesterday and put on your EVA suit. Gilda will be waiting on you there. I have but one really unusual question to ask of you.”
“Yes, what is it?” Sassy was wondering what the AI would say, as she went off immediately for the Caravel Boutique. After making a short stop to grab her some of her gear in the training room of course.
“I’ve seen how good you are at piercing metal… in the training room that is…” Opal started off slowly. “So I was wondering. How much gravitational force can your body exactly handle?”
That question seemed entirely different from what was expected considering the lead up to it was how well Sassy could puncture metal with her Chokuto. Sassy didn’t exactly know the answer to the question, but she was going to find out why it was asked as she was already pushing Her EVA suits helmet over her head.
-
“Well… at least we know mostly what they are armed with.” Rarity started off as she turned to Greta who smiled lightly despite things becoming very tense waiting game.
“That should definitely make it easier at the very least. With that jamming signal we’re not going to get much help from our eye in the sky.” They really didn’t have much time to be sitting around and talking things out and Greta obviously knew this as she had already found a good position watching the doorway to the car in front of them, Trapeze Star had taken to watching the two cars behind them in case any of the invaders came from that direction.
They were all in the middle of their train car and between the seats using them as cover; civilians were allowed to carry weapons in Equestria provided they only used them in self defense. This situation warranted self defense. Coco was cowering next to Rarity on the right side of the train car; Trapeze was in position next to Greta on the left. They were waiting for something to happen, aside from staying low so that the gunships didn’t gun them down through the windows.
The door slid open and two figures ran in to slam it shut behind them, only they weren’t armed. One was a light grayish brown stallion with his black mane slicked back and the other was a little pink filly with purple hair that had white streaks, they skid to a stop when they saw the two armed passengers give them an odd look. The stallion looked over his shoulder fearfully, before he turned to the two armed passengers who weren’t obviously with the guys who were boarding the train.
“Excuse me for asking this, but can me and my daughter stay in this car with you? Provided that you can defend me I’m sure to owe you a big favor, I’m Mr. Rich and this is my daughter Diamond Tiara Rich.” The stallion was keeping close to his daughter; Rich was obviously protective of her.
“I’m scared daddy.” The filly looked positively spooked, as if she had seen something horrible.
“It’ll be okay honey, I’m here after all.” He snuggled his daughter before looking at Rarity as she leaned out to address them, the guns weren’t pointed at him and his daughter at least. Safety wasn’t exactly assured, but he would do the best he could for his daughter.
“Please excuse me for saying this Mr. Rich, but I would advise you to take cover and stay there. Also stay out of our line of fire and we’ll be okay with that much. No need to owe us any favors, it would certainly help us more if you tell us the situation of the other cars.” She motioned them forward with the gun and they quickly huddled down between the seats near Rarity and the others while looking back towards the door. “We already know they hit all fifteen cars with concussion missiles, so tell us something we don’t know. I am lady Rarity Belle, fashion designer; my personal assistant Coco, the one with the plasma rifle is my technical engineer Greta and finally those two friends of ours Ms. Star and her friend Bernard. It’s pleasure to meet you under the given circumstances.”
“Well I know they aren’t robbers, they are far more militaristic than that. They are capturing everyone alive and any who try to resist or escape are being shot without any hesitation, mostly they’re just causing incapacitating wounds.” Pausing to rub his chin, Rich spoke up with his ponderings. “Before you ask they are not mercenaries, they are too well equipped for that. They are organized and they are doing this for some reason, but I can’t fathom what. Other than that I can tell you that they are very much hostile and if they wanted to they could have just destroyed the cars with those gunships. No they are definitely leaving people alive, but for what is the question and we haven’t seen anyone die.”
“Yes, but we did see them cripple a pony and a few other people.” The haunted looking Diamond Tiara Rich said. “Both legs, just gone… and then her wings…”
“Okay, so bad news all around, but it sure is taking them a while to get here. When can we expect them to…?” Greta stopped and turned her sights towards the door as it opened and an average sized male diamond dog quickly threw himself forward as several large blasts of energy flew over his head and into the car. Everyone ducked down and watched as the diamond dog scampered between some of the seats, likely to cower there as the plasma blasts burnt, blackened, melted and damaged the far back wall of the train car.
Diamond Dogs were a curious species; they were usually bipedal and had long lanky arms ending in four fingered paws designed entirely for digging. They had short legs and spike covered tails, along with their dog shaped head fitting onto what were ape like bodies. They were curious in that they weren’t exactly a dangerous omnivorous species with carnivorous leanings and ever since space travel was introduced they preferred to keep themselves firmly rooted in the ground. However it was thanks to the technological advancements of recent times that they had started eventually bettering themselves. Their societal structure was something comparable to what prairie dogs had in appearance and were known as the quickest digging species in existence, being they could dig fast than they could run on two or four legs. As far as intelligence goes, Diamond Dogs weren’t the best at it and preferred simpler forms of thinking when they could get away with it.
Diamond Dogs really like digging for jewels and gems, they also are somewhat good at metallurgy as far as things they are most known for goes. Though no reason has ever been found out as to why they like gems and jewels so much, but it is assumed they eat them for sustenance like dragons do.
The first contact with the boarders was just happening right now, as into the room ran the plasma cannon wielding Minotaur wearing a strange dark red uniform with a golden five fingered hand symbol on it. He was obviously the one that was chasing the frightened diamond dog.
“Come back here dog, know you’re place! You will be of use to our organization and you will like it.” As far as Minotaur’s went, this guy was decently sized. He thundered forward and fired, the diamond dog quickly rolled away whimpering between another set of seats. “You can’t run from me, nobody will be leaving this train unless it’s unconscious or otherwise. We will be taking everyone with us!”
As he swiveled his plasma cannon to take another shot at the scared dog, a plasma blast ripped through his shoulder knocking him off balance and several energy beams hit him doing not nearly as much as the plasma blast that ripped into his shoulder.
The Minotaur let loose a roar and aimed his gun in Greta’s direction and she narrowed her eyes. Rarity kept shooting for his other shoulder, aiming a little lower she sent a stream of plasma blasts into his leg and that finally toppled him. The plasma rifle was doing far more damage to the bulky bull headed guys head. He tried to get up only for a familiar if flattened hat to fly across the space between them and the large biped bull, when it reached him an entire pony shot out of it with incredible force. Enough so that it knocked the Minotaur completely out cold, the hat then promptly landed on the ponies head and popped back into shape. She turned around to bow to her audience.
“Thanks Bernard. Didn’t know you were that strong. Guess there’s not a lot I know about Lagotorphins, I have much to learn. Now if we could do that two more times without fail then we’d have a hat trick.” Trapeze smiled back at the rabbit that wave, then looked shocked and pointed behind her. Taking the cue to immediately watch out, Trapeze pulled her hat down over her body and into it.
Following that action was a bunch of random metal bits being fired from two rifles that were small in comparison to Ember’s rectangular weapon peppering the space the pony used to occupy and everyone ducking for cover. Trapeze’s hat started waddling wildly away from the weapons fire directed at it, if the situation weren’t so grim it’d be funny to watch.
“Damn it they got our enforcer! Bull down, I repeat Bull is down. We’ve finally met some armed resistance.” The human with the material rifle was glaring beyond the door way where the Minotaur laid still, next to him was a pony wearing a similar uniform levitating a rifle. The blonde human’s face could be seen as clean shaven and the pony had their head covered with a helmet and bulky clothing to make it hard to tell their gender. “Requesting gunship assistance if they become too rowdy… I don’t care if you only have one missile left. We don’t need to take them all alive; the leader is kind of asking a bit much of us here! So what if a distress signal got out? By the time anyone sends any help we’ll have already redirected the train anyway, so it’s a moot point. All we have to do now is quell the troublemakers in any way we can.”
“I was afraid he’d say something like that.” Rarity muttered from her position as she leaned out slightly and ducked back as several bits of high velocity metal started ripping into her cover.
Greta took advantage and fired several plasma rounds for the pony who ducked behind cover, as did the human a second later when Rarity got a glancing shot in on his elbow. Her other pistol was firing at the pony who started blind firing their material weapon through the general middle of the train car.
-
“I’m going to do what?” Sassy asked as she sat next to Gilda as they were about to enter the atmosphere.
“You heard me, Meowstress Rarity is in danger and you’re going to question my plan now?” Opal looked put out and worried, but also determined. “You have the equipment and strength to pull it off, so what’s the problem?”
“No problem really, I just need a bit of clarification, because it sounds like you said I was going to…” Sassy started off while Gilda sent her a few glances every now and then. Opal and Sassy continued to hammer out what exactly the resident samurai of the crew would be doing.
Gilda already knew her part in things; she was getting a chance to pilot the Caravel Boutique. While it still lacked weapons the shields were far stronger than they had ever been, Greta and Gilda had been a bit merciless in the tweaking of the shield generator.
The Caravel Boutique angled downwards and began its descent through the atmosphere at a break everything pace; Gilda had a smile on her face as she was in a pilot’s seat once more. Opal would be commandeering the controls for the landing when it returned to Shining Jewel; otherwise Gilda was free to fly it as she wanted to and into some action no less. Her project would take a few more days of constant work; it wasn’t quite ready for a field testing yet.
-
Things weren’t looking so hot with three guns between them and the opposition suddenly getting two more reinforcements in a Griffon and an Ahuizotl, thankfully it wasn’t THE AHUIZOTL. A regular Ahuizotl was still bad enough as it was, they were a dog like race with waterproof fur and at the end of their tails was a hand as which was the same thing their front two limbs ended in. Some of them even had spiked fur that was sharp enough to rip open flesh just by having it rubbed up against you. This one in particular was wielding an energy pistol with pretty good accuracy as it clipped Greta’s shoulder as she was ducking. Both Rarirty and Greta were taking nicks here an there and so were the guys firing upon them.
“They are giving us too much trouble, gunship Delta move into attack position and either gun them down or at the very least pin them!” The human held some authority; he was busy trading rounds of fire with Rarity from cover of the doorway to the next car. “Look, I just want you to fire that last missile right god damn now; we’ll even keep them in place for you.”
Rarity looked out the nearby window one of the four gunships swiveled around and took up a position aiming through the shattered windows to fire their last concussive missile at them. It let loose and flew straight towards the middle of the train car where they currently were, to break cover would mean getting shot at and to shoot at the missile would mean to also get shot at.
A few hundred feet from reaching the train the missile split in half and the back end spiraled away while the familiar glow of magic encase the head and launched itself at the gunship delta’s win. The explosion caused its fan to rupture and it spun out of control while on catching fire, a black figure could be seen clinging to the gunship as it started to fall.
“What the hell! Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, I think Delta just got shot down by its own fucking missile! Find out what happened then get… ” The firefight continued on while outside a different story was taking place, the human had fallen over because had had finally been shot and his blood was quickly spilling out onto the floor around the cauterize portions of flesh and charred cloth.
“Was that Sassy and did she just seriously take out a gunship?” Greta questioned as she continued to fire her rifle, she finally knocked the human out of the fight with a shot through the lower right side of his torso. It was mostly survivable; then again she was no expert on firearms or their usage.
-
Sassy was falling and she grit her teeth as she reached to her back with her left hoof and aimed her right hoof forward, she only had one chance at doing this correctly. She could see one of the gunships moving to point at the train and it was moving parallel to it as it fired a missile, which was the reason it was the first one that she would take down.
With a tug of her sword she gracefully flicked the blade out and the missile ahead of her split in half, she twisted her body and fired her pinpoint puller directly at the wing opposite of the ones she was about to destroy. Thanks to the new sideways momentum and her accuracy with her grappling device she wasn’t going to die after jumping out of the Caravel Boutique once it got close enough to drop her. With a flick of her horn she magically grabbed the explosive head of the missile and launched it.
Sassy slammed into its opposing wing ramming her sword into it up to the hilt and quickly tried to get her bearings as the gunship spun out of control. This happened after an explosion had already rocked the other side of it; she hoped Gilda was ready to support her when needed. As she was now going to start taking these guys apart, she would defend the innocent even if they were male.
Sassy leapt away from the falling gunship while sheathing her sword and fired her grapple at the side of the train and roughly slammed into it hooves first where she stuck. The suits magnetically attached her to the train. An explosion went off in the distance proving that one of the gunships was down for the count.
The three other gunships spun to face her and the closest one came in and starts firing on her as she slowly clambered sideways trying to avoid the trail of high velocity metal slowly following after her, before she pulled herself onto the roof as the trail of fire tried to slowly curve around to hit her. She spun up onto her rear hooves and swung her sword once in the gunships direction knocking it away and creating a large gash in one of its wings making it spin away as she turned to address the other gunships.
Standing up on her rear hooves Sassy started to move towards the front of the train where the jammer was and the other two gunships swooped in to start firing at her, her sword started flickering out behind her and sparks danced away from her form in silver flashes. She deflected several of the rounds of metal that would have hit her and ignored the ones that were only just as close to doing so.
The two gunships spun about while the third one was still having problems righting itself from her attack, they fired after her as she ran along the roof of the train. Jumping off the side of the train she rolled and fired her grapple between her legs and flew up under the gunship on the right side of the train and stabbed her sword upwards when she reached it causing it two wobble strangely in the air.
The other one fired at her while she was on the underside of that gunship and she quick dropped herself back onto the train, where she flopped harshly on her face and quickly got up to start galloping along the train towards the jammer again. The three gunships were slowly getting ready to regroup, two of them having taken some damage, but not enough to be stopped.
They entered a triangle formation and were going to try and catch Sassy in the crossfire, they started firing and three trails of sparks could be seen heading towards the pony. Then the Caravel Boutique rammed into the untouched gunship on the left, causing a huge flare as the ships shields strained to stay intact with the impact. This sent the gunship crashing into the ground and exploding, while the Caravel Boutique rolled up away as the two gunships tried to target it.
Two small and rather deep holes appeared in the gunship on the right’s side as Sassy stopped and stabbed at the air twice, she turned back around and continued onward as the other gunship swept a trail of material cannon fire across her position and one passed through her suit causing a splash of breach gel to spray from it along with some blood.
Sassy stumbled only slightly and was only three cars away from the jammer when several people with the golden hand uniforms popped up on the edges of the roof between the cars to start firing at Sassy, she charged them deflecting their energy weapons fire and cutting their materials bullets out of the air. As she performed a forward flip over two of the uniformed beings, a unicorn and a griffon in the nook between two of the cars, swinging her sword twice. The two went flying away from the train with deep gashes in their bodies and rolling almost lifelessly into some grass.
The samurai was now about only two cars away and she had several people running towards her firing their guns with abandon, she expertly slid her sword across ones chest before slashing him from hip to shoulder. She spun around and deflected several material bullets from the gunship as the other one was rammed into by Caravel Boutique destroying one its wing engines sending it spiraling into the ground. The Caravel Boutique’s shield flickered out of existence and it rose higher to avoid the last gunships fire.
Continuing forward the mare slashed a human across the waist as she passed him when he tried to get her with a knife. She then reared her rear end up and bucked him off the side of the train while blocking the energy weapon fire of an Ahuizotl that was charging right at her. She rolled to the side of the train when the Ahuizotl decided to try and tackle her given his weapon was proving useless and he tumbled along the ground painfully looking like he broke several important bones in the process.
Sassy tried to climb back up and her body shook when a round from the gunship went through her side make her pause and shudder in pain, but it wasn’t powerful enough to knock her off the train. She got back up onto the roof and turned towards the final gunship, taking her sword into her hooves the glow of magic started to charge up her sword and with one hard swing she sliced off the back half of the gunship sending the front spiraling where it slammed into the ground and skidded for several hundred feet where it flipped and kept going. It didn’t explode when it finally came to a rest on its side missing both its wings and the rotors at the side of the tracks.
Turning around Sassy blocked a material round with the flat of her blade and the stabbed forward at the unicorn trying to sneak up on her, basically goring the pony through the chest with her sword. Said unicorn tumbled off the side of the train and looked to have had enough energy to cast a spell before they hit the ground with less of an impact.
Leaping for the next roof, Sassy charged right for the jammer while dodging the fire directed at her, she brought her sword down and cleaved apart a portion of the roof the jammer was sitting on while destroying the device itself. Sassy stabbed her sword into the roof next to her to balance herself; her body shook as several more shots coming from other uniformed people came close to hitting her.
“Rarity, are you okay? If you can hear me, I think, I’m making progress. I want to live for my friends!” Sassy coughed out and looked down at the blood on her face mask and felt some of it dribbling to her chin, she had taken a really bad hit somewhere in all that given she hadn’t been able to deflect or block everything, most likely the worst part was when the gunship rounds went through her. That one had been agonizingly painful and she really needed help soon. “Gilda I n-need an immediate pickup, I’m not doing so g-good. Rarity-sama and Coco-chan won’t l-like it if I’m dead in the next forty minutes. Put… put me in a med-bed. I can’t do much more here, my body is spent even if my spirit is willing.”
Deflecting what she could in her state, Sassy made a leap for the open airlock while firing her grapple with several energy weapons firing after her as she pulled herself into safety, Sassy collapsed when the airlock closed behind her with breach gel and blood pooling the floor.