Chapter 3: NEOS
Last chapter: Nix fires a rocket and the last leg falls off, the Akrid falls with a loud thud, the mouth open and tongues flailing about, Moonshine runs over the head and jumps down, she quickly turns round 180 and dives into the mouth, Treacle shouts her but then sees her alive inside and running down the body of the Akrid, she too then runs up and dives in, both of them run through it and come to the core, they both open fire on it while being swept to the back of the Akrid my a mini-river inside of it.
Nix and Claire wait as the weak spots have hardened, Moonshine and Treacle fly out of the tail end and land on the floor, the legs the regenerate and burst out, allowing the Akrid to stand back up and continues its rampage.
Claire and Nix then take aim as they get ready for a long fight, “CLAIRE, GET READY, HERE IT COMES!!” he shouts as it charges right for them, mouth open.
The Akrid charges right for the two of them, as it gets closer Moonshine suddenly appears next to the VS and pulls off the rocket launcher only to attach a VS laser rifle to it, she then lands down next to it, “Fire it up, charge it all the way....” she orders to Claire who immediately does that, the blue rifle starts to charge and a blue light emits from it, the light getting brighter and the larger as it charges, “TREACLE, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!!” she shouts, Treacle struggles to get there as the Akrid stomps about and its tail slamming down to try and hit her, she finally gets round the tail and dashes out from under it, uses her anchor to grab onto a leg and just as the anchor brings her to the top of the leg she lets go and sling-shots up and over to the others, Nix and Moonshine now giving fire-support.
“Get ready to fire Claire, here it comes!” she shouts while firing multiple rifle rounds into the mouth, one tongue flies out and hits just next to her, she flies back and hits the column of rock, Nix runs over to help her, Treacle runs over to the VS and points her horn at the laser rifle, her magic boosting the power of it much further than what is normally possible, the light becoming blinding, soon the beam is almost breaking the weapon, the casing of the rifle starting to crack form the sheer force being put into it.
“Wait for it.” Treacle says as she uses her magic to hold the power in on the weapon. Moonshine takes off quickly and flies over to the now charging Akrid, she flies past its mouth causing it to open in an attempt to eat her, just as it goes to swipe for her Claire fires and the large beam shoots from the weapon, the rifle shatters from the force and the beam enters the mouth of the Akrid and hits against the weak core, the Akrid stops and roars loudly in pain, the core starting to shatter from the beam, it lifts up onto its back two legs and an electrical surge can be seen building up, the horns having electric jumping between them.
Moonshine flies back over to the VS, Treacle now hanging onto the side, Nix jumps down and flaps his wings to soften then landing so he can grab onto the other side, Moonshine hovering above as the VS jumps up and hovers in the air.
As the Akrid gets higher and the electric builds up, they can see a faint blue targeting beam pointing down at the Akrid, the beam gets darker and then flickers before stopping, over their intercom they can here, “H.A.R.M.O.N.Y systems online, Generosity: Online....Loyalty: Online....Kindness: Online...”
“What the hell is this, what’s Loyalty and Kindness?” Moonshine question to the others who look up and her, all with confused looks.
“I don’t know but it isn’t good, we should get out now.” Treacle replies before reaching over to look in the VS, “Get us back, away from the Akrid.” She orders.
The VS then flies backwards away from the Akrid, the Akrid then slams down and an electrical pulse flows over the floor of the bowl, the electric pulse causing all electronics to fry.
The voice continues, “Laughter: Online....Honesty: Online.....Magic: Charging.....Online, Firing Orbital Friendship Cannon....Standby......Charging......All system running, ready for firing.”
A female voice then can be heard, “Fire.”
“Firing” The computer voice says, just then the thin blue beam flickers before disappearing and a large thicker rainbow beam fires and engulfs the Akrid completely, it roars as it is torn apart by the beam, after about 20 seconds of constant fire the beam stops, the sound deafening.
“Orbital Friendship Cannon fired, now powering down. Target hit and destroyed.” The voice says to confirm.
Luckily the blast area of the beam stops just ahead of the VS and they hold on tightly as air rushes past them, the blast dying down as the beam stops, “What in the world was that?!” Moonshine shouts as she gets back to above the VS, the VS then stops boosting and falls down to the ground, landing up right but drained of T-Eng, Claire drops out of it, landing on her knees, Nix gets off and helps her out as Treacle and Moonshine stand and look at the scorched corpse of the Akrid.
“I don’t fully know what it was but I have an idea....I heard rumours, NEVEC they apparently have a space station, I thought somepony was bullshitting when they told me about it. I guess they weren’t after all, I just thought....never mind what I thought, this is bad; we need to get this info to the Commander.” She says before putting a hoof to her helmet and calling for evac.
As they wait they search about casually at the wreckage and at the Akrid which is now frozen in place but scorched. Minutes later they can hear a whirring noise coming from over the side of the bowl, Nix stands up from sitting on a piece of scrap metal, Claire sat next to him but doesn’t get up, Moonshine and Treacle stood admiring the Akrid, the Osprey enters the bowl from the south and lowers down to see the Akrid and corrects course slightly to land next to it, “Get in...This place is going to hell; you can tell a Cat-G tore through here.” The pilot says as he lands and the side door slides open, they all rush over and climb in, the door closes and the Osprey lifts off and heads back to the fort.
<Exactly 32 minutes later>
Back in the snow storm, the Osprey approaches the fort once more, the landing light and VS’s guiding it in, once landed they all, pilot included, head for the door and get inside to warm up, “You lot go and relax, I’ll tell the Commander.” Moonshine says as the others then head in the opposite way to the stair-case, Moonshine heads towards the stairs, gets to the door, opens it and stares at the stairs, “Oh god, not the stairs, why did I offer to do this?” she says to herself before ascending the 20 flights.
Once at the top she takes a while to get her breath then enters the room, “Commander, I have some bad news and then even more bad news.”
“Great...what is it now?”
“Well, we found the team’s Osprey...it was trashed, no survivors found.”
“Damn it.”
“And then we were attacked by a Cat-G, it came out of no-where....but to top it all off, NEVEC, they have a space station...I must say it probably saved us but this is bad news, if they find our base, they could kill us all.”
“That is bad, I never thought it was true but I guess it is, rumours were that NEVEC had a space station called NEOS, the Orbital Friendship Cannon.”
“WHAT? You knew about this?”
No, it was only rumours that I heard....but now you have given me real proof, go now, you have worked hard, you need to get some rest.” The Commander says before waving a hoof for her to leave. Moonshine knods and then leaves the room, slowly descends the stairs as she thinks about what had been happening.
<NEVEC high-command>
Twilight is in a diner-type area with the other five, a guard walks up to her, “The General wishes to see you about your findings.”
She gets up and heads off with the guard out of the diner and towards the General’s office, soon reaching it, the guard stops and stands outside the door, she enters the room and is welcomed by Celestia, “Please, come in Lieutenant Sparkle, I wish to hear about what you found.”
“Thank you General...” she replies as she heads inside and sits on a chair, “I found that I can definitely confirm the snow pirates have Harmonizers, seen them myself, I was watching them battle against a Cat-G Akrid designated Gordiant...we did manage to destroy the Akrid but the pirates got away...” She continues to explain.
“The cannon was successful, all system worked and the Cat-G is now history, we are still unfortunately no further with finding the Snow pirate’s base either, but I have heard from NEOS that there has been more reports on Akrid X, it has returned to the surface of the planet and is now currently in sector 2 location 5, we will continue surveys but more importantly is that there has been some unusual weather activity lately, the result possibly of an abnormally large Akrid, maybe larger than a Cat-G, an Over-G Akrid.” She explains before leaving as she has no more information.
“An Over-G Akrid, not possible...I will have to see this myself.” Celestia says to herself before sitting down in her large chair and looks at the table which has a computer screen in it, she looks to see photos of Akrid X.