"B-but, Captain, I have a squad that I bel—" Cherry started to say before I pressed a hoof against her lips.
"Shush, your squad will be fine, they're part of the Aegis Guard after all. If they couldn't adapt to losing you to my team, then they wouldn't have made it onto the field in the first place," I stated, before taking my foreleg off her shoulders as I stood up. "Besides, if you're even half the... 'oddity' that my mother is, you'll be an asset to the team."
"Why would we need an oddity when we have you? You're odd enough to fulfill an entire city's oddness quota," Windbag said, causing me to glare at him.
"You think I'm odd? How about I show you odd by shoving your muzzle into yo—" I yelled until I was interrupted by the noise that sounded similar to when Rainbow was pulling off a Sonic Rainboom. Turning my head toward the origin of the noise, which was from the sky, I saw an alien ship had appeared in the sky, quite some distance away from us above another part of the forest, but still easily viewable.
"Fuck! Enemy reinforcements!" I exclaimed in surprise before grabbing my radio, shouting, "All air units, get airborne now! Transport units, get out of the combat zone!" as I kept an eye on the ship in the sky, where I could see some specks coming down from the bottom of the ship.
"Hey Captain, looks like the aliens' ship is falling ap—" Windbag started to say until I slapped the back of his head. "Ow! Wha—"
"Shut up you dumbass! They're dropping off troop pods!" I shouted at Windbag before returning my attention to my radio. "All troops, move towa—" I started to say until I saw the front end of the ship started to twist clockwise while the end twisted counterclockwise as the center looked to be pulled into some kind of gravitational anomaly.
"Captain, what is going on?" Agate asked as I blinked in surprise before realizing what was going on.
"Discord, this is what he's doing," I answered before my radio flared as Luna yelled into it.
"Captain Aura, have you seen the pods dropping from the ship before it became distorted? Do you have any insight into what it may be?" Luna asked.
"Drop pods of some sort, with at least half of them carrying troops," I explained as I started to yell at the wide-eyed ponies that were watching the sight of the ship twisting about until it finally gave to the twisting as it split in two. "Stop staring and get ready to reengage with the enemy!"
"I see, but why haven't I seen any of these 'pods' on the current battlefield?" Luna asked as my troops started to move in the direction of the enemy drop site.
"Probably due to the first ship not being ready to be torn in two like this one, but its survivors probably were able to relay what happened to the rest of the—" I started to explain until I heard the sound of another ship appearing in the sky. "Fuck, they're going all out with this one!"
"Do not fret captain, I will clean up with the remaining enemy forces here and mobilize our fo—" Luna started to reply until the distant sounds of explosions going off in mass can be heard. "What was that?"
As my ears shriveled about as I kept up the march, Windbag commented, "Wait... that sounded familiar..." causing me to rack my brain on how he would kn—Oh shit!
"Incoming artillery fire! Everyone find some cover!" I yelled into the radio as I briefly scanned the region until I found a chunk of the ground that was lifted above the rest, like some kind of small cliffside. "Get over there, now!" I ordered as I pointed at the rock face before I began to hear the sound of something sizzling, causing me to immediately rushed it as my troops started to follow behind me.
"Commander, how wou—" Agate started to asked as he ran beside me until the sound of an explosion going off interrupted him, causing him to shut his mouth in shock as he ran even faster to the small cliff as more explosions went off all around us. Looking around, I could see Windbag and Night flying ahead of us with Cherry right behind them before I saw what looked like a glob of green light coming down from the sky a mere forty feet to their left, whereupon impact with the ground, the glob exploded in a flash of green light, sending chunks of dirt, rock, and wood flying all over the place. Thankfully, our shields protected us from the debris as it bounced off it as we made it to the cliff, pressing our bodies against it as more artillery fire rain down around us.
Moving my head over to Agate, I yelled, "What were you trying to say, Agate?"
"I was asking on how the enemy would know where to target us, madam!" Agate yelled over the explosions. However, before I could answer, we started to hear someone screaming horribly, indicating that they got hit, which caused Agate's face to pale at the implications. "Oh sweet Cadance... please let me live..."
Slapping Agate's face with my left forehoof, I yelled, "Don't break on me now, Agate, we got a job to do still," to which he dumbfoundedly nodded in response. It wasn't long before the artillery fire ended, lasting about ten seconds when I shouted into the radio, "Every, resume your charge but spread out until we close in on the enemy. Those with wounded, take them to a safe zone away from the landing zone!" before I ran around the cliff, charging towards the enemy as the sound of a third ship entering the sky can be heard, shortly followed by a fourth. However, the arrival of the fourth one was what made me pause, because the direction of the sound of its jump caused me to look up into the sky, where I could see the ship flying overhead.
"You got to be fucken kidding me," Windbag said as he looked up into the sky before I smacked the back of his head before turning on my radio yet again.
"Everyone, dig in and watch out for enemy drop pods! Anyone equipped with heavy ordnance, save it for the enemy vehicles. Those with gatling guns, remember to open fire when the pod opens up! If I catch word of anyone just shooting into a pod's door, I'm going to tear them a new one!" I screamed before finding an old log that I used as cover as my squad took various positions around me.
As I started to take my rifle off my back, about thirty feet to my left, a large, grey round drop pod crashed into the ground, shaking the ground as I realized that my current cover was flanked by the pod's position. "Fucken Tartarus!" I cursed to myself as I lit my horn up, picking up the log as the pod fired off three doors from itself, to which I then tossed the log at the group of Xartik coming out of the closest side before taking aim. Firing some rounds into the enemy troops before teleporting to a tree, I kept firing at them as they started to get into formation, despite the fact that my squad was taking down some of their numbers. It didn't took long to figure out what they were doing as I saw the ones in the front brought out arm mounted shield devices, turning them on to create an energy shielded wall.
"You got to be kidding me... grenade out!" I shouted before pulling the pin on one of my grenades before teleporting it right into the middle of the group, whereupon detonating it sent the Xartik troops flying in all directions.
"Captain Aura! Why are the enemy sending so many ships only for them to be torn apart?" Luna suddenly asked over the radio while I was picking off the fallen Xartik that survived the blast.
Ducking behind my cover, I replied, "By the look of things, and the sheer amount of drop pods coming down, odds are they're planning on sending a mass of troop ships to drop enough of their robots to establish a foothold on the planet. If they can pull that off, then they would be able to construct a portal site at which would allow them to more effectively find the means to establish a stable portal," before I flinched at hearing a fifth ship arriving.
"I see, then I will attend to the matter of the Xartik reinforcements," Luna declared, which almost caused me to demand an explanation when I felt a massive pulse of magic going off, before seeing a blue barrier of magic form right over our heads. As I saw the fifth ship dropping off pods before it too got twisted apart, only for them to explode on impact with the barrier, Luna continued, "Captain, while I hold the enemy off, you have to lead the troops in my stead. I will not be able to both focus on the barrier and fight at the same time, especially whe—" before she paused to let out a grunt as the remains of the fifth ship collided with the barrier, causing it to cave in a bit before reassuming its original shape as the ship broke apart into small pieces as it slid down the barrier. "As I was saying until the enemy has seen the futility of sending any more reinforcements, I will not be able to aid our troops in battle."
"Understood, but do try to get a message to your sister to join us, we could really use some more firepower now rather than later. I don't think we're going to have the luxury of holding our trump cards close to our chests if the Xartik are willing to throw their troops like this," I stated as a sixth ship came in for emphasis as Agate suddenly came to my side.
"Captain, we've taken out this pod's forces, what are your orders?" Agate asked as the rest of my squad took up positions near him.
"Give me a sec," I answered before I returned my attention to the radio. "Squad leaders, report in your squads' current status."
"Delta Three here, we're engaged with four drop pods, but they clumped together so we were able to scatter them with a few grenades."
"Delta Six here, we a—"
"Delta Five here Captain! We're engaged with enemy armor, we need reinforcements, now!"
As I mentally berate myself for whining about facing off one tank earlier, I looked at my left foreleg, flipping up a switch on it to turn on a hologram map where I searched for Delta Five's location, spotting them to be a mile northeast of my team's current position, a bit further ahead of the nearest two squads. "Delta Four, Gamma Three, if your teams are clear, go assist Delta Five. Delta Five, tell me just what you're up against," I ordered as I started to head to their location, my team following behind me as we kept an eye out for any enemy forces.
"We're facing off against what looked to be three of those tanks you faced off earlier Captain, and two other walker tanks that are actually going off, they might be artillery tanks since they're not firing on us yet. But we ca—" the squad leader said until an explosion cut him out briefly before he continued, "Captain, we need help now! We already lost someone and three more are wounded, we're not going to last!"
"Fuck, fine, just get some unicorn if you got one to give off as much magic as they can and I'll teleport to your location," I stated as stopped, indicating to the others to grab onto me. Looking in the general direction, where I saw a sudden glow of orange light, I lit up my horn as I said, "Get ready everyone, this is going to suck."
"Everything sucks when you're involved, Captain."
"Shut the Tartarus up, Windbag."