//------------------------------//
// Flares 
// Story: Pony Class Starship 
// by Viking Hoof 
//------------------------------//

It was with a wet thud that the strange insect slipped off her bayonet and onto the ground, leaving a coating of green ooze on the unignited plasma lance. It was with a sickening crunch that the spike of metal was reburied in one of the many insects that had crawled over the makeshift wall, the spike easily shattering the exoskeleton and stirring the mass of dark green that constituted the central nervous system.

It was with a scream of tangible fury that Kertilsvenja* Matsuki turned to face a third assailant. There would be no retreat, no turning from this duty. Behind her was the last delivery of shuttles fuel, every ounce of it would be necessary to fuel the basecamp fusion generator.

Without thought, wooden fiber stock met bug skull with a resounding CRACK that sent the creature careening off to one side and slamming into the dust, raising a small cloud. Before it could even recover from the shock and disorientation, she screamed aloud and drove her bayonet through it, once, twice, thrice- her heart skipped a beat as the weapon was caught in the creature on the third thrust, her eyes raised just enough to sight the next bug coming straight for her.

    The creature screeched as she tugged on the rifle, trying to get it up and away, but the tail end of the sound was drowned out by a screech that made her instinctively duck her head. The black-armored figure dissolved in a hail of fire, reduced to so much paste smeared across the stone under the force of the rounds. The intense automatic fire from the Skutilsvenja’s** automatic dissolving the bug with sustained accurate fire.

Matsuki stepped back from the third quadrupedal insect as it bled out on the rubble and dove her hand into the worryingly light ammo pouch. Quickly she retrieved a linked set of five rounds, her sweat-slicked fingers slamming them into the thankfully rugged side gate of her rifle, the linkages of the bullets disengaging as they were fed into the circular magazine. In quick order she disengaged the lock on the barrel and shouldered the battle rifle, aligning the holographic free floating sight, and sending a round ripping through a line of the butt ugly bug fucks.

The barrel recoiled with each shot as Matsuki quickly worked her way through the five shots with disciplined brevity. In a well trained fluid motion, she re-engaged the lock on the barrel and charged back to the barricade, shoving the sharp spike bayonet into a bug that had half worked its way through the improvised rocky barricade.

Hearing a sharp screech from above, Matsuki quickly stepped to the side. She winced as one of the bugs was splattered all over the canyon.  The epicenter of the gore laid less than a meter from her position. Its wings oozed green, riddled with holes from the Skutilsvenja’s automatic. It was a small comfort that the bugs had a limited number of fliers.

Matsuki’s wandering paranoia was transfixed as a hail of fire crossed over the top of the canyon. The familiar high pitched scream of wing jets rang down the canyon, giving the bugs some pause, as it should. The hail of bullets was followed with an agile form, diving down into the canyon.

Valkyrja, the familiar and warm word wormed its way into Matsuki’s heart. The airborne warrior’s graceful dive burning alight with soft orange flames as superheated gas gave the dive an upward curve, bringing her up along the rim halfway along the canyon the shuttle had crashed into. The Valkyrja’s feet were a flurry of movement as she used the momentum to bring her over the half-buried shuttle, rising once more before allowing the wings to once again burn in a soft drop ending in a roll.

Except for the roll at the end, the Valkyrja’s weapon did not rest in this acrobatic performance. The light automatic’s barrel shimmering in the already hot and dry badlands they had crashed in. The new green paint smeared all over the barricade stood as a testament to the moving accuracy the valkyrja’s were esteemed for.

“Kertilsvenja, catch!” By instinct, Matsuki snatched the familiar cylinder of metal out of the air. Quickly turning it to find the catch, she jammed the slimmer half of the tiered cylinder into the barrel of her rifle and snapped it into place.

Matsuki fell to her knees and slammed the butt of her rifle on the hard rock of the canyon floor. She ran her thumb along the instructions quickly confirming her memory of the manual of arms, while doing her best to ignore the thin streak of nervous sweat she was leaving in her digit’s wake. Studying the canyon walls, she adjusted her rifle for the optimal air time and visibility, and With a soft pull of the trigger, the gauss coils of the rifle slammed the integral pin into the primer on the grenade. The rifle erupted in her hands, violently expelling the rod into the sky above the canyon. Vibrant intense light filled the air as the flare activated, small jets sustaining its hang over the canyon as multiple spectrums were blasted with energy.

Matsuki forced herself back to her feet. Her hands were still shaking from the force of the flare. Quickly slapping the release of the barrel, allowing it to again jump forward and free, the movement ejecting the spent casing that housed the grenade’s propellant.

Before she could even fish out the last few rounds in her ammo pouch the chasm erupted in a spray of green, a teeth-rattling hail of fire drowning the valley as automatic 12.7’s churned the mass of bugs on the other side of the barricade.

Matsuki flinched as she felt the armoured hand of her superior officer fall upon her shoulder. Without a second thought she went back to her knees, bowing her head before the armoured figure.

“Hail, dame Bayarmaa” she answered, addressing her mentor directly.

“We’ll break you of that yet Matsuki.” Matsuki felt a shock rock her system. Confusion bubbling up into her mind as she tried to parse the strangely informal address her mentor had given her.

Before she could think anything else, Matsuki’s system was rocked as an armored knee drove itself into the pit of her stomach. The air was driven from her body, and she was left leaning upon Bayarmaa’s other leg, struggling to recover her breath. She looked up, unable to hide the betrayal she was feeling.

“Do you feel it? The air that is saturating your lungs? The aether of life filling you? That air doesn’t touch the lungs of a warrior, of any paltry spanner jockey. This is the first breathe of a new life. There is no turning back. There is no retreat past this step.” Her mentor stepped past her, a sudden sharp pain in her hindquarters forced her lungs to kick back into action. “Welcome to the Jomsvikings.” Matsuki’s head swam as her mentor let her fall to the ground.







“And you’re sure they’re alive,” Twilight asked softly, “that they’re here?” Twilight’s eyes scanned the logs Aurora had presented her, the strange creature she had made friends with helpfully projecting legible Equestrian over top of the illegible script. Twilight’s eyes glanced back up to the massive glass tank, not for the first time. Confusion still swimming in her head as she tried to wrap her mind around this new friend of hers.

The eyeless… dolphin? Fish? Twilight still hadn’t decided how best to describe it. Aurora had assured Twilight that the aquatic creature was indeed her physical form.

“Your… magic isn’t as dense outside of your atmosphere. Enough to keep me from FTL’ing, but I can scan for the radiation of another ship or a shuttle’s exhaust, and I’ve yet to find anything. The steam goes in, not out, and it’s not old, the newest is just a week or so old.” The figure on the screen glanced at the tank, not for the first time, its mouth twitching minutely.

“I ask again, would you mind if we moved to the observation deck. I can better give a report on what I know with the holoprojectors in there.” Twilight frowned at the very equestrian gesture. As eager as she was to continue pouring over the advanced technology used in its report, it would be rude for her to continue perturbing her host.

“Lead the way.” She answered, trying her best to not show she’d seen Aurora’s discomfort. She grabbed the thin glass squares by their metal rim, marvelling at how the ‘programmable’ papers were shockingly light.

Through the open doorway she could see the guiding lights. She couldn’t help but tarry for a moment, giving the form in the tank another glance. She tried for just one second to imagine how it would have been for Aurora if the ship hadn’t come back on; blind, deaf, and numb to the world, but for the wires laced throughout the fish’s body. The mechanical systems kicking on to sustain the prison. Whatever these humans were, they weren’t perfect. This miracle of technology she inhabited these past couple of hours was at a cost.

“So how are you going to find them if you can’t scan the planet?” Twilight asked softly as she rounded the corner. She jolted a bit as Aurora’s grinning face appeared on the electronic paper.

“How do Equestrians find things when their scanners fail? Boots on the ground miss Twilight. I intend to scour your planet. It doesn’t matter how long, nor how far I have to go, I will touch every corner of your world to find them.” Twilight paused a smidgen at the firmness of the words. It wasn’t too different from Applejack. When Aurora put her hoof down she seemed to mean it.

“If we can secure these papers against the shrinking that overtakes you on descent into Equiss’s Atmosphere then it shouldn’t be too hard for me to secure help from Celestia and Luna. Luna will be harder, but… doable.” Twilight gave Aurora an apologetic shrug.








Matsuki grimaced as someone continued to blast on the electric harp. Another shot of that damnable ale was shoved into her hands. Without a second thought she downed it. All around her she could see eyes filled with a new respect. Glancing from her eyes to the long-stemmed rose she wore as a crown.

She was a Jomsviking now. The Skipstjóri*** had confirmed her ennoblement upon arrival. It was, in its own way, disappointing. The world wasn’t brighter, clearer, there was no fount of strength she had been gifted with. The only thing that seemed more certain was her death. She had seen the fatality rates of the Jomsvikings, been forced to study the names of the dead before they would even consider accepting her among their ranks. The fate of a Jomsviking was death, there was no escaping. Sooner or later she would be just as dead as the filthy scum she had cleaned off her bayonet.

Would she die better than they had? Would she break? Would she make a pitiable effort before her end? She had served a good seven years in the military, she’d made effort for this post. She’d earned her handful of medals in that time.

But that was the military, these were the jomsvikings. Where before she had been expected to fight and serve with honour and bravery, the Jomsvikings demanded insanity. She would have to fight harder, faster, smarter, such was the nature of service to the Empress of humanity. The pillar upon which democracy could rest and trust.

Matsuki was shaken from her thought as she was offered the operational side of a blunt, the half smoked marijúana cigar burning softly in the night air.

Without a second though she accepted a lungful, her eyes resting on the woman who had offered it to her. Bayarmaa’s eyes glowed softly in the air, reflecting the embers drifting off the blunt. It was an open invitation, an offer of devotion, and in those eyes Matsuki saw her future. A Jomsviking didn’t die just for the democracy they were sworn to, not just the Empress humanity loved, but also for each other. It was a promise to ensure their last moments were soft no matter how brutal the means of their demise. She’d been told all of this, but in Bayarmaa’s eyes she could see the honesty of those words.

Though, with the look Matsuki saw in those eyes, she got the idea that Bayarmaa didn’t want to wait for death to offer that embrace.

Such was the life of a Jomsviking.