//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Contact Harvest // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// If you can't wake up from the nightmare, maybe you're not asleep. The door had been closed behind me as I sat in the enclosed room with my hands cuffed to the top of the table. undoubtedly there would be someone on the other side of the mirrored window watching my every move so I sat still, not moving a muscle while looking forward. Letting someone sit in a silent and empty room for a long while would wreak havoc on the mind if one was not sufficiently prepared for it. Fortunately for me, I was one of the people who could do so as interrogation training was part of boot camp and snipers had to have incredible patience anyway. But the ONI officers would know that as well so it stood to reason one of them would be coming in to try something else soon. After staring at the empty wall in front of me a while longer I could hear the metal door opening behind me and two people entering. Let the dance begin. "Specialist belle." One of the two, a lady who had her black hair in a tight knot on the back of her head, said as she dropped what seemed to be my personnel file on the table, a large red stamp that said classified on the middle of it. "We've been watching you and your friends for a while now, I must say we've never seen such an interesting trio as the three of you." I looked the woman straight into her blue eyes, and waited for her to sit down across to me, "I have no clue as to what you're talking about, maybe you could tell me why so I can get back out to face the covenant." The interrogator smiled a bit while I, in contrast, was shooting an Icy glare back at her. "I'm afraid that's not going to happen, specialist Belle. Specialist Firewing and Sergeant Apple have shown interesting features but you remain a mystery to us and with the appearance of miss Shimmer we want answers." The lady's smile didn't change the slightest as she spoke. I considered my options for a moment longer, even though she had been dancing around the subject the interrogator definitely knew we weren't normal. I could've possibly kept denying that fact but that would just draw out the entire interrogation for hours longer. My hands lit up with the to me familiar emerald glow, the lady immediately took distance from me and grasped for her pistol... ...Finding nothing as I gently placed the weapon in front of me, dissipating my magic aura as I heard a gun being cycled directly behind me. "Neither I or my friends have any intention of harming humanity, ma'am. We're just stuck here and even though we found a possible way home we've decided that we're not going to go." The lady carefully stepped forward and picked the handgun of the table and tightly secured it back on her hip, "We'll see if that's true soon enough, Specialist Belle." She said with an icy tone as the door opened once again and the two left which left me alone in the room once again. I had no idea what was happening, my hands were locked to a table while the rest of the room was completely empty. My thoughts were going all over the place as tears rolled down my face, Where are the others, what are these humans going to do?! Oh sweet Celestia, I'm still covered in blood! I twitched as the door behind me opened and turned my head around to see two people, a man and a woman, coming into the room. "H-Hello?" I stuttered with a lump in my throat as the lady sat down in front of me, her black hair in a tight knot. "Hello, miss Shimmer. Normally I know everything about the people I meet but not you, you're still an enigma to me and that's something that's going to change." The lady in front of me said with an even tone, sweat forming on my forehead. "A-and if I don't want to talk?" My voice barely above a whisper. The lady let out a single laugh before she turned deadly serious once again, "People who don't exist won't get missed when they disappear. I'm sure section 3 would have a field day with the four of you." Her icy tone sent a shiver up my spine, "Let's start at the beginning, where were you born?" The possibility of lying went through my head but my gut feeling was telling me the lady in front of me would immediately notice, "C-Canterlot, Equestria." "And where oh where might that be?" She asked as her blue eyes seemed to be staring right into my soul. "It's not on any planet here. I tried to use a portal to get to another world but accidentally ended up here, just like the crusaders." I explained, the lady was listening intently to what I was saying. "Crusaders?" She asked as she folded her hand in front of her, her tone of voice softening a bit. "Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo." I nervously chuckled at memories of the three Crusaders in my human world, "When they're committed to a goal they won't stop until they've achieved it, I remember them blowing up a chemistry classroom once because they wanted to try to see if they could become Alchemists." The lady stayed silent for a moment before asking her next question, "And what might the 'Crusaders' next goal be?" "I honestly don't exactly know, they have made clear that they wish to stay until they have helped humanity to some point but I don't know how far they want to go," I answered, the lady nodded in satisfaction. "Thank you miss Shimmer, though there's one more thing I want to know." The lady started, her hand going down to her hip. "Specialist Belle has shown us a rather peculiar ability, now I wonder if you have similar qualities." My heartbeat sped up as I realized what she was talking about, "W-what do you mean." "Now now, miss Shimmer, you've been wonderfully cooperative, don't let me have to do this the hard way." The final part of the sentence was said in the icy tone she had started the conversation with as she put her handgun on the table in front of her. Seeing no other option I pushed magic from my wellspring into my hands. "I can't use it like Sweetie as she has had a year of practice but when I get the hang of it I'll be able to use it to much better effect than she can due to my magic education." A bead of sweat rolled down my face as I hadn't told them about my secondary ability that my necklace gave me... "You're hiding something else." The lady stated as she stood up and picked up her gun, pointing it straight at my forehead, "Five..." "I-I'm a telepath! I can read minds when I touch people." I blurted out, a grin immediately forming on the lady's face. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" she reholstered her weapon and brought a hand up to her ear as if she was listening to someone, "It was nice talking to you miss Shimmer, but it seems Specialist Firewing is demanding some attention." The door opened once again as the two humans stepped out, the moment I heard the door close I broke down sobbing. Please just let this end. "THIS IS JUST AS BORING AS WHEN WE WERE STUCK AFTER WE ESCAPED FROM THIS PLANET!" I shouted, there was bound to be someone behind the damned mirror watching me. Still, nothing happened and the room just remained quiet. I sighed deeply as I tried scratching off some dried blood from below my nose while a grin crept onto my face. When the four ODST's had forced me to take off my armor they had unwittingly released my wings. The first one, who had been holding my right arm, had received a face full of feathers as I extended it and whacked him at full force. The second ODST who was holding my left arm had then received a right hook with the freed arm but, sadly, number three and four had tackled me to the ground and restrained me more thoroughly until they had cuffed me to the damn table in this room. The door clicked open behind me finally breaking the boring silence in the room, "Took you guys long enough." A lady who didn't look amused in the slightest, sat down on the other side of the table, "I was expecting to see those ONI pretender ODST's, did you know that you spooks only have to take two weeks of ODST training before you can drop alongside them? You should have seen how mad I was to see those shits get a black beret after only two weeks where we still had four to go!" "I sincerely don't give a crap what you think or want right..." "What I want?!" I slightly rose from my chair and my wings flared out, they were pretty large compared to my human form unlike in Equestria where they were tiny. "I want to do what I came here to do and get back out there and kick those Covenant bastards off this planet!" I shouted, the lady just sat there stoically as I dropped back down on my chair. "Fine. Ask your questions." The lady straightened up and threw a file with a picture of me on the table, "First I'll have to thank you, If it wasn't for the initial medical scans you provided us with you'd have just fallen off the radar." She opened the file she had on me and showed me a set of medical scans that clearly showed my wings. After that she pulled a sealed transparent bag that was filled with smaller feathers from a pocket, "You'd be surprised of what you find in the shower drains of a military base and an apartment in New Alexandria." Seeing this I pulled my wings closer together and frowned, "What do you want?" "I want to know your mind, and you've already given me a wonderful insight into it when you started shouting at me." A grin cracked through the lady's mask, "I also wanted to know where you were from but miss Shimmer provided me with an adequate answer for the moment." "Don't you dear touch Shimmer, she's just a civilian," I growled at the lady in front of me. "Oh don't worry about miss Shimmer, she has told us about a skill of her that's far too useful for us to pass by." She said as she picked up the file and stood up from the chair, "Try to stay calm this time, I still have two of your colleagues I need to talk too." I groaned and slammed my head into the table as the two interrogators left the room and left me to wander my own mind once again. Everything had gone to hell, my friends who I trusted with my life and had fought the covenant with had turned out to be aliens themselves and now ONI had gotten involved. Sitting in the empty room was boring as hell but it wasn't as if I didn't have enough things to think over in my mind. The locked door clicked open and Two people came walking inside, "Specialist Andrews, you must be questioning why you are here." A black haired woman stated. "Not really Ma'am, I think I can give a good guess as to why I'm here," I answered as the lady raised an eyebrow and took place in front of me, opening a file. "In that case, I want to know how exactly you encountered miss Shimmer." She asked as she closed the file again and put it on the table next to her. I sighed as I sat straighter up, "We were running recon to the west of the city, killed a couple of Covenant units on the way when Sweetie, who was on overwatch suddenly shouted she had spotted a damned civilian wondering into the outskirts." I smiled a bit as I remembered the events of earlier in the day. "At first none of us believed her but after Sweetie described how Sunset looked the others immediately wanted to get her, not that that's surprising now. So eventually we found her being chocked by an elite, Sweetie took the shot taking out half its head and we annihilated the squad of grunts. After that Sunset freaked out and nearly attacked us, Firewing tackled her before it could escalate but by that time I'd seen enough and wanted an explanation, which they gave. After that, we headed back to base and encountered the lot of you." The lady looked into my eyes for a moment before standing up, "Thank you, Specialist Andrews. We will return shortly." She stated before turning and walking out the door. "Goddammit, this had to happen to me, hadn't it?" I grumbled. The moment the door opened the suppressed sound of artillery fire rang through the room until it closed again, "Sergeant Apple, I'm afraid I will have to hurry up since the Covenant isn't about to give us breathing space down here." "Ya could just let us go and we'd help ya push 'em back." I said annoyed at the fact that I was stuck in the room instead of preparing for the next operation. "That's not my call, Sergeant." The lady who had sat down in front of me said while placing her helmet in front of her on the table. "Your squadmates have been ever so helpful in answering my questions, though, any further course of action will be run through higher offices than mine." "DARNIT! Ah know you know we ain't human but that don't mean we want to kill you!" I shouted as I smashed my fist down on the table as hard as I could with the cuffs on, the lady flinched back as two small dents were in the places where my fists had come down. Even in training, I hadn't used my full strength as it hadn't been necessary, and I hadn't gone to the edge of my ability still. The room shuddered as the sound of an explosion came through the isolated walls, "We'll be back after beating back the assault." The lady said as she put on her helmet and rushed out of the room. Waiting for a couple of seconds after the door closed I rose up from my chair and braced against the cuffs. "To Tartarus with waitin'," I grunted as the metal started groaning and a trickle of blood streamed from my wrist as the cuffs dug into them. SNAP I flew back into the ground as the cuffs broke and immediately fell off my wrist due to the mechanism had being destroyed. Ignoring the pain I threw myself at the locked door and crashed through it, no-one was in the hallway as I could hear gunfire outside. After kicking in a couple of doors I found Scootaloo sitting behind a table, her wings drooped behind her while she was repeatedly banging her head on the table. "Ya done yet?" Scootaloo looked back to see me standing in the door opening. "Our equipment is two door to the left, please for the love of Celestial go get something to get me out of here." She grunted as I grinned and nodded. Running two doors further the door similarly came down and I could see all our equipment neatly stacked up in separate piles and our weapons stored in weapons lockers. The locks on the simple weapons lockers didn't stand much of a chance as I pulled them open, checking the ammo of my magnum after pulling it out before sprinting back to where Scootaloo was seated. "Hold your hands as far away from your body as ya can," I told her as I put the magnum against her cuffs, the shot I took ripping the cuffs in half as the armor piercing round did its job. "Find, Sweetie, Ana, or Sunset yet?" Scootaloo asked as we ran into the hallway. I kicked down another door before answering. "Found Ana just now." The human looked back at me in shock as I was probably the last person she expected, "Sit back, Ana, Ah'm gettin' ya out." The shot from the magnum destroyed her cuffs. "And what are we going to do then? There's nowhere we can go, Bloom. ONI is on one side while the Covenant is on the other." Ana sighed but got up anyway. "We're gonna do what we were trained for, Ana. We're gonna kick these bastards off this planet, and even if ONI don't want our help right now they're gonna get it anyway. Gear is a couple doors down." Ana nodded and sprinted down the hall as I kicked down another door. Sunset was the next person I found as I barged in, my fellow equestrian had her head lying on the table while she was softly crying. "Sunset, Ah'm gonna need you to hold out your hands." The red-haired woman looked up with swollen and teary eyes but immediately followed my order when she saw who I was. "Two rooms down you'll find Scoots an Ana, go there and listen to them." She didn't answer but left the room and entered the one where Ana and Scootaloo were gearing up. Finally approaching the last door prepared to kick it in only for it to simply swing open. "Good to see we're on the same page, did you get the others?" Sweetie asked as she pushed past me. "Yeah, they're already gearin' up," I told her as we ran into the room that housed our gear. Scootaloo and Ana had already gotten on their undersuits on and were in the process of securing the straps of the armored plates. Sunset was sitting on her knees in the corner of the room with four rows of magazines in front of her and was loading bullets into them. "Ya good, Sunset?" She looked up at me and nodded. "Y-yes, Scootaloo told me how to fill up these and which goes in which." She said as she finished filling another magazine. Knowing that Sunset was doing as well as could be expected I quickly grabbed my undersuit and pulled it on, Ana helping me with my armor plates as she finished putting on hers first. "Bloom, catch!" Scootaloo shouted as she tossed my shotgun at me. Checking the ammo I found it to be full. Sunset meanwhile was passing out the filled ammo clips which the four of us who were armored took and stashed away in the appropriate pockets. "Sunset you're gonna stay here in cover while we go out, clear?" "Yes, sergeant." She replied, I pulled my magnum and offered it to her. "Just point it and pull the trigger, jus' make sure whatever you're shooting at ain't human." I waited for Sunset to nod before turning to my squad, "Y'all set?" "I'm a go." "I'm too, Sarge." "All good here." Ana, Scootaloo, and Sweetie sounded off as they were ready. "Good, now I would give a darn good speech right now if it weren't for the fact we're needed out there. Let's move out!" The four of us put on our helmets and rushed outside, smoke and gunfire coming from the eastern tunnel entrance and from up top. Making a quick decision I took the lead to one of the staircases that led up to the surface as the eastern entrance had warthogs swarming towards it. "Sweetie, get a vantage point on barricade north!" I shouted as a swarm of grunts had broken it and surged forward with support from a Wraith tank. My sniper immediately broke off in another direction while we continued forwards. "Hey, Helljumpers get over here!" A marine sergeant major shouted as we slid into cover behind one of the concrete barricades we had set up days prior when we initially had created our foothold on the planet. "Listen up, we had heavy weapons located at one of the forward barricades but the guys who were tasked with getting them back here got killed at the second barricades, without those weapons or some serious miracle we're going to get crushed." "What's our call on fleet support?" I asked the sergeant major who shook his head. "Archer missiles would collapse the station as well, we're on our own for this one!" "Darnit. Firewing, we're gonna get them weapons. Andrews, Sweetie give us cover." I ordered my squadmates, before turning to the sergeant major who was shouting orders at his men, "Sergeant major, I'm gonna need suppression so I can get them weapons!" "You've got it!" He shouted over the roar of plasma- and gunfire before shouting into his radio. "Everyone suppression fire on my mark!" I looked over to Scootaloo and Ana who both gave me a thumbs up. "Mark!" Scootaloo sprinted ahead at full speed as the sergeant major gave his order, the roar of the gunfire momentarily growing louder as the marines gave us cover. Firing at grunts along the way we took cover behind a barricade at the second defensive line. A grunt jumped over the concrete wall we sat behind and was powering up its plasma pistol but before either me or Scootaloo could respond the little creature practically exploded, sending the plasma bolt into the air. "You've got more incoming so please hurry up." Sweetie said over the radio as more grunts just disintegrated from seemingly random fire. Scootaloo looked over the barricade only to immediately duck behind the cover once again. "They have a wraith." She simply stated as a blob of blue plasma impacted the barricade the marines were using. "One of the heavy weapons cases is over there at the next barricade. If we use it to kill that wraith the marines can come up to push out the assault." I looked at the case and its surroundings before giving two taps on Scootaloo's back who immediately took off towards the other barricade, plasma fire impacting the concrete behind her as she managed to reach the barricade on the other side. I primed two grenades and lobbed them over my barricade, getting hit by a plasma shot on my main armor plate in the process, as Scootaloo opened up the weapons case and pulled out a SPNKR rocket launcher. Scootaloo took aim just after the grenades had taken out most grunts surrounding the wraith that had just moved up, the two tubes of the launcher releasing their deadly load onto the purple tank the frontal armor buckling and partially melting off but the tank remained alive as it slowly turned to face my friend as she loaded a new set of rockets. "Darnit. Sweetie take a shot!" I shouted at my friend as the Wraith started charging its plasma turret. The weakened frontal armor suddenly buckled inwards and the tank started shuddering. Scootaloo who had finished reloading fired another rocket into the tank for good measure, which sealed its fate as blue plasma fire escaped from openings in the vehicle before it exploded. The grunts who had been relentlessly pushing forward suddenly lost their momentum as a couple of them started panicking and running, something that quickly spread throughout their ranks. The other thing that happened was that four warthogs that had come up from the underground roared past us as they opened fire on the grunts which emboldened the marines who surged forwards to my position and started picking off any covenant footsoldier that they could see. A couple of minutes of hard fighting later we had pushed them out past the base's outer defenses and stopped there as the assaulting forces retreated back into the city. A cheer came from the marines who still stood on the walls as the last covenant soldiers were killed ending the battle for our base, Ana and Sweetie came jogging up to me as I walked back to the stairs leading to the underground structures, "You still in one piece, sarge, and where's Scootaloo?" Ana asked as she saw my partially melted battle plate. "It only got the plate, nothin' important got damaged and Scootaloo ran off to help the other medics out." I answered as we entered the underground section of the station, "By the way, Sweetie, ya made that shot on that wraith just in time." Sweetie shrugged, "Scoots damaged the armor already. If she hadn't then my round wouldn't have penetrated, fifteen thousand meters per second gives my baby some punch but covenant heavy armor is a tough nut to crack." I nodded and we quickly made our way back to the building where we had been locked up in the first place, quickly moving down the hall where we had left Sunset. "Shimmer? Ya still in there?" I asked waiting next to the door as I didn't fancy being shot by a panicked, trigger happy civilian. "Apple Bloom?" She called back her voice less of a quiver as when we left her. "Ah'm coming in so please don't shoot me," I said as I crossed the corner into the room where sunset had used a table as a makeshift barricade, a row of full magazines lay next to her along with a couple of empty ammunition boxes. "Are ya still in one piece?" I asked as Sunset lowered the pistol. "Yeah, nothing came in here after you left." She answered as I approached and held out my hand, dragging Sunset back onto her feet and guided her back to the hallway where Sweetie and Ana were waiting for me. "So what do we do now?" Ana asked as Sunset gave me my magnum back. "First we're gonna get Sunset here a bunk to get some sleep, after that we're gonna help clean up the base until the spooks find and take us in again," I explained, hoping that it was going to take a while for that to happen. We stepped outside and started leading Sunset to one of the containers that were used for housing either five marines and ODST's with their gear. Sunset winced every time we passed one of the deceases marines even though they were covered with tarps by this point. "That's them!" Someone suddenly shouted from behind us as we had almost reached the container. Darnit, I was hoping for a little longer than that. We turned around to see two marines running up to us, "You guys the ODST's that repelled the assault up top?" One of them asked as they came to a stop in front of us, the four of us glanced at each other before I took off my helmet. "Not entirely us, we just destroyed the Wraith," I told him. "That's what caused them to panic and retreat so that counts as repelling the assault to me." He countered before continuing, "The Colonel has been trying to find your team after you left the northern barricade for a while now so I need the four of you to come with me..." He cut his explanation off as he spotted Sunset, "Holy shit is that a civilian?!" "Yeah, do you mind if we get her to a bunk first before reporting to the Colonel?" The marine shook his head. "Nah, just make it quick. We'll wait here." He told us. We quickly made our way over to our place of residence where we gave Sunset one of our bunks to sleep on, which she did almost the moment she touched the bed. Running back to the marines we set off towards the command building while also opening a COM line to Scootaloo and telling her to head over there as well. We ran into the medic in front of the command building before we were let in by the two escorts, one of the marines entered the Colonel's office and announced us while we stood outside. The moment he came out he motioned for us to enter. "I'm sorry Captain, but I don't give a damn about your escaped prisoners right now because, frankly, I have more important things to do like securing this base to make sure we don't lose our foothold." The Colonel said as he saw us entering, "Now I want you to leave while I talk to these soldiers." The Captain grumbled and got up, my heart skipped a beat as I saw that it was the female ONI officer that had briefly entered my room. "YOU!" She shouted as she recognized us. "US!" Scootaloo replied with a grin on her face, angering the captain even further. She pulled her magnum and pointed it in my direction. "Surrender your weap..." "CAPTAIN, PUT AWAY THAT MAGNUM!" The Colonel thundered making every one of us flinch back. "These are my escaped prisoners, Colonel!" She said as she lowered the gun. The Colonel's face was red with anger as he looked at the captain. "I don't know what the FUCK ONI was locking them up for but these four broke the assault at the northern barricade, if they hadn't done that when they did the Covenant would have been able to bring up more wraiths and annihilate our foothold and kill everyone here. LET ME BE VERY CLEAR, WITHOUT THOSE FOUR WE WOULD ALL BE CORPSES RIGHT NOW!" The captain seemed taken aback by that and looked from the Colonel towards us, "I-I'll take my leave." "Yes, I think that's a good idea, Captain." The Colonel responded as the captain pushed past us. "I've got no idea why she was keeping you locked up and I don't want to know. But what I want you to know is that I've put you in for promotions and decorations at Highcom, every single marine on this base is in your debt" "Just doin' our job, Colonel," I replied as he cracked a smile. "Good to hear, though I need to get back to work now as the base is a wreck. You're dismissed." The Colonel said, we saluted him and left the command building. The moment we stepped outside the captain approached us. "For the love of Celestia, if you're gonna try an' arrest us again Ah'm gonna punch you through a wall." I groaned as she stopped in front of us. "No, I want to apologize, I let my personal feelings get in the way of a mission and refused to pursue any other scenarios other than that you were hostile to Humanity." She admitted, the four of us staring dumbfounded at her since she had held us at gunpoint a couple of minutes prior. It took us a moment to collect ourselves before Ana asked a question. "Personal how?" "I was born on this planet." The simple statement explained a lot, the evacuation of harvest hadn't been without casualties as almost forty thousand had perished on the planet before evacuations were completed. "My parents were on strand number seven as it snapped while I was in another star system entirely." "Darn, Ah'm sorry." "There's nothing you could have done about it and I took the anger I should have been reserving for the Covenant out on you." She admitted, I stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "As long as you stop trying to lock us up Ah've got no hard feelings against you," I told her which seemed to make her smile as I released her but sighed after a moment. "I can't just let the three of you go, they'd just send someone else to deal with you. Though since you're willing to work with us I think ONI would be open to keeping you in rotation as long as they have some supervision on the four of you." The Captain explained to us. "Ah think that's fair but that leaves Sunset out of the picture." I replied as I wanted to know what would happen to the newest Equestrian addition to this world, "Since she can't stay here with us." "Sunset told me that one of her abilities is reading someone else's mind, there's no way ONI is going to pass on a skill like that so she's probably going to be asked to join up." That revelation genuinely surprised me, Scoots, and Sweetie as that wasn't something that ponies could do. "Ah'll tell her that when she wakes up. Thank you, Captain... Uhm" I didn't know her name as ONI operators didn't have their name written on their armor. "Lindsey" She finished for me and held out her hand, "I'll go write up a report for my superiors and you should get some rest." "Will do, Captain Lindsey. Ah'm lookin' forward to working with you." I replied as I shook her hand. She nodded, turned around, and left. I sighed as a heavy burden was lifted off my shoulders as we could now focus on getting the planet back before going home.