//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Contact Harvest // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// Live for something rather than die for nothing. -General George Patton "I'll keep you three updated on my progress in finding a way back home," Sunset said as she glanced at the pelican that was going to carry her to orbit. "We'll keep ya to that." Apple Bloom replied as she shook Sunset's hand. The moment Sunset had woken up after the attack of the base we had told her about ONI's interest in her, initially she had been... resistant to the idea as the only experience with a spook was Captain Lindsey interrogating her. But after some convincing that Naval Intelligence would be able to help provide resources in her endeavor of designing a spell to take us home and an apology from the Captain she accepted, not that we would have had her stay in the first place as we couldn't guarantee her safety. "I almost forgot to ask, could you send me spell matrixes for easy spells that might be useful out here? Since I can only really use a levitation and a light spell right now." Sunset nodded at me as I pulled a tablet out of the bag I had with me and passed it on to Sunset. "I linked my financial account to this, we have only limited use for it out here anyway so you might as well take it so you have some money you can use." Sunset looked at the tablet and, seemingly reluctantly, took it. "Any tips you three have for me out there?" She asked, Applebloom being the first to respond. "Find a friend ya can trust and talk to since we won't always be there to talk to ya." Sunset sighed and then smiled. "That's probably the most Twilight Sparkle thing you could have said," She grinned, the four of us sharing a chuckle at the truth of that statement. "Sorry to break this up but we're burning time and our window for departure is closing soon." The pilot called from out front, urging Sunset to strap into one of the pelican's chairs. The roar of the engine got louder as we cleared the tarmac and after a last wave to Sunset the dropship sealed itself and took off into space where our fellow Equestrian would be transported to a spaceship on an outbound vector back to another human colony. So long Sunset Shimmer, I hope you'll find us our way home at the end of this. "We should get back to Ana and prepare for our next mission," Applebloom said as the pelican disappeared from view, Neither Scootaloo nor me disagreeing with that idea as we started making our way into the underground where a lot of the barracks were situated. The base over the last couple of days had expanded to encompass a large portion of the city center and had been hardened to resist any and all assaults on it. In the lower levels a series of stores, tattoo shops, and other small businesses had sprung up and were crewed mainly by support personnel to give the marines some respite as even the hardest of soldiers couldn't be fighting non-stop. After the walk back down to our quarters, we found Ana performing maintenance on her assault rifle, something I was also planning to do on my sniper rifle. "So, your friend finally left?" She casually asked as she cleaned the old oil of a part and put new oil onto it before re-inserting it back into the rifle. "Yup, but she'll be back at some point," Scootaloo answered as she started removing the cloth holding her wings to her body, even though the secret was out it was still required to make sure no-one other than informed ONI personnel would be aware of them since the regular infantry would probably react... poorly in the current situation. "You know I'm never going to get used to seeing that," Ana said as Scootaloo was stretching her wings, the tips of her primaries reaching past her outstretched arms. "Just imagine having to get used to changing species entirely." Scoots replied, Ana visibly shuddering at the thought. I ignored the rest of the conversation as the deconstruction of my stanchion rifle took all my attention. The others, though understanding the need for maintenance, didn't understand the work required to keep the specific sniper rifle functioning. The rifle had magnetic coils running along the barrel which would propel a small slug to hypersonic speeds, the side effect of this was that due to the sheer speed of the slug leaving the barrel the coils would wear out at extreme speeds which meant they had to be regularly replaced. After checking all the coils, and replacing two sets of them, I continued on to check the batteries. The batteries took much less maintenance and would last for a good thousand shots but I always made sure they were completely full and bug-free as you didn't want them failing on you in the field. Finally, after having checked the inside of the rifle I reassembled the thing and put it in front of me. This thing is way too bland, it could use some... customization. Pulling out a can of dark purple spraypaint and a bottle of black paint along with a brush, one of the stores on base was selling it to potentially help spruce up any living quarters though I was going to use it for something else. Grabbing a piece of cloth and oil remover I started working on cleaning my rifle. While doing this I also took the time to look at my friends who by now were doing their own thing once again, Scootaloo was lying fully armored on her bed while scratching at the ONI logo that was now in the middle of it. As part of the deal Naval Intelligence had come up with we were now attached to their Section One which was responsible for 'Military Intelligence' though from what we heard they were also responsible for hit jobs so every now and then. Apple Bloom meanwhile was tending to her shotgun, diligently cleaning parts now she had the time to do so, Ana meanwhile had her tablet and seemed to be reading something. Turning my attention back to the now clean rifle and pulled out some tape to carefully cover the parts I didn't want to paint, in the corner of my eye I could see Ana curiously starting to glance at my activity while I worked. About fifteen minutes later I had finished taping off everything important and had taken off the scope just in case and took the rifle outside. Getting my can of spray-paint I pointed it at the weapon and started spraying according to the instructions the soldier who had sold me it had given. Waiting for about ten minutes I picked up the now painted rifle again and walked back inside. Ana was the first to notice me coming back inside and let out a laugh, "You know that's not going to sit well with the higher-up, you know, regulations and that kind of crap." "I know. I'll just file it under a 'custom modification', snipers get a lot of freedom with those." I reasoned as I set down my rifle and removed the tape, and levitated my brush along with the black paint to continue painting. "Hey, Bloom. If she manages to get away with it, would you mind if I also did some 'customization'?" Scootaloo asked as she was lazily watching me work. Apple Bloom chuckled at that, "Ah don't have anythin' against it, hell I'd do some mahself." "Hey, don't leave me out! I'd be up for some customization!" Ana chimed in, Applebloom shaking her head as she finished re-assembling her own weapon and cycled it to check if it worked. I meanwhile had finished what I was writing on my rifle and stepped back to look at my work, my writing had always been incredibly neat due to Rarity's lessons combined with the levitation lessons from Twilight my name and the other text I had written onto the rifle had come out very nicely. "Nice one, Sweetie," Scootaloo commented as I turned around the rifle to show the others, setting it down on the table afterward as it needed to dry further. Having done the thing I wanted to do and having all my gear ready to go at a moments notice I grabbed my earbuds and put on some relaxing music with my tablet. The lullaby slowly lulling me to sleep as I had nothing else to do anyway. I opened my eyes as someone was violently shaking my body, groaning as light assaulted my eyes. "Get up you lazy unicorn, we've got an op! Briefing is in fifteen, get dressed for it." Scootaloo told me as she had noticed that I was no longer enjoying my sleep. "Copy, I'll be there," I replied as I swiftly got out of bed to get into my armor, Scootaloo leaving the room as she was probably dressed before she had received the message herself. Quickly opening my locker I dragged out my armor and started putting it on, an idea suddenly forming in my head. My hands started glowing as I called upon my magic to levitate all the individual pieces of armor and strap them to my body simultaneously, what would have taken me five minutes now only took me a little over twenty seconds as all the straps were fastened with my magic. Behind me I heard a gasp, making me turn around to face it, Ana was halfway through putting on her own armor but after seeing me put on my armor she was standing completely frozen while staring at me. It was then that I realized that even though my friend knew of my magic and had even seen small acts of levitation, seeing the manipulation of so many objects at once with perfect precision must have scared the life out of her. The best comparison to the situation would be earthponies experiencing magic for the first time. Oh no, please don't freak out! "Ana, are you okay?" The question was asked as gently as possible to attempt getting the human over the initial shock. Something that seemed to work as my friend slowly nodded and got back to putting on her armor, seeing that we were still on a schedule I helped her put on further pieces of armor. "How much effort did that take?" Ana suddenly asked out of the blue, nearly being finished with her own armor. It was a question that was to be expected after what she had just seen. "Powerwise? Not that much, but I've been practicing on the fine control needed for the manipulation of so many objects for months." I told her and waited for her to nod in understanding before continuing, "In terms of raw power Sunset is much stronger than me and knows a lot of spells where I only know two, the reason she couldn't use those spells was that when we met she hadn't figured out how to use said power. I'm positive that If she did we would have been crushed regardless of our skill." I saw a shiver running down Ana's spine as she realized how closely we had dodged a bullet. A minute later we were on the run towards the briefing room where Bloom and Scootaloo were certainly waiting for us. No more conversation happened on the way there as the two of us had shifted our thoughts to the upcoming mission, something that was undoubtedly going to require all our focus and skill to survive. Finally reaching the building where the mission briefing would be given I checked the time it had taken us to get there. Twelve minutes, just in time. When we entered the room we found Bloom and Scootaloo already standing at the holotable at the center which was displaying the current state of the city and every unit in it. At the head of the holotable stood Captain Lindsey, the officer who had been assigned as our ONI handler. "We've got a developing situation in the north end of the city, we're losing strongpoints at an accelerated rate and the survivors that we've managed to recover claim to have seen a massive walker of some sort." The intelligence officer told us as the hologram of the city zoomed in on the northern section which would be the site of their mission. "The covenant is currently using cloaking fields of some sort to mask their presence from our watching eyes in orbit, so the only information we can currently work with are from the outer defensive positions that are being wiped out." "You're being sent to infiltrate the enemy lines, conduct a reconnaissance of the weapon and if the situation permits destroy it." She finished as she looked at the four of us who were studying the layout of the buildings around the supposed area of where the weapon was supposed to be. "Consider it done, ma'am," Applebloom replied as she zoomed the holo-table in on a particular flat, turning to us before explaining the plan she had cooked up. "If we climb up this flat here, we can use a rope to get over to the other side an' rappel down while usin' the roofs to get behind enemy lines. If we're lucky we might even be able to spot whatever that weapon is from up there." Looking at the building I took my turn to manipulate the hologram and looked at the surrounding area, it didn't have too many tall buildings left meaning that I would have a clear line of sight from the tower with my sniper to cover the others. "I'll set myself up somewhere around here, as long as you don't leave my line of sight I can take out any hard targets without the covenant finding out about my location." Apple Bloom nodded, Ana being the next person to speak up. "It sounds as if communications get cut just before this thing attacks, ma'am. Any intel on that?" The captain nodded, "Although there's no direct evidence for it, the loss of communication every time it shows up does indicate that it might possess jamming equipment. If at any point there is a loss of contact with command your primary objective is to retreat to friendly territory with any intel you might have acquired, you're much more valuable to us alive than dead." "What's our squad's callsign?" Scootaloo asked as she kept studying the hologram for possible routes they could take and routes that would possibly be guarded by enemy units. "As your squad is newly formed it hasn't received a callsign yet If the four of you have a good one in mind you can use that." The Captain told us, the two of my Equestrian friends looking at one another while grins formed on our faces. "Uhm, should I be concerned right now?" Ana asked as she felt like she was completely being out of the loop, which wasn't completely inaccurate. We'd have to tell her about our... exploits in Equestria at a later date as we had to focus on the mission. "Crusader one-one," Apple Bloom said with a grin, Me and Scootaloo immediately approving with the proposal. "That seems reasonable though I would like to hear the story behind that name at some point." Captain Lindsey pointed out, something that I for one didn't have any objections against telling our reasoning. "Alright Crusader One, y'all have forty minutes to prepare for the op, we leave at dusk," Applebloom said as I saw her inputting all relevant information she required into her VISR. The three of us who similarly acquired the mission data nodded and turned to get any additional equipment we might need for the upcoming mission. Operation Black Night was officially a go.