1 month ago
Somewhere over Equestria
UNSC Prowler Last One Out
"Jake!"
"JAAAKE!!"
Slowly, his vision started coming together. The bright light burned away into color, a black vista painted with countless twinkling lights scattered across it. Stars. A strange orange hue engulfed them all, waving and whipping through the starscape wildly, making everything look slightly brighter than usual.
Jake realized he was looking through a breach in the ship's hull. And it was on fire.
"JAKE, WAKE UP!! JAKE!!!"
He tasted blood in his mouth. And he couldn't move his left arm. His squadmate, Dollars, was in the cockpit of their Prowler, looking back over his shoulder. He couldn't see his friend because of his helmet but his own radio let him know he was shouting at him.
"Jake, wake up! C'mon, man, I need you!"
Jake found he could move his right arm. He remembered it now; he went to check on one of the prowler's subsystems when the wall had exploded in front of him and he had been knocked into the other bulkhead. He'd been blasted back so hard it had knocked him out and pinned him underneath a loose secondary conduit. His right arm, which had been holding his MA5B, had escaped the falling device.
Using his right arm and chest, he pushed the conduit and was able to get it off of him.
"Jake! Oh, thank goodness, Jake- I need your help up here!"
He nodded and carefully stepped over the conduit. Nothing felt broken, a good sign. But Dollars was piloting the ship now, a bad sign.
Jake carefully made his way to the cockpit. The atmosphere in the ship was gone and so was the artificial gravity. Fortunately, his smart boots kicked in and kept him from being sucked out of the vessel. He took the co-pilot's seat next to his friend and gripped the controls.
"Okay, uh, between the two of us, I think we have one working booster," Dollars said. Jake didn't even have to ask what happened to the pilots and the rest of the crew; there was a giant hole through the top of the cockpit that went right through the floor, barely missing both helm suites.
In front of them, starscape was beginning to disappear, slowly being engulfed by a larger, bright surface. Equestria, the planet ONI had directed them to after Reach. Their vessel was skimming across the planet's upper atmosphere, the plates on the hull being specially resistant, were causing the ship to bounce off rather than gain entry into the world below. That would not last for much longer.
"Okay, we're gonna have to alternate power between the two engines to get us stable!"
Jake nodded.
"On three, pull up. One. Two. Three!" Dollars shunted the power to the port engine booster and Jake yanked up on the yoke. The ship pulled upward. But the weight of the ship, mostly in its aft section, pulled it back towards the planet, causing the quick boost to become more like a flip.
Jake counted down to Dollars with his fingers. One. Two. Three.
Jake transferred power from his engine to Dollars'. The ship pushed up again before gravity could yank it back down.
"Go again!" No time for a countdown any more. Jake reacted, then Dollars, then Jake, then Dollars, their motions completely synced up. The prowler slowly escaped the planet's gravitational pull once again.
"Theerrrrrrrrreee we go. Oh... oh, thank shit," Dollars said, slumping into his chair. Jake, exhausted and bruised, also slumped, mirroring the action.
"Oh, man..." Dollars breathed heavily, "and I thought it was going to get easier after Reach."
Jake nodded.
But easy was not in the cards for the two ODSTs. The ship that had fired on them, that had somehow seen them through the UNSC prowler's stealth field, slowly rose into view.
"Oh fuck."
Jake swallowed.
A small red ship that looked like a cross between a speedboat and a crossbow turned to face them. The ship in question, unidentified and not answering hails, was of a model that the UNSC did not have in its database. Although it didn't appear to an Earth vessel, it did seem like it was human-made rather than Covenant, Forerunner, Precursor or Construct. Unfortunately, they hadn't had time to analyze it before the ship had fired on them, taken out most of the crew and sent the prowler into a tailspin towards the planet.
Now, they were facing that same ship again. And it did not give them mercy.
The second shot cut the prowler in half from bow to stern. Jake and Dollars were in the process of getting out of their seats when the ship exploded.
Two weeks ago
Surface of Equestria
Jake woke up again. This time, it was not space that greeted him, but a plethora of masks. Hooded figures stood over him. Some worked on his legs, two each worked on his arms and then two others worked on his torso. Another pair of hooded figures apparently looked were looking at his eyes. They didn't say anything, neither did he.
He looked down at himself. His body was mangled, burnt. How had he survived? Had he survived? He shouldn't be alive, and yet, he was.
He tasted dried blood in his mouth, smelled just a slight whiff of his own burned hair and flesh. He had been saved moments from death. But how?
One of the hooded figures held up a jar of pink goo. He took a single drop and extracted it. The figure carefully touched the goo to Jake's finger. The pink goop glowed brightly, and then so did Jake's arm. It glowed brighter and brighter until it almost hurt his eyes... and then he felt a familiar feeling: fabric. The arm of his ODST suit appeared over his hand and arm, connecting to the rest of his armor. He balled his fist and stretched his fingers. It was like new.
The pink goo disappeared. From the jar, they removed more and more of it, carefully piecing Jake back together. The figures then propped him up and clasped his MA5B to his back. One of the brown figures approached him with a data pad and held it up above his head.
Jake looked at it. As expected it, the figure held the pad lower. Jake looked at it again. Above his head again, then lower again. The pad's light color changed from red to green each time Jake's eyes locked with it. He shook his head afterward and the figure nodded once, understanding.
Dollars was apparently finished at the same time.
"Jake! Jake, are you in there? Are you alright?"
Jake gave a firm double-nodded for "affirmative."
The hooded/masked figures assembled before them. They didn't know it, but they were in a train station just north of where Ponyville used to be. The figures bowed politely in unison.
"Wow... uh, thank you," Dollars said. "Thank you for saving us."
Again, the hoods bowed and said nothing. The two UNSC troopers returned the gesture. As they stepped outside, Jake's TACPAD lit up with activity. New data, new signals and new communications were all being picked up by his wrist attachment. He held it up for his friend to examine.
"Wow... can you believe this?" Dollars asked. They both looked at the new data being sent in. More UNSC signals, a lot more were being broadcast. "I guess we missed out on a lot."
Jake nodded.
"Still... pretty lucky, all things considered. Without those guys... we wouldn't be here," Dollars remarked.
Jake nodded solemnly. He tapped his chin approvingly, thinking something about the message of the kindness of strangers. How they owed their very lives to a people and power they didn't understand, but were undoubtedly grateful for. Naturally, having understood this, Dollars perfectly articulated the exact sentiment Jake was feeling.
"Command's never gonna believe we were saved by Jawas," Dollars said. Jake facepalmed hard.