//------------------------------// // Chapter 23 // Story: Contact Harvest // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// There's nothing you should take for granted; not a single day, not a single minute. The bolt on the M247H heavy machine gun clicked back in place as I finished the maintenance I had been doing on the thing, a quick check confirming that it worked properly. I wiped the sweat off my brow, careful not to get weapons oil smeared all over my face, before hoisting the massive gun onto my shoulder and carrying it over to the correct rack, closing the locker, and marking it as ready for use. "Yo, colours, mind giving me a hand here?" my colleague in the shop, corporal Davis, called out from under the warthog he was working on. Sunset had helped create a dye for my hair to return the green, blue, and purple streaks that I'd lost, which in turn led to the nickname. I did, however, have it tied back into a ponytail to avoid having it get in the way of my work, which messed up the streaks somewhat. Over the last five months, I'd been learning mechanics and helping out with maintenance on pretty much anything mechanical that didn't require an egghead to fix. Of course I'd wanted to do more but nobody seemed interested in getting me ready for any combat, and rash action was a little too dangerous even in my estimations. “Yeah, what do ya need?” I asked, crouching down next to the other mechanic who stuck out his hand from under the vehicle. “The self-adjusting torque wrench, I left it on the workshop table.” I turned and saw the mentioned tool, jumping over there with a flap of my wings to get it and then another to get back to the hog. “Yo, thanks.” People around weren't exactly surprised to see my wings anymore, some even quietly whispering about another winged human they'd encountered on the planet previously. The rumours of my presence had spread around the entire frontline sector, something that seemed to lessen the shock once they ran into me off rotation. Sunset had been rather surprised this ONI organisation had allowed me to walk around this openly at all, though I just shrugged it off. Not like they could have stopped me from taking flights. Pulling another weapon off the rack, an MA5 this time, I checked the logs to see what was broken. Something with the bolt I'd need to check out. Right as I was about to start, red alarm lights jumped on along with a loud siren. Davis cursed as he pushed himself from under the hog and jumped up. I just looked around in shock as this hadn't happened in the last five months I'd been around this place. “COLOURS, GET YOUR FUCKING ACT TOGETHER!” the corporal shouted, pulling me out of my moment of shock. He was already halfway into a set of armour in that little span of time I'd been out of it. He typed in a code on another locker and opened it, revealing a second set of armour. “Get into that stuff, I'm not having you die on my watch!” That kicked me into gear as the ground shook, an explosion hitting the ground that sounded very close by. I don't think I ever managed to get into a dress as fast as I did then, even managing to put on the undersuit that went with the armour in one go. Wait... why does this stuff have wing holes? "Hey, corporal, where did you get this stuff?" I asked as I slid my wings through the backplate of the armour and strapped it in place with the front one. "Something the spooks gave me in case we'd get into a situation just like this," He stated, pulling an MA5 from a rack and getting ammo for it. "Just hunker down here until this passes over, I'll come check on you later!" He ran off, leaving me all alone in the shop, explosions still going off all around the base. Like hell am I going to sit around and do nothing... Looking back at the weapon's lockers I found all of them were sealed shut, the only weapons I had access to requiring repair... Not that was much of an issue, the shop had plasma cutters for a reason. It only took a minute for me to get the equipment set up and another to cut the mesh away from the locker, giving me access to an M392 DMR and a decent stock of ammo for it. After having secured all the gear I shot a last glance into the weapons and armour locker, noticing there was an ODST helmet in the latter of those that I'd missed. Huh, that thing looks real beat up, must be a second hand. I didn't give it more thought and just put on the helmet, its internal systems turning on immediately. I actually hadn't handled one of these helmets before as unlike the regular marine helmet there really wasn't anything I could fix on them. That also meant I'd never seen one active from the inside as I saw information start to pop up on my display. Whoa, I can even see my total ammo count on this thing! Another explosion pulled me from my moment of wonder, reminding me why I'd gotten this stuff in the first place. I needed to figure out exactly what was happening and then find out where I'd be the most useful. I'd only shot a few guns on a couple of occasions when Sunset allowed it, so I wasn't the best with most rifles. The DMR would help but I didn't think I should be right up at the front, wherever that was, as I'd probably just get in the way. Let's get some altitude first to find out what the hell's going on. Leaving the reinforced garage, I made sure my exit was clear, opening my wings and jumping onto the roof. My helmet, tagging a load of flying craft strafing the base and releasing huge globs of green plasma all over it. "Banshees," I growled, the briefings on covenant forces being the few I hadn't tuned out in. Flak was shooting up at them but the flyers were wreaking absolute havoc on our guys. "Well let's see how you handle me!" The banshees were of course fast but I still had a reputation to uphold and it wasn't like I'd just stopped exercising my wings after changing species. I matched speed to the first banshee to come close to me, latching on to it in its side, noticing a hole through which I could see an elite piloting the craft. Pushing in the DMR I just pulled the trigger a bunch of times, the covenant strike craft popping open and the elite, clearly in a panic, sliding out to fall all the way down to the ground. The banshee immediately lost thrust too, just dropping to the ground, leaving me to hover and stare in horror at what I'd just done. "Sweet Celestia, I just killed somecreature." I wanted to puke... so I did. Semi-crash landing on a roof of one of the prefabricated base structures, I pulled off my helmet and puked my breakfast out while also starting to hyperventilate. How can these humans do this every day?! A plasma bomb went off on the ground next to a nearby building, engulfing a marine and showering me with dirt. I reactively averted my eyes even though I was wearing a helmet, when I looked back I could see the marine missed half his body and was most definitely not alive anymore. My eyes were glued to the sight for a few incredibly long seconds before my features hardened. Walking over to my helmet I put it back on and placed a new magazine into the DMR, picking a new banshee to attack. I was going to show them what real flying looks like. My tactic of latching on to the banshee had worked the first time so I decided I'd just stick to it. Coming up to a second banshee I grabbed hold of it a little better at the hole on the side through which I could see the pilot. I felt a button depressing, opening the canopy that was covering the elite inside the pilot's bay. The both of us clearly were surprised but I reacted the fastest, giving it a devastating kick in the face and sending it down to the same fate as the first pilot. This time though I didn't wait around in the air and immediately moved on to the next banshee, armed with the new knowledge on how to open the strike craft. The third flyer though must have noticed me coming as it dodged out of the way right before I could latch on, the two of us going into a dance of manoeuvres as we tried taking each other out, either of us really just needing one lucky shot to achieve our goal. In the end, my ability to turn, clumsy as it was in my human form compared to my pegasi one, was greater than the banshee. A full magazine of bullets took care of the elite, sending his bleeding form to crash to the ground. This is going to take too long. There's just too many of them... I'd taken the three banshees out in relatively short order but there were dozens more and the amount of anti-air fire wasn't exactly increasing. Well, there's one thing I can do that may catch a whole bunch of them at once... Flying straight up I had to fight to gain altitude, the gear hanging on me weighing me down somewhat but not deterring me from what I was about to attempt. I breached through the clouds at speed, seeing the blue sky and sun for what was the first time in all the time I'd been on Harvest. At least if I screw this up I won't be around long to see the consequences. Having reached a high enough altitude, I turned around and headed straight back down. My speed was increasing at incredible speed as I pushed my wings to the maximum, seeing a mach cone start to form and flicker with rainbow light as I breached the cloud deck again, finding myself coursing right at a group of banshees. "Boom." Personally, I didn't hear the explosion as I was now outflying the shockwave, the banshees weren't that lucky as the pressure wave hit them. A quick glance back showed that at least seven banshees were out of control and the rainboom was somehow taking out more of them as it touched them. The magic explosion of the rainboom also gave me a wave of energy, allowing me to absolutely fly circles around the remaining banshees to their detriment. By the time I landed back on the ground the few remaining banshees were retreating away again, my breath ragged as I'd given it my absolute all. "Rainbow Dash!" I turned to see Sunset running towards me, fully armoured up herself though only carrying a pistol. Pulling off my helmet I sank down, leaning up against a wall as I only now started feeling how tired I actually was. Sunset immediately started looking me over, checking for wounds but finding nothing as I hadn't been hit. "That was the most reckless think you could have possibly done!" She growled, shaking me around by the shoulder. "But you also saved our asses out here so we'll talk about this later. We have another problem right now." The ground shook as I could hear another blast go off some distance away though I couldn't hear any banshees in the air anymore. "Where's that coming from?!" "Wraiths. We have an infantry wave coming in and we lost a few seriously important hardpoints," Sunset explained as she pulled me off the ground with a little help from her magic and helped me stumble along. "I'm not sure if we can hold this position if they make a serious push so we should be ready to bail." That got some energy to return to my body, pushing away sunset and stumbling back a bit. "Whoa, whoa, you're saying we just leave all these humans?! Heck no! I can still fight! You can fight!" "Look, I can't guarantee that you'll be safe if we stay here!" Sunset called out, my blood starting to boil as she said that. "SAFE?! Look around you, Sunset! Where on this Tartarus damned shithole of a planet can you truly guarantee that I am safe, huh?" I growled, stepping back further and picking my helmet and rifle back up. "Well, you can't! And I'm not going to sit by while I could be helping!" A mighty flap of my wings propelled me away from the other Equestrian, I put my helmet back on midair as I coursed for the side of the base where the fighting was happening. Before I landed in cover I could see a wave of grunts charging forward, supported by the wraiths Sunset had spoken about. The stationary machine gun I could see from my position was glowing red as it shot a continuous stream of lead towards the incoming wave. Alright Dash, no turning back, now go make a difference. Turning the corner, I had to dive for cover immediately, green plasma flying by from the sheer weight of fire the grunts were putting down on us. Another marine was hunkered down behind the same cover I'd slid into. "Yo, mind giving me some cover, I need to get over to the rest of my guys up front there," He stated with remarkable calmness. "Yeah, got it!" I called back peaking over the cover and firing a series of shots into the crowd of grunts, the marine jumping from cover and sprinting over to a squad that was hunkered somewhat further up. The moment he arrived a massive glob of plasma hit the cover, completely incinerating him and two more marines. I ducked back behind cover for a moment to get my breathing back under control, only for an ODST to slide into cover beside me. "For the record, this plan is insane," Sunset stated as she removed the polarisation on her helmet so I could identify her. "Stay behind me, I'll provide shielding." She jumped out from cover and threw up a large, bright blue, shield, stopping plasma from getting to her while still being able to fire her pistol through the barrier. I immediately jumped after her and fired my own rifle as well though I don't think I hit anything while on the move. "The base commander called in air support so we just have to hold out until that arrives," Sunset called out over all the noise as we took cover. Sunset immediately created a very bright fireball in her hand and tossed it out, the heat from the following explosion washing over us. "I don't have a whole lot of those in me," she panted, clearly under strain. I peaked over the cover for a moment to see a wraith completely engulfed in flames. "Well, I'm not complaining! We should... wait, what are those?" I guided Sunset's gaze to a group of bright objects flying down, the radio in my helmet crackling alive as a general message was sent out. "Archer missiles inbound! Everyone, hunker down!" We could see marines jump down from firing positions and making themselves as small as possible, taking that as a queue Sunset and I did the exact same... and not a moment too soon as what happened next felt like the world coming to an end. Massive ground-shaking explosions that put the blast Sunset had thrown out to absolute shame rocked the ground for a good twenty seconds. "Holy Celestia..." I stated after the explosions stopped and I looked out at where we were just attacked from. Somehow there were still survivors out there, not enough to pose a true threat but alive nonetheless... not that they stayed that way for long as four orbital insertion pods slammed down within the blast zone. Four individuals jumped out of them, quickly and effectively taking down every single alien that was still standing. That wasn't what made my heart skip a beat though. Two of them were definitely a bit larger than the humans I'd been interacting with, one more than the other but clearly noticeable. The third was using magic, a small shield wrapped around her forearm. And then the fourth... the fourth had wings. It's them... I stood completely frozen as they formed back up and started walking in our direction. The moment Scootaloo noticed me she too froze, though our helmets obscured our faces I knew she was looking straight at me. It wasn't long before the others noticed me too, a small moment where nobody moved ensuing. It was broken as Sunset stepped forward and motioned for them to get closer. Scootaloo halted in front of me, actually being a little taller than me, and took off her helmet, something which I did as well. "H-hey." "H-Hi squirt." Scoots' lip trembled as a tear rolled down her cheek before she grabbed me and pulled me into a crushing hug, starting to sob. "Whoa, I'm here, Scoots, I'm here." What I found to be Bloom and Sweetie also took off their helmet, looking rather shocked too. "We should get to a more secure area," the green armoured human that had kept its helmet on and towered over all of us stated, interrupting our moment. Scootaloo separated from me and wiped away some of her tears smiling at me before nodding in agreement. "Yeah, I guess so. Got a place we could occupy?" Scoots asked, looking at both me and Sunset. "The lab may be a bit small," Sunset shrugged. "We could use the workshop, plenty of space there," I stated as marines started emerging from their cover to start picking up the pieces after the attack and look for casualties while we went to seclude ourselves. Sunset and the massive human excused themselves as they were going to report to the base commander so he was aware of our presence, which left me alone with the Crusaders. "How long have you been here?" "How's AJ doin'?" "And Rarity?" The three of them bombarded me with questions about home, I held up my hands for them to slow down a little, "I've been here for about five months, and though Rares and AJ are concerned for them only two weeks have passed at maximum, probably less." That got the three of them to quiet down a bit for long enough for me to decide it was my turn to ask a question. "So you girls have been here for almost four years, right?" Bloom nodded. "Spent a fairly decent portion of that time in cryo so we didn't experience all of it but yeah, pretty much," she answered waving around her arm which made me notice something which I'd completely missed. "Wait, what happened to your arm?!" I stated shocked my eyes widening at the sight of the robotic appendage. "Got blown off," Bloom replied with a shrug, "This one's solid though, the best I could get in a shitty situation. Pretty sure we've all had something like that." I looked at Sweetie who sighed and started unstrapping her armour, Scoots giving her a hand speeding up the process. A massive burn scar covering a large portion of her side became visible as she removed the undersuit. "Got this at the same time as Bloom lost her arm. That op was a pretty bad mess." "And I had to keep them stable while we got back to base," Scoots sighed. "The worst I got really was just being stabbed." "I saw the after-action reports though, blew up that crashed ship good though," Bloom chuckled as Sweetie got back into her armour, not before I noticed the images of flowers covering her unharmed arm in its entirety. "What are those? Humans don't get cutie marks, right?" I asked, intrigued by what it was. "Tattoos, humans have this thing where they inject ink below the skin to create images," Sweetie stated, showing them off before pulling her undersuit back over the arm and obscuring them from view again. "Isn't that my old armour?" Scootaloo suddenly asked, studying the ODST gear I was wearing. "I haven't a clue, maybe, I only got this right at the start of the attack," I said, looking it over again, it would actually make sense if it belonged to Scootaloo before as Humans didn't exactly require wing holes. "Huh, so what have you been doing around here then?" Apple Bloom asked, I waved my arms around at all the gear strewn around. "Maintenance mainly, Sunset gave me some basic lessons with a rifle but nobody really wanted to teach me more than those basics," I said with a grumble. "A necessary job too, and frontline duty ain't something you can jus' learn quickly, Rainbow Dash," Apple bloom stated with a sigh. "Hey, I'm not helpless! I took out a bunch of banshees before you girls arrived!" I protested, slightly offended. "We don't mean that personally, Dash, but professionally. We've been doing this for a while, remember? You must have gotten rather lucky against those banshees because they are no joke," Scootaloo stated calmly. "I did pretty well at the wall too, before you guys blew up that entire area!" I countered, I could see Sweetie roll her eyes. "Fine, let's test that theory. Rainbow, try pinning Scootaloo to the ground," she challenged me, Scootaloo didn't even move a muscle as Sweetie set her up for a fight, only raising an eyebrow as she saw me hesitate for a moment. Oh well, sorry about this Scoots. Opening my wings, I launched myself forward over the tiny distance at Scoots. At the last possible second, though, she moved right out of my path and tripped me up, sending me rolling over the ground. "Opening your wings before a charge is pretty much the definition of telegraphing your moves," Scootaloo stated while she slowly circled me, tossing my helmet over to me after I'd gotten off the ground. "Put that on." I did so, seeing Scootaloo hadn't put on her own. "You not gonna put on your own helmet?" Scootaloo didn't answer as she raised her arms in a fighting stance, Sweetie and Apple Bloom clearing the area to give some space. I tried moving forward again, being a little more careful as I threw punches at lightning-fast speed... all of which were deflected by Scootaloo with ease, the last punch being batted aside followed by a flat-handed smack to the side of my helmet sending me stumbling. "I don't doubt you could be good Dash, but it takes time and dedication and a controlled environment where you can train properly and safely. That doesn't exist here on Harvest," Scootaloo said but I wasn't done just yet and charged back in. Scootaloo wasn't phased by the charge at all and simply dodged, slammed her knee into my gut and followed up by crashing her fist against my head, sending me to the ground hard. Pulling off my helmet, I threw up whatever was still left in my stomach before gasping for air. "Look, Dash, we can go on but I think my point is made, regardless of potential you're no soldier," Scootaloo held out a hand, helping me back up onto my feet, the pain in my stomach nothing compared to the bruising my ego had taken. "Losing one sister in a week is bad enough." The atmosphere in the room changed immediately as the three girls looked down at their feet, clearly in pain. "What happened?" Scootaloo clearly had to fight to hold back her tears. "A-A friend we made, sister in arms, she... sacrificed herself making sure the reactor of a Covenant vessel detonated, destroying the ship and allowing us to get out." "Scoots, I-" "Don't... Please, don't. It's still too fresh," Scoots stated, the only thing I could really do was give her a tight hug. "Sunset told me she was ready to open the portal a month ago," I stated, getting back the undivided attention of the girls. “So that means...” “We can go home.”