//------------------------------// // The Last Voyage of the USS Enterprise (Part 1) // Story: The Conversion Bureau: One Pony's Terrorist - Side Stories // by boredhooman //------------------------------// The USS Enterprise. A mobile city. It was of the largest class of aircraft carriers, tieing in with the Nimitz Class of the previous generation at a fifth of a mile. The very presence of such a vessel could end wars in an instant. It could destroy entire armies from afar. And now here it was, drifting dead in the Scotia Sea twelve nautical miles from the Equestrian Barrier. Farmer had never seen anything quite like it. After the sell-off many special units were transported by private companies, usually airlines. And even now, they were taken across the sea by a local fishing company with a ship large enough to carry two helicopters. The ship below was huge, much larger than any ship he had ever seen. Nothing the United States military had after the sell-off a decade ago was comparable in size. The Navy still had a number of combat ships, but they were mothballed, so he had never experienced them in person. This fact was partly why this mission was of high importance. Washington was getting very bad vibes from the Equestrian crown, and the conflict in West Africa was doing nothing to alleviate that. Not only did they want an additional strategically valuable ship in case of an outbreak of war, the more important objective was to keep it out of pony hooves. Ponykind had already shown remarkable feats of ingenuity made possible by their literal magic. He didn’t want to imagine what they could do with an entire aircraft carrier to play around with.         As the Blackhawk ferried them closer to the tarmac, he looked down the runway towards the midsection, where another team of Recon Marines were fast-roping onto the bridge’s upper levels. Eventually it reached the vessel and he disembarked, his fireteam following in suit. Once the others had made it off the helicopter, he ran at a strong jog towards a crew access stairway at the edge of the runway. He peeked over the side with his coilrifle scanning for threats just in case, but found none. He quickly descended the metal stairs and turned towards the large sealed hatch that led to the carrier’s interior.         “You got point, Farmer.”         He nodded and stepped towards the hatch, his teammates stacking in behind him. Wheezy leaned over and pulled it open, and Farmer burst through with his coilrifle set to automatic, ready to blast away any hostile resistance. He was met with silence and darkness. He scanned the steel corridor with his barrel-mounted flashlight. The rest of his fireteam followed through.         “Clear,” he reported.         Frie placed a hand on his back, signalling for him to continue. Farmer took a breath and took his first step into the belly of the vessel. Inside, the ship’s narrow passageways immediately closed in around him. It wasn’t the dark atmosphere or long and freaky shadows that got to him. He had a gun and several others behind him as backup, after all. He was a country boy; he needed his wide-open spaces. Or, rather, he was as country as an Indiana farmer got, but he was getting claustrophobic nonetheless. Before nervousness overtook him, he took a deep breath and subtly adjusted his grip on his coilrifle. Suddenly, a small brownish discoloration on the ground caught his eye.         “Hold up,” Farmer muttered, holding up a fist. “Saw something.”         “What is it?”         Farmer picked a small, metallic object from the ground. “Belt buckle. Rusted to shit, though.” He dropped it in disgust, and aimed his flashlight down the corridor to reveal half a dozen others, along with a number of other small scraps of metal. “I think I know what happened to the crew.”         “Let’s go. Mess isn’t that far off. Explain once we get there.” * * * * *         The door creaked open at Farmer’s pull, and the man stepped into the cavernous room and scanned for threats. Of course he wasn’t expecting any, but if up-top didn’t want to be cautious they would have immediately sent in salvage teams. He hadn’t spotted anything out of the ordinary in the room, except for, of course, the missing crewmen.         He reached a hand up to his helmet to activate his radio. “Bravo, this is Alpha Three. At first objective, over.”         “This is Bravo One. Copy that, Alpha Three. Almost at ours, out,” came the reply from the second team.         Farmer stepped up to a nearby table, which had a full set of metal serving trays and cups but without a scrap of food on them. Curiously, most were positioned as though they were being eaten from. However, he had more important things to worry about. The guys coming in later could figure everything out. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small computer. He opened it up to reveal a larger touchpad and pressed the activation button. A list of icons appeared and he selected a map of the area with objectives and suggested paths marked. After a second, it updated with his and the second team’s positions, a series of light blue triangles appearing among the numerous lines representing the ship’s endless corridors. “I heard Army’s got better stuff than our screens,” he heard Wheezy remark from behind him. “They’re a glorified national guard after the Fed pretty much dissolved,” he replied. “Why the Hell would any money be spent on them?” Wheezy put up his hands in a sarcastic manner. “Hey, just relaying the scuttlebutt. Rumor is, they have these goggles that display this augmented reality stuff.” “Like that old Google Glass thing before shit hit the fan?” “Better, and not voice activated.” Farmer grunted in annoyance and turned back to the screen. “Who the Hell would use that in the Army?” “We always get stuck with Army leftovers, Farmer. Don’t be so surprised.” “I’m not surprised. That’s the problem.” Wheezy leaned against one of the many tables, his coilrifle ready but not pointed at anything. “So about what you said might’ve happened to the crew.” It felt strange vibrations in the floor. The vibrations were not natural. They scared it. It wasn’t scared by the ocean waves. They were smooth and lulling. It wasn’t scared of the Big Warm. It was a gentle humming that reminded it of its time as a larva in the hive, before they came to the Big Float. No, these were strange vibrations, scary vibrations. They sounded like running. They sounded like a lot of Others running. Except it sounded different. Others sounded pat-pat pat-pat. These strange things, these Strangers, sounded pat pat. Except there were a lot of them. It couldn’t tell where they were, though. It would need to check. The Strangers could hurt the Hive. Others had noticed too. Others woke up and hissed to each other in fear. The Strangers could hurt them. The Strangers could hurt the larva. It needed to defend the Hive. It went up to the door where he heard the Strangers. It was dark outside the Big Warm, but he had to go on for the Hive. Some of the big Others followed him. They were strong. They could defend the Hive. It crept out the door and exited the Big Warm. It began its journey to the Strangers. The tunnels were long, dark and cold. They got colder the further away it was from the Big Warm. It traveled through the winding tunnels towards the pat pat the Strangers made. After traveling very far through the scary tunnels, cut off from the Others and the Hive, he finally saw the Strangers. There were five Strangers. They were tall, its head would only reach the space between their front arms. The Strangers only stood on two legs and carried huge sticks with their front arms. They scared it. The Strangers’ sticks made magic light. The only other things that could make magic light were Ponies, and Ponies were bad. Maybe these Strangers were friends with Ponies? That was it! They were friends with the Ponies! It had to stop them. The Strangers would hurt the Hive. They needed to defend the Hive and the Big Warm until the Queen came back. If the Strangers kept coming they would hurt the Hive. It had to protect the Hive. It bared its teeth and charged at the Strangers. The Strangers yelled something out in their weird language and one of the closer ones jumped back in shock. It was only a few paces away. But before it could sink its teeth and stab its horn into the Strangers, the ones in the back pointed their magic sticks at it. There was a loud sound and it began to hurt all over. It fell down and looked towards the Strangers. They were going away now, using their magic sticks to hurt the Others like they hurt it. “Wait, hold up. Something’s wrong,” Farmer announced. “They’re doing... something.” “Can you talk to ‘em?” Wheezy asked, stepping closer to Farmer to inspect their position on the screen. Farmer pressed a button on the side of his helmet to bring up the other fireteam’s communication channel. “Bravo Team, this is Alpha Three. Give me a sitrep.” “-s is Alpha Two,” answered a voice, panic evident in the tone. “Fucking bug things! Got Sarge in the leg real bad.” “Bug things?” Farmer questioned. “I don’t know! There were these fucking things, and they looked like bugs, and they came in and tried to fucking eat us!” “Do you need help?” “Not right now, no. They’ve backed-” “Two?” he called as the radio died, trying to raise the other Marine. “Two? Fuck.” He studied the screen again. He touched the corner of the screen and several small boxes appeared on the screen, each one the video feeds from Bravo Team’s helmet and gun cameras. Unfortunately, he couldn’t view past footage and could only see a live feed, and past recordings could only be viewed once loaded onto a proper computer after they made it off the ship. So far, only blackness. Frie stepped in behind him, his eyes on the screen as well. “What was that about?” “Remember my theory about the ship coming out of the barrier? “You’re shitting me.”