//------------------------------//
// MegaPol's Elite Assault Team, and The Saboteur 
// Story: X-Com Equestria: Apocalypse Unknown 
// by Crimson ONayl 
//------------------------------//


Mega-Primus, seven years before exodus

Mega-Primus was a bustling metropolis at its prime, and the traffic at 11 am reflected that. Brad Vickers chewed his tongue as he dipped and weaved through the packed lines of hovercraft; the siren on top of the Phoenix Hovercar did seemingly little to divert the rows of traffic.

At least, that was until the drivers of the other vehicles noticed the M.E.A.T. insignia stencilled on the sides of the car. It certainly wasn’t the most discreet approach, but discreet was for Special Tactics and Rescue, they were the MegaPol Elite Assault Team.

In the troop compartment of the modified hovercar, a four man team was prepped and ready to leap out and begin the mission. The team was comprised of the brother-sister duo of Atlanta and Titus Collins, the heavily armed and armoured figure of Arthur Williams; and their leader, Maeda Takechi.

“Three minutes out.” Brad leaned into the microphone on the dashboard and held the ‘intercom transmit’ button, keeping one eye on the sky and awkwardly steering with one hand.

A satisfying symphony of clicks and rattling filled the troop compartment as the team cocked their weapons. Maeda leaned over Atlanta’s head to peel off the covering over the window to look outside to get a look at their target, and the other three leaned in around him as he began pointing out details of the building.

“NutriVend’s South-East Offices are above our target. We have delicate information from an informant on the inside that there is a Parasol Industries cell hidden underneath the NutriVend facility; the informant also tells us that the NutriVend guards are on the Parasol payroll, and will confront us as we enter.”

“Step one: We breach the building and eliminate initial resistance. Step two: Locate the informant, consider this an alpha level order; the informant is an extremely valuable asset, and has experience in MI5 from before Mega-Primus. She’s going to be hiding in a cleaning supplies cupboard on the ground floor next to the rec room, with a large amount of weapons and ammunition; her name is Sylvia O’Nayl.”

“Step Three: With the informant in tow, we breach the hidden Parasol facility and begin smashing the place up – technical term that – Arthur, drop the autocannon and take plenty of C5 instead.”

The autocannon was placed back into the weapons crate in the back of the compartment and was followed by drums of ammo. Arthur lifted out a sub-machine gun and a ‘bang-pack’, a backpack full of several pounds of C5 high explosive.
“Good; now then, step four: Penetrate the Parasol computer network and attempt to extract incriminating evidence and if possible, the locations of other Parasol cells within the city.”

Titus bumped the stock of his laser sniper on the metal floor of the compartment and grinned. “Then we walk out as the building explodes, looking like big damn heroes.” Atlanta slugged him in the arm and glared at him.

“A crude way of putting it perhaps, but undoubtedly correct.” Maeda smiled, prompting a smug grin from Titus directed at his sister.

The intercom crackled. “Making my approach now! Get ready!”

The hovercar stayed in the stream of traffic for as long as possible before abruptly rolling over and diving for the lobby of the building. Brad pulled up meters from the ground and the tail bumper tapped the concrete lot gently before the vehicle levelled out and touched down, gull-wing doors snapping open as it did so.

The M.E.A.T. team leapt out of the car and sprinted for the entrance of the building, a 20 metre sprint over open ground. Behind them, Brad lifted off and disappeared back into the rush of traffic hovering above the conventional grav-roads.
The doorman freaked as soon as he saw the four armoured officers sprinting for the door and dived inside the building, locking the door as he went. Titus continued sprinting as the others slowed and he barrelled into the door at top speed and rebounded off, armour barely denting the tough metal doors.

The other three caught up and took up positions on either side of the doors. Maeda rapped an armoured knuckle on the door and bellowed:

“MegaPol! Open up!”

The sounds of muffled but frantic conversation could be heard through the doors.

“Tisa, step away from the door.”

“What’s going on? Why are they here?”

“Markus, we’ve been rumbled, it’s a M.E.A.T. team.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Go inform Dr Irilka, we’ll hold them here.”

“Okay – Tisa step away from the fucking door!”

The sound of a gunshot could be heard, and something heavy hit the floor with a thud inside the double doors. Maeda and Arthur exchanged concerned glances.

“Atlanta, you have the key, open her up.” Maeda ordered, taking a step back from the doors and crouching in front of them, sub-machine gun trained. Atlanta snapped off a salute and shuffled along the wall, back pressed against it; when she reached the door, she raised her right arm, a mechanical replacement, and powered it through the door with a screech of stressed metal.

She withdrew her arm and punched it through the door again, lower this time. Before she could withdraw her arm, several low-calibre rounds pinged off the metal of the door and the armoured mechanisms of her hand. Atlanta hurriedly pulled the arm out and stuck the end of her SMG through the hole she had just made, spraying off a quick burst of rounds that were angled up to hit the ceiling; hitting no-one but forcing their heads down in self-preservation.

Drawing her fist back one more time, Atlanta aimed for the door handle and broke the locking mechanism. Her previous two punches had been aimed at the hinges and the door fell away from the frame and its partner, hitting the carpeted floor of the NutriVend office lobby with a muffled crash.

Maeda could now see inside the building, and saw the body of someone who appeared to be a receptionist lying on the floor several feet from the doors. Opposite the doors, and facing Maeda, was a curved desk with all manner of reception ornaments, with a pair of computer screens, several pots of pens and pencils, as well as a decorative plant. Behind the desk was a tall printer and several shelves, as well as the eyes of the doorman, peering over the desk.

A glint of metal rose above the desk next to the doorman, and Maeda pulled and released the bolt of his SMG so that it clicked menacingly.

“M-E-A-T! Drop it or drop!”

The doorman ignored him and fired his pistol over the desk at the door.

“Have it your way then!” Maeda lined up the SMG’s sights with his eye and aimed at the body of the desk that the doorman was hiding behind; a short burst of fire later, and the desk was shredded into splinters, doorman hitting the ground behind it. With a final, agonized groan, the desk toppled over as two halves in a creak of stressed wood.

The M.E.A.T. filtered in through the door, Titus diving down to check on the woman lying in front of the doors. He checked for a pulse, finding nothing. Atlanta and Arthur went to the side walls of the lobby and stuck their weapons and heads through the doors there; finding nothing but a restroom and a cleaning cupboard, they joined Maeda near the splintered remains of the reception desk.

Maeda pulled a lawpistol from his belt and double-tapped the doorman in the head, before he crouched down and righted one of the computer screens. Arthur grabbed his arm and pulled him to a standing position.

“You heard the guys on the inside, the receptionist had no idea what was going on, these computers have nothing; let’s go find the informant.”

To the left of the desk, facing the entrance doors, was a set of double glass doors that led into the offices. Through it, the team could see the employee’s running for the exits as a fire alarm began to sound. Titus kicked the door down with ease, the locks proving pointless on a door comprised mostly of glass; the four of them filed down the corridor, ignoring the doors to office cubicles along the way, looking for any hint as to the location of the rec room.

Coming to the end of the corridor, the team reached a T-junction. On the wall was a column of directions with colour coded stripes running along the walls, apparently leading to the advertised destination. Atlanta identified the rec room as the green stripe, and set off down the left hand corridor, following the stripe on the wall.

Turning another corner, Atlanta dived headfirst into the nearest office cubicle as a hail of bullets came buzzing down the corridor towards her. Titus rolled into the corridor and levelled his laser rifle at the two guards at the end, killing them both with lethally accurate shots. With the spitting zap sound of Titus’ laser ringing in their ears, the team continued along their way at breakneck pace.

The door to the rec room was through a small ‘employees only’ area and four guards had been left there to guard it. Maeda signalled a halt and peered round the corner cautiously this time, spotting the four guards before they could spot him, and ducking back around the corner.

“There are four guards there.” He whispered to the rest of the team.

“Has the informant been rumbled?” Arthur hissed back.

Atlanta shook her head. “Even if she had been captured, she’d have been able to resist interrogation for longer than this, they’re guarding the entrance to the Parasol facility.”

“Heh, in their desperation to guard the place, they’ve sold it out.” Titus grinned.

Maeda pulled a fat black grenade from his armour. “On my go, we’ll smoke em’ and shred em’.” The team nodded their affirmation.

Maeda pulled the pin on the smoke grenade and set the timer to ‘impact’, he held up the grenade in his hand and raised three fingers, dropping them one by one. As he dropped the last finger he tossed the grenade down the hall and held up a fist to halt the team from moving in.

The smoke grenade detonated and the corridor quickly filled with black smoke. The guards panicked and fired their weapons blindly through the smoke until all that came from pulling the triggers was a chorus of clicks. Hearing this, Maeda dropped his arm and ducked around the corner, melting into the cloud of smoke, the team following.

The four guards reloaded their pistols and glared at the smoke, unwilling to move. After a moment of staring into the cloud of black, three of the four dropped dead as the hallway filled with the pops of SMG’s and the zaps of a laser rifle. The fourth guard dropped his pistol and raised his arms into the air, palms out, surrendering. The guard felt a painful impact in his gut and looked down to see a rod of sharpened metal sticking out of him, a moment of dumb comprehension later and the stun dart discharged, knocking the man out.

The smoke in the hallway was quickly whisked away by the fans and the fire alarm, which was still ringing, was silenced, it’s systems fooled by the disappearance of the smoke from anywhere in the building.

Atlanta stopped to cuff the unconscious guard as the other three entered the rec room. The remains of a defensive line greeted the team, and a slew of guards lay dead or unconscious behind the hastily constructed barricade of overturned vending machines. A tall woman with long brown hair stepped out from behind one of the few vending machines still remaining upright and levelled a pistol at the M.E.A.T.. Upon seeing the uniforms, she lowered the pistol, and tossed it to the floor.

Without lowering his SMG, Maeda stepped up to the woman. “Sylvia? Sylvia O’Nayl?”

The woman nodded. “Nayl like ‘nail’, not ‘nall’.” She corrected. “I’m glad you managed to respond this fast.” She added, smiling.

Sylvia turned and began walking toward the kitchen area of the rec room. “I found the facility after my suspicions were aroused by the large number of ‘food’ crates I saw being shipped and hauled into here. So I did some digging…” She stopped in front of a tall fridge and opened the door.

Reaching inside the fridge, ignoring the knocked over cartons of milk, Sylvia reached up and flipped a hidden switch in the lining of the door. Behind them, back behind the barricade of vending machines, a click could be heard from the pile of guards.

“…and discovered the entrance to the Parasol facility, I spent about two days smuggling in some weapons before I contacted you people.” The team followed Sylvia as she started rummageing through the pockets of the guards. After a minute of searching, Sylvia found what she was looking for and stood up, prize held high.

“This.” She began, indicating the small black rectangle she held. “Is a key, disguised as a paperweight. If we just step over here…”

Sylvia led the team into the closet at the back of the rec room and slotted the rectangle into a small recession above the door, just inside the closet. The door swung shut and the back wall of the closet lifted into the ceiling and revealed a sterile white cargo elevator, big enough to fit a Griffon AFV.

The M.E.A.T. team entered the elevator and disabled the cameras that they could see set into the ceiling of the elevator, before they turned back to the door to see Sylvia dragging a metal lockbox into the elevator.

“Does this lead straight to the facility?” Maeda asked.

Sylvia hit a button on the elevator’s control panel and stepped back into the centre of the spacious elevator as it jerked and began to descend, slowly.

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. I planted a camera on one of the crates they brought in but they have some kind of jamming device down here, the feed fizzled out before the elevator reached the bottom of the shaft. I heard the guys pushing the crate talking though, and it was most definitely Parasol.”

Sylvia reached down and retrieved what looked like a pistol from the lockbox. She leveled the weapon at the wall of the elevator and squeezed the trigger, firing a piton through the skin of the elevator and embedding it into the wall of the shaft.
“That’s a comms relay, it should boost the signal enough that we can talk to people outside the jamming field. Excuse me.”

The team were confused for a moment before Sylvia pulled her top over her head, reaching back down into the lockbox and retrieving a bulletproof vest; slipping it on, she went on to retrieve a long barreled plasma pistol from the box and clipped a number of plasma pods to the vest.

“What can we expect resistance-wise inside the facility?”

Sylvia scratched her chin, thinking. “Well, it’s fairly extensive, definitely been bringing in supplies to sustain personell that are living here. Other than that, I have no idea; could be research, could be a lab, could be a Parasol bunkhouse; we just know so little.”

“Great, we’re walking into the unknown, I can see this going-“

The elevator rumbled to a halt and the now-five man team levelled their weapons at the doors.

Ten seconds passed. A bead of sweat ran down Maeda’s forehead.

Fifteen seconds. Atlanta took the opportunity to slot a new drum into her SMG.

Twenty seconds. Sylvia crab-walked to the control panel, keeping her pistol trained on the doors, reaching the panel, she glanced away from the doors to look at it; finding the button she wanted, she positioned a hand on it before facing the door again. Weapon levelled, she hit the button with the palm of her hand and the doors hissed open, revealing a pitch-black void.

The lighting within the elevator penetrated some ten metres into the corridor, revealing a gloomy tiled floor, with whitewashed walls. The team waited in the elevator, tense and alert; Slyvia turned on the small but powerful flashlight under the barrel of her plasma pistol on and illuminated the closed and sealed blast door at the end of the corridor.

“Turn that off!” Maeda hissed. Slyvia clicked the torch off, and Maeda pulled a pair of goggles out of a hatch in his armour. “Night-vision goggles on everyone.”

Titus handed his goggles to Sylvia and pulled out a bulky scope for his rifle and attached it, fiddling with the controls on it, he set it to night vision and looked through it, while the others strapped on the goggles and turned them on with a cocophony of electrical whines.

The corridor was revealed to Sylvia and the M.E.A.T. in a sickly green, the walls were blank and the closest he corridor had to any ornamentation was the fluorescent light tubes in the ceiling. Arthur pointed to them.

“There are supposed to be lights here, it’s a trap.”

Sylvia strode past him and inspected the blast door. “Can you see said trap, Officer?”

Arthur shook his head, before realizing the futility of such an action in a dark room while her back was turned. “No ma-am.”
Sylvia pulled the numerical pad out of the wall next to the door and revealed a tangle of wires and circuitry. “What about the best way to find a trap?”

“Enlighten me.”

A spark flickered from the wall as Sylvia connected several wires together, and there was a clunk from the mechanisms inside the door as the lock released. “The best way to find a trap is to spring it. Take off the goggles and turn on torches.”

“What? Listen, I’m in command here-“ Maeda started, angry.

“So you are, I noticed. But, if you knew someone was going to come through a door wearing night-vision goggles, what would you do?”

“Shine a light, disrupt the sen…sors.” A look of realization crossed Maeda’ s face and he pulled of his night-vision goggles. “You heard the lady, off with the goggles.”

Titus ran a hand over the thick metal door. “It’s unlocked, but still too heavy to lift, plus there’s no handholds.” Titus leapt back as Atlanta slammed her metal hand into the door, denting it and tearing the metal a little.

“There’s always a way. Get ready near the bottom to get your fingers underneath.” With  a grunt, Atlanta hefted blast door up enough to create a two centimetre gap between the door and the floor. Titus and Arthur got their hands in the gap and added their strenght to Atlanta’s ,the door was lifted up high enough that Maeda and Sylvia could slip through, feeling their way underneath.

Atlanta let go first and dashed under, before Titus and Arthur whispered a countdown to each other and ran underneath simultaneously, the blast door grinding down slowly on its gears, until the five were sealed in the Parasol facility.

Maeda pulled Sylvia to the ground and lay prone, the sound of his armour scraping the tiles enough to encourage the blind team to do the same. This room was as dark as the previous corridor, save for the lack of light from the elevator to illuminate their way. Maeda pulled another smoke grenade from his webbing and pulled the pin as quietly as he could, he gently set the primed grenade down and pushed on Sylvia’s head until they were both face down.

The grenade triggered with a *whump* and the hiss of escaping smoke followed as the lights all flickered on simultaneously. The room was revealed, sharing the white walls and tiles of the previous corridor, but this room was large and square, with boxes lining the edges of the room, and a barricade of said boxes had been formed opposite the blast door.

Under the cover of the smoke, Sylvia and the M.E.A.T.  ran up to the barricade and engaged the Parasol guards on the other side of it. The Parasol guards were different to the corrupt NutriVend guards in the fashion that they were armoured in modernized versions of the alloy suits built back in 2000; in addition, they were armed with heavier weaponry, namely assualt rifles and shotguns, with the occasion laser or plasma weapon sprinkled in among them.

The squad that the M.E.A.T. faced were more than ten strong, but had been disoriented by the lights and smoke, and were quickly cut down form close range. When the smoke cleared and the bullet casings settled, a voice came over the intercom.

“MegaPol’s Elite Assualt Team? I’ll admit, I’m flattered, and as such, I’ll give you this one warning. Turn back and leave now, we will vacate the premises and allow you to leave. Continue your assualt, and we will unleash a bioweapon upon you, this weapon will kill you, kill the traitor, and kill the occupants of this building.”

Maeda looked around for cameras, opening his mouth to reply to the disembodied voice, but Sylvia cut him off.

“Dr Irilka, I thought so; we regret to inform you that we don’t negotiate with arseholes!” Sylvia raised her plasma pistol and turned the lock on the door leading out of the room into a pile of molten metal and slag.

“Very well. Release them, I will lead the alpha-‘lid.” The second sentence was quiter, as if spoken to someone behind the microphone, but Dr Irilka had clearly intended for the team to here it.

The team and Sylvia entered the next area only to face an impossible situation: The room they had entered was tall, with multiple gantries up above and several large autotrans filling the space below them. On the gantries and taking up positions around the hovercars was a large force of Parasol guards, weapons leveled at the horribly outgunned team.

Sylvia began to raise her arms, but was tackled from the side by Maeda, who dragged her with him into cover behind one of the pillars supporting the roof. The rest of team made similar moves, and were chased into cover by hails of bullets, plasma and laser fire. A firefight broke out, with Sylvia and M.E.A.T. exchanging fire with the massed Parasol guards.

The Officers prioritzed those guards who had taken up positions on the catwalks above, and had the superior position over them. Unfortunately for them, they had exchanged cover for position, and were quickly taken out; but not before Maeda had been knocked down by a bullet grazing his skull.

With Maeda out of the fight, and Sylvia attempting to treat him, the M.E.A.T. fire output had been severly lessened, and they needed something to level the playing field. Arthur thought quickly, and pulled out one of the one-pound blocks of C5 from his backpack. Pulling the block into a more aerodynamic shape, he stuck one of the detonators into the blob and tossed it behind the autotrans that the guards were hiding behind.

The explosion that followed Arthur triggering the explosives was immense and bright, and the heatwave singed off his eyebrows. The gantries nearest the explosion collapsed, and a large cloud of dust filled the room, reducing visibitity to a few feet.

“Regroup! Re-r - *kah* - Regroup!” Maeda’s voice rang out hoarsely, and the other three Officers headed for the origin of the voice. When they found him, they were shocked at the amount of blood that had fallen on the floor, and the ruby red droplets were dulled by the falling dust, turning the liquid into a foul paste.

“Sir?” Atlanta was worried, and crouched down to look at Sylvia’s handiwork and see how sever Maeda’s wound was. Upon closer inspection, it became obvious that Maeda would be fine; his hair was cut and burnt where the bullet had grazed him, and the blood that oozed out of the wound at an alarming rate was nowhere near enough to kill him. Indeed, the wound was already clotting as Atlanta wound a bandage around it.

“I would suspect that that’s the last of the trained security personnel, a facility of this size couldn’t have much more in the way of disposable personnel. Deeper in we’ll find the brains of the operation, and Dr Irilka.” Sylvia hawked and spat, trying to clear her throat and mouth of the foul dust.

“That talk of bioweapons concerns me. We’ve busted Parasol countless times on charges of cruelty and illegal research.” Arthur added.

Atlanta had moved away from the main group, and was looking at a binder of shipping manifests that she had found on top of a crate in the corner of the loading bay. It hadn't been clear when they’d entered the room, but now they had some time to look around, they could see the closed hatches of landing tubes above them. The real question was where did they come out?

“Shit!”

Atlanta’s exclamation snapped the team into action, and weapons were loaded, cocked and raised in one smooth movement, all trained at the direction Atlanta’s voice came from. The dust was beginning to settle, and they could see several metres now, Atlanta was walking back to the group, pale faced and shaking.

“I’ve got a bad feeling I know what the bioweapon is…” Atlanta showed the team one of the manifests clipped into the file. Most of the text had been blacked out and censored, but the words ‘X-COM’, ‘$100,000’ and ‘ten units’ had been left uncovered. Also on the manifest was a picture. A picture of a crablike creature covered in black chitin, several bullet holes were present on the corpse, and it’s claws were coated in red blood.

Sylvia’s mouth dropped open. “Chryssalids…”


***


Present day, aboard the MacArthur, in geosynchronous orbit above Equestria, two weeks after exodus

The hum of the fusion reactor shook Captain Blaine’s teeth as he stood next to the chief engineer, who was halfway through explaining the most recent diagnostics report.

“… So you see, the power output just doesn’t match up with the amount of powerfuel processed; but we’re only seeing this with the fusion reactor, the elerium reactor is still green across the board.”

The sheaf of printouts in Blaine’s hand and the readouts on the reactor console were incomprehensible to the man, and he carelessly tossed the printouts on the nearest surface.

“Well what could this mean? Is someone draining the power off somewhere else and disguising the readouts?”

“Exactly!” The engineer hurried over to another console and typed in dozens of line commands at incredible speed. The screen flashed and displayed footage from the security cameras in the corners of the room.

“This footage is from two days ago, and as you can see, it’s at about midnight Equestria time; there’s a… glitch here.” He pointed to an area in the corner of the screen and paused the footage using his off hand. He then continued the footage frame by frame by tapping a button on the console. The footage showed nothing but an empty room, and nothing but the timer moved, the room was still; then, as the frame ticked over…

“Holy shit! Who’s that!?”

The engineer nodded, and removed his hand from the console. In the corner he had indicated, the corner of a man’s face was visible, but disappeared in the next frame. “I suspect that man has edited the footage and readouts to disguise… well that’s just the thing, the trail ends there.”

Blaine took over and changed the footage to the camera outside the reactor, in the corridor that was the only way in or out of the reactor room. Following the same timeframe, he scanned the footage, but the mystery man didn’t make another appearance.

“I’ve already checked that, the man doesn’t reappear, and the footage hasn’t been edited. But there’s a grate between blind spots in the cameras that I’ve found with stripped screws securing it over a vent.”

Blaine raised an eyebrow and looked at the engineer incredulously. “He got away in the vents?”

The engineer nodded, and was about to speak before a voice came over the inter-ship radio and cut him off.
“Captain, this is Private Washburne, we have a major situation in cargo-10.”

Captain Blaine put his hand on his earpiece and turned away from the engineer, who looked on with concern.
“Details, Washburne?”

“I’m not going into details over the open net, I can tell you that there’s two high security crates, both broken open, and both marked with Parasol logos.”

Blaine removed his hand from his earpiece and turned back to the chief engineer. “Sorry, but this is priority one.”

The engineer nodded. “Call it an old man’s crazy twitches, but I got a feeling these are connected.”

Blaine saluted and ran out of the reactor control room, sprinting for the arterial that would lead him straight to the bridge. Chief Engineer Fergus sighed and turned back to the central console, attempting to track down the wayward power.
Something cold and hard was pressed into the back of his bald head.

“Hello Chief, here’s what you’re going to do…”


***


“Evans!” Blaine roared as he strode into the bridge.

Weapons Officer Natasha Evans leapt out of her seat and saluted the Captain, face a mask of calm. “Sir, I heard the transmission and pulled up the live feeds of all marines on-board.”

The main screen behind Evans was spilt into dozens of different video feeds, all from different marines spread all over the ship. Evans turned and sat back down into her seat as Blaine walked next to her and leaned on her shoulder to look; typing a command into the console, Evans expanded one of the video feeds to fill the screen.

The footage was augmented with several feeds that were also present on the marine’s HUD: A heartbeat monitor, a name – H. Washburne – and a graphic silhouette of the ship with the location of the marine highlighted on the graphic.

Blaine leaned over Evans and typed in his own command into the console. “Washburne, this channel is 100% private and we’re monitoring your feed, show us.”

“All due respect sir, who’s with you?”

“Is this really ne-“

“This is Evans, Hoban, go ahead.” Natasha cut in.

The footage bobbed up and down as Washburne nodded, apparently satisfied. The footage blurred as he whirled around to face the broken crates in cargo-10.

“Oh shit…”

“Uh huh.”

The crates were at least three times as tall as Washburne was, one of them was extra-reinforced with solid bars of alloy, and both were made of thick reinforced steel. The one without the extra-reinforcement was torn apart as if someone had gone mad with a can opener; and the other, extra-reinforced one looked as if it had been penetrated by an armour-piercing anti-tank shell… several dozen times, enough to create one enormous hole in the crate.

Washburne clambered over the pieces of crate that littered the floor to get a look at the gloomy insides of the crate. He flicked on his helmet lamp to reveal the inside, and all three who saw the inside gasped.

The crate was full of disgusting fluid, clear and viscous in nature; this fluid coated the floor totally, there were patches of it on the walls and even some dripping down from the ceiling. Feeling his gorge rise, Washburne dropped back to the floor and looked in the extra-reinforced crate. Upon seeing a very similar sight, he stayed looking for as long as he could to give the bridge a good look, before he turned and took a few steps back, the contents of his stomach spewing from his mouth.

“Are you alright Private?”

“It smells fucking disgusting.”

Another voice cut over the radio link. “Did you see the black objects submerged in the fluid?” The voice was slightly accented, ‘the’ sounding very slightly like ‘zee’.

Blaine swore under his breath. “Dr Bezial? What the fuck!? This is a secure channel!”

“Not as secure as you thought. I’m here to prove a point and to help. The black objects Private, would you be so kind as to get another look at them? Pinch your nose if you must.”

A faint groan could be heard over the radio feed as Washburne complied. Now that Dr Bezial had mentioned it, the patches of black that Evans and Blaine had wrongly-assumed were patches of shadow were actually piles of something. Shiny black objects lying in the viscous goo.

The feed abruptly snapped off as the door to the bridge hissed open and an armoured figure walked in. Blaine and Evans whirled, anxious, but relaxed when they saw the sheen of red on the figure.

“Rook, completely forgot you were coming aboard. Are you showing…?”

Rook nodded, and beckoned into the corridor behind him. Six ponies, in the armour of the Sky Guards, walked in; taking in everything with looks of wonder on their faces. Blaine took on the position of ‘tour guide’, a position he was all too familiar with from the days when the MacArthur was little more than a floating museum.

“Welcome aboard the MPSS MacArthur, pride and only ship of the fleet. I’m Captain Blaine and this is my XO, Officer Evans.”
“Captain, ‘Tash, meet the six recruits of X-COM’s Equestria Division: Corporal Bellerophon, Corporal Zephyr Hood, Privates Windrunner, Cloudbreaker, Stormchaser and Private Edgedancer.” Rook indicated the stallions and mare in order, and they exchanged hand/hoofshakes.

“Captain? Evans? What happened?” Bezial’s confused voice filtered out of the console Evans was sitting at, and she hurried to mute it, but the game was up.

“What was the good doctor talking about? What’s going on?”

“Nothing, we’re jus-“ Blaine began.

“We have a possibly dangerous situation down in cargo-10. Washburne’s there investigating and-“

“What the hell Evans? I thought I was trying to keep this quiet!”

Natasha slammed her fist down on the console. “Sir! I’ve known Rook longer than I’ve known how to walk, if we can trust anyone, we can trust him.”

Rook and the Equestrian recruits looked at each other in various stages of befuddlement. Blaine groaned loudly and angrily thumped in a command to bring the footage back on the main screen. Rook and the recruits stared at the footage for a moment, the recruits in wonder and Rook with curiosity, before Rook swore and put a hand over his gut.

“Code black, lock down the ship, seal all compartments.” He ordered.

Blaine uncrossed his arms and stared at Rook like he had gone mad. “What!? Do you have anything to do with this Rook? What the fuck is happening on my damn ship!?”

The radio crackled again. “I think Rook has come to the same conclusion that I have, and I concur with his assessment of the situation. Tell me Rook, how familiar are you on the topic of Chryssalids?”

Wincing and clutching at his gut, Rook grimaced. “Intimately.”


***


Parasol facility, Mega-Primus, seven years before exodus

The sound of hissing began to echo around the dust room, and M.E.A.T. backed themselves into a corner, Sylvia dragging Maeda along the floor. The dust had still not settled, but they could now see about a third of the way into the room, and the ominous brown silhouettes of the wrecked autotrans could be made out.

“S-s-so, hows about we th-theorize hmmm?” Sylvia stuttered. “P-parasol bought up Chryssalid corpses off the black m-market back in 2000. The manifest made that much c-clear. Maybe there were unhatched eggs in their bodies?”

Arthur looked sheepish. “Sorry to sound like an idiot, but what’s a Chryssalid?”

“No need to apologize, if anything I envy you.” Atlanta replied. “Chryssalid’s are aliens from the first alien war, in 2000. They would be used by the Snakemen to terrorize civillians and guard their bases. That photo I showed you is what they look like.”

Titus frowned. “They’re quite simply horrors. Fuck lovecraftian, these things are on a whole other level of fucked-up. They get close to you, stab you and slice open the skin with their claws; then they inject you with a toxic, hallocinogenic venom that basically turns you into a zombie. While their doing that, they implant an egg inside the body. Said egg rapidly pupates inside the ‘zombified’ host and eats its way out about ten to fifteen minutes after implantation.”

Arthur paled. “I wish I didn’t ask…”

The relentless cacophony of hissing reached a deafening crescendo and suddenly died down. The silence that followed was even more intimidating and terrifying than the hissing, and served to gnaw away M.E.A.T.’s nerves. Suddenly, the sound of skittering feet could be heard, chitin clicking on concrete. It sounded as if an army of bugs had suddenly filled the room, and the clicking slowly got closer and closer; approaching the team from the far end of the room, behind the wrecked autotrans.
A rattle of metal rang out as something stood on one of the many pieces scattered around the room, and the pitch of the clicks increased in pitch as whatever was approaching began to climb up on the wreckage that separated one half of the room from the other. Then, as soon as it had started, the sound of clicking footsteps stopped.

“Steady.” Maeda ordered, propping his SMG against his chest. Titus reached for the scope in his hip pouch and fumbled around, feeling for it without lowering his rifle; retrieving it, he clipped it to his rifle, peered through it and switched the settings to heat-sensing.

“I’m getting nothing on thermal…”

Sylvia crouched with her pistol pointed outward, tightly gripped with both hands. “Chryssalids are cold-blooded, and even then, their chitin is thick and insulating.”

Arthur dropped his the drum in his SGM to the floor with a clatter and reloaded with a series of clicks. “This just gets better and better.”

The dust had now receded enough the the muddy green hulls of the wrecked autotrans were visible, stained with brown dust and chunks of fallen plaster. Also visible were the terrifying black figures of a dozen Chryssalids, and standing in a half circle on top of the wreckage; simply standing there, watching the M.E.A.T..

“What are they waiting for?” Arthur whispered. “Do they normally behave like this?”

One of the nearest Chryssalids spread its mandibles and hissed at his voice; Arthur gulped and tried to ignore it.
“No.” Atlanta answered him grimly. “These’re different, see the weird metal helmet things?”

Upon closer inspection, the metal helmets could be made out. Less of a ‘helmet’ and more of a ‘head-frame’, the twists and twirls of wire fitted each Chryssalid’s head like a second skin.

“Who cares if they’re wearing funny hats, they’re Chryssalids!” Sylvia cried. The Chyrssalid that hissed before did so again, before its head vanished in a spray of green plasma and molten black chitin.

Sylvia’s shot and the death of the Chryssalid seemed to flick the kill switch in the heads of both sides, and the Chyrassalids charged at the team, just as they of them opened up with SMG’s and the laser rifle. For the first few seconds of fire, it seemed as if the horde was simply shrugging off the shots and continuing on, only falling to Sylvia’s powerful plasma pistol. In desperation, the M.E.A.T. turned to autopilot and began to focus all their fire on the same target; no words were spoken, they simply focused on the target lit up by the flashes of Titus’ laser rifle, each beam made more visible by the dust particles in the air.

One by one, the horde of Chryssalids began to fall, each riddled with holes and scored from laser shots. Only three made it within five meters of the corner in which the Humans cowered. The closest Chryssalid was dissolved by Sylvia’s plasma, and the molten spray from its death blinded the one behind it and the second Chryssalid stumbled, blindly flailing at its face.

The third was focussed on by the Officers, and chunks of it were blasted off as it got closer and closer until Titus roared something incomprehensible and swung his rifle like a club, the stock hitting the charging creature in the head and tearing it from its neck; the weight of fire and chunks missing from it taking its toll, and the creature dropped to the floor, dead.

The second Chryssalid, the one blinded by Sylvia’s fire, had cleared its vision and was now back up, charging at them yet again. It lost a claw to a plasma bolt, but the loss of its claw protected its face and it survived to get close enough to barrel into Sylvia with enough force to knock her off her feet and she cracked her skull on the wall.

As Sylvia hit the ground unconscious, the team opened up with their SMG’s as Titus scrambled for his lawpistol, laser rifle falling to the ground with a useless, bent body. The Chryssalid advanced on Titus and swung at him, narrowly missing his left arm with it’s snapping claw. Titus stumbled back, but regained his footing and added the high-caliber fire from his lawpistol to the fusillade.

As if realizing it would soon die, the Chryssalid lurched for the closest, most vulnerable target: Maeda, still sitting with his back propped against the wall. He screamed as the creature’s claw punched into his chest, and began to mumble incoherently as the cocktail of poisons entered his body. Maeda was lifted into the air on the end of the Chryssalid’s claw and he roared his last as he defiantly resisted the venom that was coursing through his veins, beginning its vile work. 
Keeping the trigger of his SMG pulled tight, he forced the wavering barrel to remain on target; finally, the Chryssalid’s head burst with a spray of blue blood and showered shards of chitin all over the team.

Maeda slid off the creature’s claw as it slid to the groud and he hit the floor hard, slumping over on his side. His mind numb and his body aching, Maeda summoned up the willpower to check on all his comrade; before he hefted up his SMG, which felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds all of a sudden; with the last of this strength, he positioned the barrel under his chin, and slowly squeezed the trigger.

The conical spray of blood travelled several metres up the wall and spattered the white wall with thousands of glistening droplets. Titus stepped over the Chryssalid corpses to stand over Maeda’s sad corpse, while Atlanta and Arthur picked up Sylvia between them and laid her down in a clear space several metres from the pile of corpses and Titus.

Titus wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and checked his pistol. Something squirmed in Maeda’s open wound and his gut flexed and shifted. Titus muttered a quite prayer, pointed his pistol at his dead friend’s corpse, closed his eyes and looked away before he emptied his clip in the general vicinity of Maeda’s guts. Blood, both red and blue, spurted from the wound as each bullet hit; betraying the presence of a Chryssalid pupa.

Atlanta closed her eyes and winced at each gunshot, while Arthur tuned it out and pried open Sylvia’s eyes before checking her pupils with a small light. Sylvia’s pupils reacted to the light, and Arthur tucked the torch away, satisfied. Atlanta pulled out her radio and checked the M.E.A.T. frequency and looked for any recent activity; while she was still scrolling through the display, it chirped and she almost dropped it in surprise.

“God fucking dammit, is anyone receiving me? There’s a big fucking situation up here!”

Brad’s voice exploded out of the radio the moment Atlanta toggled the switch on the casing and Titus looked over.
“Can we reach him?” Arthur asked from over her shoulder.

“Lemme try… Brad Brad Brad this is Atlanta, do you copy over?” A steady hiss of static followed Atlanta’s transmission and the trio of Officers waited anxiously for a response. Atlanta’s heart leapt as Brad’s voice came through again, but sank just as quickly.

“If you can hear me, you've got about three minutes to signal me before I blow this entire building open to get you.”

“Dammit!” Titus yelled, booting one of the Chryssalid corpses. He ran his fingers through the stubble of his hair and yelled out in frustration.

“Urgh, ow; open the tubes.” Sylvia’s voice whispered up as she slowly rolled over, body aching and head throbbing. She tried to get to her feet but fell back to her knees and threw up on the floor.

“What?”

Sylvia finally struggled to her feet and pointed upwards. “Open up the landing tubes, one of those consoles must control them.” She gestured vaguely behind Atlanta as she spoke.

Arthur followed Sylvia’s pointing finger upward and then across, taking in the closed tubes and rows of consoles on the gantry by the wall. Before looking back at the group and grinning. “Seems like I can do this; gimme thirty seconds.”

Arthur jogged over to the far wall, vaulting over the wrecked hovercars and carefully stepping around the corpses. He took a running leap at the ladder that led up to the appropriate gantry and all but flew up it in his haste. Skidding to a halt in front of the console, he began frantically typing in commands and searching through different menus. He bypassed the simplistic and helpful user interface to type commands directly into the computers, allowing him to bypass the user-locked security systems. It took less than a minute to unlock the tubes, and they ground open with a long drawn out screech.

Dirt rained down on the team and the daylight filtered down the long tube to illuminate the landing garage with shafts of yellow light. Atlanta raised the radio to her mouth again.

“Brad Brad Brad, this is Atlanta, come in! Over.”

“This is Brad, I read you Atlanta, ‘bout damn time!”

“Brad, we’ve opened up several landing tubes that leads right down into the Parasol facility, we need you to come down immediately!”

“Copy that, I see them… You’ve kinda opened up a trio of trees; just… some random trees in the office plot.”

One of the shafts of light was blocked as Brad came to a halt above it and cast a shadow down into the garage. The shadow grew bigger and bigger as Brad descended the landing tube, and Atlanta’s teeth began to vibrate to the fluctuations of the hovercar’s grav-engine as the car finally exited the landign tube and entered the main body of the garage.

“Fuck a duck! What happened in here?” The Phoenix Hovercar teetered on it’s grav-engine as Brad looked for a clear enough area to land in, and he eventually settled down in the only clear area available: The area that the remainder of the team was standing in; Sylvia stumbled out of the way as Brad pulled up overhead and landed with a thump that travelled through the concrete floor.

Brad all but leapt out as the pilot side door flew open and he grabbed the nearest person by the shoulders.

“I don’t know who you are but we have a serious situation involving rockets or some shit being launched from this place to multiple areas of the city!” He yelled, shaking Sylvia as he did so.

“What do you mean ‘rockets or some shit’? Are they guided? Explosive? What?” Sylvia remained as calm as someone who is being shaken while walking off theeffects of a minor concussion could be.

“I can’t be sure yet, but Officers near the impact zones have reported… well… Chryssalid sightings of all things, it could be a halloucinogen…” Brad’s voice petered out as he got a good look at the the bodies  that filled the room. The mangled remains of the security guards as well as the perforated and melted corpses of the Chryssalids, and in the corner, the sad body of Maeda.

“Goddamn Parasol.” Brad shook his head. “Want me to get some more support?”

Atlanta shook her head. “Nah, if they’ve launched Chryssalids all the city, then MegaPol’s gonna need all of her Officers on the streets, just make sure that Chief Steel is aware that I recommend the heaviest of weaponry to deal with this.”

Brad nodded eagerly, happy to get out of the abbotoir that the room had become. “Got it! I’ll be back ASAP!” And with that, he climbed back into the Phoenix and lifted off, disappearing up the landing tube.


***


Aboard the MacArthur Equestria Orbit

“Rook…” Evans began, slowly backing out of her seat. “When you say ‘intimately’ you mean…”

Rook frowned and nodded. “The events of seven years ago, yes. The Chryssalid that got MegaPol Chief Steel got me too, I was the luckiest bastard alive that day; the ‘Lid had ran out of its ‘zombie juice’ so all I got was implanted. Last thing Chief Steel ever did was to slug me hard enough in the gut that I nearly threw up what felt like my entire stomach, and hard enough to kill the delicate embryo.”

Natasha sagged with relief. “Oh thank god, it sounds dumb but I thought you were going to tell some convoluted tale about how the damn embryo’s still in you!”

“Excuse me sir, but we’re a little out of the loop here, care to fill us in?” Bellerophon asked.

Blaine sighed again and tapped in a series of commands on one of the unattended consoles. “This is the data-file containing basically everything we know about Chryssalids, read it.” The group of six clustered around the monitor and began to real the file carefully.

Back on the main screen, Washburne’s helmet footage showed him looking down and feeding shells into his shotgun. Blaine cursed and scrabbled for the microphone.

“What’s going on marine?”

Washburne sounded stressed and out of breath, and every few seconds the helmet cam would be jerked up and glance all around the room, before returning to feeding shells into the shotgun.

“I don’t know if you can hear it, bridge.” He paused as he checked his surroundings again. “But I can hear hissing from all around.”

“Code black Captain, enact it, now!”

Blaine waved Rook off and turned to Evans. “See if you can boost the audio stream.”

“Aye.”

As Washburne pumped the loaded shotgun with a now-deafening two-click sound, an ominous, animalistic hiss emanated from the speakers; the camera footage backed up until it halted with a jerk as Washburne pressed his back against the nearest solid object.

“Be ready to pull out Washburne, we’re going to initiate code black.” Rook barked into his own radio.

“Like hell we are! This could still be some arsehole fucking around with the signal for all we know!”

“And what if it’s not?” The voice hadn’t previously spoken, and came from within the group of Ponies. A mare stepped forward, tugging off her helm as she did so. “Do we really want to risk something like…” She shuddered. “… Those running around the MacArthur?”

Rook placed a gauntleted hand on Blaine’s shoulder and tried to be calm and sincere. “Edgedancer has a damn good point Captain.”

Blaine’s face contorted with anger for a moment before cooling; his shoulders slumping, Blaine turned and nodded. “Okay, we’ll do it.”

“Captain! Something’s happening to K. Jenkins’ footage!”

Rook and Blaine looked back at the main monitor. Evans had refocused the screen on one of the other marines, and this footage showed a dark corridor on its side; the small graphic in the corner of the HUD placing Jenkins somewhere near the lowest spinal arterial.

Nothing moved in the footage but the heartbeat monitor, which kept beating at a steady rate. The occupants of the bridge stared at the footage for what seemed like an age, before Rook cried out and pointed at one of the shadows in the corridor, underneath a particularly low-hanging pipe.

The barest hint of movement. Black on black. A shadow swimming in a shadow. The barest glint of light reflecting off chitin confirmed Rook’s worst suspicions. There were Chryssalids loose about the ship.

Blaine leaned forward and hurriedly typed in a command on the console, pausing only to place his palm on the reader next to it. The screen flashed black, and the door to the bridge made a loud clunking noise as it locked; the ever present sound of whirring fans gently wound down until the bridge was completely silent.

Then, all of a sudden, the lights went out.

The only sound that could be heard was the breathing of nine beings, before Evans started blindly scraping her hand along the sides of the console she was sat at, searching for something. With a small peep of happiness, she found what she was looking for and pried off a plastic panel from the console and let it clatter the floor.

A quiet whirring noise slowly built up from the direction of Evans and she grunted with exertion as she wound a handle affixed to the console round and round until her efforts were rewarded with the console flickering to life.

“… And that’s why you’re my XO Evans, I could kiss you.” Blaine walked over to her, arms outstretched to stop himself from hitting anything in the dark.

“It’s because I’m fabulous sir. Hold on, lemme access damage control reports…” Evans chewed her lip anxiously as the hand-cranked console chugged through her request. “Okay, says that the fusion reactor’s severed all power lines to the rest of the ship… it’s still running, just not supplying power to us. The elerium reactor’s fine, and the Zeus cannon is online.”

Blaine’s face was ghostly pale in the wan light of the console, and his gaunt cheeks stood out, making him look like death leaning over Natasha’s shoulder to peer at her console. “Can we divert power from the elerium reactor to the internal systems?”

Natasha tapped in the last few characters of a code string with hard, dramatic pokes of the keyboard and hit enter with a flourish. The bridge lights flickered on and glowed at about half usual power; the unseen fans in the vents that riddled the ship began their eternal duty once more, and air began to flow through the vents again.

“I can hear hissing and the lights are out! Captain! Open the fucking doors!” Washburne’s voice exploded out of the speakers loud enough to create a buzz from the mechanics within them and Blaine lunged for the main console attached to the bridge screen, but found his seat already occupied.

Rook was no data-jockey, and had little experience with piloting a ship; he was however, a quick study, and his navigated through the very bare systems of the MacArthur to open the doors to cargo ten.

The footage from Washburne’s helmet cam was back on the main screen, and was almost completely black save for the HUD and occasional flash of reflected light bouncing off one of the crates from the record light on his helmet. The tall metal door into cargo-10 began to grind open with a horrific screech that spoke of worn motors in need of replacement; Washburne blindly made his way over to the sound and pushed his back up against the slowly raising slab of metal.

The hissing in cargo-10, which had remained at a steady background level for the longest time, suddenly grew into a sound akin to rushing water that seemed to emanate from everywhere in the room, and nothing Washburne could do would quiet it. Panicked, he blindly fired his shotgun several times into the dark, and was rewarded with nothing but the hollow sound of the shotgun hulls hitting the deck.

“Crouch down and go through! Now!”

Washburne did so, but found he was still too tall on his hands and knees; he lay belly-down on the deck and slid his shotgun through the slowly expanding gap between door and floor, before he rolled under the door, kicking at the control panel that he knew to be on the other side. Hitting something vital, the panel burst with a bang and shower of sparks, and the door ground to a halt, before slipping off its motors and crashing shut, sealing the hissing within cargo-10.

“Steady on Washburne, diverting power…”

The lights in the corridor flickered on and Washburne relaxed, happy to see that he had escaped from the terrifying hissing and the monsters in the crates. The bridge was a different story however, and the three Humans and six Ponies watched in silent horror as the camera footage of K. Jenkins began to get up and move around, shuffling its feet and groaning in pain as it did so.

Evans split the main screen in two and placed the two feeds, one from Jenkins and the other from Washburne, next to each other and compared the locational indicators. Before she could transmit a warning, Washburne swung into view on Jenkins’ camera, and the shuffling, shambling form of Jenkins stumbled around the corner from Washburne’s point of view.

“Kyle? Kyle!? Shit…” Washburne’s voice went from curious to distraught to angry as he backed away from his comrade’s shambling corpse. He brought his shotgun to bear and half-racked the slide to check the load, satisfied, he clicked it shut and aimed it at Jenkins.

“Can I get a go-slash-no-go here?”

In the bridge, Blaine sighed heavily, before he leant on the transmit switch with a heavy heart. “Confirm, put him down.”

“Aye-aye sir.” Washburne reluctantly raised the shotgun and waited for Jenkins to come a little closer, with a few metres to spare, he pulled the trigger and the spray of buckshot tore into Jenkins’ midriff; the ex-marine staggered back, belly torn wide open. As Jenkins’ regained his balance, Washburne pulled the trigger again, tearing into the zombie’s gut again.

Jenkins’ slid to the floor in two distinct pieces, with a gory chunk of spine the only connector between his top and bottom halves. Washburne slid a few shells into his shotgun and walked up to the corpse; he shook his head and crouched down to get a closer look at the body. In the bridge, Evans made her excuses and stepped outside, while the recruits of X-COM Equestria turned pale and either looked away or gagged.

Up close, the mangled remains of a Chryssalid pupa could be seen in Jenkins’ chest cavity; in the short time between Jenkins’ being infected and his encounter with Washburne, the creature had grown from an egg the size of a baby’s fist, to a creature the size of a small dog in a matter of minutes.

“I’m going to head to the lab and uh… guard the good doctor.” Washburne said, standing up and wiping his hands on his flak jacket.

“That would be most appreciated.” Bezial was sitting in the corner of her lab, alone, jumping at every small sound that echoed through the empty corridors of the ship.