Sergeant Black, leader of alpha squad, was leaning out of the passenger side door of his M35 cargo truck with the vehicle’s radio in hand. “Say again command.”
Captain Pardo was insistent. “I repeat, fall back to Perry Street and set up defensive positions.”
Black and his squad were just now walking past the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Pearl Street. Most of his soldiers were walking along the sidewalks as they disliked being in the open street, but aside from some thin trees and the occasional car, the sidewalk was hardly an improvement. Visibly was poor due to the dense fog serving almost as concealment all by itself. His troops were about to cross the intersection to reach the next row of buildings when Black called them back on the squad channel.
“Eyes up! Something spooked Command. We’re pulling back.”
The point man was on the crosswalk of the southern part of the intersection and halted as soon as he heard his NCO over the radio. He shouldered his rifle and started slowly back peddling. The whole operation had been strange right from the start, and if something had command worried, he felt almost terrified. It was his military bearing that kept him calm however, and he was almost to the street corner when he felt something wrench his face to the side and a loud cracking sound erupted from right next to him along with the distinctive report of a hunting rifle.
The soldier was stunned momentarily and only when he took his first breath did he realize that the shot had blasted off his mask’s filter and he took in a deep drag of the choking cloud.
The trooper behind him grabbed his shoulder strap and started dragging him off the side and into cover while yelling a warning to the rest of the squad. “Sniper!”
A second shot from a different concealed shooter went straight through the would be rescuer’s thigh and he toppled over with the point man’s weight slamming down on him.
The rest of Alpha squad scrambled for cover, but they were too far out in the open save for three cars along the road. Five of the nine remaining men slid in behind the cars while providing covering fire for the other four to retreat back to the buildings along the south side of the road as the hill to the north was far too open to try and run over. The snipers managed to down one more soldier before he could make it to the buildings with a ventilated stomach.
Black readied his sidearm while shouting into a command channel that was already flooded with the other squad leaders. “I’ve got unknown contacts. I repeat unknown contacts. We’re pinned down by sniper fire. Requesting support immediately!”
A pressure wave rattled the M35 as the trio of cars that half of his squad had been using for cover detonated with the tell-tale signature of an Improvised Explosive Device.
Captain Pardo’s command structure was a mass of frantic activity as reports came in about causalities, attacks coming from the west, and desperate soldiers on the ground requesting orders and support. What had started as a figurative milk run with no possibility of combat, quickly morphed into a lopsided slaughter as militants flanked and surrounded the horribly ill equipped Able Company.
Pardo was shouting on the radio for everybody to fall back to the rally point and had a radio operator requesting air support. Thompson ignored most of it as he moved over to the edge of the tent so he could contact the ponies without having all the background noise drown him out. “Zeta one, come in Zeta one!”
Moments earlier Alexia was on her array, watching the sickly western dots burst into movement. Almost immediately, the dozens of the golden orbs representing Able Company went into chaos. Some went dead while many dimmed and flickered for the briefest of moments with the same rusty discoloration that the western dots had.
Her fear rose sharp as five of them broke away to head towards Lima. She did not have a chance to end the array herself because Conrad pulled on her foreleg with a desperate tone of voice. “Alex, we have to go, the soldiers are retreating to the truck!”
She regained her wits and nodded. “Right, one second.” She stepped out of the circle and grabbed every piece of colored chalk and dragged them all over the divination array to ruin it. A trio of bullets blitzed past her head, narrowly missing her right ear and caused it to start ringing.
Conrad interposed himself between where he thought the shot came from and Tune. “We need to leave, now!”
Her sabotage done, she nodded and bolted off towards the retreating members of Lima who were doing a tactical withdrawal by leap frogging between the patches of cover to allow half of the squad to return to the transport before turning around a short distance later to allow their squad mates to do the same. The earth mares however, had chosen to activate their cloaks and fully utilize their natural speed to race past the row of houses while vaulting shrubs or avoiding fences.
Conrad knew he was faster than Alexia and stayed low in the air as he grabbed her from above. Leveraging his innate magic as much as possible, he reduced their combined weight so he could power through the air while she used telekinesis to keep his legs wrapped around her barrel. Even as both of them activated their cloaks, he would not be content at anything but top speed until they were safely in the transport.
Thanks to Alexia stopping Lima for so long to draw and use her diagram, the Mions waiting in ambush for their squad were much further behind than any other member of Able Company. That did not stop the hostiles from trying to scare them off by launching a volley of four rockets after the escaping soldiers. Three ended up hitting cars with the fourth smashing into a tree.
They had little effect on Lima as the rockets had been fired unguided and blind. Azus kicked the trailer loose as the driver turned the truck around so the fleeing soldiers could quite literally jump into the cargo bed. The earth mares arrived first with Conrad hefting Alexia onto the bed. The soldiers were baffled by the sudden appearance of the ponies in the back as they dropped their cloaks, but the situation forced them to take it in stride.
Conrad wrapped a foreleg around an anchored strap and motioned for the mares to do the same so they wouldn’t go flying out of the truck. As they did, he grabbed the radio off his belt and yelled to be heard over the growling engine and the two RPGs that exploded around the M35. “Zeta Actual, this is Zeta two.”
Thompson was glad to have something constructive to do and answered quickly. “What’s your status?”
“The team is with Lima and is intact. I still have that laser designator on my belt. Does the Captain have air support on standby?” Alexia heard him speaking and pulled her own radio out to listen.
“Negative. This was never meant to be a combat operation. He has choppers scrambling now, but it’ll be over an hour before any arrive.”
“Are we in full retreat?” He asked.
“Affirmative. We have no information on the enemy’s strength and they’ve already proven to possess military grade weaponry. Pardo is pulling in reinforcements to form a ring of control around the area and he wants Able Company out of there. He’s going to wait for the cloud to disperse before sending in an infantry regiment and an armor column to retake control.”
“What about the squads in the north?” Alexia inquired and she joined it.
Thompson didn’t like her failure to adhere to radio discipline in identifying herself, but saved a reprimand for a better time. “They’re trying to fall back, but all of the transports were either abandoned or destroyed.” He didn’t want to give bad news, and the way it sounded like things were going with the chatter coming in from the command station, it was not going well. If I coddle them even once, Enright will interpret that as having grown too attached and not fit to lead. He returned his attention to the radio. “Zeta one. Is your ballistic protection spell ready?”
Tune shared a nervous glance with Conrad. “I have two, but they’re still experimental and I haven’t fully tested them yet.”
“But are they functional?”
“On paper.” She replied nervously.
The Director knew his team still had the invisibility bracelets and that Crimson had been given one shortly after joining Alexia into the program. However they wouldn’t be much use in a full on firefight where Alexia was the only one who didn’t have to get in close range to attack. She’s clever enough to find a way stay alive. Thompson heard something from the radio chatter off to the side. “I’m sending you up north to assist the withdraw of the remaining northern forces. I’ll get the Captain to direct his men towards Powerhouse Drive. Do what you can to buy time for the men to retreat then get out yourselves.”
Tune didn’t like it, but knew that was the sort of work she signed up for. “Yes sir.”
As Thompson got to work trying to convince Pardo of his plan, Lima’s transport did not get very far before a pickup truck started barreling same street as the transport as it turned onto South Side Belt Route and from there, north along the road to the rally point. Azus grabbed onto a handhold and leaned slightly over the side of the transport to see the tan truck racing towards them. Alexia and crew watched it too.
“Did one of ours hotwire that thing and is trying to fall back with us?”
Azus couldn’t make out any details, but his paranoia was on full alert. “I’d love to meet the man who could hotwire a car in less than a minute in full NBC. Lima, get ready to fire on my order. We don’t have ammo to burn so I want you to make every shot count.” Tune and the rest of the ponies were forced towards the cabin as the soldiers tried to maximize the number of rifles they could bring to bear.
“Don’t you have any explosives of your own?” Crimson shouted over the growling engine of the M35.
“This was a recovery mission only.” One of the squad mates yelled back. “We only have our rifles and side arms with only two spare mags for each.”
The transport skidded slightly as it rolled over a small bridge when the fog lights illuminated an abandoned car almost too late to be avoided. The larger cargo truck was not fast enough to outrun the pickup which had closed the distance in a matter of seconds. Through the dense soup of the cloud, the trucks were close enough that Lima could see the low profile of the mounted machine gun and the man standing behind it. At this range, Lima could see the steel plating crudely welded onto the pickup’s engine hood. Alexia knew that the machine gunner had been waiting for a close range straight away so he could fire right in the middle of the cargo truck where the soldiers couldn’t duck behind the sides for cover. The unicorn only had a bare second to react before both sides opened fire.
Here goes nothing! She formulated her experimental spell and her horn flashed to life to encase the entire rear half of the M35 in a pale azure aura right as the machine gunner opened fire at the same time Lima did. Muzzle flashes lit the gloom of the fog as over a hundred bullets carved the air between both vehicles. Impacts rained upon the tan truck denting the armor, fracturing the ballistic windshield, and bullets bounced off the armor protecting the machine gunner.
Yet victory was not his as the near point blank range of his automatic weapon struck no targets on the M35 at all. Not one bullet struck the transport nor the troopers as they kept pouring on the firepower. All of them expected to die at any moment, yet they would not stop firing until they were.
Tune strained to keep the spell active and feared failure so she pushed more effort into it. The bullets from Lima suddenly found they had more velocity than the rounds’ propellant should be capable of producing and eventually damaged the windshield to the point where the pickup’s driver couldn’t see where he was going anymore and collided with an abandoned car. The gunner had been tethered to the floor and was killed as the vehicle rolled over and out of control.
All of this happened before the M35 passed the section of road that ran parallel to the highway to the northeast. Azus and the rest of his squad were completely stunned that they had just faced down a mounted machine gun at less than thirty meters with no cover, and was still breathing. Or at least he started breathing again once he released the one he had been holding and a bump in the road made him grab onto the side. “Casualties?”
His second did a quick head count. “All accounted for sarg.”
Azus and many of his men fell back into the bed of the transport, completely shocked they were still alive. “How did that bastard missed every shot?” The truck hit a bump and he heard things rolling around the floor. He looked down expecting only shell casings, but instead found dozens of bullets intermixed with them.
By now, Tune realized no one was shooting at them anymore and dropped the spell. She was breathing heavily from the effort. “Hell of a way to field-test that.” The pale azure tint in the air faded.
Azus looked at her with astonishment. “That was you’re doing?”
Alexia’s reply was interrupted by the driver slamming on the breaks to make the sharp corner onto Ninth Street and Pardo calling Azus over the radio. “Lima One, Bunker down and assume rear guard duties. The remaining members of Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie will be retreating along these coordinates.”
Azus didn’t like leaving his brothers in battle to die so he jumped at the chance to return the favor. The NCO decided to ask Alexia about the spell later. He scanned the area to find the perfect building to do just that. “Affirmative sir.” The M35’s driver pulled off into a restaurant when he was able to hear the constant gunfire over the grumbling engine.
The sergeant jumped off the truck with his men in tow. “We’re setting up in that two story investment center!”
With the four ponies following closely, the group of eight men raced to the front entrance which was facing the retreating soldiers. The door was already kicked in from the earlier sweep which allowed them to quickly file inside. The lobby was very open and barely had any support pillars or furniture obstructing the floor. The scattered sofas that were there seemed almost out of place and intrusive to the décor.
Before Azus could start giving orders as to what windows to smash open so they could lay supportive fire, Alexia pulled on his sleeve for attention. “Sarg, how much ammo you have left?”
His second had performed an inventory after the machinegun mounted truck had been dealt with. “Barely a clip among for each of us. I brought us here so we could try to draw them into close quarters.”
Tune waved her bracelet at her companions before turning back to the NCO. “Close quarters is what we excel at. Take the top floor.” As one, her three friends faded from sight in front of the soldiers. “We can bring down anyone who enters the lobby and I can bring you the fallen’s weapons and ammo so your men can keep firing from the second story.”
Conrad and the others reappeared and he spoke with a gruff smirk. “They’ll never know what hit them.”
Azus nodded curtly. “Better than my original plan.” He addressed his troops. “You heard the lady. Take the second floor. Lambert, stay by the stairs to collect the weapons they bring you and dole them out. Now move!”
As the humans followed orders, the ponies converged on Alexia. “Loki, Crimson. Stay by the front door but out of the way of any glass in case the baddies start shooting up the place before running inside. Wait for me to raise the Kinetic Bleed Field before attacking. With the fog this thick our movements might be too readable and I don’t want anyone getting shot.”
“Got it boss.” “On it Alex.” The mares replied before running over to find a good spot.
Tune faced Conrad. “I want you ready to pounce from above. Throw them off balance so they don’t know where the hits are coming from.”
“Done.” He saw a ledge by the second floor’s overhang and dashed off to it.
The unicorn flipped the two sofas over in her magic and created a wedge shape with a pillar providing the point. It was towards the center of the room and slightly towards the front door. This should be close enough to the door to extend the field over the front half of the room.
Azus and one of his squad mates threw a desk chair at a window that faced the retreating solders. The angle of the building gave this room the best view over the roads, but was not quite to the point where this was the only viable room to fire from as his squad took over three other rooms. Even though the rooms had good firing arcs, the density of the cloud reduced visibility to the far end of the intersection. It did not take long for the sound of gunfire to start getting close enough that Lima was searching for muzzle flashes.
Azus switched to the squad channel. “Make your shots count and recheck your targets to avoid friendly fire. We have to lure them into the building.” He received clicks on the radio from the other rooms before he settled down into a prone position and checked his magazine. Damn it, only seven rounds. I hope those bastards ran out of explosives. He slammed the magazine home and laid his pistol to the side for ease of access. With little else he could do but wait for a target to present itself, he aimed his rifle down range.
The ambush had taken a heavy toll on Able Company, but the lack of ammunition is what broke their back. Only the biggest ammunition misers still had the means to effectively fight back, but they were too few and the enemy was far too numerous. That did not mean they were in an uncontrolled route as they started filtering past the investment center.
Azus saw twenty soldiers sprinting away from the oncoming militants. All of them stayed near the buildings on either side so they were a harder target. The enemy was distinctive compared to the black NBC suits the troopers had as they were bereft of any sort of protecting clothing. As soon as the first hostile in civilian garb came into view, the NCO took the carefully aimed shot and punctured the militant’s right lung.
“He wasn’t even bothering to stay in cover.” The NCO’s second remarked as he took the next shot to that combatant’s diaphragm.
“Just makes shooting them all that easier.” Azus replied as he slew a third. By now, the hostiles were pouring into the street firing blindly through the fog. Some were even wasting shells by firing shotguns when they weren’t anywhere near a target.
Lima was ruthlessly efficient in their shots, making sure each person took a separate target and that each shot counted. Some of the hostiles took more than two or three shots to fully drop; such was the intensity of their frenzied fervor. No matter how many Lima brought down more still came from the east. As one, the mob took notice of the lone squad that dared to remain defiant and charged in mass.
Azus was down to his last pistol magazine and tried to single out any targets wielding a shotgun as he grabbed the radio. “Zeta One, You’ve got company.” He felt a rifle round wiz past his face and chip the edge of his mask’s filter; luckily it did not compromise it. Azus knew the shot had not come from the mass of crazed civilians below, but from far beyond the edge of his vision. “Sniper! Get to cover!”
Alexia hid behind her impromptu cover as bullets sliced through the air above her from the entrance as the first five Mion initiates hosed the lobby down with shots fired at shoulder height. After the opening volley was done, the lead gunman saw nothing stopping him from leading the swarm into the building. That caused the man to have a modicum of caution and slowly made his way into the lobby. Those behind him followed suite.
As soon as the unicorn heard them step inside, she lit her horn and cast the entire room in an azure haze that was enhanced by the cloud. Loki gestured with her hoof to Crimson to wait for three seconds as the Mions slowly entered the room with guns raised. The source-less azure light made them spread out to find the source.
As soon as Loki’s silent count hit the ‘go’ mark, both earth mares picked a target and sprinted the short distance to buck their respective targets, first in the knees to topple them, and then a quick snap kick to the chest or head on the person’s way down. Both mares flattened three people apiece before the Mions could react. The only sign of their passing were ripples in the pervasive cloud.
Conrad joined in by dropping hooves first, onto a combatant that made the mistake of wandering too close to Alexia. The crowd instinctually backed away from the flattened and suddenly bloody man, which gave Conrad the time he needed to fly back up and deliver a back kick to two more Mions. He used the recoil to propel his front hooves into the back of the head of a fourth.
More combatants started filing into the room only to be bunched up together by those already there trying to figure out what was happening. Loki bucked her sixth target into the crowd, knocking over three more. Crimson made a solid hit one target’s knee and he crumpled in agony where Conrad dropped to deliver the coup de grâce on his neck. Four of the smarter Mions tried to track the odd wraiths in the fog, but their bullets barely had the energy to leave the barrel, let alone harm anyone. After watching over twenty of his fellows get cut down by what looked like mist wraiths, one of the more muscle-bound Mions had had enough. “Just shoot everywhere!”
Almost as one, the mob crowded by the door raised their weapons. Both earth mares didn’t full trust Alexia’s spell to protect them against so many and scrambled to find cover in the side offices. Conrad barely had enough time to fly above the oncoming blizzard when the ten zealots who were in the room and the twenty more facing in from the broken windows outside all turned and fired as one into the lobby. Crimson and Loki managed to run far enough out of the way as Alexia’s untested spell was overloaded with the sheer volume of firepower leveled against it.
Bullets and buckshot tore into everything. Office windows, chairs, the teller stations on the far end, the divider rope, even the scattered potted plants were rent asunder by the hailstorm of lead. The lone unicorn cowered behind the load bearing pillar because it was the only thing protecting her as the sofas were shredded apart. The sound of so much lead in the air terrified all four ponies, but Alexia managed to keep the spell active throughout it all in a desperate hope that it would still save her.
Conrad’s mind was screaming at him to go and save her, but he knew if he dropped from his perch he would get cut down almost instantly. After a solid minute of undisciplined fire into the lobby, the Mions held their fire. The room was in complete shambles. The sofas were little more than broken frames, the pillar had more pockmarks than Swiss cheese, the side offices’ thin walls were crumpling on themselves and the teller stations in the back were perforated so badly, many collapsed.
Alexia’s first reaction was to crack an eye open in dumbfound shock that she was still in one piece. Her next thought was to activate her cloak. The kinetic spell taxed her down to seventy three percent and falling, but the cloak’s crystal held a ten minute charge and would last as long as she needed it to.
Knowing her lover as well as she did. Tune held a hoof towards him to keep Conrad from flying down to retrieve her. He begrudgingly complied and watched her poke her head out from behind the pillar. The spell had only stopped half of all the rounds fired into the room with a quarter of the bullets still snagged in her field instead of dropping to the ground like they were supposed to. The remaining half of the rounds fired in her general direction had been enough to sunder the room as badly as it had.
I’m going to have to expand on the volume matrix if I survive this heart attack. Alexia thought to herself as her pounding heart tried to calm down. She dropped the spell and focused on one of the Mions who just finished reloading his revolver. The weapon was encased in her magic and she aimed it and fired it into the foot of the Mion in front of the gunman before he could try and stop it.
The crowd turned on the man, with the woman with the ventilated foot screeching in pain. “What the hell was that Billy!” She aimed her Glock at Billy with no real intent to fire. Tune saw the opening and switched her magic to the Glock and adjusted the aim away from Billy’s head and fired it into a third Mion’s shoulder and a fourth one’s collarbone.
Almost as one, Billy and the hapless woman were surrounded by the comrades with weapons raised. “Everyone stop firing!” One of them yelled.
Tune singled out the speaker’s weapon and adjusted the aim and fired into the leg of a fifth. Before the others could react, she grabbed the rifle of another and had him shoot more in the arm before he was dragged to the ground.
The rest of the ponies saw what Alexia was trying to do and crept in close with Conrad hovering over the mob. He took a deep breath to shout. “Traitors! Kill the traitors!” Alexia added emphasis to his yelling by making more shoot themselves.
Crimson recognized some of the telltale discolored and sickly red skin from those that attacked her family and home. She was going to enjoy this. “They dishonor the gods! Kill the heretics!” Tune made more shoot themselves.
Loki joined in the other two ponies’ constant tirade of jeering to push them over the edge with a manic tone of voice only she could produce. “Blasphemous ignorant scum sucking pig sows! All of you must die!”
One of the Mions in the center was about as bright as a stump. As such, even the loose collective consciousness they all possessed wasn’t enough to convince him there were no real traitors in his midst. In a blind panic, he finished reloading his semi-automatic shotgun and aimed it at the nearest Mion. “Traitors!” A loud report and a point blank shot ruined the target’s torso. “Heretics all of you!” Another militant went down to his paranoia in a rest mist of blood.
The earth mares quickly scrambled back to their spots and Alexia back behind the pillar as the mob quickly devolved into bloody infighting. Revenge and counter-revenge tore the large mob of Mions apart as they killed all the perceived traitors who never stopped multiplying.
Some of those who had been too far away from the display the ponies had used against them tried to break up the fight. The same absolute devotion that commanded such power over a Mion’s mind mutated into dominating mistrust. One zealot who had a crude eye patch fired a three round burst into the back of another after that one had just killed eye patch’s old friend. In his increasingly blind rage, he turned to the ones trying to stop the fighting and shot six rounds into him and then two more Mions before being shot himself from those outside the infighting.
Those that had just shot Eye Patch were in turn shot by those adjacent to them for treason. Not everyone saw Eye Patch shoot his brother in faith and that caused more to kill his executioners. This caused a chain reaction that devolved the mass of cultists into slaughtering each other. All the while they threw curses at each other and shouted that the Koridost demanded their deaths.
Bullets flew everywhere as the undisciplined and frothing mad zealots slew one another for two brutal minutes until they were fully out of ammunition. That did not stop the last seven from slugged it out in a fist fight that lasted five more minutes. The last two combatants were barely able to stand and were reduced to slinging harsh words at each other.
Azus had long since been given a rifle and some ammo from the pile of bodies inside the investment center. When the last two Mions were wearily throwing punches at each other he ended their lives with four new holes in their lungs. The sergeant made sure his shots connected before ducking back behind the wall. I doubt the snipers killed themselves too. The entire event was still reeling in his memory. Just what did those ponies do down there to make them start shooting each other?
On the other side of town near Sweetwater Hospital, the local Mion leader held a name granted to him by the Herald: Tzadavek. He could feel the lives of his followers be snuffed out in rapid succession although he didn’t know the cause. The global population of Mions was becoming too great for the Herald to put forth strong direct control over every tainted human. As such, he selected able leaders among them and made them a focal point of control. Originally, the Herald made these leaders the nerve cluster of control for those underneath them. Yet after the disaster at Caney Creek Lake, he decided to try a different approach with future Mion leaders to see if they could still have a controlled army, but without the catastrophic loss of cohesion that resulted from that brief lapse of consciousness from the cult leader.
Tzadavek was one of those experimental leaders. His control was limited to the power of suggestion and the ability to broadcast that suggestion to all under his influence. His suggestion was just as dominating of a lesser Mion’s will as the cultist leader’s had been, but the difference was that it allowed the minion to remain functional in the event at Tzadavek was incapacitated. It came at the cost of reducing most of his minions’ higher intelligence. That lack of cognitive prowess could only be rectified over a long period of time.
As a result of the looser control structure, Tzadavek was unable to see or hear through the eyes of his minions so he did not know the real reason his zealots were dying so quickly. It seems I underestimated the Army’s ability to react.
The Overseer tsked at the resounding defeat. Troubling to lose so many, but hardly a problem that can’t be mitigated. He turned his focus to the few remaining warriors he had left. A necessary sacrifice to buy time to move the thousands of new converts. And… He felt the addition of three soldiers’ minds being tethered to his control. It would still be several hours, but in the end they would be his to command as he saw fit. The reward outweighs the cost. Those men will make it easier to remold the new followers into a proper military force.
Of the seventy zealots he used to have under his command, only four remained. Those four were the sharpshooters who had fired the opening shots of the ambush. He spoke aloud in a calm low tone, but his voice was heard by his remaining faithful in the line of fire. “Return to me my warriors. You have stalled them long enough.” There had been ten soldiers of Able Company that could have been forcibly recruited, but his remaining warriors needed to be fast so they could only take three and killed the others.
A waiting car and driver stood at the ready for him to enter. “Take me to the caverns. I wish to take my leave before the military’s air power arrives.”
“Yes Overseer.” The unremarkable hatchback sped off to the west. The drive was moderately slow as the driver had to navigate the cloud when visibility made going any faster than fifteen miles per hour too much of a risk. They arrived at the small neighborhood of Clearview Acres without incident and left the car behind to hike their way deep into the badlands of Black Butte. By the time he and a dozen other enlightened were on foot and headed towards the caverns, the first of the overwatch aircraft arrived and set up station around the cloud.
Tzadavek waited for the craft to focus away from the far west before he commanded his followers to continue. As he walked, he attempted to commune with the Herald. “Oh mouthpiece of the gods. Hear the voice of one of your devout and humble Overseers.”
He did not have to wait long before a deep baritone voice that sounded akin to grinding stones entered his mind. “You are anything but humble Tzadavek, and I know you are not so ignorant as to believe the Koridost are truly gods.” The note of sarcasm was as thick as molasses.
“And yet my loyalty is without question.” The Overseer stated as fact.
“Such as it is with all Mions.” The Herald replied flatly.
Tzadavek didn’t want to do this next part, but that same loyalty demanded it of him. “I had hoped to route the Army entirely, but my legion failed. They were slaughtered almost to the last.”
“Do not mourn for them, for they are now in the Koridost’s embrace.” The Herald replied automatically.
The Overseer grunted his disapproval. “You know that drivel doesn’t work on me.”
“No.” The Herald said at length. “But it works wonders on your followers. I know you don’t play up the religious angle of control, and frankly I don’t care.” The disembodied voice fell silent for a moment. “I can sense the thousands you’ve successfully added to the fold.” He was immensely pleased. “You produce results. So long as that remains true, you will retain my favor. When human civilization is wiped clean, I will personally see that you are elevated to join the Koridost.”
It was a prospect the Overseer strived for and the Herald knew how to play the man’s ambitions. “Your foresight in covertly enlightening a crew of meteorologists so you can predict the cloud landings along with your execution of today’s conflict has proven to me you are worthy of the next level of evolution.” Tzadavek felt his right forearm start to heat up as he felt his muscle and bone begin to change. “It will take two nights to complete. Upon that time, you will be the first among my Overseers in North America.”
The Overseer sneered at his arm. “Good. Keep the next step handy, because you’ll be giving that to me soon.”
The Herald grunted in approval. “That remains to be seen. Now I must leave, another matter demands my attention.”
The former human knew the Herald demanded action over supplication, which was primary reason the disembodied voice allowed him to openly view the Koridost as secular masters instead of gods.
“To be the first on a continent.” The Mion thought with greedy exuberance. “I have no idea what changes this will do to me.” He said as he inspected his arm. “But it is just one more step to proving that I am worthy of being more than a slave when the masters finally arrive.”
Azus peeked out of the window with a hand mirror as he tried to locate the sniper. “See anything?”
His second pulled his broken splinter of a mirror out of the shattered window and slouched against the corner. “Nothing. Its been five minutes. What should we tell command?”
“Same thing we told them a minute ago.” Azus replied curtly. “That there are possible snipers covering the building and we don’t have the means or manpower to root them out.”
“What about that unicorn? She’s the one who detected the ambush. Can’t she tell if they enemy is still there?”
The NCO dropped his mirror to look at his subordinate. “Command said-”
His radio crackled to life. “Lima One, status report.”
Azus fumbled for his radio to respond. “Lima One here. Its all quiet. The snipers are either patient or gone.” And I’m leaning towards the former.
Back in the command tent Pardo looked away from the radio to Thompson. “Anything?”
“Tune said the pattern she used to detect humans was having trouble with the opposing force. She doesn’t want to bet their lives on it successfully locating them.”
The captain felt he was creeping into classified territory that could cost him his command, or his life. “And what does that mean exactly? The surviving members of Able all attest that the enemy was human. How could her…” He had difficultly saying the next word with a straight face. “Magic detect my men perfectly, but have trouble with the hostiles?”
“I will be the first to tell you I have little understanding of pony magic Captain. But everything she’s told me is that her power is very precise in its function. I believe her words were along the lines of: ‘a spell is much like a computer program. It will do exactly what you tell it to do, not what you want it to do.’ However, she said she wrote that radar spell on the fly. For all we know she might have created an error or two and the sheer number of people in the area overloaded the spell’s ability to detect properly.”
Pardo quickly ordered the arriving Armored Personnel Carriers from the north to divert and pick up Lima. He turned back to speak with the brooding Director. “Why do I get the feeling that’s not the only theory your entertaining?”
Thompson studied Pardo a long time before replying. “Because its not. And the one I’m leaning towards scares me.”
The last of Tzadavek’s followers made it out of the cloud and into the rough terrain before the Army could close the noose around Rocky Springs. The caverns the Overseer’s flock had discovered were not on any map. The mouth of the cave he was headed for was barely large enough to allow two people walking abreast. The dry entrance had no guards; save for a lone sentry who was deep enough into the cave that he could hide should the unenlightened come nearby.
The long running caverns had no singular large chamber to house a collection of people or supplies, so instead everyone was scattered in a long branching chain all throughout the ground under the butte. In his human life, Tzadavek had been a praised logistics expert for UPS. As such, he was brutally efficient at shuttling Rocky Spring’s former inhabitants and their supplies out of town and into the caverns. It helped that his followers obeyed his every word without question or complaint. Originally he had two hundred followers and with the loss of almost all of his warriors, his flock was vulnerable. The cloud will be dissipate within the hour.
He felt the last of his sharpshooters had the three captured soldiers slung over their shoulders and were nearing the caves. He sent nonverbal praise through the Link to show his approval. It will take time for the newly infected to awaken into the fold; but those three were the most important additions of the day.
His musings were interrupted by the arrival of his second. She was a muscular woman with hair that was past shoulder length on the left half and shaved bald on the right. Along her scalp were acid burned tattoos of the life she left behind. Her tone was ragged from the scars along her neck. She went by no name other than ‘second’. She was like Tzadavek and that she had no illusions that the Koridost were actual gods; but she knew serving them was the only way to have a future. As a show of allegiance, she discarded her human name and would accept no other until the Herald gifted her with a new one.
The act didn’t move the Herald in the slightest. He knew her obedience was unshakable no matter what she believed. He would only give her a name after she earned it through service. Second pressed her fist against her chest in salute. “I commanded everyone to start moving deeper into the caverns and I just got the total supply count. We should have enough food and water to last fifteen days. We can stretch it to nineteen if my teams find an aquifer.”
“I doubt they will in this environment, but stay on it. Until the new additions awaken into the fold, we have no idea how long the Army will be hunting for their missing citizens.”
“By your will, Overseer.”
Tzadavek watched her leave. The path ahead was devoid of trash or dropped supplies, but there were noticeable fresh scraps in the stone floor if one looked hard enough. The waning sun’s light planted the drab rock into oranges that the Mion had little care for. He waited until he sensed the approach of his four sharpshooters as they neared the entrance. Tzadavek stood slightly to one side as the first one turned into the cavern. They carried comatose members of Able Company to be added to the flock. Unique to the sharpshooters, were thick webs of blood vessels showing through the skin along the exterior of their eye sockets. It was only visual cue of an adaptation that allowed them to see in ultraviolet spectrum. The last sniper of the group went by the nickname Snuff for the neigh permanent wad of tobacco in her lip. She stopped to speak with her master.
“Overseer. You should know the zealots slaughtered themselves.”
Tzadavek’s calm exterior developed into a fierce scowl. “They what!? Why?”
Snuff shared his disgust. “I don’t know sir. I could only watch what happened from a distance, I didn’t want one of the imbeciles shooting me as well. What I do know is that one of the Army squads set up a last stand defense in one of the buildings to buy time for their brethren to escape. Yet as soon as the zealots charged into the building, they stopped. Then they fired a barrage into the main lobby, then they started shooting each other.”
“So you have no idea what could have caused it?” He growled.
“To be fair sir, none of them were very bright to begin with, that’s why they were ultimately expendable in the first place. Its likely one of them shot another by accident and an execution for treason spiraled out of control until everyone offed themselves.”
“How could such a thing happen?” The Overseer asked himself more than the sniper. “No Mion, no matter how recently they’ve been brought into the fold is capable of treason.”
“Perhaps the three soldiers we captured will have an answer when they awaken?”
Tzadavek rubbed his chin in contemplation. “Possibly, but I doubt it. The Army had no reason to bring anything but basic weaponry with them…Unless.” A troubling thought occurred to him. “Unless they crafted some new weapon that shatters our unity.”
“Is such a thing possible?” Snuff asked with grave concern.
“I don’t know. I was under the assumption that the government still regarded the cult and the clouds as separate problems. But either way…” The Overseer’s thoughts drifted back to the soldiers. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
The APC delivered Lima squad and the equine quartet to base camp. Before they could do anything, they were all rushed over to Decontamination. It was not a pleasant process as the ponies’ skin ended up being badly irritated more from the decontamination process rather than the mass of decaying viral particles in their fur. Conrad had it worse by far as the technicians kept overextending his wings in their attempt to fully cleanse his down feathers. The ponies would not see their equipment again for some time as those too went through a rigorous decon process.
Loki was the first to be released from the tunnel and was doing everything in her willpower to keep from rolling on the highway to scratch. The Director was near the exit so she went up to him. “Damn it man! That is the last time I go into one of those clouds. Do you know how insanely itchy I am after that chemical shower they put me through!? I swear my coat’s faded a little.”
Thompson sympathized. “Try not to scratch though; it will only make it worse.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” She growled as the asphalt under her hooves was looking increasingly appealing. I honestly don’t care how ridiculous I would look doing it, I need to be rid of this itch mad quick. Her eyes darted to one member of Lima squad who was leaving the second tunnel. Grinning madly, she ran over to him. “Hey Victor! Can I get you to do me a favor?”
Crimson was the next to be free of the tunnel and found a rather comical scene. Loki was straddling a crate as two members of Lima squad were petting the green and pink pony along her mane and back. The earth mare was a gibbering mass of putty under the onslaught of the soldiers’ hands. Victor and his accomplice Chapman were very content with massaging out Loki’s itchy skin. Crimson had yet to experience the joys of being petted and found it slightly belittling and walked over to the mare to see why Loki put up with it.
The green mare waved a lazy hoof at the pale yellow pony. “Hey girlfriend. You should reeeeally get in on these massages.”
“Looks an awful lot like how I used to pet my dog.” Anderson countered as she glanced at the two soldiers. Victor made no response as he was snickering at Loki’s blissful smile while he scratched behind her ears.
Loki managed to form a coherent argument. “Then you know how much he loved it when you petted him.” She rolled over on her back to expose her belly to the soldiers and to free up some space for Crimson. “Don’t knock it until you try it sister.” She waggled her legs until Victor got the hint and went straight to scratching the melting mare’s belly. “Ohhh god, now that’s the stuff.”
Victor’s partner in crime looked at the hesitant yellow mare. “Come on, it’s the least we can do for you guys saving our asses today. Making those bastards kill each other was genius.”
Anderson studied Loki’s expression looked as if she was in paradise and relented. “I suppose it could be worth it, if only to stop being so itchy.” She jumped up onto the crate and laid down while keeping her head up.
Chapman knew hesitation when he saw it, but couldn’t resist petting the red and yellow pony. They are too damn cute. Its like someone engineered the perfect creature to tug on a pet lover’s heartstrings. He started off as conservative as possible and only petted Crimson’s mane. The effect was immediate. Anderson’s anxiety bled away faster than water down a drain and started leaning into Chapman’s hand after the third stroke. Two minutes later she was laying her head down while two more soldiers of Lima company joined in. The squad was given an hour to recoup after the day’s events and they were more than content to distract themselves with the mares. Mourning the fallen would come later.
By the time Alexia was released from decon, a group of ten servicemen surrounded the earth ponies. All of them were members of Lima and a few from Bravo. Thompson stood off to the side with a mixture of bemusement and controlled mirth at the scene. Tune expected Loki to be thoroughly enjoying herself, but had not expected Crimson to embrace it so quickly. Well I can’t blame her. I never knew how much my cat loved being massaged either until I experienced it firsthand. As much as she wanted to join in, she felt obligated to speak with Thompson first and walked over to him. That didn’t stop her from using her magic to pull on her skin a bit to try and relieve some of the itchiness.
The Director pushed himself off the truck he was leaning against. “I heard your bulletproof spells were a rousing success.”
“Moderately.” She granted. “Still got overloaded in the end.”
“Before we get down to business in a debriefing, do you mind telling me how it works? From what Sergeant Azus informs me, it stops enemy bullets while allowing friendly ones to pass through.”
She rubbed her neck, more for the itch than out of sheepishness. “The spells doesn’t distinguish friend from foe. The one I cast in the truck uses telekinesis to generate a mono-directional kinetic field. Bullets going out were sped up and bullets coming in were robbed of all kinetic energy. The one I used in the investment center is something I call the Kinetic Bleed Field. I don’t know if I told you this before or not, but magic can act as an energy redistributor. The KBF envelopes a large area and latches onto inanimate objects like chairs, tables, even the air itself. I retooled the Reactive Barrier’s detection net to search for the signature shape of a bullet or shell casing instead of projectiles already in the air. After that, the spell would know exactly where the bullet would be coming from and as soon as the bullet was fired, the spell pulls all of the projectile’s kinetic energy into the air. What’s more is that KBF doesn’t try to stop objects any larger than a bullet from moving so it doesn’t attempt to keep a person from walking around.”
“So I’m guessing that’s why some of them remained hanging in the air? I remember Victor saying after killing the machine gunner, he plucked a frozen bullet out of the air that was an inch in front of his face.”
The unicorn cringed at the thought. “Well that’s one of the bugs I haven’t worked out on either of those spells. Oddly enough it’s a shared bug that I’m going to have to iron out. The frozen bullets get locked in place relative to my current position and move as I do so long as the spell is active. It…also seems to keep pulling from the kinetic energy gravity would be adding to the object so magic is wasted in countering that.”
Thompson allowed a smirk to show through. “Glad to see magic has its fair share of bugs like programming and engineering does.”
“Well of course it would.” She replied as if she had been insulted. “Anything created by Terrans is prone to have errors while still being experimented with.”
Thompson arched an eyebrow at the term. “Terrans? Where did you get that from?”
Alexia pawed the ground while trying not to sound silly. “Well I heard it used a lot in fiction to describe humans. But the word really just means: of Earth. So I was thinking that it could be used to refer to humans and ponies together. My species may have originated on a different world, but I’m still an earthling.”
“A fair point.” He conceded. A term referring to both of our species would fall in line with her ultimate goal. “My superiors will want a report soon.” He removed the tablet out from under his arm and saw her magic kept pushing and pulling on her skin to relieve the horrible itching. His brow furrowed in concern. “If you can stay lucid, how about you join your friends over there so you can get relief as you dictate the timeline of events.”
Alexia’s face lit up like a spotlight. “Really!? Oh thank you.” She galloped over and wrapped a second crate in her kinesis and brought it over so she could join the other mares.
Thompson had no real problems with letting anyone from Able Company listen in. The whole point of this operation was to declassify the ponies’ existence. Besides they seem to foster affection almost instinctually. If nothing else, they are excellent for morale. True to form, two members of Lima almost pounced on the chance to pet a unicorn. The Director scoffed at his superiors’ fears about the charismatic aura. Its quite the double edged sword. It may bring out the soft side in hardened soldiers, but it also makes the ponies extremely trusting and docile towards those showering them with affection.
After several minutes, Thompson came to a startling realization as the soldiers were genuinely happy. These men just lost at least half of their Company. No matter how hardened they may be, they shouldn’t be able to laugh so soon after the fact. He checked to make sure Tune’s horn was inactive, and it shone forth no light. The herd mentality doesn’t reach out and effect humans. Bowler’s men can attest to that. He brooded over the scene before him. The men had just lost their brothers, but they were able to smile at the mares’ antics. To think these equines have the power to blunt the emotional wounds of losing those you care about. This could become a great boon, or might be a sign of something darker. He resolved to have the psychological evaluations of Able Company on his desk by week’s end. I won’t act on this until I have more information.
The Director gathered half of his report from Alexia before Conrad was finally freed of the decontamination tunnel. The mare had a force of will that had been fostered by constant spellwork that demanded a strong mind in order to wield it. As a result, she was able to fight off much of the tranquilizing effects the two soldiers from Charlie squad was currently inflicting on her.
Unfortunately, Thompson would not get a chance to see if stallions were just as susceptible to being petted as well when a lieutenant ordered the soldiers to depart as the next contingent of soldiers arrived to relieve them.
“Miss Tune. Why don’t the four of you return to the helicopter. We can finish the report on the way back.”
Alexia clambered off the crate and stretched like a cat to get the kinks out of her joints from sitting on the hard box for so long. “Yes Director.” Tune could tell Conrad was itching like crazy and his feathers would be in bad shape if he kept trying to gnaw on the skin to relieve himself of the fierce itching. She padded over to him nuzzled the pegasus longingly so he could forget his discomfort for the moment. “Come on studly, boss wants us in the chopper. We can help relieve the itching in there, without damaging your feathers.”
He kept his wings extended and the feathers puffed out to try and shake the irritants out of them. “It would save on preening time.” As they started to end the nuzzle he whispered into her passing ear. “How are they?”
Alexia had checked on the twins right after the APC picked them up, along with before and after the decon tunnel. The expectant mother needed no excuse to use Inner Sight to see them, and at being given one she promptly cast it again. Conrad breathed a sigh of relief at seeing her smile while her vision was upon herself. “They’re perfectly fine.” Her horn dimmed and her eyes opened back up to the father. “And as strong as ever.”
All four ponies started to leave, but Thompson held Crimson back. “We need to talk in private.” He said calmly as he pointed at a secluded part of the camp which was behind the transports that would have been used to carry the citizens of Rocky Springs.
Anderson glanced to her friends who waved her to join them, but Thompson gestured to them that he needed to speak with her. “Um, sure boss.” Crimson walked over to the indicated location and then turned to speak to him. “What is it?”
“I felt broaching this topic to all of you at once may be detrimental so I wanted to bring this up with you personally.”
“I’m not keeping secrets from my housemates.” Crimson warned. “Especially not Alexia.”
“I don’t expect you to.” Thompson replied before switching topics. “Your file said you had been accepted into the Tulane University School of Medicine shortly before you became a pony. Is that accurate?”
Anderson wasn’t sure why the Director was bothering with this now. “That’s right. My folks were using the family reunion as an excuse to brag about it until those damn cultists showed up.” She eyed him closely. “Why do you care now?”
“Your team needs a medic.” He stated bluntly. “You were lucky that none of you were shot or killed. You ponies may to possess fast healing, but not fast enough to recover from a bullet wound. Tune has not demonstrated or spoken of any restorative magic, and it’s only a matter of time before one of you gets seriously injured in the field.”
Thompson let the warning hang. Crimson saw the need for it. At least this way I’d still get to chase the dream I thought I had lost. I may not get to be called doctor, but I can still heal people. “I’d be glad to be the team medic. Although I know little of pony anatomy… outside of living as one anyway.”
“I suspected you would accept. I will have Wilder take you under her instruction. I doubt I would need to make it an order, were it not for the bureaucracy. From what I gather, she is quite fond you four.”
Anderson hummed. It seems most people at The Ranch are like that. Although I think it’s just because we’re Tune’s inner circle. She groaned at herself. That sounded way more menacing than I wanted it to. She addressed the director. “I won’t deny that I have been worried about that.” I might get Wilder to give me some tips on how to be a midwife for Alex. Loki may be all about being an aunt but… That also means I’m going to be one too. Her introspective created a long pause to which Thompson was willing to give her time for. There may not have been any sort of formal wedding or even a Vegas style one. But the four of us are bound as closely as can be, and I love them for it.
Her thoughts drifted to the compact they had made two weeks ago, and the sense of belongingness she had felt. Clinically, she knew exactly why she had felt that way. I don’t care how deeply I’m affected by the herd mentality. It's a part of who I am now, and like Alex always says: the human condition always changes. And I choose to breathe. She resolved to find a more fitting term for ‘the human condition’ so that it encompassed ponies as well. Crimson looked back up from the ground after ending her introspective with determination written over her face. “When do I start?”
“First thing tomorrow.”