//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Getting Wood. (I beg your pardon?) // Story: Missing In Action: Galaxy // by GordonFreebrony //------------------------------// Zecora stood with the frozen fillies, watching as the massive figure walked over towards them. It knelt down, it’s few remaining eyes piercing through the black contrast of it’s head. It reached up with its forelimb, raising its strange hoof-like thing up before gesturing slowly to come nearer. Suddenly, a loud clicking, grating noise filled the air, three times, sounding ever so different each time. For the longest time it sat there, staring at them, while they stared back, eyes wide with fear. “Miss Zecora, what is that thing?!?!?!” Sweetie Belle asked, her quavering voice barely reaching the other fearful fillies. “Child, I’m afraid I do not know, not even if it is friend or foe.” Zecora replied, not moving her eyes from the creature in front of her. Movement from behind the kneeling thing brought up their attention, as the other three figures began to move about the clearing. One of them ducked into the strange metal contraption behind them. Suddenly a loud sound echoed out from the metal thing, followed by the reappearance of the figure, holding a glowing blue cube in his hand. ________________________________________________________________________ “Sir…” Carter said, his voice breaking over Shephard’s radio, “I don’t think they can understand us.” He had noticed the looks of obvious fear on the faces of the newly discovered species. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Shephard replied, using an Old Earth insult that had survived. “Can we skip the language barrier and just grab the database?” Jackson said, still looking at the colorful aliens. “It would have the plans for another matrix in it.” The aliens began to talk again, the guttural sounds becoming increasingly more familiar, as if they had heard the language before and half-learned it. “Yes, go ahead. Carter, get that damn datacube out.” Shephard said, keeping his eyes on the aliens. “Yes, Sir.” Said Carter, following his orders. “Sir, their language,” Chekov spoke up, “I swear I’ve heard it before. I just can’t remember….” A blowtorch was lit inside the pod, followed by the sound of rending metal and a few sparks. “I got the cube, sir!” Carter explained, jumping out of the pod and holding it up for all to see. “Good. See if we can’t interface it with our suits systems. In the meantime—“ Shephard said, before being interrupted. “SIR!” Jackson said, “More movement, coming in hard and fast from the 6 O’clock position.” How a number and a clock had anything to do with direction was lost on all of them, even when they learned it, but they still understood it was an attack from the rear. “I’m counting at least a dozen unknowns, but they have different signatures than theses aliens. Fifty metros away and closing fast.” “Alright. Chekov, Jackson, watch the rear, wait to see if they are friendly. Weapons tight unless they initiate hostilities. You know the drill.” Shephard said, “Carter, continue work on the datacube.” A series of ‘Sir, yes, Sir’s echoed through the comms. Each man proceeded to initiate his specific task. Shephard continued to look at the aliens, gauging their reaction. “Twenty-five metros and closing.” “Ten metros and closing” Shephard continued to eye the aliens, when suddenly they cried out in fear, their noses twitching. “Assume possible hostiles. Weapons tight, previous order still stands.” Shephard ordered, “Carter, stop what your doing and face the possible threat. Let’s see what we got.” They all moved into an angle formation, facing the incoming movement. ________________________________________________________________________ Zecora and the fillies stood there, wondering what was going on. She watched as two of the creatures turned and stood in the opposite direction, what she assumed was their backs to them. In their claws they held some thin metallic rectangles, with a small protrusion at their top. A few holes and other various odds and ends covered the identical things. Zecora wondered if it was some sort of ceremonial objects. For a few more tense seconds, nothing happened. Then a smell they all feared reached their noses. “TIMBERWOLVES!” Applebloom shouted, running behind Zecora, followed shortly by the other crusaders. Zecora, for her part, stood her ground, knowing that the wolves would be wary of one who stood in the face of them. To her surprise, the rest of the creatures in front of her turned and faced the direction the smell was coming from, each with one of the rectangle things in their claws. The howls of the wolves echoed through the forest, the huge wooden beasts suddenly jumping over the crater. However, they seemed surprised by the creatures, some of them just crashing into them. A huge pack was there, headed by a massive wolf, larger than even Celestia. Yet still the creatures were taller. After a tense moment where the two groups eyed each other, the Timberwolves lunged. ________________________________________________________________________ “Grr… Sir, these things are leaping over the crater. They’re rather heavy too! It’s almost like they don’t know we’re here!” Carter said, grunting as another large wooden animal ran into him, before it backed off. “Hold your ground and keep those weapons tight. No hostilities yet.” Shephard said, holding out his arm towards Chekov, who had raised the gun up. Then a much larger creature reared its ugly mug over the crater rim. “Damn, look at the size of that thing!” Jackson said, whistling. Then it lunged. “OH FUCK!” Chekov yelled, finding a giant wooden monstrosity upon him. He was nocked to the ground, the fanged thing trying to bite his head off. The rest of the wooden things followed, two or three ganging up on the rest of the squad. “Weapons Free! Hostilities engaged!” Shephard yelled as he was brought to the ground. His rifle was sent flying, forcing him to draw his revolver. He shot the stomach of the creature in front of him, the hot plasma eating through the wooden beast like a hot knife through butter. The animal howled, before collapsing into a pile of burning sticks. “The fuck?” Shephard said, before her was beset upon by another volley of wolves. Carter had also lost his rifle, this time opting to chop through the wooden menaces with his sword. “Carter, save the energy, just use your sidearm or use it uncharged!” Shephard yelled, noticing this. “You never let me have any fun.” Carte fake pouted, before sliding his sword back unto his back and pulling out his sidearm. During this exchange, Chekov had begun to roll around on the ground, wrestling with the gigantic wooden monster. Every time he reached moved to point his rifle at the thing, it pinned him. Yet at the same time, it couldn’t bite or claw at Chekov, his armor doing its job. Chekov finally got on top of the beast, using his arms to smash into the creatures head, eventually leaving nothing but a pile of wooden rubble. Jackson, unable to use any explosives due to his proximity to his teammates, just smashed through the wolves, using his grenade launcher as a club. Pretty soon, nothing was left but splintered wood, some of them on fire from the plasma bolts released from the two sidearms. “Well, that was… new. Never been attacked by a forest before.” Carter said, laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. He grabbed his and Shephard’s rifle, tossing one to his commander. “Yup.” Shephard replied, curt and informal. Then his suit issued a proximity warning, and he looked down only to find the orange and purple alien attached to his leg, almost in a hug. “Looks like you made a friend, Brain!” Chekov laughed. “Huh… It’s trying to tell me something.” Shephard replied, ignoring the jibe. The orange quadruped was attempting to pull on his leg, gesturing with its other foreleg towards the edge of the crater. “I think it wants me to follow it. You guys, pack up the gear, lets spread it out evenly. Also, mark this LZ, and keep a map up. Hopefully we can return to salvage what we can. I want to find the rest of these things.” “Yes… sir.” Carter said, moving over to the gear pile and picking up what boxes he could. He snapped them onto Shephard’s back, before doing the same with the rest. The uniform military cargo containers snapped easily onto the corresponding grooves on their backs, enabling them to carry everything salvageable from their cargo. “Let’s move out.” Shephard said when everyone was ready, stopping the excited burbling of the alien beneath him. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he had heard the language before. ________________________________________________________________________ “Come on you big lug, MOVE!!!” Scootaloo said, putting her back into attempting to pull the awesome insect along with her. It was a pointless endeavor, but the thing was too awesome to leave behind. She completely ignored Zecora, who was trying to get the orange filly away from the dangerous creatures. Then the thing began to walk, after a few boxes were attached to it’s back. “Woah…” “Fillies, do you think this wise, taking these things into our lives?” Zecora said, understanding the danger that the things could pose to the town. “But Zecora, they saved those lives!” Applebloom whined. “Besides, Rainbow Dash will think it’s soooooooo cool that I found these things!” Scootaloo said, before adding: “I meant we found,” at the looks of her friends. Zecora knew she had to get the fillies out of the forest, and while it was true that the things had saved their lives from the timberwolves, she was still hesitant to take them to Ponyville. However, her mind was made up as the fillies suddenly ran off, followed closely behind by the surprisingly fast metal things. “Fillies, Fillies!” Zecora shouted, “wait for me… PLEASE!” ________________________________________________________________________ “Whoah, did you see them take off?” Carter said, watching the blur of the three aliens. “Sir, are we following?” “As long as we got this place marked, might as well. Besides, I have a funny feeling about the language of these things…” Shephard replied, before following the three small aliens at a steady jog. A shout broke through the external audio feeds, before the black-and-white alien took off following them. It, too, had a fantastic speed, soon catching up to the jogging group. After about fifteen minutes of the trek, the forest thinned out, before completely ending in a large meadow. A small cottage was in front of them, with a bridge leading over a small stream. In the center of the meadow, a large town was spread out, its colorful architecture stirring something else in his mind, doing more to confirm his theory. In the distance, a mountain was visible with a large structure clinging to the side. “Sir, looks like we found a town.” Chekov said. “You don’t say.” Jackson replied, beating Shephard to the punch. Ignoring the jibe, Chekov continued. “I can see lot’s of movement, probably two hundred of them in there. We should be careful, the energy signatures I’m seeing are almost off the charts. And the strangest thing is, my equipment won’t tell me exactly what type of EM it is, or on which end of the spectrum. All it can say is that it is non-visible, harmless radiation. It’s closest to electricity, yet…. I can’t explain it. “ “Forget it. It looks like our ‘guides’ don’t know where to go.” Shephard said. It was true. The three small aliens were pulling in three separate directions, one pointing towards the center of the town, another at a point to the right and the other to the left. They seemed to be arguing and pulling each other. It wasn’t until the black and white one slammed its foreleg down in between them that they stopped, before lowing their heads and tails and walking towards the center of town. The early morning light fell upon the simplistic town, the bright sunlight lending it a golden hue. The four soldiers couldn’t help but to appreciate the sight. Of course, this couldn’t last. ________________________________________________________________________ After ending the fillies’ argument over where to take their ‘friends,’ Zecora began to lead them towards the library. Though she rarely visited the town, she knew that Twilight would be the best pony for discovering what these things were. Plus, she wanted to get back to her home and sleep some more, the fillies having woken her up just after the break of dawn. Traveling through the empty town gave Zecora a few bad memories, thinking back to all those months she spent just trying to buy basic supplies, forced to be in solitude until Applebloom actually decided to help her. It was such a nice experience, actually talking to a friendly face. Of course, it was a beautiful morning, which Zecora could appreciate, even the birds were singing in a wonderful chorus. They reached the center of town, walking past the Town Hall, everything silent. Zecora probably should have foreseen what would happen. ________________________________________________________________________ Time Turner woke up, hearing the last drops of sand fall out of the hourglass on his nightstand. The clockmaker dragged himself out of bed, flipping another hourglass, one of many such hourglasses in his home. Although not truly hourglasses, measuring everywhere from eight hours to five minutes, he still preferred to call them such. He trotted into his bathroom, pulling out a toothbrush and completing the morning ritual of scrubbing his pristine white teeth. He finished his other morning ceremonies, before waltzing down the steps and into his workshop. Here, the gutted remains of broken clocks lay about, surrounding half-finished and partially dismantled timepieces of all sizes and shapes. In the corner, a large collection of specialty clocks stood, even one with eight hands instead of the normal three, and no numbers along the edge, instead destinations and actions. Why he even made it was beyond him, but Turner pushed the thoughts away. He sat down for a moment, his workpony’s stool wiggling under his haunches. He started to work on another clock when he heard a small bell alarm. He turned towards the offending clock, before realizing what it signified. That clock was one of his special projects, a clock to replace a calendar. It had been set to remind him of today. The day that he would hopefully remember for the rest of his life. You see, Time Turner’s friends had set him up with a not-so-blind date with Ponyville’s resident mailmare, Ditzy Doo. He had always liked the young mare, though he was never sure why. Also, not that his friends would ever tell him, but they secretly hoped that he could help Ditzy keep track of time, having gotten tired of late mail and packages. Dropping his work, he turned off the alarm before walking out of his house. He needed to get a few things before the day really started. “Hmmm….” He said to himself, heading towards the center of town, “I wonder if I what I should get. Let’s see, maybe a pie? No,wait, didn’t Applejack say something about only having pear pies? Something about a bad apple harvest. I hate pears, nasty sour things, pears. Wait, doesn’t she like muffins? Yes, that’s better. A nice muffin batch. Maybe banana muffins. Bananas are good. And a bouquet of flowers? Hmmm… Roses are too… cliché… I know, a nice blue violet. I like the color blue. Maybe I could get a bowtie too. Bowties are…” Muttering to himself, he almost missed the four massive monsters trying to eat the self-dubbed Cutie Mark Crusaders and that weird Zebra mare. Almost. “M-M-M-MONSTERS!!!!!!” He screamed, running down the road and completely forgetting about his date. As he ran, the residents of Ponyville woke up, poking their muzzles out of their windows and looking towards the scream. Then they joined in, eventually leading the town into a massive panic. Back in the center of town, Zecora looked down at her hooves. “Not again…” She said, although the fillies missed the lack of rhyme, instead sitting in a circle and desperately trying to figure out how to get rid of the panic. Behind them, the four metal monstrosities stood back to back, their rectangular things raised up, the pointy bits facing into the crowd. ________________________________________________________________________ Spike the dragon was up before Twilight, one of the rare times he actually managed to do so. He quickly made breakfast, before walking upstairs with a bucket of water. Even knowing he would be in big trouble, he picked up the bucket and threw the water onto his peacefully sleeping mother/mentor. “BARGLEMARGLE IT WASN’T ME CELESTIA!” Twilight shouted, jumping out of bed. For a moment, she stood there, her wet mane floating above her head as she looked around with panic-stricken eyes. Then her mane fell down with a wet schhlick over her face and muzzle. Spike, unable to hold it any longer, burst out laughing, joined with Peewee and Owlicious. He didn’t notice his mentor leaning menacingly over him, her mane moved to the side and extreme anger in her eyes. “Spike.” She said, pronouncing the syllable as one would smash a rock, with a strong, quick strike. Spike, noticing the literal fire in Twilight’s eyes stopped, a small “Uh-oh” escaping his muzzle. Twilight opened her mouth again and Spike, in a sudden instant of inspiration, borrowed a leaf from Pinkie’s book and shoved the omelet bagel sandwich he had made for Twilight into her mouth. Whatever she was going to say was lost in the ‘Mhmmmmmm’ that followed. The rage vanished in her eyes as she grasped the tasty object with her hooves, finishing the rest in a few quick bites. Spike gave an audible sigh of relief, until he heard a too-sweet “Oh Spike…” from behind him. The color draining from his scales, he turned around. “I have a very special job for you…” She said, the huge smile plastered across her face not reaching her eyes. Her horn lit up, followed soon by a floating scroll. “On this scroll is a list of chores I want you to finish today, after cleaning up for breakfast and cleaning my bedroom. Also, there is-“ Whatever she was about to say was drowned out by a loud shriek of “MONSTER!!!!” echoing forth from the center of town. Instantly, Twilight dropped the scroll into Spike’s arms, where it promptly unrolled and began to fly around the room, filling it up in a giant package of paper. However, Twilight completely missed this, having already run down the stairs and into the library proper. A quick flash of her horn opened the door, followed by a slam as she turned towards the direction the screams were coming from. She proceeded to run towards them, barging through the panicked ponies running every which way. She soon reached the center of town, passing Carousel Boutique and Sugarcube Corner on her way. Right by Town Hall the epicenter of the panic stood, three small ponies, a zebra, and four monsters. “What in the name of Celestia are those?” Twilight said, stopping in her tracks. She took in the hulking things in all their glory. They stood a head taller than Celestia herself and were covered in scrapes and dents. They looked like massive, bipedal insects. Then she saw her friends converging upon the monsters from five different directions. Then one of them raised it’s forelimb and pointed a claw at her. ________________________________________________________________________ “Woah.” Carter said, watching as the small brown alien ran away, followed shortly by what seemed like the entire populous of the town. They ran every which way, falling over eachother, running into buildings and stalls and boxes, all the while sending off loud screams into the ether. “It seems they don’t like us.” Jackson said, amused. “Sir! We got six tangos converging on our position!” Chekov said, “They contain more energy than the rest of the town combined. Especially that one!” He pointed towards a purple one with a protrusion on its head. The scans showed it as being a huge, pulsing white star amidst candles. There was enough in it to initiate a supernovae on a stable yellow star. Suddenly, the town grew quiet. A few slams were heard, with a few eyes peering out from windows and doors. “How the hell did they all hide so fast?” Carter asked no one in particular. The squad fell silent, however, when the six aliens began to bear down on them. The three small aliens seemed to attempt to defend them, while the striped one slowly dragged them out of the way. The six creatures surrounding them took a few steps closer. “Be careful, everyone,” Shephard warned, “we don’t want a Klendathu scenario. Remember to wait for them to initiate hostilities.” No sooner had he said that then a yellow and pink alien rushed forward, clutching his head between it’s forelegs. “What the fu—“ He began, only to be cut off by a melodic song emanating from the horse. It was a melody he was extremely familiar with, although he remembered the Common version, roughly translated: Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, Go to sleep my little baby. When you wake you shall have All the pretty little horses. Black and bays, dapples, grays, All the pretty little horses. Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, Go to sleep my little baby. Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, Go to sleep my little baby. When you wake you shall have All the pretty little horses. Then again, that was the version popular in the Milky Way, whereas the one sung by the yellow alien was slightly different. One could divine the true lyrics if one so chose, but it was never discovered by Shephard or any of the squad, therefore the exercise would be pointless. “I-I’ve heard that before…” Shephard said while his squad trained their weapons upon the pale yellow creature, “Stand down. I think it’s friendly.” He was still shaken from the song, bringing forth childhood memories, before bootcamp, before training, before… No, he wouldn’t think of that now. “Sir?” Chekov asked uncertainly. “I said stand down.” Shephard said more forcefully. Then his suit registered a foreign material beginning to cover some of the broken visual sensors. A quick scan made him laugh. “I think it thinks that my suit is me. It’s placing gauze around my offline visuals.” The squad chuckled, their weapons down but still held at the ready. Then Chekov spoke up. “Sir, I think it’s ancient English. They’re speaking English!” The squad all stood there, listening to the yellow alien, recognizing a few words here and there in its song. “You’re right. I wonder what the chances of that are.” Carter said, wonder in his voice. “Do we still have the English-Common dictionary in the datacube?” Jackson said. “We should, as long as the data isn't corrupted, although I’ll need to jerry-rig it together with a few touchpads, and there won’t be voice recognition. So it will be entirely text-based. Hmmm….” Carter replied. “Get to it. I think this yellow one has calmed the others, although it is starting to get annoying.” Shephard said, and, as if it had heard and understood him, moved back, before latching itself unto Chekov. “I can see what you mean. Its wing-structures are obscuring my sight. Sooner we can communicate the better. I think I got some touchpads in my pack, if you can get it off for me.” He said. “I beg your pardon?” Jackson said, chuckling, before removing Chekov’s pack. Carter got to work immediately, while the aliens looked on in surprise.