"What the hell was that?" Corporal Ngyuen inquired as an agile figure of yellow and green zoomed overhead. The creature was already beyond sight before anyone could get a good look at its specific features.
"Binoculars, corporal," Wesner said, poking Nguyen's backpack with his rifle. Luckily, Jenkins was already handing the pair he had already pulled out for himself. He brought the lenses to his eyes and focused them to the general area where the figure had disappeared to. "I'm not seeing it. Anyone?"
"Negative. Looks like it was heading north past those hills," Sergeant Dekowski replied as he brought his binoculars down. "It's trajectory was smooth, though. There's probably a nest or some sort of roosting area at the base of 'em."
"You think it was a bird, sir?" Richardson asked, still squinting towards the hills.
"Biggest damn bird I've ever seen if it is," Dekowski answered. "Not a whole lot of other things to compare it to."
"We're heading in that direction anyway. Whatever it is, the xeno scientists will probably be scrambling over each other to get a look at it," the captain said, handing the binoculars back to Jenkins. "Nguyen, get the forward CP on the horn and tell them to head back and get the scientists geared up. We'll rendezvous at the forests' edge in twenty minutes."
"Yes, sir."
"In the meantime, we might as well find our little flying friend," Wesner added and began heading towards the hills.
As the team of five traversed the hills, Nguyen let out a rather audible sigh. "This planet is boring as hell. I remember back on New Macedonia that we had at least seven wildlife attacks within the first few days. I remember with Private Vickers, he-"
"Shut up, Corporal," Wesner interrupted, bringing his index finger to his lips. "Do you hear that?"
Richardson listened more carefully, the air no longer cluttered with boisterous sounds of equipment clattering or of grass crunching. Surprisingly, he heard sounds of objects grinding across gravel, wood hitting against wood, and boisterous whinnies of what actually sounded like...
Horses?
"That doesn't sound like birds," Nguyen remarked.
"Thanks you for the stating the blatantly obvious, Corporal," Wesner replied, grabbing Jenkins' binoculars again. "It fills me with enthusiasm."
"Sounds like horses, sir," Nguyen continued.
"Yeah..." Richardson agreed.
"Keep moving and be quiet," Wesner scolded, walking further up the hill. "We don't need to scare the damn things off."
The rest of the men followed the officer to the top of the hill, falling into a single file line. As the group of marines neared the top of the hill, the captain abruptly stopped. Even with his helmet concealing his facial expression, Richardson could tell that something was askew at the bottom.
"Sir?" Richardson asked as he quickened his pace to reach Wesner. "What do you-? Holy crap..."
Richardson fell into the same awe-induced stupor as the captain. The three others who had been quite unconcerned just seconds ago rushed up the steep hill as well. Once the entire group was finally at the top, the same general reaction was apparent with every one of them: amazement.
At the foot of the hill was no brooding ground for birds or grazing area for any other animal, but an actual village complete with thatch-roofed hovels, town square, marketplace, and all the other attractions a primitive human settlement would have.
Though to everyone's great surprise, there were no humans to be seen.
The streets were littered with quadrupedal animals colored with countless combinations of the color spectrum. Tables for what seemed to be an eatery were filled with the creatures, all of them doing the same as a human being would. Streets were abuzz with activity from carts pulled by the creatures themselves. Two such organisms sat on a bench, resting in differing positions, and looked as though they were communicating with each other.
Richardson opened his mouth to try and ask something, but his mind drew a blank as to how he was supposed to address the scene. Luckily, Corporal Nguyen knew exactly what to say, albeit rather bluntly. "What the fuck is this?"
Commander Rainsford paced about in his quarters, attempting to come up with a reason why an Admiral had gone out of his way to stop and speak with him. He had already ruled out the possibilities of both a random ship inspection and new mission objectives. Neither of those would have required the Admiral to be present, much less an armed detachment.
He came to stop at his antique wooden desk, his eyes trained on the datapad he had been using to fill out the operation's after action report. He picked it up gingerly and keyed to view any updates from Deck Five. Nothing. Not even a confirmation of Hixon reporting to Cargo Bay.
Strange, he thought.
The door leading to his quarters retracted into the wall with hiss. Rainsford placed the datapad back down onto the desk and turned around to watch the Admiral walk in. Though slightly shorter than the Commander, Zaroff still appeared every bit as menacing as he was on the holoimage. His vanguard of Marines took position outside the door as it slid back into place.
"Admiral," Rainsford said with a salute.
"At ease," Zaroff returned the salute, grabbing himself one of the seats in front of the desk. He gestured for Rainsford to take a seat as well. "By all means, sit down. We have some bad business to discuss. I doubt you will want to talk about it standing up."
"Right. Yes, sir," Rainsford fumbled for his own chair, bumping the desk as he pulled it out. "Can I get you a drink, first?"
"Not quite in the mood for liquor, son. Sit down."
Rainsford did as he was instructed and pulled the chair closer in. "What do you mean by 'bad buisness', sir?"
"Naval Intelligence discovered something a week ago pertaining to the duty roster of numerous ships in the fleet," Zaroff began. "Apparently, some of the newest servicemen brought into the duty from around four years ago featured an odd similarity in their civilian records: they all worked as private military and security forces prior to joining."
"Mercenaries?" Rainsford asked dubiously.
"Correct. Though this normally wouldn't be grounds for any real concern after the recruits had their thorough background checks, Intelligence actually found that they had all been hired previously by the Weyland Corporation," Zaroff continued. "Supplemented by additional factors such as close times of recruitment and convenient deployments, we have begun to believe that there are some underlying purpose to these soldiers."
"Are you saying my ship has Mercs serving aboard?" Rainsford inquired.
"Truth be told, your ship has the highest proportion of Mercs in the entire Fleet." Zaroff answered. "Around one-third of those serving under you are to be taken before a board of inquiry to find any ulterior motives they may have. This will cut you down to around half-shifts, if I understand it correctly."
"Sir? The crew can't operate this ship with that many personnel gone. We're having a rough time as it is dealing with our FTL." Rainsford explained.
"There's nothing wrong with your FTL, Rainsford," the Admiral cracked a smile. "The Asmiov is outfitted with a new gizmo straight out of R&D. It can burn out the drives of any ship at the press of a button. Tricky little thing, but it gets the job done. We'll send over the kill code when we're finished here."
"The engineers were wondering what was wrong with engines." Rainsford muttered. "Still, sir, this is a crippling loss of men."
"I'm sure you'll make do. It's been a long time since anyone in the fleet had to do any real work. Maybe you'll appreciate the challenge later when this is all sorted out," Zaroff replied. "In the meantime, my Marines will go and roundup those-"
The lights in the room suddenly died simultaneously before he could finish his sentence and a slight tremor was felt underfoot. Blast shielding now covered the few windows located within Rainsford's quarters, orange emergency lighting beginning to come online. Warning klaxons reverberated throughout the ship, hinting Rainsford that something was amiss.
"All hands, clear Decks Three through Five! Damage control teams, report to Deck Six," The ship's intercom crackled to life. "Marine teams, hold all uncompromised deck checkpoints. Critical order. Commander needed on the Bridge. This is not a drill."
"Rainsford, stop standing there and help me open the damned door," The Admiral huffed, already trying to pull the door open. As Rainsford got out from behind his desk, he abruptly stopped as he heard gunfire from the outside hallway, closely followed by incoherent yelling. The two men pulled with all their strength trying to break the emergency seal that kept the door in place. After a satisfying CRACK was heard, the door slid open easily.
All but one of the original four marines were still standing while the other was on the floor tending to a bullet that had pierced his forearm. "Sirs, six engineers from the ship's crew just passed us with small arms weapons and AP ammunition. They disregarded orders to halt and opened fire. They escaped into the main elevator."
"We need to get to the bridge, Marines," the Admiral said. "Bandage up that wound and let's get moving."
Mayor Mare was indeed a busy mare. Ponyville, unlike many other normal towns, suffered an unusually high amount of disasters on a regular basis. Much more so than it had ever been before Princess Twilight Sparkle had settled down here. There was an obvious correlation between the rather unexciting pony and the crises that Mayor was left to deal with, yet nopony really gave it much thought.
Things had been quiet for the past few weeks, much to Mayor's relief. Yet at the same time, it was rather nerve-racking to expect the unexpected as the Mayor had learned to do over time. Always having to keep a mindset that anything could go wrong at any moment. Some would call this paranoia. She called it intelligence.
The Mayor paused once she had finished her thought. Perhaps she was being a tad bit paranoid. Moreover, all of the Elements of Harmony were out of town on other business. Whatever supernatural force that usually caused Ponyville so much panic would have no reason to pay a visit without them.
She looked around the room for a moment, almost as if she was making sure nopony was bursting in to report something out of the ordinary happening in town. Satisfied that this was the case, she closed her eyes. Maybe she could take a nap for a change...
"Mayor Mare!" a pegasus exclaimed as she burst in from an open window in her office. "Mayor Mare!"
Typical, she thought. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"There's some really tall, big black things just on the edge of town," the pony wheezed as she tried to recover her breath. "They were scary with beady red eyes, big stick-things, and-"
"Of course, of course," Mayor Mare said, trying to keep the pegasus on track. "Did they try to hurt you? Did they threaten you?"
"Well, no," the mare replied. "I mean, they didn't really talk at all. At least not in Equestrian."
"So it seems that these creatures are just new to Equestria," Mayor Mare sighed with relief. "They're probably just exploring the land."
"I guess."
At least it's not an invasion of Hydras, Mayor Mare thought. "I'm sure the Princess will be able to help these newcomers with all there is to know about Equestria. I'll send a letter to her at once."
"These things don't really look like they want a grand tour," the pegasus said. "They looked pretty dumb with those sticks and brown bags."
"Everypony thought the same thing when the Griffins first arrived here," Mayor Mare insisted as she got back to her desk to begin her letter. "The Princess will work her magic this time just like that."
"So we are all on the same page here, right?" Richardson asked the group. "There some kind of village of bright multicolored horses at the bottom of this hill."
"Yep." Nguyen replied. "So that rules out drugs."
"And what kind of drugs would you be gettin' your hands on anyway, Corporal?" Sergeant Dekowski growled.
"None, sir. Just being hypothetical," Nguyen replied.
"Lock it down you two," Captain Wesner ordered. "There's always been the possibility in our line of work that we could encounter an entirely new civilization. First contact should be conducted peacefully and carefully monitored by a xenosociologist."
"And the only one we've got is in the northern desert," Jenkins chimed in. "Gonna be hell trying to convince them to give up their only supply transport to move him here."
"We'll send in one of our own instead, Private," Wesner replied. "Dekowski, I want you to belay my previous order. Tell Camp One to prep Transport Seven for take-off. They're to set the waypoint for the northern desert and wait for further instruction."
"Yes, sir."
"I need all of you to keep low and follow me back to the forward CP. Until we are set for First Contact, there is no need to be spotted prematurely," Wesner explained. "Move it."
"Sir? There's something flying a mile out. Heading towards us. Looks like... a chariot?" Jenkins said with uncertainty, peering through his binoculars.
"What? Give me that," Wesner ordered and grabbed the lenses from the Private. "A horse in a chariot being pulled by other horses. Yeah. We're leaving."
"It's heading our way, sir..."
"I've noticed."
"Coming up awfully fast."
"You ran track in high school, right Jenkins?"
"Yes, sir."
"Start jogging."