//------------------------------// // Ghosts Of A Past Life // Story: Remember the Dawn... // by The Crimson Harbinger //------------------------------// Starblazer was roused from her peaceful sleep by the sound of blaring alarms and sirens. This was something that she wouldn't have found odd if it hadn't been just four hours since their last drill. Nonetheless, she sprang from her bed and quickly dawned her new armor and powered up her T-240 energy rifle before entering the dimly lit hallways of the training facility. She was shortly joined by two other ponies in matching armor and she nodded a greeting to each, and received two nods in return. Ashton Grey, aka "Ash', stood to the left of Starblazer while Comettail covered her right. Ash was the technical one as she was good with computers and technology in general and was the one Starblazer always counted on when she needed a something hacked or help in deciphering enemy transmissions. Comettail, on the other hoof, was all gunfire and no talk. If Starblazer needed somepony gone,Comettail always managed to take them out flawlessly and without a sound. And with Starblazer heading the ops and directing their every move, they were the perfect team. "Ma'am, if you don't mind me saying so, why is Octavia making us do another drill so quickly after the first one?" Ash's voice came through the com in Starblazer's helmet. "Maybe she thinks it'll be good for us, seeing as a threat could attack at any time." Comettail chimed in as she took point and scanned around the corner, then signaled them forward. "True, but I just have this feeling that something's wrong here." "And why do you say that?" Starblazer asked without stopping. Ash had always had a way of telling when things weren't right, and Starblazer had learned to trust her judgement, but Octavia was extremely skilled at manipulating situations to the point of where the missions felt almost unreal. "Because no one else is up." Her statement stopped Starblazer in her tracks. Why hadn't she noticed that none of the other elites had joined them on the way to the main hall. There were at least three hundred elite soldiers in the facility. "And shouldn't we have encountered some resistance from the DIs already?" Comettail asked, trying to hide the concern in her voice. "Never mind the DIs Comet, I just want to know what happened to the other teams." She strode up to one of the nearest doors that lined the hallway. "And I'm gonna find out. Ash, you take one of the doors around the corner. Comet, check one at the end of the hall. Report the second you find something." A single kick ripped the door from it's hinges and sent it clattering to the room's floor. An eerie green mist rolled out as Starblazer stepped over the fallen door and into the room. The silent room was filled with the sudden hissing of the filters in Starblazer's helmet, and her stomach churned as she saw the figures in the room. "What you got Star?" Ash's voice rang quietly over the coms. "Poison gas," she looked away from the body on the bed, "and it's not pretty. How about you?" "All gassed too." Starblazer could almost hear her shake her head. "By Celestia, they're all dead," Comettail exclaimed in disbelief. "How did this happen?" "I don't know, but we're going to find whoever did this," Anger could be heard in Starblazer's voice, "and get some answers." ................................................................... "Ash! Get outta there!" Starblazer yelled above the gunfire. "Hold on! This will just take a second!" Ash called back. They had located a breach in the facility and had moved in to investigate only moments before they were engaged by an unknown force, hell-bent on seeing that the team never made it out alive. Unfortunately for them, Starblazer wasn't about to go down anytime soon and had ordered her team to dig in and hold out. "We don't have anymore time!" Comettail shouted before she ducked to avoid being hit by an energy shot. Starblazer popped up from cover and unloaded a clip into Comet's aggressor, putting him on the ground before he had time to reload or take cover. "Just give me a minute!" Ash hollered back. Her rifle lay on the ground next to her hind hooves as she quickly punched line after line of code into the console of a deactivated energy core. If they wanted off this rock, then she'd need to divert power to one of the shuttle bays. "And keep these guys off me!" She added as a bullet nearly missed her head and pinged harmlessly off the reactor's protective casing. "That's it! We're outta time! Let's mov...." Comet was cut short by a momentary blue light, and the reactor suddenly sputtered, sparked, and then exploded into plumes of blue energy. Starblazer felt waves of heat envelope her as she was flung back, her vision blackening as she drifted away. ........................................................................................ Starblazer woke with a start and jerked up, trace amounts of pain coursing through her body. She was soaked with sweat, her head throbbed, and worst of all, she had no idea where she was. "Whoa, easy there." A voice said from behind, and Starblazer jumped up, only to collapse as her chest erupted into fiery pain. The mare who had just spoken rushed over to her and helped her slowly sit up. "You've been out for quite a while." She tightened the bandage around Starblazer's chest. "There, that should hold." "Thanks," Starblazer panted, "what happened?" She glanced down at the bloodied bandage. "To be honest, I'm not quite sure. I was waiting on the bridge when I was told to come down here. When I did, I found you bleeding on the floor." "Told? By who?" The mare turned to answer when a shrill shriek rang through the air, and she pulled out a small pistol, and only then did Starblazer realize that the mare was wearing a tattered captain's uniform. "Are you the captain?" Starblazer asked. "Yeah, though there's really not much to be captain of anymore." She said, helping Starblazer to her hooves. "Name's Velvet, though I'm pretty sure you already had that figured out." Starblazer gave a small nod. "Can you walk?" She nodded again. "Yeah, I should be alright." "Then take this," Velvet handed Starblazer her rifle, "you're gonna need it." She powered it up as another shriek echoed through the ship, sounding closer this time. Starblazer spotted movement and raised her rifle to firing position. The ground itself seemed to move as hordes of skeletal equines slowly trickled out of shadows, their blazing red eyes fix on them. Their figures were skeletal and bare, though some still had patches of discolored fur and manes dangling from bone. But what scared Starblazer the most were their teeth, gnashing and glistening in the dim light. "They won't run until we do," Velvet whispered, her pistol focused on the nearest zombie, "when I tell you to, run for the corridor to the left and shut the door. Then we'll head to the bridge and hopefully find a way off this death trap." "Right," Starblazer nodded, shoving any trace of fear to the back of her mind. She had to stay focused if she was to have any hope of surviving the next few minutes. "Vell, isn't zis a surprise!" A voice rang through the air, his thick German accent thundering. "Velvet, playing hero again are ve?" Velvet's eyes widen. "Oh no..." She turned to Starblazer. "Run. Now. RUN!" "Oh, look at zat!" He laughed as they turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, "Zey run ven there's no where to run to! Vell, you know ze drill," he paused for a moment, chuckling slowly, then screamed in a deeper tone: "EAT ZEM!" Starblazer was almost within reach of the door when she heard the sound of a thousand hooves thundering after her, and she didn't dare look back.