//------------------------------// // Back at Treetop Base // Story: X-PONY/X-COM: The Extraterrestrial Combat Unit // by Fareseed //------------------------------// Please, if you can, see this video before reading. See it as a intro for the chapters. X-Pony Intro Back at Treetop Base 1999 January 13th 12:54 (Day) Evergreen Forest time The medical ponies were waiting for the Skyranger as it descended into its hanger, its fuel almost spent and its crew physically and mentally exhausted. As the ramp lowered, I made my way out, followed by Ghrathryn, who, like most of us, looked more grey than our usual colour, when our colour wasn’t grey to start with. Of course the appearance of the dragon, even though he was barely standing, was screams from the medics, their eyes wide and rolling in fear. “Don’t worry about Ghrathryn,” I said, trying to calm them. “He isn’t going to attack anypony.” I added as he raised himself to his full height and stretched with a grunt, a flash of pain moving across his snout. The medics gave me a curious look as the two of us made our way down the ramp, him seeming to favour one leg as he moved, and got out of the way of the others as they followed, all looking haggard. “I want to have every soldier checked over in the hospital area as soon as our equipment is taken to the armoury.” I ordered, getting more than a few grumbles from various parts of the room. Two of the medics nodded and hurried off to prep the wards for incoming as I looked around, noticing Ghrathryn sitting on the floor near the Skyranger. “Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?” I asked him, twitching my tail as one of my own injuries twinged. “I want to make sure you’re not heavily injured. You’re our new Colonel, after all.” He glanced up, grimacing at something. “I ain’ a colonel,” He muttered before dropping his head to look at the floor again, looking not only exhausted, but absolutely terrible. I grimaced as trickles of blood leaked from under his scales, wondering just how much they hid. Turning my attention back to my soldiers, I scowled. All of us had been injured in our mad dash for the Skyranger, what with Bomb Wing’s wing starting to spasm in pain as the pain killer finished wearing off, Trip Shot barely staying on her hooves, even after spending three hours doing pretty much nothing in the Skyranger while Fire Bullet’s flame coloured tail scorched after a near miss by one of the aliens along with the wounds on my own hide. Even with all that, the four of us had gotten off lightly all told, it would take us maybe a week before we were back in action, but healing broken wings or legs, cracked horns or hooves… those would take longer to do. It did not bode well for the future if we could go on two missions, and already have lost one and have everypony else injured to some degree. The aliens we had just encountered were worse than the grey ones from the first mission, the crabs with their phenomenal speed and powerful claws. On the trip back, the others had told me about their own encounters with the snake-like aliens, making me realise how lucky, or powerful, our new ally was. From what they had said, none of our weapons short of the missile launcher could penetrate the armour they wore, and most of them had been lucky in that lightning had often chosen to strike right where the aliens had been standing. I glanced at Ghrathryn again, twitching my tail. We had been incredibly lucky to find a dragon that could do that to things that weren’t even scared by our heavy cannons’ HE rounds. Seeing the last of the other ponies’ equipment had been put away, I set my own sniper rifle, what little was left of its ammo and the explosives away, followed by the electro-flares and motion scanner. Turning back towards Ghrathryn, I sighed as I saw that he hadn’t moved from where he sat. “I insist that you follow the medics to the hospital area and recover, you held that storm over Draceville for quite some time and need to rest.” I started walking after the medics as they left, two pushing the cart full of equipment back to the armoury while the rest led us towards the hospital area. Hearing a groan, I glanced over my shoulder to see Ghrathryn limping along behind us and sighed in relief. At least he would be checked over now. ***** Once we reached the hospital area we were shown to different rooms depending on our ranks. Catching the eye of the chief medical pony, I ordered him to take Ghrathryn to the area reserved for colonels while I had another ward waiting for me along. “We have the best medical equipment available to us,” I commented to Ghrathryn as he limped along, trying to make him feel a bit more comfortable, his height such that he ended up having to duck under the doorways, and even in the corridors it was a tight squeeze for him on his hind legs. While the others were escorted to the section of the hospital for enlisted soldiers, Trip was taken to the NCOs’ section. There were effectively three main areas to the hospital, one each for enlisted, non-commissioned officers and full officers, each further divided for pairs of ponies for the most part, the base’s commander had an area for them alone, which made sense given there would only be one commanding officer in each base. After leaving the others, I made my way to the ward dedicated to my care and pushed open the door to find a room that looked very much like my quarters, if one looked beyond the obvious medical equipment and monitors. Putting my watch and glasses on the nightstand next to the bed, I levitated a chair over to the bed from where it had been stored in one corner of the room. Removing my armour, I dumped it onto the chair with a sigh of relief, glad that it wouldn’t be making me itch anymore from all the sweat that had dried in it or the rain that had gotten under it. Climbing into the bed, I pulled the blanket over me and stared at the wall for a moment. I had been going for ten hours straight, not that long compared to some, but they had been the most demanding, physically and mentally, of my life. Closing my eyes, I let out another sigh before sleep claimed me. ***** Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 3, 13:20 My roommate could not have been any worse; he was the whiniest unicorn I had the misfortune to meet, even counting the old legends of Harmony and the pony that had driven a pack of Diamond Dogs crazy. This stallion was going to do the same thing to me if he didn’t shut up! I sighed to myself, grumbling as my wing ached, as if the pain from that… whatever it was burning my wing wasn’t enough, I had to put up with Little Miss Whine. I wish I could get hold of my missile launcher and use it on myself, with an incendiary missile. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to this. “Would you shut the buck up, Stone? I’m trying to sleep here!” I snapped at him, growling when I saw his eyes start watering. What a damned pansy. “O-o-okay, Bomb,” Stone sobbed, shifting his broken hind leg, “I-I’ll t-t-try to b-b-be quiet.” I muttered something indistinct as I pulled the blanket over me, feeling it rub a little against the bandage restraining my injured wing. “I hope I get out of here soon,” I whispered to myself. Out of this damned room and away from Stone with his broken leg, broken horn and whining, the sooner that happened, the better I would like it. ***** Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 1, 13:18 “And why am I in here again?” I asked the air around me, laying my ears flat as I ran over the events in Draceville in my mind. “Oh, right, now I remember, some snake-thing tried to shoot me and set my tail alight instead.” I sighed, slumping on the bed. “So now, instead of sleeping in my own bed, I have to wait for them to release me… though… why are they putting a bandage on my tail, it’s only hair that was singed, not like anything else got burned… and why am I talking to myself?” Turning around in my bed, I sighed again. “I can understand bandaging my chest and leg because of my wounds, but the tail?” That just didn’t make sense, I mean sure we had more dexterous tails than most equines, but still…. “Would you shut the buck up, Stone? I’m trying to sleep here!” Bomb Wing’s voice cut straight through the wall surprising me. It was fairly amazing that the purple Pegasus had such strong lungs. On the other hand, the fact that he had gotten so annoyed at Stone Tear was no surprise at all. Spending more than a few minutes with that unicorn made most ponies wish they were dead. Fortunately we had been spared it on the trip back to base, mostly because he was far too scared of the dragon to make a sound, even though Ghrathryn had been silent through the trip here. Hearing a mutter from the other side of the wall, I sighed again, closing my eyes, I tried to get to sleep, so I could avoid thinking about why they had bandaged my tail at least. ***** Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, non-commissioned officer section, room 1, 13:35 I was tired but I just couldn’t fall asleep, the others intruded on my mind far too much, seeing them all so badly hurt. I shifted slightly, grimacing as the sound echoed a little, reminding me of the other reason I couldn’t sleep. I was alone in here, in the quiet emptiness of this ward. It made me feel as if the walls were closing in on me. That rule about sticking to your own wards and having separate ones for enlisted, NCOs and officers was really beginning to freak me out about now, the fear of being alone making me sweat, making my normally light blue coat turn dark. Hearing something drip in the distance I yelped, sitting bolt upright for several seconds, my ears flicking this way and that. “I can’t stand being alone!” I yelled, more to hear a voice than anything. “I really hope this can’t get any worse,” I muttered, lying back down. If nopony got promoted tomorrow, I was going to turn my promotion in, so I could go back to being with the others, with ponies. That was why I had left my home in North Mountain, not to fight the aliens, though somepony had to, but so I wouldn’t be alone anymore. I felt tears start leaking from my eyes as I squeezed them shut, trying to sleep. ***** Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, officer’s section, room 1, 13:10 I hurt as if a swarm of hedrachin had managed to catch me on the ground and chewed on me. Shifting slightly, I grimaced as my dislocated wing bumped something on the wall behind me, causing it to flare in pain in response. Actually, I probably hurt worse than somedragon that’s been on the receiving end of a hedrachin swarm, though probably not by much given those oversized rodents had poisonous teeth, poisonous enough that those ‘human’ creatures on the one world we had scouted briefly would die from a single bite. Closing my eyes, I dropped my head forward with a groan, trying not to let the reaction headache start up just yet. I should be sleeping, in fact if I was back on the ship, or back on Harrenthias, particularly if my lifemate was there with me, I likely would be sleeping. Unfortunately I wasn’t in either of those places; I was on some dinky little planet that just happened to be between Harrenthias and the Ailiaar home world. It had been just my bloody luck that I had run across some unknowns in what was supposed to be a quiet system. Of course guaranteed the reason I had been shot down by them was so that I couldn’t bring one of the big ships here, and given the five the dragon worlds had between them were pretty big, for life transports, they probably would have made things even messier than I intended on doing from the ground. My tail twitched as I heard a couple of the Healers talking about my wounds, one asking the other just how I had managed to survive. I snorted softly, looking down at the casts on my arm and leg and the bandages wrapped around every conceivable bit of me. I had walked away from a high speed crash-down, primarily because my armour took the brunt of it and had been destroyed in the process, along with my ranged weapons. Then of course, those snakemen and their ‘pets’ had decided to crash the town I was resting up in. Five hours of living on adrenaline and the storm surge I was pulling down to maintain the very storm I was using as my weapon and my way of keeping my body together had done a number on me. Of course, because of that I was so far beyond exhausted I now couldn’t sleep which wouldn’t help since it meant I was going to crash and sleep for a week, at the bear minimum once I actually did. I snorted to myself, actually, sleeping for a week sounded good right now, if I could get these talking Lothrae to stop startling whenever I moved. Unfortunately I needed them since they seemed the best equipped to cause trouble for those hedrachin that held the orbitals, and the most likely to have a comm set that could reach home. “I can’t stand being alone!” My head jerked up at the voice, making my neck burn with pain from where I had gotten whiplash in the crash-down. I recognised the voice that was the blue out of the quartet I had approached, the winged one that liked heavy guns. It sounded like she was having troubles of some kind herself, of the loneliness variety. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep easily, despite my exhaustion, and it sounded like the lothryn was going to have a tough time of it as well. Pushing myself carefully to my feet, I grimaced as my whole body ached, trying to keep my breathing shallow to avoid aggravating my ribs. I was paying for my foolishness now, but at least I had saved a good chunk of the dragons. Catching my balance, I limped to the door, gritting my teeth against the pain of the movements as it opened. Sniffing the air, I held my uninjured arm against my chest, whimpering as my ribs hurt. Even so, I could smell a fear stink, one that was familiar enough for me to say it was the blue lothryn. I followed it, having to stop more than once to catch my breath or let things stop hurting. One of the healers came out of an office to try to stop me, but a growl and a look sent him running away. I guess even the healers here are scared of dragons, if I could think straight, I would probably wonder what the dragons were scared of in that case, since most had been bigger than me. Following the scent around a couple of corridors, I found a door that it was wafting under and opened it slowly with my good arm. Inside I could see the blue, winged lothryn curled up on one of the too small beds. Making my way over to her, I touched her shoulder gently, causing her to look up at me and gasp in surprise and fear – I really wanted to get off this damn planet with that reaction from most of these Lothrae – even so, she reminded me a lot of Jhoshor back home on Harrenthias, back when he had been a hatchling. “Whot be wrong, little one?” I asked gently, remembering how I had talked to my own lothryn when I had found him in the storm I had ended up naming him for. I had picked up the name Storm Rider for a reason, and I had played on the nickname, by calling my lothryn ‘Storm’, Jhoshor to my Jhoshorythryn, a storm to my storm rider. “I-I… hate being alone,” The little one replied, tears leaking from her eyes. I smiled sadly at that. “Bu’ ye arnae alone, little’un, ye’ve got yuir friends ‘roun’ ye, if anydragon be alone ‘ere, it be me.” I pointed out, reminding her that I was the only one of my kind on this base, or more to the point on this planet. The lothryn shook her head, biting back a whimper. “Th-they a-aren’t here an-and I-I can’t leave.” She said, her wings twitching. “An’ whot be stoppin’ ye?” I asked, turning and pulling the mattress off the other bed, putting it close to hers with my good hand before settling carefully on it, groaning as various wounds flared up. “Would ye feel better if’n ye had somedragon near?” I asked, taking care to breathe shallowly so my ribs didn’t add to the chorus of complaints from the rest of my body, reaching over to brush her mane out of her face. “Why would you do that?” She asked, looking at me suspiciously, I wanted to laugh at that look, but it would probably have ended up with me trying to not lose my ribs. “You don’t even know me.” I shifted slightly, stretching out my injured leg. “Aye, I donnae know ye, bu’ I know yuir afraid o’ bein’ alone, an’ tae be honest, I donnae like it meself.” I admitted, closing my eyes. “Back home on Harrenthias, I lived with me family, five siblings, countin’ me adopted sister, me parents, me uncles an’ aunts an’ a host o’ cousins. Then I spent a nigh’ in a ghos’ house, met an Or’nae, one o’ the neighbourin’ clan,” I smiled slightly at the memories of that night. It had been a running battle all through, and probably the first time I had ended up as exhausted as this and the last until we had found the ship. “We spent the nigh’ t’gether fightin’ ‘til t’dawn, bu’ we formed a bond, one tha’ o’er time became love.” I sighed softly, leaning carefully back against the wall. “I miss’em, I was goin’ tae see me love again, ‘cause we’re ambassadors tae another world, an’ ended up ‘ere instead.” The silence came, terse at first, but slowly more comfortable as the female started to relax a little. Reaching up, I brushed the drying tears from her cheeks. “There’s another reason I want somedragon ‘roun’ me righ’ now.” I admitted gritting my teeth as my wounds flared. “I spen’ five hours holdin’ tha’ storm, after walkin’ away from a crash I probably shouldnae have an’ on barely two days o’ healin’,” I sighed, looking up at her. “I’m gonna crash ‘ard pretty soon, I’m tae tired tae sleep, but tae injured tae do anythin’ else, I’d rather somedragon I recognise be ‘roun’, an’ ye I could find.” I sat, watching her for a moment before she climbed out of the bed and made her way around, settling next to me. I felt a few tears run from my own eyes as she rested her head on my thigh. Gently, I used my good arm to move down so we were lying together, drawing some comfort from another in a similar boat. I felt her head rest on my shoulder. “I don’t think we ever told you our names,” She murmured, “I’m Trip Shot.” She introduced herself before yawning. I nodded, carefully reaching up to rub her ears and chuckling as she gave me a dirty look. “Jhoshor always loved his crest being scratched.” I commented dryly, “Though I doubt ye’ve the toughness fer tha’, Trip Shot.” I yawned, soon echoed by her. “We need tae sleep though, an’ I’d ‘preciate it if’n ye stayed close, I’d rather wake tae familiar faces, ‘specially given the headache I’m gonna have.” She nodded, resettling herself as I closed my eyes, listening to her breathing slow and deepen before sleep finally claimed me. ***** 1999 January 14th 00:21 (Night) Treetop City X-COM base. hospital area, Commander Section, Commander Kim Fareseed's room I woke up sweating from a terrible nightmare, one worse than seeing an Ursa Minor trashing a town, losing my moustache in green fire. Reaching up desperately with my fore-hooves, I felt around my mouth and sighed in relief to find my moustache was still there. Checking my foreleg, to look at the time, I groaned as I remembered that I had taken my watch off before sleeping. Reaching out with my magic to the find it on the nightstand, I picked it up and hovered it in front of my eyes, sighing when I saw that it was maybe twenty after midnight. “Great, it’s after midnight and I’m supposed to be asleep.” I muttered to myself, groaning when I realised that I didn’t feel tired anymore. “Now what am I supposed to do until morning?” Placing my watch back on the nightstand, I shifted, trying to get more comfortable in the bed, only to feel something wrapped around my barrel rubbing against the blanket. Frowning, I lifted the blanket up to reveal a mass of bandages covering me. “Don’t they know not to waste this many bandages on small wounds?” I groaned in irritation, honestly, plasters would have done the job just as well. Shifting again, I tried to shake out my tail, only to find that I couldn’t move it. Using my magic, I threw the blanket aside to find that my tail was likewise completely covered in bandages, “What?! Why did they mummify my tail? The only thing that happened to it was that it got wet!” I yelled in confusion and anger. Now there was no way I would be able to go back to sleep, especially if every soldier had had their tails bandaged up, the cost in bandages would be insane, especially for Fire Bullet, who had the longest tail in the base, even though it had been burnt. Rolling out of bed, I levitated my glasses to their usual place on my muzzle and started out the door. The chief medical pony had a few questions to answer, particularly about why they had mummified my tail. ***** Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 3, 00:40 Bomb Wing's dream “Stone Tear, you have been sentenced to execution for the crime of driving your comrades insane with your incessant whining.” Commander Kim shouted through a megaphone, his voice carrying through the rest of the room and over the base’s personnel, who had come to see what, was going on. I was happy, finally, after all this time, he was about to feel the pain I had endured when I had been stuck in a hospital ward with him all those months ago. “Colonel Bomb Wing, your weapon of choice?” Kim asked, already knowing what my answer would be. “Rocket launcher with incendiary rockets!” I shouted, causing the other soldiers to stomp on the ground in response, waiting to see the execution. Curling up into a furry ball, the rock brown unicorn looked very much like his namesake, or he would have if not for his horn, cutie mark and the black and white mane and tail. I glared at him as Trip shot and Fire Bullet brought my rocket launcher into the shooting range, along with an incendiary rocket. “Okay everypony! Let the execution begin!” Kim shouted through the megaphone. As everypony in the base stomped on the ground impatiently, I loaded the incendiary rocket into the launcher and hoisted it up, pointing it towards the lump, “Any last words?” I asked, beating my wings to stay upright as I held the weapon. "Yes!" Stone Tear said. "WAKE UP!" “What?” I asked in confusion, confusion that Stone Tear used to pull a blue alien weapon out of somewhere and fire it at me, green flaming energy coming straight at me for a second before I felt burning pain and everything went black. ***** I bolted up right sweating and screaming, the movement causing my wounds to flare in pain, making me bite off the scream with a yelp of pain. Unfortunately my scream woke Stone up from where he was sleeping in the bed next to me, causing him to tumble onto the floor with a screech followed by a howl of pain as his wounds impacted the hard ground. Sitting forwards, I panted into my fore hooves, trying to work out how what could have been a perfect dream had become a perfect nightmare instead. My ears flicked up as I heard rapid hoof beats approaching the door moments before it flew open, revealing a bandaged tail, that quickly turned around to show a grey mare with a flame coloured mane. “What’s happening here?” She asked, her purple eyes wide and rolling a little in fear, the pupils tiny dots. ***** Treetop City X-COM base, hospital area, enlisted section, room 1, 01:10 I was woken up from sleep by a scream coming through the wall to the room next door, the room that Bomb Wing and Stone Tear were in. Fearing the worst, especially after the second scream, I jumped out of bed and ran out of the room, ignoring the injuries to my legs in my haste to get there. Reaching the room, I bucked the door open and turned around, expecting to find one or both of them dead. As the stallions turned to look at me, I asked, “What’s happening here?” As I looked at the pair of them, Stone started whining about his wounds and the pain they were causing him, making Bomb put his fore hooves to his ears as he gritted his teeth against both the pain of his own wounds and the desire to maim a certain unicorn, not that I could blame him on that part. My heart went out to Bomb Wing at that point and I walked across the room towards him, nopony deserved to put up with this. “I don’t care about that gender separation rule at the moment,” I said, nosing him gently. “Nopony should be stuck in the same room as him.” I twitched my tail. “Join me?” Bomb nodded, putting his hooves down again and getting out of bed slowly, wincing as his hooves made contact with the floor. “Gladly,” He said, limping as he gathered his armour before joining me. As we left the room and closed the door behind us, the whining from Stone miraculously stopped. Frowning, I opened the door curiously, only to get another earful of his whining, which cut off mid word as I closed the door again, something which could not have been the door blocking the sound given it wasn’t sound proofed and I had heard them through a wall. “That bucking little pony only wanted the room to himself,” Bomb Wing grumbled, echoing my thoughts exactly. “We can report him in the morning,” I said tiredly, getting a nod from Bomb, who was not only tired by irritated as well. The walk back to my room was short enough that it didn’t give me a chance to wonder what the medics would say about breaking the rule against mixed genders in the same room, not that it mattered in the face of dealing with Stone Tear. Any punishment would be better than being left with that pony for more than a few minutes, let alone an hour. I stood aside once we reached my room, letting Bomb in first so he could choose which bed he wanted to sleep on, and as I almost expected, he picked the one that didn’t look like a disaster zone. I let out a soft sigh, walking into the room and kicking the door shut behind me before jumping onto the other bed. I flinched, biting my lip as tears sprang into my eyes when my right hind leg burned with pain. Taking a moment to focus on breathing and calming my nerves, I settled myself down, pulling the blanket over me again. “Good night, Bomb.” “Yeah… good night, Fire and thanks from saving me from Stone’s whining. I can’t stand listening to it.” Bomb replied, having already settled himself in the other bed. “Nopony can,” I commented dryly before closing my eyes and letting sleep claim me again. ***** Treetop City X-COM base, hospital are, chife medical's office, 00:47 “What do you have to say for yourself?” I ground out, glaring at the mare in a doctor’s coat in front of me. “Why have you mummified my tail and wasted a good amount of bandaged on it?” I added, stomping one hoof to show how angry I was with her, my eyes narrowed. “The last time I checked, while we were on the way back here, my tail was wet from the rain and sweat, not burnt to a crisp!” I snapped, not giving her a chance to speak. “And even if it had been burned, you could have just cut away the burnt hair, there was no reason to waste all those bandages on it or on wounds so minor a plaster would have sufficed.” The last was added sarcastically since while our chief medical pony was very good at treating any kind of wounds we knew, I had not expected her to let the others turn our soldiers into mummies. “I hope this will never happen again, because if it does and another soldier with minor or cosmetic wounds gets turned into a mummy, you will be paying for the bandages your staff used up out of your pay check, do you understand?” I asked, leaning forwards over the desk. She only just managed to nod, severely shaken by our encounter. Even when I had first bucked the door open, interrupting her paperwork, she had been scared, by now her eyes were showing wildly, the pupils of her eyes barely larger than dots in her pink irises and her ears flat against her head. “Good,” I said, dropping off the desk and walking out of the office, heading back to my own room. “It’s bad enough we’ve got problems from aliens, we don’t need them from our medics as well.” I muttered with a sigh. “I can’t let any more idiots work here… I need to make sure there is a test for them so we know we’ve got the best ones available… once I’ve recovered.” To be contiued Credit to Ghrathryn for making this 120% awsome. And showing here his yet again what he can make from scrap to a masterpice.