//------------------------------// // Arrivals // Story: Pony Effect: The Interloper // by BronyOfSteel //------------------------------// Hades Gamma star system- March 5, 2186 Alliance ship SSV Iwo Jima Lieutenant Commander Michael Anderson drummed his fingers impatiently on the console in front of him as he checked the close-in weapon systems of the frigate for what seemed like the thousandth time. He ritualistically hated doing redundant tasks such as this but being a N7 marine with a shipboard assignment left him with little else to do after verifying the readiness of the other marines onboard. And besides, Gunnery Officer Hawkins appreciated the lightened workload. To Michael everything seemed to have taken a turn for the insane in the last couple of weeks, Admiral Hackett had spontaneously mobilized the majority of Alliance forces and as part of that mobilization sent numerous frigates, including the Iwo Jima to the fringes of Alliance controlled space to scout for an “imminent unknown enemy force”. Rumors abounded that the “enemy force” they were on the lookout for was in fact, the reapers. Michael, for his part, actually believed the famous Commander Shepard’s warning of these things. He had been present at the battle of the Citadel and whatever Sovereign was, it certainly wasn’t Geth. “Anything to report LC?” a voice rang out from behind him. “No sir, Captain Iglesias. CIWS are working just fine.” Michael responded as he turned to speak to his commanding officer. “Good to hear Lieutenant Commander.” Iglesias seemed thoughtful for a second before speaking again. “Care to join me on the bridge Anderson? I’m sure Gunnery Officer Hawkins can handle the CIWS for now.” “Of course sir.” Anderson responded, rising from the console to follow Captain Iglesias forward toward the bridge of the vessel. Normally a captain wouldn’t fraternize this much with a Lieutenant Commander, but in this case Anderson was stepping in as a temporary XO. Iwo Jima’s actual XO was still on Earth receiving radiation treatments for a reactor leak a few months back. “So what do you make of this whole situation Anderson?” the Captain asked as they walked to the bow of the frigate. “Honestly sir, I’m worried, I haven’t seen the fleet like this since the Geth attack three years ago. Whatever’s out there it’s got Hackett spooked good.” “And you don’t think he could be overacting to this at all?” “Maybe if it was the defense council or somebody like that sir, but I’ve served under Admiral Hackett before, he’s not man to commit resources lightly. If he’s got the fleets mobilizing and got us out here scouting around than whatever’s out there is big and it is dangerous.” Captain Iglesias frowned as they arrived at the helm “Unfortunately I’ve come to the same conclusion.” The captain then proceeded to interrogate the bridge crew with the usual questions about heading, speed, and the signature the Iwo Jima was currently radiating. Michael did what he usually did in these kinds of situations, tuning it out completely and focusing instead on the helmsman’s display, which showed the frigate as emerging from the shadow of the gas-giant Edmos. It was at this instant that everything decided to get a whole lot more interesting. “Captain! I’m picking up something on the long rang scanner!” one of the sensor officers shouted. “What is it?” “Unknown classification sir, it doesn’t match any known signatures but its big, Dreadnought class at least.” Iglesias’ eyes narrowed at this. “Wait, vessel is changing course. It’s switched to an intercept trajectory sir!” The Captain’s face paled. “Get us out of here McDonough!” “Aye, aye sir! All hands brace for evasive maneuvers!” The ship lurched wildly as the engines of the Iwo Jima flared to full power, propelling the ship away from the unknown vessel as fast as they could. Michael braced himself against the helmsman’s chair as a visual was brought up of the unknown ship, what he saw chilled his blood to ice. “That’s a reaper.” Captain Iglesias spun around, “Are you sure!?” Michael nodded in response already heading back to the station he had been using earlier to grab his N7 breather helmet, he might need it soon. “Goddamnit!” Iglesias swore as he turned back to the visual display just in time to see one of the reaper’s tentacles glow. “Shit! All hands brace for impact!” The reaper had the human ship already locked in, despite its valiant attempt to flee it was doomed the second the reaper had picked it up on its own scanners, even at this range it was impossible to miss. The Reaper’s shot impacted the frigate stern amidships, cutting through the kinetic barriers and armor plating like a blowtorch through rice paper. The impact of the shot knocked Captain Iglesias to the ground causing his vision to flash and his head to spin. As he picked himself off the ground he could hear Helmsman McDonough shouting over the chaos “… kinetic barriers are down, we have multiple hull breaches! FTL drives are not responding, we’re dead in the water!” Iglesias scowled as he heard the news, each report was more damming than the last. At this point he didn’t care about the mission all he cared about was getting his ship and his men out of this alive. He racked his brain for any solution to this but couldn’t come up with anything, unless… “McDonough! Get us to the dormant Tartarus relay!” “Sir!?” “Do it ensign! That’s an order!” “You’re not planning what I think you’re planning are you?” Michael asked as he arrived on the bridge once again. “I am and if the council has any issues with it they can court marshal me when we get back.” Iglesias snarled “I am not losing my ship!” Even as the words left his mouth another shot impacted the hull of the Iwo Jima sending it slewing to the side, venting atmosphere for a few seconds until the breach was rectified and helmsman McDonough compensated. “Sir, we’re approaching the Tartarus relay, interface protocols engaging.” The Tartarus relay, one of the many inactive relays that existed in the galaxy, this particular one had been known about for centuries. But as in line with council protocol following the Rachni wars, it couldn’t be legally activated until its destination system was plotted and mapped. Unfortunately the Tatarus relay had never been mapped but Captain Iglesias had neither the time nor the incentive to care. “The Relay is now hot, initiating transmission sequence.” “Can we even get through with the damage we’ve sustained?” Michael asked as they began their approach run on the relay. “I have no clue, but our chances with this have to better than our chances with that reaper.” Michael nodded “I guess so.” “Transit mass calculated, hitting the relay in 3…2…1” In a flash of blue light the Iwo Jima was slingshotted across the galaxy almost instantaneously in a corridor of mass free space. The Reaper noticed the escape of its prey and signaled the other reapers that were converging on this system that it was pursuing the human frigate through the relay; no organic life could be allowed to escape. Captain Iglesias continued to breathe heavily as the ship decelerated from its cross galaxy jump, the adrenaline of the past few minutes hadn’t quite worn off yet and he was still alert as ever. They had somehow survived the transit to... wherever this was. “Ensign, I need information.” “Sir there appear to be no other mass relays located in this system, though long range scanners have detected several terrestrial planets. I’ll have more information on them in a few minutes” Iglesias cursed again under his breath in so many minutes, he had been hinging on their being another relay or several in this system. If that had been the case they could have used them to escape to another system and from there perhaps outmaneuver the reaper. Now however he was faced with few options, none easy. “Move us towards the center of the system Helmsman McDonough.” “Sir, I’ve just finished preliminary scans of the terrestrial worlds and I’ve found one that you might find interesting.” one of the sensor operators piped up. Michael leaned over her shoulder to read off the results of the scan, “Earth-like gravity, temperature and atmosphere.” “Any civilizations we should worry about?” “Nothing space faring at least, we’d need to dispatch a probe to find out more.” It was at this exact moment that everything decided to go to hell once again in the form of the reaper catching up to them and firing two shots through the Iwo Jima before anyone could so much as shout a warning. This time, the damage was fatal, large portions of the ship were vented to space, though luckily the time between the reaper’s first attack and now had allowed the majority of the crew to don protective gear. Captain Iglesias was thrown through the air from the impact of the hits, smashing into a bulkhead before flying out into open space, unprotected. Michael could only watch in shock as the Captain flew to his death right in front of him. However his training took over shortly afterwards blocking out the shock and destruction around him and allowing him to focus on the situation at hand. Michael rose to feet as he tapped into the shipwide coms, “This is Lieutenant Commander Anderson, abandon ship, repeat abandon ship!” as he gave the order another explosion rocked the bridge killing the remaining sensor operators and leaving only him and Helmsman McDonough still standing. “Come on let’s get out of here!” Michael shouted as he tried to yank the pilot out of his seat. “No sir! The rest of you get off the ship! You need me to keep the ship steady or else none of you have a chance!” Michael wanted to argue, but he knew deep down that the helmsman was right. “Good luck.” He said as he rushed to the fore pod next to the bridge. He palmed the launch button upon entering knowing that no one else would be joining him, the rest of the crew for this section were either dead or on other pods. Michael looked out the viewport as he launched away from the ship and he got a firsthand view of the damage, the once proud warship was now limping along, trailing flames and atmosphere as pieces continued to break off. Thankfully he could see all the pods had launched, but his relief was short lived as the reaper swooped in out of the blackness of space like a demonic bird of prey. First blasting what was left of the Iwo Jima into atomized bits before turning its attention to the swarm of escape pods, eliminating them one by one. Michael cursed as he sat there helplessly watching as the reaper carefully slaughtered his crewmates in front of him. His own pod was safe for now, being located on the opposite side of the craft and being located near the bow meant that he was nowhere near the destruction, chances were the reaper just thought he was another piece of debris. It was no small comfort to Michael as the pod plummeted towards the garden world they had just barely managed to get in range of. “Oh yes, there we go…” a soft spoken yellow Pegasus muttered to herself as she lowered a cherry onto the top of a confectionery salad the like of which she had never even come close to completing before. However in her mind it was all worth it if it made her angel bunny happy. He had been so angry and short tempered as of late, certainly this would take the edge off his anger and return him to being the nice little bunny he used to be. Unfortunately all the work the Pegasus known as Fluttershy had put into the salad was rendered moot by the sudden passage of something both incredibly loud and frightening, causing her entire cottage to shake around her as she dove for cover. Eventually the shaking ended with a large noise from outside and after a few minutes had passed, she emerged shaking from her position under a table. “W-what was that?” she thought out loud as she looked around her house. Michael groaned as he undid the restraints that had held him in place during the pod’s landing, of course calling it a landing was stretching the term, controlled crash was a more accurate description of what had just happened. Despite the fact that it had hurt like the hell the restraints had done their job admirably, he was still in one piece. He picked up the only thing he had brought with him, an M-6 Carnifex sidearm with a few spare thermal clips, before peering out the hatch’s viewport. The scans weren’t kidding when they had said earth-like atmosphere and temperature, provided there wasn’t some sort of flesh eating bacteria in the air he probably could just walk out barefoot and be fine. Regardless of appearances Michael approached the situation cautiously, making sure his suit was still sealed when he finally popped the hatch and stepped out into the sunlight. He kept his pistol trained in front of him as he took in his surroundings, it would appear that he had crashed in an open grassy field on the outskirts of a huge forest. After spending a few minutes scanning the area and determining that there wasn’t anything lurking around that was going to try to kill him, he holstered his pistol and pulled up his omni tool. A few quick scans later revealed that there were little to no microbes in the air and that the few there were bore a striking resemblance to some of the more common ones on Earth. Satisfied with the scans of the air Michael undid the seals of his helmet and removed it, breathing in the unfiltered air of this new world for the first time as he tucked the helmet under his arm. Whatever this place was it was definitely nice, a prime colony world, assuming that the Alliance ever showed up here. Deciding that it would be best to put some distance between him and the crash site in case he attracted any unwanted attention , namely that Reaper in orbit, he moved off into the forest never ceasing his constant surveillance of the surrounding area. Eventually Michael stumbled across a small clearing in the middle of the forest where he spontaneously decided to get some rest after the day’s events. As he lay down in shade of a tree on the edge of the clearing he would’ve sworn he’d seen a rainbow trail shoot through the sky above him, dismissing it a few seconds later as a trick of the light he leaned his head back against the tree before closing his eyes. Christ, what a day…