//------------------------------// // 20. Crashed Frigate: Salvage // Story: Metroid Equis // by Flammenwerfer //------------------------------// Metroid Equis Chapter 20 Crashed Frigate: Salvage Nopony could miss the complete destruction the Frigate caused when it went down in the glory of the Sonic Rainboom. Thankfully, there weren't many, if any, inhabitants of the valley where it eventually drove its final course. This valley was more used for a walking and hiking path, as the lushness combined with the decently-sized mountains (if you could even call them that) provided great entertainment for the local population who ventured out for the day to just relax or blow off some steam. Of course, that idea was complicated by certain events. Frigate Siriacus went down mostly intact, but it hit the ground hard. No fires or anything of the like spread, but the local flora was quite impacted with the behemoth forcing its way into the natural order. The river that ran through this valley was completely cut off and diverted around, creating horrifically saturated grounds that could prove dangerous by the mountain bases. Still, not all was lost. With Equestria's victory over the Space Pirate Frigate, the prize was the large warship itself: rife with technology, data, and research beyond the Ponies' wildest imaginations (and sometimes beyond the Federation's imagination). That was the topic of tonight's mission for the eight unicorns of Vector Squad of the Magickakorps. The eight, four of them mares and four stallions, were one of the best units that were at Princess Luna's disposal. The eight of them almost single-handedly evacuated the last civilians out of Trottingham and saved hundreds if not thousands of Equestrian Army troops from being surrounded and subsequently massacred. As a matter of fact, Luna hoof-picked them for this specific salvage operation: The moment Luna stepped into that Pirate Outpost in the Everfree, she was enamored with the level of technology they possessed. With the development of an impending attack on Canterlot proper by a certain Frigate Siriacus, Luna was able to get a message to the HiveMind, where this particular unit of Equestria's finest was standing by. Their orders, under the assumption that the Rainboom stunt succeeded (which it overwhelmingly did), they were to break into the downed Frigate, note their findings, steal whatever they deemed useful (by teleporting objects to a safe zone, or if things were too large, carry them), eliminate surviving Pirates in their path, and ultimately find a way to destroy the ship for good lest the Pirates attempt a counter-salvage operation. The success of the defense of Canterlot paved the way for this operation to take place. Currently, all eight of the black armor-clad unicorn troops were laying on their stomachs, laying low on one of the mountains overlooking the crashed Frigate. Two of the mares and one of the stallions had their helmets off, gently talking amongst themselves, while their commanding officer looked through a set of binoculars towards their target. "Think we'll find anything interesting?" Radiance, the light blue mare asked her other colleagues around her. "We friggin' better, otherwise this damned operation would be complete waste of time," Windfire, the gray stallion sporting a red mane, replied in a bored fashion. He was eager to get on with the show, that was for sure. "I'm sure we will. I mean, just look at that ship! That tech is at least a hundred years ahead of our own," Starry, an equally gray-colored mare took her turn in voicing her opinion. "Cut the chatter, guys. Op is a go in two," Captain Constant Function, with a smooth and silky voice, replied harshly. She was known as "Constance" by others off the battlefield. "We're well aware of that, Cap', so just relax, if I may be so forward. Take your helmet off; get some fresh air!" Windfire replied. While the others chose to keep their helmets on and prepare, Constance decided to take their advice. A little fresh air before an operation would always be nice. So, she pressed her forehooves to the side of her helmet and took it off, revealing a gorgeous pink mare with a magenta mane tied up in (ironically) a ponytail. She closed her dark brown eyes and took a deep breath for good measure. Many are taken by complete surprise when Constance would remove her helmet. A name and consequently a cutie mark dealing with mathematics rarely found its way into the military. She prided herself on finding ways to be different and break social expectations. Nevertheless, she found her calling as she quickly rose through the ranks of the Guard and later the Magickakorps. Mares and stallions alike mistook her beauty and silky voice for a weakness, but quickly learned otherwise during training. She could easily best several of her own squad mates in a fight... at the same time. "Feeling better?" Radiance asked with a slight hint of jesting. "Quite lovely, actually," Constance replied with her own sarcasm. She then secured her helmet back on her head and stood up. Radiance, Starry, and Windfire did the same while the rest of their armored squad stood at attention. "Alright fillies and colts, we've all read the briefs so I'll spare us a reiteration of the mission directive. The time is upon us to go exploring in some enemy territory and find us some juicy tech to take home. Any questions?" None were had. They all silently shook their heads. "Excellent. Let's be off then. Short range radios on so we can keep our voices down." They all did as they were told, turning on their short range radio comms. "Alright, let's move down the hill... quietly. I'm on point," Constance spoke. Her soldiers formed behind her and they slowly but expertly scaled down the lush but rocky mountain side. After about ten minutes of making sure nopony killed themselves in a fall, the eight were safely on the ground. From where they were stationed, they were poised to enter the Frigate from the rear, which was not even a hundred feet from them. The large backside of the foreign ship completely obscured moonlight as it dwarfed their forms. "Let's find a way inside," Constance ordered. The eight checked their surroundings for any patrolling Pirates and sprinted the remaining distance, stacking up against the metal lining the gargantuan engine ports. A small scanning spell pointed the way to a maintenance entry between two of the main engines. Continuing to stack up, the eight of them filed one by one to this particular door, secured by blue hatch. "Starry, stack the other side and shoot the hatch." "Got it, boss." Starry did as she was told, stacking up on the other side before shooting a single hard magic bolt. The door's sheen disappeared and opened, revealing a lone Space Pirate. Starry's eyes widened and right when she was about to engage, the enemy combatant slumped forward to the ground. It was already dead. Silence reigned amongst the group for fractions of a second. "Jeez, and I can't even get a stallion to fall for me like that..." Starry spoke, earning a few chortles and soft laughs. "Or you killed it the moment it saw you by how ugly you are," Radiance responded to her friend in a joking manner. "Har har." "Enough, girls. Windfire, you're on point. All of us, inside!" Constance broke the chatter. Windfire peeked inside, ready to shoot, and found nothing greeting them. He signaled an all clear as he filed in, the rest of his squad following after him. This hall looked like any standard hall in a Pirate Frigate: made entirely of metal and covered with odd panes of glass that held information on them, although many of these were cracked or completely destroyed in the impact. They followed this maintenance route until they came to what they assumed was an elevator. When they approached, a hologram of the lift appeared right in the center. So far though, no salvageable technology. "So... how does this thing work?" one of the other soldiers asked. "I think I got an idea... but only one way to find out," Constance piped up. "Everypony, file on the elevator. Don't touch the hologram." They did as they were told, lining up around the center of the elevator, where Constance took her place  and stepped into the aforementioned hologram. An affirmation signal sounded around them as the elevator gently made its way upward. As the elevator crawled along, Constance's attention was dragged to her left, where she found Radiance gently bobbing up and down and alternating the tilt of her head left and right. Although they all looked the same right now with a black on black exterior, one could easily tell Radiance had somewhat of an excitable/joyful expression on her face under her visor. The moment she caught wind of Constance looking at her antics, she stopped immediately, cleared her throat, and stood straight. Constance only chortled once. By then, the elevator reached its top, stopping with a loud 'clanking' sound. They looked up for any sign of where they were, only to find Pirate writing on a sign, one that they couldn't read nor translate. As usual, they were operating blind in terms of location. Luckily for them, the sign translated as "Research and Development." "Dear Celestia, this place is a wreck..." Windfire commented, noticing broken glass everywhere, random liquids spilled all over the floor, a few dead Pirates, et cetera. "Yeah, looks like Radiance's room... complete with dead bodies and everything!" Starry commented. Radiance looked back at her with an incredulous stare, one that could easily be 'seen' through her black tinted visor. "Surely you're joking." "Indeed I'm not... and don't call me 'Shirley,'" Starry replied. Radiance stared back at her friend, a look that read 'I could kill you for that pun' plastered on her mug. "Shut the hell up, you two, and get your minds back on the mission," Constance interjected, getting a bit irritated. "On me." She lead them out, gingerly avoiding the spilled liquids that mixed together for obvious reasons. Soon, the path between large glass storage containers split off into two directions: left and right, each ending at two blue doors. "Windfire, Radiance, check out what's behind that left door. Starry, go right. I'll take the rest of the squad forward. Think you can handle the right by yourself, Star?" Constance ordered, then asked. Starry nodded. "Of course! I'll return with news in a bit," she replied jovially and was off. Windfire and Radiance saluted and galloped to the left. Constance gestured forward with her hoof, the remaining four troops trotting forward. Right as she was about to join them, she thought she heard some weird, screeching sound that was muffled. She looked around, finding nothing in her field of vision. She raised her brow in suspicion before reluctantly continuing onwards. Windfire and Radiance stacked up next to the blue door, shot it, and then both appeared in front of the entrance, horns aimed and ready to fire. No resistance met them and they gently trotted inward, the door sealing itself behind them. With their eyes adjusting to the light, they had realized they struck gold. An armory. "Jackpot," the two said in unison. Their joy was cut short when they heard some movement within the weapons racks in front of them. Windfire beckoned Radiance behind him and they stacked up against the first rack of Quantum Assault Cannons. Peeking out, Windfire found a lone Pirate Commando with his back turned to them, leaning on the edge of a rack several rows in front of them. He appeared to be wounded, but even then, he would be considered a threat. "Lone Space Pirate elite..." Radiance commented, fancying a look herself. "Yeah, let's take him out... quietly." "Got his legs?" Radiance asked. "You know it..." The two applied active camouflage, rendering themselves almost completely transparent as they quietly advanced forward, their forms barely distinguishable as almost no light waves reflected off of them. Soon enough, they were within a leg's distance of their enemy. With wordless coordination, they struck: they immediately disabled their camouflage as Windfire applied an aggressive holding spell on the Pirate's legs, rendering him immobile. Then, Radiance jumped, found a grip on her target's torso, and climbed up his back, where she wrapped her two front legs around the Commando's neck and jerked it in an unnatural direction, killing him immediately. Windfire released the hold and the Pirate fell to the floor. "Not bad, little mare... not bad at all..." "Heh... shut up and help me look at these weapons." Starry had ran to her door and opened the blue hatch easily, quietly slipping inside with active camouflage while ignoring the sign above since she wasn't able to read it. It was also broken... half of it not lighting up due to power loss. Unbeknownst to her, the lit part loosely translated to "Containment." What she saw in there, however, was not what she expected, at least not here: dead Space Pirates. Dead Space Pirates everywhere. What struck her as odd was that they hadn't run into any resistance at all. According to Princess Luna, this ship had the ability to carry thousands of troops, and it was highly improbable that all of them died in the crash. Unless the ship wasn't carrying that many troops, of course. Starry closely examined the bodies, noticing that they looked somewhat... discolored. But placing her hoof to one of the bodies and rolling it over, she was able to feel some heat, which meant that they hadn't been dead for very long. She pondered this anomaly and shrugged internally. Before she was about to move on, she heard what sounded like a high pitched gurgling and squeaking sound. Her ears perked up and she jumped around, ready to do battle, only to be taken by surprise with what she saw floating elegantly in the air. The semi-transparent, turquoise creature sported nothing but what looked like internal organs easily visible from the outside, plus a set of enormous fangs... yet no means of being able to take flight. The strange creature glided to eye-level with Starry. "What the...?" Starry commented, cocking her head to the left as she stared at the odd creature. The mystery creature squeaked... almost cutely, she admitted, as it backed up to a respectable distance. It then, however, released an agonizingly powerful screech as it flew forward at frightening velocity and bore its fangs into Starry's neck. "AAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" Both parties heard the loudest, most terrible sounding scream they had ever heard. "Windfire, Radiance, do you copy?!" Constance asked urgently. "Yeah! We're here! What the hell was that??" "It came from the right room. Starry's inside! All units move to assist and engage, now!" Constance ordered. By that order, all seven of the ponies joined up at the center and sprinted to the right door, shooting it open and entering inside with haste. It was only then that the first half of the sign regained power... "Metroid Containment."