The four men of Beowulf team were bored. Under the warm Colorado sun, they were sitting on a pallet of MREs and sipping sodas pilfered from the base Dining Facility. Their only available form of entertainment was watching the seemingly endless stream of men and equipment that flowed into Dulce Station. The base hadn’t seen such activity since the end of the Cold War, and it showed. Shipping containers full of ammunition, weapons, All Terrain Vehicles, and every other type of military supply were being constantly trucked in. Civilian rigs driven by plain-clothes soldiers rolled in and out, dropping off trailers adorned with all manner of corporate logos to disguise their true purpose.
In addition to the trucks, every so often a Chinook helicopter would land and drop off a load of Army Rangers. Already nearly the entirety of Alpha Company, 2nd Rangers called the Station home. While none of the Operators on base had been told exactly what was going on, whatever it was they knew it was going to be big.
Their speculation was brought to an abrupt halt when a baby-faced Naval Intelligence Ensign marched up and came to a stop in front of the team. The word ‘marched’ is critical to describe the young sailor’s posture, which appeared as if he had a size 9 stick in his size 5 ass.
“Master Sergeant Wyatt?” he inquired stiffly. The three members of Beowulf shared an amused and slightly quizzical glance while Moose raised his hand casually.
“Yo.” Clumsy passed off a chuckle as a cough at the officer’s annoyed expression.
“All Task Force Team Leaders are to report to the Auditorium for a mission brief.” His message delivered, the Ensign marched away in the same rigid manner as he had approached. The team watched him go, a disbelieving glance shared between them. Whoever had thought to assign such a man to Special Warfare had clearly been short-changed on brain power.
Moose drained what was left of his soda and hopped off the pallet. “See ya, handsome,” Lowball catcalled as he walked away. A pair of wolf-whistles were answered with an over-the-shoulder middle finger.
It didn’t take him long to find the auditorium. It was the largest above ground structure on base, and its three story height towered over the buildings around it. When he pushed open the door, he came face-to-face with a soldier carrying a clipboard. The soldier asked for his name, checked something on the board, and directed him through a set of large double doors.
When he walked into the auditorium proper, he saw the center sections of the first three rows were filled were filled with dozens of uniforms. Nearly everyone had already taken their seats, so Moose subtly made his way to an empty spot between a pair of SEAL team leaders. The clipboard soldier walked up the aisle to the stage and muttered something inaudible to an Army Major. The Major nodded and disappeared off stage for a moment before returning in tow of a Major General who Moose immediately recognized. Harmon Hicks was widely respected in the Special Operations community with a reputation as an officer who knew when to command and when to let go of the leash.
He had been an Operator in the Unit himself during the late 80s and early 90s before being promoted to command a Ranger battalion. Three years later he returned to the elite unit as its new commander before moving on to JSOC shortly before the invasion of Afghanistan. He had shepherded the Unit through the tense and complicated era that included a Central America entirely sick of American interference and the confusing genocidal melee that was the former Yugoslavia.
A SEAL in the front row called out, “Officer on the deck!” Immediately, everyone bolted upright, but before a single soul could straighten themselves fully the General was already waving them at ease.
“Sit down, sit down damn you,” he growled. The Major handed the General a small manila folder as the men returned to their seats.
“Three days ago, Flight 141 exploded in midair a bit south of this location. I’m sure you’ve all seen the reports on CNN but you haven’t seen what I'm about to tell you, which for obvious reasons is extremely classified. 141’s destruction was not an accident as is being reported. Through unknown means it is believed the inhabitants of the planet we have come to know as Margin Harvest managed to detonate the equivalent of just over 800 tons of TNT. It is also thought that the attack was intended to strike this installation. With these facts in mind, the people in charge have decided that inaction would mean too great a danger of future attacks. Therefore, the President has directed the Secretary of Defense to take any and all action necessary to eliminate this threat.”
The men looked among themselves in confusion but said nothing, preferring instead to wait for more information. Behind General Hicks a large hanging projector screen came to life with an image of the mapped areas of Margin Harvest. With a wave, General Hicks motioned for two men in the center of the front row to stand up and walk on stage. The two were Lieutenant Colonel Frank Liefner and Commander Jim Rustler, the commanders of the Delta and SEAL contingents at Dulce, respectively.
The three men, in conjunction with the AFO teams responsible for the observation of S-L-1, had developed a plan. The plan was ambitious and risky, and more than one Operator in the room held serious reservations. However, after four hours of exhaustive Q&A of a kind only possible in the Special Operations community, nearly every man present agreed that it was the best plan available.
That by no means made it a good plan, but it was the best they could hope for.
Bellwether was many things. She was an explorer, a leader, always the pony at the forefront. But more than that, she was an adventurer. Her Cutie Mark showcased her talent; a spinning compass in the center of question mark. She had braved the rough seas of the Marelantic Ocean to venture to distant Zebrica. She had roamed the Savannah with the Proudest Prides and climbed the highest peaks of the Oreamos Mountains to catch a glimpse of the reclusive monks who lived there. She had trekked for three months through thick jungle to find ancient Mareyan Ruins just to see for herself their mythical Doomsday Calendar.
Truly, there was no other mortal pony alive that could claim to have seen as much of the world as she had. In fact, a mare in Canterlot had even turned her adventures into a popular book series, the royalties of which had helped fund even more adventures which in turn inspired more books.
However, there was one place that Bellwether had never set hoof in; the Everfree Forest. It was ironic; she had grown up in a small town close to the Forest’s edge. She had earned her Cutie Mark barely a stone’s throw away in a canyon the locals called Ghastly Gorge, but her fillyhood fear of the Forest had always stuck with her. Normally fear was something she balked at, but for some reason she had never understood the Everfree was something she could never overcome.
Until one fateful day. She had been in a shoddy lean-to in the Farrier Rainforest with an insightful Zebra priestess, waiting for the torrential rain to abate so they could continue their search for the legendary Coliseum of the ancient Roanan Empire. During their journey, the two had grown quite close. When the storm struck, with nothing else to do, the two swapped stories of their past. Eventually the conversation had turned to where they had grown up, and Bell mentioned she had been raised not far from the Everfree Forest. It turned out the priestess had a sister living in the Everfree, and when Bellwether admitted with embarrassment that she had never managed to enter the Forest, her friend suggested that all her adventures were in fact her attempts to either escape from the dreaded woods or compensate for never having conquered it.
The thought had stuck with her. Months went by, and the more she considered the idea the more it seemed to make sense. When she returned home to Equestria, Bellwether vowed that her next adventure would be the Everfree or she would never step hoof outside her hometown again.
Her decision made and mind set, Bell summoned all her not-inconsiderable courage and set off.
Three days later, she actually left her bedroom. Another week, she made it to her kitchen. A month and a half brought her into her front yard.
63 days after her ‘journey’ began, Bell’s mother, thoroughly sick of having to bring her daughter all her groceries, managed to convince/encourage/nag her daughter to the edge of the Forest. The only thing Bell feared more than the Everfree was her mother in a bad mood; the mare could subdue a Hydra with a single look and a few disappointed shakes of her head.
With the dark trees of the wildest woods in Equestria looming over her, Bellwether closed her eyes and moved one hoof forward. The first hoof was followed a moment later by another, then another. Before she knew it, Bellwether was a half mile into the Forest. A geyser of success erupted within her. Fueled by the feeling, Bell rushed headlong into the woods.
As the air rushed past her, a smile lit up her face. She spun around in fascination at every detail of the woods. Colors seemed more vibrant, the plants seemed more alive. Even the air felt cleaner, purer, simply better. Bellwether giggled as she frolicked in flowers, careful to avoid the infamous Poison Joke. As she played, she mentally kicked herself for not enjoying the wonders that resided only a short stroll away from her home sooner.
The feeling drained away from her when a distant, high pitched wail echoed through the trees. Again and again the sound reverberated until Bell lost count of how many times she had heard it. Curious, she pushed her way through the dense brush towards the source. The pulses of noise became more unpleasant the closer she got, but she pressed forward. She had already conquered her biggest fear; she wasn’t going to let a little loudness re-instill it.
Feeling even braver than normal, which for Bellwether is quite the statement, she kept moving. Her search came to a halt when the tone, which to that point had resonated at near-perfect intervals, ceased completely.
Confused, Bell continued towards where she estimated the origin to be. She saw only green vines and increasingly foreboding trees, nothing that even hinted at what could have given off the signal.
To her left, a branch snapped. Her eyes wide and her pupils the size of pinpricks, Bell froze. For a moment, the forest was completely still. Terrified and completely regretting her decision, Bell’s eyes darted back and forth as far as they could without her moving her head. There was nothing, only shrubbery and shadows.
Then she saw it.
She had nearly missed it; only her years and years of experience in dangerous places allowed her to pick up the faint outline of a biped. Spending frequent time in life-or-death situations tends to sharpen one’s senses, and Bell’s were honed to a razor’s edge.
Her instincts tried to take over, tried to force her to turn tail and run, but she pushed the feeling aside and held her composure. She knew that if she wanted to escape whatever it was that was staring at her from less than a half dozen hoof steps away, she needed to keep her head.
After several seconds of bated breath, Bell came to a decision; in this one instance, her instincts were completely correct. She needed to move and move fast. Whatever it was that was staring at her was obviously tensed and ready to pounce, and she knew next to nothing about it. So, with as much speed as she could muster, Bell turned tail and ran.
She made it only a body length before she skidded to a halt. Another creature was behind her. That meant they were pack hunters, and if she could see two there were probably at least two more she couldn’t see.
Surrounded and out of options, Bellwether snapped her wings out and launched herself into the air with all the force her legs contained.
Her hooves had barely left the soft Earth before something hard impacted against the back of her head. Disoriented and hurting, Bell’s wings flapped out of sync which only served to angle her fall. She landed face first in the dirt with her wings half folded from her unrealized escape. A rock found a place in her left front foreleg with a sickening snap and she wondered idly why she couldn’t feel the pain. Her musing slowly gave way to emptiness as darkness crept in from the edges of her vision.
Her last sight before the black consumed her was of a pair of unfamiliar legs and the sound of guttural growling.