//------------------------------// // earth part two. Get ready to drop // Story: Recovery ten // by Carmine Prophet //------------------------------// “Tonbay Two-three, bogies on your six, Redline one-one moving to engage.” Onyx said as he followed the Quarian fighter into a debris field. “I’ve got tone. Redline one-one, Fox two.” The longsword fired a Medusa missile at the Reaper fighter destroying it. He then formed on the Quarian fighter’s wing. However As Redline squadron fought the Tonbay was then hit by a stray Reaper laser. “This is the Tonbay we have taken damage requesting assistance.” the Quarian ship pleaded as one of its engines exploded. “Tonbay this is Harbinger actual. Move to boarding position on out right side, i repeat aft side. Redlines three through seven will guide you in.” the harbinger said and after a pause the captin of the Tonbay came back on. “Roger that Harbinger actual. Moving now.” the quarian ship then banked to the right and began limping its way to the harbinger. They were wondering where Redline was. “This is Romero one-one Requesting assistance.” Onyx heard a human’s voice come over the com. And when he looked he saw a human fighter being chased by three Reaper fighters. “Roger that Romero moving to…!” Onyx started before he was hit by enemy fire blowing a hole in his right wing and causing it to spew smoke as he continued to fly. “Negative! Negative! hostile engaged! Taking damage.” he quickly gave control of the fighter to Pandora and got on the 120mm Ventral gun he swiveled around and began firing at the offending fighter. His longsword started deploying flares and weaving through the ever increasing debris field. “Romero one-one, Cyanide one-one is inbound.” They haired a female voice say from the ancient craft. And to the human’s relief there were a series of explosions behind him and a strange looking fighter pulled up next to him he looked into the cockpit and saw a slight red glow from a ball on the console and no pilot. “Romero one-one form on my wing your ship has been destroyed.” The human pilot heard inside of his comm. “Solid copy forming on your wing.” the human said as he formed on the wing of the new version of the old 21st century F/A-37 Talon, the new version being UNSC F-66 Gladius. F/A-37 Talon “This is the Turian cruiser Tyrannous Requesting assistance, there is a Reaper on our hull. Requesting assistance.” “Roger that Tyrannous stand by MAC 1-0-1 heavy is inbound. Hold on its about to get loud.” The Turians in the Tyrannous were very relieved when the Reaper on their hull had a whole blown though it, unfortunately the explosion had damaged some of their systems. “Tyrannous you have taken damage to your power core. Move to our port-side and prepaid for docking.” another voice said with a strange echoing effect to it. Comping from the Harbinger. “Under stood chaining course.” “This the Normandy, breaking engagement moving to planet’s surface.” A voice said over the radio. Immediately Reach switched the HUDs of the 900 Wombat Drones off setting them to AI mode. He also sent a rallying slipspace message before doing a size comparison of the Normandy. “Normandy 100meters thats it?, Fucking small ass ship, Yacht class civilian Starship, Seriously they think its a frigate? Its like the size of two longsword put together, its a bomber.” reach said to himself as he scanned the Normandy “This is UNSC Super heavy-cruiser Harbinger to SSV Normandy SR2. Do you read?” Reach said over his radio. “This is Commander Shepard. Go ahead Harbinger.” a calm male voice said “We will cover your descent Normandy. This is harbinger to allied fleet prepare ground teams, and wait for our mark.” Reach said getting a conformation from the fleet. “Stand by.” They all heard as they waited they watched as all of the Harbingers hanger bays opened up followed by a series of flaps opening up on the bottom of the ship’s hull. “This is UNSC Harbinger to allied London forces clear the kill-zone. Redline one-one use Shiva class maximum yield, clear a path for the landing teams.” Reach said. “Solid copy, launching payload maximum yield.” Onyx said as his longsword fired its payload and made a sharp turn to return to the ship followed by the other HK units and the quarian fighters that had formed on his wing. They all watched as the missile flew into the middle of a large group of Reapers there was then a blinding flash of light. “We have cleared the kill-zone I hope you know what you’re doing.” They heard Councilor Anderson comment and when they all regained their vision they saw that where there once was a rather large group of Reaper dreadnoughts and destroyers was now nothing but a few pieces of molten, scrap, and a lot of radiation. “What was THAT!?” Shepard yelled summing up the questions of the entire fleet and the forces on earth, “That was a nine stage fusion reaction, 20 megaton thermonuclear warhead. The smallest nuclear weapon in the harbinger’s arsenal, and one of the smallest in the UNSC.” “Keelah why would someone make that!” one of the Quarian admirals pleaded. “Because we could. Oh you should see the NOVA Bomb it’s ungodly. It is a 4,825,774 megaton thermonuclear fusion warhead, encased in lithium triteride. When detonated, it compresses its fissionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. Oh it is so awesome I got so see it once. We call’em planet-killers.” Reach said with boyish glee “This is UNSC harbinger to ground teams, hold on to your teeth. Main cannon is locked on and ready to fire.” Dorian said “You heard the man this is harbinger.” They all heard Reach yell and just as there landing craft reached his ships side to pass it they saw it fire its main gun. “Clearing landing zone. This is harbinger actual beginning decent firing Super-Heavy MAC. AKA Hot pocket” They watched as a massive explosion rocked the front of the ship and they watched it fire its 3000-ton ferric-tungsten round at one third the speed of light. and too bad for the unfortunate Reapers that were in atmosphere that tried to ascend to engage the incoming landing craft when the round blow past them and impact the kill zone and make a three mile crater. “Did you just call it a hot pocket?” “Hay it wasn’t named before, and im hungry so its hot pocket.” The beta 5 merc said to his ODST team mate. “But you don’t need to eat?” “Fuck you.” “LZ is clear. Council fleet stand by for inbound support. You are clear to launch landing craft.” Reach said as Onyx docked his now damaged longsword with the Harbinger followed by the quarian fighters who easily fit in the expansive hanger bay. As he walked down the boarding ramp of the longsword to greet the quarians who were now beginning to exit there fighters. He he was glomped by Pinkie pie and Rainbow dash who had ran from the bridge to the hanger bay. “Onyxie you’re alright!” the pink mare yelled as she hugged him. The quarirans who were now all out of there fighters just watched the strange armored human on the ground with a strange pink armored creature and another in cyan armor. “Ya why would I not be?” he asked as he got up “Because your airship…” “Ah don’t worry about it those things are built like tanks.” Onyx said, the then others teleported to the hanger bay and ran up to the freelancer. “This is the Tonbay we are in position. This is the tyrannous we are in docking position.” they heard over the loud speaker. “Roger that, we will transport you to hanger bay twelve.” reach said over the loudspeaker “How will you...” they heard before about two hundred yellow pillars, of light appeared in the hanger bay “do that?” a strange scaly bird-looking thing asked before they all started freaking out. “Whats going on! Is this some kind of human trick?” that liked like a glorified jackal. “What are you going to do Turian? Make there race sterile to?” a large dinosaur looking thing said that looked like a cross between an elite, a brute, and a camel. “What? Don t you people have teleporters?” Onyx asked getting angry glares from there new guests. “Who is the captain of this amazing vessel?” the strange armored alien with a fishbowl looking helmet asked trying to calm the tension. “That would be me I guess? I am the highest ranking one here.” They heard a familiar voice say. “This guy looks like he could do some damage.” a Krogan commented when they turned around they saw Reach and Maine down with them loading weapons Reach with a new MA5D assault rifle, right behind them was a T-7T this thing really needs a name. “What are you doing here reach?” Onyx asked his Synthetic partner “Your mom.” he responded making the current occupants question the maturity of the captain of the most deadly ship in the galaxy. As they all watched as two fighters entered through the hanger bay door, One was a regular alliance human fighter, and the other was jet black with reverse facing wings it just hovered in the air before lowing it self to the deck. “Hay! I-i-is that a Gladius!?” Onyx yelled tearing his helmet off and pointing at the fighter. “Yes” “Oh my god! Thats badass!” Onyx yelled as he watched as Reach walked up to a combat kestral. “i dont get it what could possibly be appealing about such a garish contraption?” Rarity asked. “Well my dear...” Reach started, but before he could finish something just wired happened. “Reach! Onyx! Help me!” they heard spike yell. “What is it spike?” Reach asked as he gestured for Maine to go to a D96-TCE Albatross heavy drop-ship. The Krogan and the Turians followed Maine to the dropship. D96-TCE Albatross heavy drop-ship When they turned they saw spike but next to him was another purple dragon she like spike wore no cloths for some reason. Actually there were very few differences between the two dragons. The first and most obvious was the feminine build, next came the fact that unlike Spike who’s green spine things were smooth hers were actuality jagged. “Ok whats your name not-spike?” Reach asked the dragoness. “Im Barbara Sparkle.” she answerd. “Spike. Im going to give you five seconds to start explaining what happened here, before I shoot you in the head.” Reach said agitated taking his pistol off of its mag rail pointed it at spikes head. “Reach! I simply wont allow you to harm Spiky wi...” Rarity “Fine. Just dont finish the phrase It gives me a headache.” Reach said and let it hang by his side. She may have been his quote “girl friend” same with cadence and chrysalis sort of. But when they pulled shit like this they were relay lucky he was being payed to keep them alive. “Thanks Rarity.” Spike said “Alright. What were you doing before this happened?” Reach asked as he did a full scan with both his bio medical scanner from his DRN, Terminator hardware and did a full bio-scan with his helmets bio-com. Satisfied that she posed no threat he decided to walk over to the Combat kestrel and began the flight check as the others walked over to here the explanation. “Well I was walking around the ship. When I walked into a room.” Spike started “What was in the room?” Reach asked as he picked up a missile and loaded it into one of the pods. He had his helmet clipped to his waist as he worked. “Well I walked passed a cage. And in it was a weird looking bug thing.” “What did it look like” reach asked turning to them they saw a series of blue lines go across the right side of his face as he accessed the network. “it was a four-legged thing, about two to three meters long, it was yellow and black.The rear pair of legs were much longer than the two front forelegs. It had a big pincer like mouth and had side mandibles on the side of its head.” spike said after a small pause “ok here was it this? Its an Arachnid warrior they were one of the species we were fighting when the unsc activated halo. Any way continue” Reach said as a hologram of the worrier appeared in front of them. arachnid warrior “Ok well then it woke up and looked at me and it jumped at the cage and made me fallback and I hit my head on a computer. There were a lot of blue lightning bolts and it breathed fire in shock and then when I woke up she was here.” Spike explained. “I know what happened.” Reach said as he put his helmet on “What happened?” Barbara asked before anyone could ask. “simple. He activated the ships time distortion unit. What happened was he scratched his arm in the fall and activated the unit, and went back in time. When he landed his fire must have his his baby egg in one of its key stages of development. And if what my fictional knowledge of dragons is true you raised the temperature and made it a female egg. And since the device was locked on you from the present it brought you back and brought her with you because you both share the same DNA.” Onyx head bobbed. “You have Time travel!?” one of the quarians asked. “Well the terminators made them.” Onyx said plainly “Why?” “I dont know?” “This is fucking retarded! You quarians get in that ship!” Reach yelled pointing to two pelicans with an ED unit being loaded onto the back. “Seriously! I thought I left this dumb shit in Valhalla! Get ready to go planet side.” Reach yelled at them as he turned to walk into the the kestral. “Onyx I want you on the ground leading our troops.” he ordered getting a nod from his partner who ran over and got in a drop pod. “Barb you stay here with them, they will take care of you.” Reach said gesturing to the other residents of sidewinder. “But I want to come to spike got to see the other planet. And My names Barbara.” the Dragoness corrected. “Ya to bad and that takes to long to say your name is Barb.” Reach said annoyed. “Ok But im telling you it wont stick.” she said Barb! "Trust me it'll stick." “Yay we made a new friend!” Zeta yelled as Reach turned to walk inside of his kestrel passed the small passenger section. “Shut up Zeta. Alright People harbinger is going in on the second wave. Stand by for launch.” the resadents of equesrtia heard him say as the kestral started to lift off. They knew better then to question Reach when he was getting serious since last time, they turned and began walking away as the hanger door opened and the aircraft in the hanger began to lift off. “So Barb what was it like where you were from?” Twilight asked but when she got no response she turned to see she wasn’t with them “Hay where is Barb?” she asked. “This is Freelancer Reach to all allied units. This is it second wave advance.” they all heard and saw the kestrel rocket out of the hanger door followed by Romero. “Oh no.” Celestia commented. “Come on you apes!, do want to live forever!” every one in the fleet heard as they watched as Reaches Combat kestral lead the attack.