At first, all I knew was pain. My vision was extremely blurred and tinged with red and black. I couldn't see an inch in front of my face. I could hear a voice though, muffled and a bit panicked. Then the memories of what happened came back to me as quick as my vision. With it, came a major headache. 'Thank god I was wearing my helmet," I thought. The sound of my Ghost, Sparks, sighing with relief caught my attention and I looked in his direction. He was floating next to me, no worse for wear. He must have transferred to my armor during the crash.
Sparks looked at me and spoke. "Thank goodness. You know, for a human, you're alot more durable than any Exo."
He chuckled when I simply shot him the bird.
"Well hello to you too," Sparks practically laughed, "You know, I should inform you that we are now stuck. It'll take a while to fix the ship. The fabricator is shorting out so you only got your weapons and armor for now. Ammo is fine too but anything larger than what I listed is out of the question, which means no Sparrow. There's no vehicle network here either so it'll have to be dropped off and picked up by the ship at close range."
"Perfect...." I sighed with frustration. "Could you get the license plate of that Skiff that hit us?" Yeah I made a joke, laugh all you want. I'm not totally humorless.
"Well," Sparks began to reply, "There was no skiff.... just a meteor shower. You did pretty well getting us through that alive. Autopilot can only do so much."
"Remind me to ask Holliday about it..... ugh. She's gonna throw a fit about the Valkyrie isn't she?" I groaned.
"Most likely. You know how she is about her pet projects. Eh just tell her that it stayed in one piece and saved your life. That and fixing it as best we can will probably get her to like you more loverboy."
"Go fuck yourself...." I growled.
Sparks simply laughed.
I rolled my eyes and just went with it before moving on to a more serious matter. "So how bad is the damage?"
Sparks sighed. "Unfortunately, all left engines are wrecked so we'll have to use the blueprint to rebuild them almost from scratch. You can blame a bad reentry angle for tearing it up more. Fabricator is shorting like I said earlier. Transfer beacon is still intact though so we can enter and exit the ship as we please. Sensors are working fine, but there's some kind of energy field jamming long range capability up. We can only see to the closest edge of this forest. Life signs all around by the way, some look like territorial predators.... or most."
"Oh great...."
"Just watch your motion tracker and your step, we'll be fine. It's not like they're one of the Hive's Hallowed Wizards or Hallowed Knights."
"Or those Cursed Thralls," I shuddered at the thought of them.
"Eris would be very unhappy to hear you say that you know. You're supposed to be above fear of those things," Sparks reminded me.
"I still kill them on an almost daily basis don't I?" I reminded him.
"Good point. Anyway, Cockpit and controls are untouched and undamaged. Railgun on the right is a mess though. We'll have to rebuild that. Come back without it and Holliday will have our heads.... so to speak.... I don't have a head. Sparrow is damaged and can't be repaired till the fabricator is at least partly back up to par. Speaking of which, that's the first component we should fix. It's the one that can be of most use during repairs and material transfers after all."
"It'll take time.... and resources. Looks like our Relic Iron is low after putting together all those jumpship mods. Spinmetal too, damn. Will we have enough?"
"Not for every fix. We'll have to stop by Mars and the Cosmodrome back in our solar system for collection unless we find any of that out here. Though there is some good news. Had to jettison a crate of the metals anyhow and with any luck, it survived the fall."
I gave Sparks a glare.
"Will it help if I told you that we would have died without losing the extra weight?"
My expression softened to a simple frown. "Well.... I guess we're stuck here till the mission is done anyhow.... Any sign of Fallen activity?"
"They're still a good ways out so we won't have to worry about them scouring the wreck. Caught images of other planets in the system by the way, one showed signs of something similar to Relic Iron on the surface. We briefly passed it during FTL before sensors got jammed up."
"Well.... then we may have a way to replenish supplies.... How far off is the jettisoned crate?"
"Not too far," Sparks said, "Roughly half a click behind us, well within sensor range. Bad news is that it looks like it fell into some kind of nest..... creatures it belongs to look big..... and angry. Flight capable, venom delivery method present. Don't let em pierce your armor."
"Well I suppose we were gonna encounter em sooner or later..... Transfer us out with the scout rifle, shotgun, and the machinegun," I stated, resolved to claim what's rightfully ours and fix my ship.
"Alright then.... you sure we can't bring the rocket launcher?" Sparks asked tentatively.
I shook my head. "No dice on that. Can't risk starting a forest fire. Could be sentient locals out here for all we know and hurting the ecosystem badly enough could hurt them."
"I knew I chose wisely," Sparks chuckled.
I couldn't help remembering what he said after our first meeting with the Speaker and smiling. He was referring to his choice of Guardian. "Come on buddy," I said as we transferred outside. "Let's find our resources."
We set out, the rising sun shining down on us from our left.
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Equestria, Equis. February 16th, 0800 Hours
The Elements and Spike now gathered in the throne room, each as anxious as the other. Twilight had sent a message to Celestia last night about the strange phenomena. Luna was the one to respond directly, explaining that it was indeed not within her plans for the night's meteor shower. Celestia and Luna were on their way now with a company of Royal Guard. A knock on the front door caught their attention.
"I got it," Spike said as he stood and ran to the door. He soon returned to the throne room with Celestia, Luna, and, surprisingly, Discord as well, who promptly received a hug from Fluttershy.
"Sorry I'm not here under better circumstances Fluttershy. I would honestly prefer a small tea party over this mess," Discord pouted.
"Not your kind of chaos?" the butter pegasus asked.
"No not in the slightest. I much prefer strange creatures and turning houses upside down.... oh and turning the lake into a skating ring in the middle of summer." He chuckled.
"Let's not forget your thing for chocolate rain and cotton candy clouds," Fluttershy giggled.
Everyone laughed at that one.
Spike was the next to speak. "Hate to break this up but.... there's still smoke coming from Everfree and everypony in town knows it by now."
"True enough," Twilight sighed, "I hope there isn't a major forest fire...."
Celestia smiled, "Worry not Twilight, we saw no such thing on the way down."
"We did witness a strange object at the impact site however," Luna explained, "Though what it is, I cannot guess at such a distance. Closer examination is required."
"Better not pose a threat to mah friends or family," Applejack muttered.
"If it's a monster, I'll kick its flank!" Rainbow exclaimed arrogantly, but was promptly sat back down with a magic tug on her tail and glare both from Rarity.
"We do not know if it is a monster, meteor, or other such item. Brash behavior is not called for," the fashonista stated matter-of-factly.
Celestia looked to Luna before addressing the others. "While there are many possibilities, we must still exercise caution. Luna and I have felt strange energies coming from the general direction of the impact site."
"You too?" Twilight frowned, "That can't be good."
"We know not if this bodes ill or well Princess Twilight," Luna explained, "We will play this cautiously and by ear as the saying goes. No brash actions," she finished with a look at Rainbow Dash, who crossed her forelegs and huffed indignantly, causing Spike to snicker.
"Should we go now?" Twilight asked.
"Indeed," Celestia replied, "And a small team of Royal Guard shall accompany us while the rest remain to form a perimeter around Ponyville."
Twilight nodded. "Alright then."
Pinkie bounced excitedly. "ANOTHER ADVENTURE!? WOOHOO!" she exclaimed, causing the others to smile and roll their eyes good naturedly.
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The forest was silent around my crash site.... Must have scared the animals off. Out here though.... talk about annoying ambient sound. It was still comforting in a way. It meant my only problem was local wildlife. Nothing else was spooking them.... though I was still cautious. Fallen could have arrived earlier than expected and could be sneaking around out here. 'I hope not' I thought to myself as I continued to stalk through the forest.
"Never thought we'd be going farther than the Reef...." Sparks suddenly muttered. I still heard him of course since he was actually in my armor (I still don't know how that works).
"Look at the bright side, at least we aren't eye deep in Vex," I whispered.
"I wonder how long it'll be till we see them here..... Maybe we should send a message back to the Tower, call for backup."
"I'd rather not. Too many ships and Guardians arriving all of a sudden and any locals would probably panic and think us a threat," I explained.
"How is it you're so wise about these situations?"
"For me.... I guess it's just common sense.... I don't wanna scare anyone that may be living on this world. By the way, have you noticed how much like Earth it is here?" I asked in wonder.
"Would now be a good time to tell you that the orbital infrastructure here is almost an exact copy of Earth's. Only difference is that it's Geocentric," Sparks said, dropping the metaphorical bombshell.
"You're kidding me right?"
"Nope."
All I could do was walk on in silence after that, half alert, half speculating about how impossible this world is right now. A not so distant roar brought my train of thought to a crashing halt as I dropped into a low crouch and went on full alert.
"Not alone anymore now huh?" My ghost murmured. God how wrong I wish he was.
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Equestria, Equis. February 16th, 1130 Hours.
A roar echoed through the forest, more savage and angry than usual. Distant, but still audible to the now alert party of ponies and princesses.
Celestia looked around warily. She knew about how dangerous this forest was. "Stay alert," she quietly reminded the rest of her party.
"Yes Princess," came the compliant response of one Sergeant Windbreaker, the accompanying squad leader and sharpshooter pegasus. Celestia found herself wondering if they should have come armed with more than shortswords and crossbows though.
"Hey over here," one of the lower ranking guard's called as quietly as he could, "I think I found it!"
The party rushed to a clearly artificial clearing of burned and felled trees. What sat in the middle was what grabbed their attention though. A strange, arrowhead shaped object sat partially dug into the ground before them. Partly burned, black and yellow in color, yet it gleamed as if it was made of metal. A hollow, metallic sound coming in response to a gentle knock on its surface confirmed that.
"What is that.....?" Fluttershy wondered, half fearful, half curious.
"Ah don't know sugarcube.... but it ain't natural," Applejack responded.
"It looks artificial..... and if so, it also looks damaged," Twilight stated as she completed her initial, visual analysis.
"Could it be a Space Ship?" Rainbow asked in her childishly curious manner. Thing is.... Twilight didn't think she was far off the mark.... and apparently neither did Celestia.
"I think so....." the day princess confirmed, "But if so.... where is the owner?"
"Princess!" Windbreaker called, "Got tracks here."
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"Tiberius.... fair warning, sensors at the ship picked up what could be sentient creatures now headed our way..... they found the ship already and may be following any tracks you left behind."
"Well....here's hoping they're friendly."
Screams from behind answered us.
"Wildlife attacking confirmed sentient beings! What's the play!?" Sparks asked as he materialized in front of me.
I didn't need to voice my answer. Sparks dematerialized and returned to my armor as I turned around and began rushing back the way we came.