Katie felt dizzy and she hadn’t even opened her eyes. Her face was on fire and her head pounded. When she tried to move, her entire body erupted into pain. She’d never felt like this before. Being shot at day in and day out; watching parts of her body being blown off and reconstructed by nanites; the sickening feeling of her consciousness being turned on and off like a switch? None of it compared to what she was feeling now. Her stomach turned over with fear. She rolled over and was violently sick on the floor.
She coughed and opened her eyes…and shut them again immediately. The light hurt more than the rest of her body. She lay back and tried to get a grip on the situation. She was inside a building; she knew that instinctively. She was lying on a soft and uneven surface. Some sort of cushion? Her helmet had been removed and she couldn’t find any of her weapons when she groped around for them. That was when she realized that her right hand was heavily bandaged.
She felt over the rest of her body carefully. She found a few lightly bandaged shrapnel cuts from that last rocket and a large amount of twisted material on her right side. Most of the right sleeve of her suit was missing completely. She let her hands fall back to her sides and tried to open her eyes again. Even the tiniest amount of light stung and she just couldn’t force herself to look around long enough to see anything.
In desperation and fear, she called out. “Nathan?”
There was no response.
“Nathan? Can you hear me?” she tried again, making an effort to keep her rising panic out of her voice.
“You’re awake!” she heard at last. Except it wasn’t Nathan’s voice. It was a warm female voice. Footsteps approached and a damp cloth padded her face with a soothing balm. “You had me worried for a while. You’re in rough shape but don’t worry, I’m going to help you.”
“Who are you?” Katie asked.
“I’m a friend. It’s going to be alright. I’m just trying to treat the worst of your injuries.” The voice was calm and gentle but her words were evasive. The cloth worked its way across her face and down her neck. The pain subsided in its wake.
“What happened? How…how bad is it?” Katie’s voice shook with fear and she tried to open her eyes again. This time, the cloth blocked her vision and they didn’t burn as badly, but they felt as dry as sand and she closed them quickly.
“I can’t be sure what happened,” the voice responded. “But as soon as I make sure you’re well, I’ll do whatever I can to help you find out.”
Katie waited for a second for her caretaker to continue. When she didn’t, Katie asked in a firmer voice. “How bad is it?”
She heard a soft sigh and the sound of the cloth being set in a bowl of liquid. “You’ve been burned over most of your body, although the clothes you are wearing took the worst of it. Your face was burned badly though. It will take a while to heal. Your hand…it’s bad. I have no idea what could have done this.”
The sound of her voice changed slightly, as if she had turned away. “Your friend, Nathan was it? He’s worse. We’ve done everything we can. It’s just too much damage. I don’t think he’s going to last much longer. I’m very sorry.”
Nathan!
Without thinking, Katie tried to roll out of the cushion she was lying on. Her body screamed in protest but she managed to get on her hands and knees. She forced her eyes to take a quick look around but only saw the wooden floor before they closed themselves against the light.
“Where is he?” she whispered on the verge of tears from the pain.
“Please, stay still. It isn’t good for you to be moving right now.”
Katie felt a restraining touch on her shoulder, trying to turn her back to the cushion. She batted it away with one hand.
“No! Where is he?”
The desperation in her voice must have swayed her caretaker because she felt herself being gently led across the floor. The floor was worn smooth but felt almost natural. When they stopped, she felt around and found the edge of a bed. She pulled herself up and groped until she found a hand.
She clutched it in her left hand and held it to her.
“Nathan? Can you hear me?”
“He’s asleep,” her caretaker informed her.
Knowing Nathan was nearby set her mind working again. Questions sprang up in waves. Why were her injuries being treated with such primitive methods? Bandages and balms? Was this a joke? And since when was an injury too bad to treat?
“Where is my applicator?”
“Your things are over on the table here.” The voice moved behind her, presumably to the mentioned table. “I didn’t want them to be in the way while we were treating you.”
“But why didn’t you just use the applicator? It’s not damaged is it?”
“I don’t think so…but I don’t know what it is you’re talking about exactly either.” An uncertainty that had been hiding just under the calm voice crept forward.
Katie was silent for a long time. “Who are you?” she asked at last.
“That’s something I’d hoped to explain after I’d had more time to think of an answer. As it is, I suppose it would be best to just get it out of the way.” The voice paused as the speaker steeled herself. “You are a human…but I am not. Things only get more complicated from there on in I’m afraid.”
Vanu! was Katie’s first thought but she quickly discarded the idea, seeing as Vanu wouldn’t use these methods of healing. Then she realized that there had been something odd about the other’s footsteps. There had been too many of them.
She turned to face the other and squinted at her. As much as it hurt, she was determined to see this mysterious creature. What she saw made her temporarily forget her pain. While she’d grown up hearing stories of alien contact and worked her whole life to join the research teams that would seek them out, this one came across as peculiar. It was a pony. But she wasn’t just a pony; this pony had a slender, cone-shaped horn in the middle of her forehead and a pair of wings. Not to mention that she was varying shades of purple.
Katie stared for a moment longer before her eyes started burning again and she was forced to close them.
~*~*~
“Mat!” a voice called in the distance.
Mathew groaned in annoyance and tried not to listen. He was asleep. Not that bullshit hibernation between deployments; real sleep. And he wanted to stay that way.
“Mat, wake up!”
He groaned again, but this time because of the pounding in his head. Where did that come from? He didn’t remember having any drinks last night. In fact, the last thing he did remember was being shot out of the sky…
“Wake up, damn it!” the voice yelled in his ear.
He was shaken roughly and his eyes flew open. At first, all he could see was white. But as his eyes adjusted to the bright light around him, he saw that he was surrounded by clouds.
“What the…?”
He looked up and saw Trevor. With one hand, he was holding onto the lip of a freestanding pillar that looked like it was made of some sort of marble. With the other, he was holding Mat’s arm. Mat looked down. Below him was several hundred feet of open air. He gasped and grabbed Trevor with his other hand.
“Glad you’re back with me.” Trevor flashed a cocky smile. “Another minute and I’d have had to drop you.”
Mat got himself up to the lip of the pillar and hung off the side to free Trevor’s other hand. He craned his head to get a look at their surroundings. All around them were clouds that stayed perfectly still and curled into fluffy clumps. Buildings rested on them, made of the same material as the pillar. Straight down were more clouds and beyond them, the ground. A column of smoke wafted up from what looked like the wreckage of their pods. The Amp Station was nowhere to be seen. The countryside was just hills and grass in all directions.
“How did we end up here?”
“Hell if I know. But we can’t stay here.” Trevor looked down apprehensively.
Mat looked at the buildings on the clouds near them. “I think I could get over to one of those and get inside.”
“And what about me? Gonna go buy me a plane ticket in there?” Trevor looked at him critically.
“I can’t carry you. It’s too far.”
“I’m not going to last forever here…and what would you do from there anyway?”
“I don’t know. It would give me time to think instead of hanging off this thing though.”
“Look, we need to get out of this and our best chance is together.” Trevor’s gaze was hard and he glanced at the ground pointedly.
Mat gulped once and nodded. “I’ll do what I can but you’ll have to hit first. Your suit is better equipped to handle a shock like that.”
Trevor nodded. He climbed over so that he was holding Mat from the front and signaled that he was ready. Mat counted to three before letting go and they fell into the emptiness below them. As they dropped, Mat gripped Trevor under the arms so that he wouldn’t slip off. Then he triggered the jump-jets built into his suit.
The initial shock knocked their grips loose but they kept hold of each other. Using the jump-jets in short bursts to slow their momentum, Mat let them descend.
Two hundred feet.
“Hey, Mat! We need to slow up more than this.”
Mat looked down but didn’t change the length of his jet burns. The wind whistled in their ears as the space between them and the ground disappeared.
One hundred fifty.
“Mat! We’re coming in too fast! My shields won’t take this!”
Trevor was yelling louder than was necessary to be heard. Behind his visor, he looked genuinely scared. It was a bit uncharacteristic, but Mat didn’t have time to think about it.
One hundred.
“Mat, slow us up! We’re coming in too hot!”
Mat watched the ground intently as it rushed toward them and made a few extra burns to kill their momentum, but still they plummeted.
“Activate your over-shields on my mark!” Mat yelled.
Fifty feet.
“Now!”
A blue glowing field enveloped Trevor as nanites rushed to create a net of solid force around his existing shields. Trevor stuck his legs out with his knees slightly bent to take the landing while Mat curled his back. Mat let his jets burn the rest of the way down and he watched as his HUD indicator blinked in warning about overheating. Then his HUD flashed red as they smashed into the ground.
His shields chirped at him that they were nearly spent and from his position directly on top of him, Mat could hear a similar warning sounding in Trevor’s helmet. Trevor groaned and looked around to confirm that he was still alive. He looked up at where Mat lay on top of him.
“Get off of me man.”
Mat eased himself off and grinned at him. “I guess you don’t like it like your sister.”
Trevor pushed him over backwards as he rolled into a sitting position. “Shut up. Nice flying by the way. Do you mind trying not to turn us into pancakes next time?”
“Sorry that I don’t know how to turn off gravity. I’ll fix that right away, Sir.”
He saluted sarcastically and got to his feet. He offered Trevor a hand and hauled him up. They looked around and saw nothing but unfamiliar land for miles. The wreckage of their pods was a short distance away though, so they decided to check for anything salvageable. Of course, there wasn’t. Fire had scoured the pods clean and anything flameproof had been crushed.
“Well, this isn’t my first vacation pick,” Mat said, slumping against the side of the pod wearily.
“It’s not my last one.” Trevor replied, still trying to spot familiar landmarks that might tell them where they were. “Damn, I can’t see anything.” He put his hand to the side of his helmet to access the com channels. After a moment, he let his hand fall away. “Coms seem to be dead too.”
“We can’t wait here forever,” Mat observed. “I vote we head for those mountains to get a better look around.” He pointed off to the northwest.
“I’m not really in the mood to be climbing any mountains right now. If we head toward those trees, we’ll have a good chance of finding shelter. Then, when we’ve got our heads on a little straighter, we can see about getting back to somewhere recognizable.”
“You’re the boss.” Mat picked himself up again and they marched off.
~*~*~
When Major Gadrik woke up, he didn’t realize he was awake right away. He could hear the wind playing gently and the grass rustle in response. They were odd sounds to him but somewhere in the back of his mind he found them peaceful. After a while, his mind realized he was hearing real sounds and wasn’t doing anything about them.
With a grunt, he rolled over and pushed himself up on his hands and knees. He was immediately overcome with dizziness. He growled at it and looked around. If he’d still been a raw recruit, he’d have laughed at the contradiction he saw.
The short, broad hill he was on was raised above the surrounding land with a stunning panoramic effect. The tall grasses of the fields around him curled in a gentle wind and a flight of song birds winged away above him. The sun shone down from a depthless sky over the trees of a distant forest that swayed in slow motion to the backdrop of painted mountains. In the foreground of all of this, laying face up in the grass ten feet away, a squirrel perched curiously on its chest, was the MAX suit. The war machine looked so serene where it nestled in the meadow.
“Corporal? Are you still with me?” Gadrik said over the coms.
Nothing.
He got to his feet and checked his weapons. TRAC-5 carbine, NS-44 Commissioner Pistol, his Nanite Repair tool, a pair of grenades, a pair of Claymore mines, his ammunition case, his squad deployment beacon, a MANA Turret deployment module, his chainblade: he went through the mental checklist as he patted himself down. Everything seemed to be there.
He walked over to the MAX, a hand on his head to stave off the last of his dizziness. The squirrel darted away toward the nearest stand of trees. He nudged the suit with his boot and called to him again, without the coms this time.
“Corporal! Get up if you’re in there!”
The head turned slowly to look at him and then down at itself. With a hiss of hydraulics and the whir of servos, he lumbered to his feet.
“Where are we at sir?” the synthetic voice asked.
“I have no idea,” Gadrik replied bluntly. “But procedure states that our first objective is to reestablish contact with Command.”
He flipped through the com channels, trying to get a response. He tried all of the standard channels and even the restricted channels his rank gave him access to.
“Nothing. Either the coms are still down from the EMP or we’re not where we’re supposed to be.”
The silence coming from the MAX told him eyebrows were being raised behind the mask.
“I mean farther than I thought possible. If we’re outside of coms distance, we might not be on the same continent. There are several that haven’t been linked up after all.”
“How could that be?” the Corporal asked. “If the continent isn’t linked, how could we have ended up on it?”
“I don’t know,” the Major admitted.
“And even then, there’s no pad here to teleport to. How does that even work?” The MAX spread its arms in exasperation.
“I don’t know!” Gadrik shouted. “We need to find out and that’s what we’re going to do. Now, first things first. Tell me if everything is working…besides the coms.”
The MAX performed a sort of range of motion shuffle that might have been a dance if it had been able to get through the steps faster.
“Everything seems to check out, sir. My HUD is a bit glitchy but it’s mostly the map overlay. I still have proximity detection, the friend/foe tags seem to be lighting up correctly, and all stat meters are responding.”
The Major nodded, confirming that he had noted the same on his own systems. He was about to speak again when the MAX started and spun around towards the tree line.
“Wait! I’m getting something.”
He and Gadrik froze as two figures emerged from the trees. They were indistinct at this distance but both were brightly colored; one blue with a prism of color behind it and the other yellow with pink. Voices carried up to them.
“Come on ‘Shy.”
The response was too soft to be heard clearly.
“At least come out from behind the bushes.”
They both started up the hill. The blue one walked confidently and the yellow one followed hesitantly. Now that they were closer, Gadrik could tell that they were not human. They were slightly larger than a big dog but looked like some kind of horse. Even more, they both had wings tucked at their sides.
“Lock and cover!” Gadrik barked. He swung his TRAC-5 up and leveled it at the approaching figures.
“But sir, I don’t think they’re going to…”
“Lock Corporal!” he ordered with a sting of impatience.
The MAX widened its stance and the legs deployed anchoring spikes. It held its arms out menacingly and hissed with its settling weight. The blue horse froze and the yellow one dove behind the other.
“Hey…uh, h-how are you two today?” the blue one asked with a faltering attempt at a casual tone. It glanced between Gadrik and the MAX apprehensively.
“State your allegiance and intentions!” Gadrik commanded.
The blue horse eyed him suspiciously.
“We’re Equestrian?” it said, as if not sure it had understood the question. “And we were only saying ‘hi’. I mean we were wondering what you were too, but that can wait, I guess.”
The MAX lowered its arms and deactivated the anchoring spikes. Gadrik rounded on him.
“Did I give you permission to stand down, Corporal?!”
“No, sir. But they’re obviously not hostile. I don’t even think they could hurt us.” It shrugged its shoulders.
“That is entirely beside the point.” Gadrik raised a finger and shook it at the MAX. “You will not, under any circumstances, make that kind of assumption until given permission by the ranking officer. They could be decoys of some kind or tricking us into thinking they’re not hostile to catch us unprepared. How would you know?”
“Hey,” the blue horse said, stepping forward to get their attention. “Can we stop all of the shouting and just talk instead?”
They both looked at it.
“You know, ‘cause you’re bothering Fluttershy here,” it went on, gesturing at the huddled yellow and pink mass curled up behind it, whimpering occasionally.
Gadrik regarded them both thoughtfully. Finally, he sighed in concession. “I guess we can stand down. Besides, getting on good terms with the locals might even be advantageous.” He then addressed the horse. “Do you have somewhere we can go so we’re not in the open when we talk?”
“Sure. As long as you’re not going act so mean.” It gave them both an appraising look.
“Yes, yes. We’ll keep a truce for now,” Gadrik nodded.
“Good. Come with us back to Fluttershy’s. It’s closest.”
The blue horse nudged the other one up and got it moving back towards the trees. Gadrik and the MAX followed after cautiously.