ENTRY BEGINS. 2nd YEAR OF THE GRAND AGE OF EQUESTRIA
Furious Storm-Qrow awoke to the sound of blaring sirens and rumbling. He could feel the floor beneath him shaking, as he tried to push himself off it, groaning as he slowly rose.
"Admiral Fyndral report." he ordered, trying to shake the blurriness from his vision. He received no response from the naval officer and this concerned him, the man was normally permanently aware of everything that went on around him and an order from his Primarch was something only a fool would ignore. Attempting to rise to his full height, he looked around the bridge and saw:
Equines. Some in officer's uniforms, some clad in ceremite plate and some melded into robotic frames. Qrow could only blink. He'd seen many strange things in his life: an Ork wielding a gretchen with a spike through its face as a weapon, an Ork Deff Dread bouncing around on a giant spring, an Ork tankbusta' using a gun that fired rocket-propelled bomb squigs. Come to think of it, most of the weird things he'd ever seen had been 'invented' by the Green-Skins. But this was on a new level, multi-coloured Equines in Imperial uniforms lying-unconscious-on the tiered floors of the Excalibur's bridge. He went to give himself a thorough look-over, but only got to seeing that he had hooves, a pair of feathered wings and a horn, before his attention was drawn back to the crisis at hand - er hoof.
He moved to one of the command consoles, moving the knocked out officer from his seat, and sitting down there. His hearts dropped into his stomach when he read off the holo-screen that the Excalibur was caught in a planet's gravity well and was being pulled in fast. Qrow began desperately applying commands to the ship through the console he was sat at, but was distracted from this when he heard a pair of groans, one from near the Master's Table and the other from behind a row of consoles on the opposite side of the bridge from Qrow. He recognised the two rising men by their attire - Captain Dragoon and Admiral Fyndral.
The latter had a beige coat and a greying black mane & tail, that were both short and spikey. His eyes hadn't really changed, a stark white with small pupils, that always had a look that pierced into one's very soul. A short horn was protruding from his head, conical and spiralling out from his mane.
It would have been hard to tell Dragoon's mane and coat colours, since he was almost completely covered in armour, however it was this 'almost' that revealed the truth. A pair of silver-grey wings emerged from his sides, just beneath his backpack and a blood-red, short, scruffy tail was attached to his rear.
"Dragoon! Fyndral!" Qrow exclaimed, relieved to see that they didn't appear to be injured in any way. "Move with haste, I need your aid!"
"Lord?" the Admiral asked in a daze. "What happened to the ship?!" he shouted, seeming to get his priorities mixed up a bit.
"We're entering atmospheric conditions." Dragoon stated bluntly, manoeuvring himself behind another console and began checking the state the ship was in, seemingly ignoring his new form and putting protocol first. "We'll need to engage impact and void shields if we're going to survive re-entry."
"Fyndral re-route all directional controls to this console and all propulsion to Dragoon's. Captain you'll be commanding our thrust on the way in." the Primarch ordered his subordinates. "I'll also need you to active void and impact shielding, Fyndral."
"All ready done lord."
"Good, now open the bridge blast-shields. And keep me informed of any situation that arises." With that Qrow took a firm hold on a control column, that was normally used for manual docking, but had been reconfigured for these circumstances. "Full thrust Dragoon, let's get free of this dive."
The Excalibur rocketed forwards and began to angle its prow up, in relation to the planet below. The ship began to judder and rock even more as it entered the atmosphere, its hull glowing bright orange as it met air resistance. A few seconds of intense shaking later and the star ship had successfully entered the planet's atmosphere, an action that was quickly followed by an earth-shaking sonic boom. The thirty-six mile long ship was now being acted upon by the planet's ten g's of gravity and it was easy to see as structural stress caused the entire ship to groan and moan as forces it was never meant to experience pushed upon it from all directions. But the Excalibur was strong and held together despite never being designed for sub-void conditions, but now it was moving stupidly fast and the ground was approaching quickly.
"Drop thrust to twenty percent!" Dragoon complied, pulling the thrust lever back to almost idle. "Find me somewhere to land, Fyndral."
"We're currently above an expanse of ocean lord, but we're hastily approaching land. I'd advise touching down before then." the fleet admiral called back to the Primarch. Nodding his acknowledgement, Qrow turned to Dragoon.
"Activate all retro-boosters along the top of the ship, push us down lower."
"Aye lord." the small, blue retros that lined the ship's spine burst into life and began to force the vessel down through the air. Breaking through the clouds, the ocean that Fyndral had spoken of came into view, a vast expanse of black under the night sky, like those which had once covered Terra. But Qrow knew better than to think they'd be safe just because he couldn't see the land from where he was.
"Give me a view from the prow of the ship!" he yelled, this ship was thirty-six miles long after all. Before long one of the window panels of the bridge's main view port became a holo-display and revealing that from the front of the ship, the shore was a very short distance away.
"Divert all impact shielding to the bottom of the hull and prow!" Qrow yelled upon seeing what the display had to show. He pulled back on the control column, raising the ship's nose even further, but it was too late. The Excalibur's prow slammed into a headland, the shields preventing the ship's prow from being damaged, however they didn't stop the massive jolt from shaking the entire ship. Throughout the craft ammunition, weaponry, supplies and ponies were sent flying into walls and doors or simply tossed out of breaches in the ship's gunmetal-grey hull.
The Excalibur was now digging a trench through the land, its impact shields working so hard they were burning, white hot. Now there was nothing any of the three stallions on the bridge could do. The ship was digging so deep into the earth it was impossible to pull it free again and while Qrow wanted to stop the ship as soon as possible, he knew he had to get the entirety of the ship on land, or risk any of the breaches in the hull letting in sea water. So he did all he could do, hold on and let things play out as they willed.
It took about three minutes for the ship's mighty engines to begin passing over land and by this point the prow had begun to veer off to the right. The Excalibur was now swerving across the land, digging an even wider trench through the ground.
"Lord!" Fyndral called from the other side of the bridge, clinging onto his chair and console for dear life. "We're approaching a pair of mountains, the gap between them is just shorter than the length of this vessel!"
"Perfect." Qrow said to himself, before yelling: "Dragoon, kill the engines!" the astartes complied, bringing the thrust lever back to idle. The Primarch then turned the wheel on the column about ten degrees clockwise, the directional boosters on the upper half of the ship's port-side ignited and tilted the vessel in the same way as the steering device in its bridge. This increased the forces working to stop the ship, slowing her quicker. Upon reaching the inclined areas at the base of the mountains on either side, the Excalibur had lost most of her momentum, finally skidding to a stop in between the two mountains - huge chunks of earth and stone continuing to roll and bounce down the new slope formed against the ship's port side.
Fyndral let out a relieved sigh, finally relaxing as the forces being exerted on his body subsided. Qrow didn't hesitate from doing his duty - standing up and beginning to bark orders at the bridge crew as they slowly came to. He turned to Dragoon as the captain slowly approached him on all fours.
"Contact all of our leading officers and tell them to meet in the main strategium. We need to discuss this predicament in detail." Dragoon nodded his confirmation, turning to leave the bridge, before the Primarch stopped him. " And tell Kyron to start investigating the issue of our transformation into equines."
"I'm sure, if he's awake, that our chief apothecary is already on it." even though he couldn't see it, but Qrow could feel his friend's smile from beneath his helm. With that Dragoon turned, once again, and made his leave. Once the captain had left the bridge, Qrow trotted, heavily, towards the left side of the bridge's main view port, over looking a massive expanse of grassy plains with a few mountains in the far distance.
For a second he felt a bit uneasy, as if someone - or something - was watching him from those distant peaks. He removed his matt-green helm, it was decorated with a golden pair of eagles wings forming the mouth plate and had a golden crest of an ornate broad-sword protruding from the forehead. Qrow stared into the shadowy-red eye lenses of his new helm, it had changed with him when they'd entered this realm and now looked distinctly equine, but he still recognised it as his helmet, crafted for him by his brother - Ferrus Manus - almost a century before.
"Father, were you aware this would transpire? Was that why you sent so many colony ships with our fleet? Or is this just as far beyond you as it is me?" all questions he knew he would, probably, never hear answered.
(3 Ship-Board Hours Later)
The group of leading officers had assembled in the Excalibur's main strategium, just as Qrow had ordered, and were all standing around the large, round hololithic-display table that was located in the centre of the massive, mostly windowed chamber.
The Strategium of the Excalibur was located in the vessel's sleeker middle section, along its central spine. It protruded as a large, rectangular tower, from the mass of spires and cannons that was the ship's back. On either side of it were a pair of twin-linked volcano lance cannons, aiming dutifully forward - towards the enemies of the Imperium. One of these cannons was currently being removed and replaced, as it had bypassed the maximum number of times it could be fired, 1,500 shots. Qrow stood watching the process of the fusion core being removed from the armoured rear of the cannon. The sound of metallic hoof-steps distracted him from his observation and he turned to look upon the approacher.
"All leading officers aboard the Excalibur have arrived lord Qrow." Dranzer's mechanical voice rasped, from the mouth plate that was permanently grafted to his face. "All are accounted for." he always gave the impression that he was talking into a vox transmitter. He had shadowy-grey fur and a thin layer of golden-yellow mane atop his head. An incredibly short tuft of tail protruded from the backside of his green, Cataphractii Pattern Tactical Dreadnought Armour and his golden left greave shone in the light of the room.
"Thank you Dranzer." Qrow nodded in thanks to the first captain, and began to make his way towards the table. Gathered there were: all four of The Beasts Of The Storm, Fleet Admiral Fyndral, Commissar General Arcstos Node - leader of the Imperial Army Forces, Fabricator General of the Scarred Swords Xaylicth Talboran, Weapons Master of the Excalibur Rogmorun Bask and the Excalibur's chief Navigator Null. Qrow looked to all of their faces, from the identical colour schemed heads of the twin beasts, to the hooded mesh of metal plates and pipes that was the face of Talboran, all of whom possessed large, feathered wings. The royal purple coat and black mane of Draciel to the pale turquoise fur and wire mane of Rogmorun, both of these soldiers possessed a horn atop their heads, like Fyndral
"Well." he began, "Let us have council." They spoke of everything, the condition of the ship, their galactic location, the lack of communation with the main fleet, the defences they'd set up in the land around the ship and of course the casualties suffered during the battle with the enemy. The second of these topics was completely unknown, with the planet they were on was like no other in the whole of Imperium space.
"That brings us to our next point of discussion lord!" Node shouted, in his blaring, over-zealous voice. Qrow groaned internally, the general had always possessed the extraordinary ability to annoy the Primarch, every time he opened his artificial jaw. He had a darkened-red coat and mud brown mane and tail, finely cut in the ways of the Imperial Army and like Dranzer, he had no wings or horn. In Qrow's eyes, he didn't posses many redeeming qualities: Every word he spoke was at highly increased volumes, he was incapable of keeping his opinions to himself and every opinion he gave involved throwing a battalion of soldiers and armoured support at something. Also it was rather annoying that they'd already gone over this point several times before during other topics of their discussion and it had even been discussed thoroughly, but since they lacked any definitive response when it came to handling the enemy, Node was constantly bringing the topic up and it was really driving the Primarch the wrong way.
"We've already been through this Node." Qrow repeated, for the twelfth time. "We lack the Intel on the enemy to strike against them, we don't know their location, we don't know their strength, hell, we don't even know if any of their forces survived translation. So, for the last time, drop it!" he put force into his last statement, attempting to make it clear that he didn't wish to discuss it further.
"But lord if we can use the fleet's scanner's we can find them!" Everyone reacted differently to this: Draciel face-hoofed, Dragoon rubbed his temples and sighed, Dranzer growled and Driger sniggered. Qrow felt like giving up completely, like leaving the ship and walking off towards those mountains, never to return. No one could tell if Node was ignorant or just plain dense.
"Admiral, explain to the General-"
"Commissar General, lord!" Node interrupted, apparently forgetting the existence of ranks above his own and formality. This left Qrow slightly bewildered and Dranzer's temper began to rise.
"Explain to the Commissar General, why we cannot do as he suggested." Qrow growled impatiently, although he tried to hide it.
"The long range vox arrays are damaged. We can not contact the rest of the fleet at this time." Fyndral told the leader of the Army, doing his best not to insult the man in the process.
"Then we cou-!" Node began before Dranzer cut him off.
"OH SHUT-UP, YOU INSUFFERABLE LITTLE WORM!"
"Zerith!" Draciel started, but he too was cut off - by a knock upon the door.
"Enter." Qrow called quickly, not wanting his highest ranking officers attacking each other.
A ship serf stumbled into the room, stopping next to the Primarch of the Scarred Swords and saluting.
"Lord Qrow, an army approaches." he panted, probably having run most of the distance between the closest observation tower to the strategium, which wasn't quite long enough to allocate the use of the ship's internal transport system, but still quite a long way.
"The Apocalyptians?" Dragoon asked urgently, taking a step towards the stallion and holding out an armoured hoof for the data slate he had.
"No captain, they appear to be native." said the serf breathlessly, giving Dragoon the hoof-held device. The captain of the sixth's emerald green eyes scanned the report, seeing key terms like: Pre-industrial era, monarchy, basic weaponry and medieval. He then gave the slate to his leader, for him to read over.
"I will deploy the Imperial Army immediately lord!" Node cried, standing up.
"NO!" Qrow roared, startling all of the non-astartes in the room. "I will take Dragoon and Driger with their companies. No other military force is to do any thing, I am I understood?!" aiming a glare at Node. All the men in the room saluted his orders and Qrow, the two aforementioned captains and several of the others left the room, leaving only Draciel and Dranzer left with the serf.
Draciel requested the data slate and then dismissed the stallion, as Dranzer made his way to one side of the room and watched the same volcano cannon that Qrow had been observing a view hours before, now illuminated by the morning sun, its golden panels shimmered and glinted in the light.
"Trust our Primarch's decision brother, if he needed your aid he would have asked for it." the captian of the eighth said reassuringly, flipping through the pages of information absent-mindedly.
"I am in perfect agreement with our leader's decision, that isn't what's bothering me." Dranzer growled his response, like a caged animal, ready to strike.
"Then speak your mind brother."
"It's nothing lad, nothing at all." the first captain sighed, making to leave the chamber.
"I will be here if your opinion on the topic changes." the younger astartes replied, shrugging his shoulders.
"Your maturity both astounds and seriously aggravates me, boy." Dranzer growled as he left, causing Draciel to smirk as he kept on reading - either heedless or careless of his veteran brother's genuine ire.
Princesses Celestia, Luna, Cadence and Twilight Sparkle stood at the forefront of an army of about six thousand ponies, most of whom were clad in gold armour plating, but there were a few who wore a dark purple and some others who were wearing the magnificent armour of the Crystal Empire. Celestia and Twilight were in the same colour as most of the force - shining gold, while Luna wore the same royal violet as her thestral warriors and Cadence shone like the small detachment of Crystal Ponies in her glimmering plate of quartz.
To say they'd been shocked to see the immense, looming hulk of the Excalibur was an understatement worthy of only that mighty vessel. Everypony who saw it would instantly go pale and begin to feel weak at the knees as its shadow dwarfed them. The young, purple and green dragon known as Spike, gulped and began to shake in his armour.
"W-w-w-what is that thing? Some s-s-sorta giant flying castle?" he asked the princess who's back he was riding upon.
"We don't know Spike." Celestia answered for Twilight, when the younger Alicorn failed to find her voice. "But we WILL find out."
[ENTRY ENDS]