While Ishmir busied himself pulling the camouflage off the SCALPEL and running detailed visual checks, Marko was taping together improvised demolition charges. They had brought quite an arsenal with them from Reach and their supplies of explosives and ammo hadn’t run dry yet.
That just left Twilight Sparkle to prepare her own gear. She had requisitioned a set of armored booties for on her hooves and had added a sleek ballistic collar to her tac-vest just in case. Now while they were preparing for their initial assault on the Covenant Kraken, she laid out a mat and disassembled her pistol. All the pieces were lined up and organized with obsessive tidiness and Twilight took each piece one by one, cleaned it if it needed cleaning and oiled it if it needed oiling.
Since killing her first brute and insisting on holding on to the weapon with which she had done it, Marko in turn insisted she at least learn how to use and maintain the M6C/SOCOM “Automag”.
For example, she learned it was an offspring of the M6C magnum, modified for covert operations with built in tactical optics and a silencer. She learned even though the standard M6C ammunition would work, the Automag reached its optimal killing potential when chambering 12.7x40mm M228 Semi-Armor-Piercing High-Penetration rounds. Twelve per magazine to be exact.
She even learned the weight in her telekinetic grip when it was loaded and unloaded, the tiny variations in the weight even told her how many rounds were left in the magazine.
As Marko said, once Twilight mastered it the M6C/SOCOM wasn’t just a gun anymore. It had become a part of her.
As quickly as she took it apart with the purple glow of her magic, Twilight Sparkle re-assembled the pistol, slotted one of the mags in place and chambered a round before clicking it into the holster under her wing.
She still needed a primary weapon though, something with a little more punch. So she levitated what Marko had assigned her out of one of their duffel bags.
Ishmir descended from the SCALPEL cockpit and dusted off his gauntlets, approaching to see how she was doing. “Did Marko give you a primary weapon yet?” he asked.
Excitedly Twilight turned with a smile, levitating the rifle in front of her. The poor pony looked ridiculous hefting an SRS99 sniper rifle that was longer than she was. Marko certainly had a sense of humor.
“Right.” Taking the weapon from the confused princess, Ishmir knelt by the duffel bag and replaced it with something a little more her size. “Try this instead.”
The MA5C was the UNSC armed forces bread and butter. It was as much a part of the corps as boots, jeeps and tasteless coffee. It was a weapon of modest size, fired a hefty caliber that could punch holes through a brute and was accurate enough up to two-hundred meters. Practical over fashionable, the assault rifle suited Twilight Sparkle down to the ground.
At least until she saw what Marko’s customary shotgun could do to Covenant. Ishmir was sure she was likely to ask for an M90 next.
Twilight took to the MA5C like a duck to water. She had the magazine in place and the system cycled with barely any instruction. As for taking it apart and cleaning it, like with her pistol Twilight turned out to be a quick study. Ishmir only had to correct a few mistakes she made putting it back together again, but after that she was field stripping, racking, tapping and sighting targets like a Spartan.
Smiling at the rifle cradled across her chest, Twilight looked like she wanted to say something for a long time. Eventually she looked up and spat it out. “Thanks Ishmir.”
“For what?” the headhunter asked rising to his feet.
“For everything. For coming back to Equestria. For helping, even though you really don’t have to.”
“Thank me when we kick the Covenant off your planet.”
Twilight nodded. “I will. But just in case something happens to me before then…”
“Hey,” Ishmir knelt again and put his visor close to Twilight’s face. “Nothing is going to happen to you. You got Marko watching your back on the ground and I’ll be keeping my eye on you from the air.”
“I know. Just…” she slowly leaned over and put a small kiss on the side of Ishmir’s helmet. “I want you to know I’m grateful. No matter what happens. No matter how this goes.”
He couldn’t really blame the girl for wanting to make sure everything was in order before going into combat. Ishmir had to admit there had been a few times he’d been in a fight and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be going home.
“You girls finished gossiping?” Marko’s coarse tone cut right through the conversation.
Looking up, Ishmir and Twilight saw their olive clad compatriot swagger up, one shotgun hefted over his shoulder and demolition packs attached to various hard-points on his armor. He was like a walking IED ready to rain a hellstorm of hate and discontent on anything that stood in his path.
“I dunno about you,” the walking explosive hazard said, “but I’m ready to get some killing done.”
The inertia dampeners made the neck-snapping acceleration into the air feel like nothing more than a light vibration of the SCALPEL airframe. Twilight Sparkle wouldn’t have known she was even moving weren’t it for the landscape zooming by the sealed canopy.
She was in the rear seat on Marko’s lap just like their last flight. Ishmir was in the pilot seat, expertly manipulating the nimble aircraft to his will. But even so, Twilight couldn’t help feel a little unsafe, considering their sheer speed and the tightness of their corners curling around tall trees and mountainsides.
Even though it stood many kilometers away, the smoking remains of Canterlot on the horizon glode smoothly by until Twilight Sparkle had to crane her head just to spot the capitol.
“It’s okay to be scared,” Marko said so suddenly, and for a moment Twilight Sparkle had no idea why he’d spoken.
Then she realized she’d been nervously tapping her hoof on his armored knee with irritating persistence.
The alicorn quickly shook her head. “I’m not scared,” she answered almost too quickly. Marko just shrugged though.
“I didn’t say you were. I’m just saying it’s okay.”
Twilight huffed. “You never get scared.”
“Actually I do. I always get scared in a fight.”
“You do?”
“Yup. Even Ishmir does.” Marko patted the back of Ishmir’s seat twice. “What did Lieutenant Ambrose and Chief Mendez say to us about fear, Ishy?”
The other headhunter didn’t take his eyes off what he was doing as he answered. “Don’t let your fear of what could happen make nothing happen.”
“The worst decision you can make in a firefight is no decision.” Marko let that sink in a moment, then added, “Stay close. Watch my back. And if it moves; fuck it up.”
Twilight nodded firmly. “Got it.”
Leaning over to one side she could peek around the back of Ishmir’s seat. She couldn’t see the Spartan very well, but she could see where they were going.
Ghastly Gorge wasn’t just a winding gorge of grey rock anymore. It was a canyon. Levelled out by the Covenant siege tower, the canyon featured steep sides almost a kilometer in diameter. The original gorge snaked out one end towards the north-west, and out the other end to the south as well. But at the heart of it now was a bowl of what looked to be water and pebbles the size of houses.
And there in the midst of it, grinding earth to dust and shifting the rubble aside to burrow itself deeper was the Kraken.
As per the namesake, the mechanical beast was quite like an enormous squid – and if any scholars would disagree they couldn’t deny it still looked like a tick stuck on the face of Equestria. Purple running lights pulsed across the craft as it rocked gently from side to side like a skyscraper veering with the wind.
It disappeared under them as the SCALPEL overshot. Ishmir immediately rolled them to one side and orbited high above the craft. Through the gaping bay doors it was possible to see the currying of aliens clambering for the fixed gun emplacements and weapon racks erected on the main deck.
“They’ve spotted us,” Ishmir noted with a casual glance downward.
Marko gave the thermal scopes a glance and confirmed hot-spots forming around some of the plasma cannons. They were heating up to repel the fighter. But the Covenant would have to be fast to keep up with Ishmir’s flying.
He tightened their roll and peeled out of orbit, nosing the SCALPEL straight at the Kraken. In response a trio of banshees shot up from the deck, but their formation was scattered. Ishmir pushed them straight through the midst while spooling the forward facing machine guns.
“Guns-guns-guns,” Ishmir causally reported as he squeezed the trigger and rolled the SCALPEL at the same time.
The guns roared and raked bullets across the hull of the Kraken. He tweaked the pedals and nosed his shots across the deck, perforating several Covenant infantry before he overshot the target. The fighter screamed past the wobbling siege tower with only meters to spare before Ishmir rolled them upright and pulled out of the dive.
They swooped low, just over the three thrashing limbs grinding up the earth underneath. As he ascended them back to deck-level with the Kraken he eased off the throttle. The thrusters vectored, widening until the VTOL engines took over. The thrusters by the sides of the cockpit angled downward and ignited with similar nacelles flexing to life near the tail end of the craft.
The transition from flight to vertical hover was the kind of smooth that would have DC-77 pelican pilots drooling with envy. Marko barely noticed until he realized the scenery wasn’t a blur. Ishmir had them lined up just outside the Kraken.
Plasma crisscrossed the nose of the craft as Ishmir opened up with the chain guns again. This time he hit more than on his first pass. He took care to aim, swiveling as he did, punching grunts out of the shade turrets and turning the scattering infantry to paint. While he did he edged them into the shadow of the Kraken’s towering canopy.
“How will we get down there?” Twilight asked as Ishmir brought them in, slow but steady.
“Feet first!” Marko shouted. “Ish?”
“Stand by!”
Ishmir hit a release lever over his head and the cockpit canopy parted down the middle, the rear half sliding backward with the front part covering him sliding forward. With the canopy out of the way, Marko immediately stood in his seat.
With Twilight Sparkle cradled in the crook of his arm, the headhunter swung his legs out of the cockpit and caught the edge with one hand, planting his boots on the side of the airframe. Twilight couldn’t help look down at the dizzying height of the ground very far below.
Then the Kraken’s main deck slid into place as Ishmir brought them in.
“Ready!?” Ishmir cried over his shoulder.
“Ready for hell!”
“Drop in three…”
The guns roared again, cutting a brute in half and forcing the aliens under it to scatter.
“Two…”
Ishmir swiveled to one side and tore through the exposed flank of a shade turret, killing the grunt inside.
“One…”
Strafing sideways, Ishmir banked for his exit, lowering as best he could to the deck.
“Drop-drop-drop!”
Marko’s gauntlet opened and he slipped from the SCALPEL. A moment later both he and Twilight fell free, soaring straight down to the deck. The world moved in slow motion as Ishmir banked on hard, growing the gap between them. Twilight slipped from Marko’s grip as he straightened out, folding his arms over his chest. The alicorn immediately spread her wings, drifting slightly out of his flight path and slowing her descent slightly.
When she hit the deck, her armored hooves sparked and she curled into a ball, rolling with the sideways momentum carried over from the SCALPEL. Ishmir had already nosed the fighter craft out of the Kraken and took off with a quick burn of the main engines.
Sliding to a halt on her side Twilight saw Marko had hit in a similar fashion. Only when he curled, he rolled over and landed on his feet with enough orientation to pull his shotgun off his back with a single clean draw and unload the first shell into a nearby jackal.
Her erratic heartbeat was numb. She was pretty sure she wasn’t even breathing anymore. There was no pain, no joy… just that razor-edged focus she descended into whenever she started a new book or study.
Scrambling to her hooves Twilight Sparkle whipped around and levitated her assault rifle forward, tweaking the trigger and holding on tight. She raked an accurate five round burst from the mid-riff up across the chest of a grunt forcing it to topple backwards over the open side of the Kraken. By the time the alien had vanished from sight she had turned and emptied the magazine into some other aliens that dove down a ramp leading below deck for cover.
Holding her rifle across her chest, Twilight’s finer tendrils of telekinesis dumped the empty magazine and brought a fully loaded one from one of the pouches on her tac-vest. At the same time she looked back and levitated a grenade from the back of Marko’s belt while he put rounds into another gaggle of fleeing aliens.
“Throwing a grenade!” she cried, priming the device and throwing it. Though ‘throw’ was perhaps overstating it.
The purple glow of her magic didn’t fade until the grenade was position right above the ramp, so technically she dropped it on top of the aliens below. The device detonated with a thump, muting the sound of her racking her assault rifle, and the force of the detonation, and the follow-up explosions of undetonated plasma grenades, threw several dead aliens into the air.
One jackal did a rag-doll cartwheel into the side of one of the shade turrets, panicking the grunt at the controls. Instead of turning the device and hosing the duo the alien jumped from the turret and into Twilight Sparkle’s sights.
She put it down with a trio of rounds to the side of the head.
“Shade down on this side!” Twilight reported putting down another grunt as it made a run for the empty turret.
At the same time Marko leaned backwards as a burst of plasma from another shade skimmed his shields. “Push on your side! Go!”
Her hooves only skidded a few millimeters before she found enough purchase to throw herself into an assaulting sprint. She only deviated when she spotted a flash of plasma coming her way, letting the bolts sizzle into the deck or weapon crates littered across the space. Her MA5C remained level as she ran and fired bursts on the move.
A jackal’s head snapped backwards and it rolled down a ramp. Another grunt followed as it went to check on its superior. Finally Twilight closed the gap between her and the shade turret and she leapt forward.
The turrets were situated on the edges of the deck, each standing on a little dais to give it a little more elevation. Oval shaped energy shields gave the device some cover, while the operator in the hot seat relied on the spherical hull of the device for the most protection.
Despite the exposed sides and the risk of getting showered by the other turrets, Twilight Sparkle either didn’t know or didn’t care as she landed in the pilot seat of the shade.
Her hooves immediately found the control yolk and she swiveled the long forward facing plasma guns to a squad of Covenant rapid responders ascending to the main deck. It seemed to be a squad of mostly brutes supported by some jackals with the circular shields. They would really mess with Flintlock’s momentum.
Until Twilight found the trigger.
Each belch of plasma caused the turret to slightly kick and buck in its anti-grav moorings. But her aim remained mechanical and true as she hosed the re-enforcements with plasma. Shields and armor systems exploded out of existence along with the agonized screams of the unsuspecting aliens. Several of the brutes dove away, their fur singed or burning. The jackals on the other hand disappeared in the opening salvo, turned to vapor or sticky piles of charred flesh.
“How’s Warlock doing down there?” Ishmir asked on coms just as the SCALPEL shot past their position. It was followed quickly by a trio of banshees struggling to keep up with the loops Ishmir was flying around them.
“You should see her, Ish!” Marko whooped as he stuck his first demo-pack to the back of the turret, Twilight Sparkle still pounding volley after volley into the Covenant. “She’s a fuckin’ machine!”
She leapt from the turret as Marko primed the explosives and readied her assault rifle again. There was a lull in the fight, but it was only brief. And by the time Twilight had exchanged a glance with Marko the plasma was flying again. Two of the brutes who had been forced into cover before they popped like corn on an open fire leveled their weapons and opened fire. One plasma rifle hummed and the other spike-rifle barked sending a mixture of solid and energy based projectiles shooting overhead.
Twilight Sparkle and Marko rushed forward without thinking twice. Marko’s personal shield flashed as several plasma bolts evaporated against the golden barrier. Twilight had erected a shield for herself as well, the spike projectiles flattening against it with each impact only having a slight ripple effect across the purple barrier.
Both of them leapt from the dais the shade was perched on and soared right at their targets. Twilight was shooting as she flared her wings and crashed hooves first into the first brute with the spiker. She wasn’t impact, but the downward force of her wings propelling her forward was enough to flatten the alien under her. Flat on its back the brute was then finished off with a half-a-dozen assault rifle bullets to the face at point-blank range.
Marko had sheer mass on his side with his collision with the other brute. He crushed it into the deck and swiftly cracked the stock of his shotgun into its face. Teeth splintered and the solid mandible bone snapped like a twig before Marko followed up with several more strikes to cave in the creature’s face and end it with an executing shot to the throat.
Glancing over his shoulder and calculating the distance between them and the shade, Marko muttered; “clear!” His suit sent a detonation signal to the primed explosives a moment later and the first shade disappeared into a cloud of fire and smoke. Debris pinged off the deck beside them as the duo rose for the next round.
One turret down. Marko and Warlock reloaded and got back to work.
Ishmir gunned it, maneuvering aggressively – jinking up and down, performing quarter rolls, dropping to the deck and pulling up at the last instant to avoid crashing headlong into a wall. They weren’t the type of aerial moves reserved for a casual cruise. With the three banshees persisting on his tail, and the other two ahead lined into his sights the aggressive corners and rolls were a necessity.
The targeting reticles lined up in his HUD went green as he closed on the tails of his prey and a tone rang through the cockpit. He immediately thumbed the missile controls and the aircraft responded with a satisfying ‘thunk-thunk!’
Two missiles dropped from the SCALPEL’s belly, each propulsion unit igniting a second later to push the projectiles one after the other faster than the fighter travelled. The white missiles streaked, curling to track the first banshee before the first hit.
An explosion bloomed off the port side of the banshee, a film of energy shielding separating the detonation from the hull by a few millimeters. The banshee was plucked out of the air by the force, tumbling sideways as the shields died and the second missile hit it head-on.
The craft disappeared into a cloud of fire and debris as Ishmir punched past the spiraling wreckage to close the gap on the second enemy fighter. He squeezed the yolk trigger when the cannon reticule lit up red and let a hail of armor piercing rounds fly.
The banshee’s shields – already weakened by the close proximity loss of its wingman – popped out of existence and the hail of machine gun fire tore through the alien fuselage. It bloomed into a fireball a moment later and Ishmir was pretty sure he saw the remnants of the brute pilot streak screaming past his cockpit.
A volley of return fire caught his attention, dozens of plasma bolts splashing over his starboard wing. The SCALPEL’s own shields flickered from a hail of debris peppering the airframe as well as volleys of plasma trying to box Ishmir in. He rolled a quart and pulled hard into a tight turn to try and throw his pursuers off. They tracked through and kept up with his movements.
That was until Ishmir punched the angel-wings countermeasures.
Banshee pilots didn’t have a glass canopy like Ishmir had. He would know, he’d flown banshees himself on some occasions. And he knew the alien pilots relied entirely on sensors to fly and track targets without crashing into the ground or being blown away. So he launched several volleys of flares that burned with the intensity of flashbang grenades.
Aptly named, the countermeasures threw the flares into a horizontal and downward pattern so that with the light and the smoke it looked like the fighter had just sprouted a set of angel’s wings. Wings that burned so bright it washed out the banshee flight monitors for a moment.
Just a few seconds to be exact, more than enough time for Ishmir to yank the throttle back and hit the air brakes.
Rolling, Ishmir looked up in time to see the three banshees overshoot him, missing his hull by mere centimeters. And before the brutes inside could have figured out what he was doing, Ishmir was behind them, gunning it to match their speed.
He was spamming them with a hail of cannon fire and had launched three air-to-air-missiles before the banshees could maneuver.
A trio of explosions lit up the sky, downing two of the banshees before the last led Ishmir into a dive. Limping on flickering engines the banshee made for the deck, but only halfway there a missile caught up with it and put the craft out of its misery.
However, when pulling up, Ishmir felt his eyes widen.
A shadow slid over the canopy first, and then one of the Kraken’s rock crushing limbs came into view, bearing down on the SCALPEL.
“Oh, not good!”
He rolled and dropped under before expertly righting the fighter and pulling up before he pancaked into a cluster of boulders. The Kraken’s mechanical tentacle connected with the ground, spraying debris and dust in Ishmir’s wake as he throttled full tilt towards clearer skies. But as he did several more patrolling banshees slid into view. Two more dropped onto the scopes on his tail.
As quickly as he could take out Covenant air defenses, more seemed to show up for every few he destroyed.
Throttling into the next scrap, Ishmir heard Twilight Sparkle’s voice on the squad-comm.
“Turrets are down. We’re just mopping up the infantry now,” she said between audible bursts of assault rifle fire in her mic.
“Copy that, Warlock. Good job.” Ishmir quickly switched out channels to not to spam comms between Marko and Twilight. “Flintlock-One to Solar Flare-Actual. Anti-air defenses are down, but I’ve got major aerial resistance in the area. I advise you wait one until I can thin out the banshees, how copy?”
Princess Celestia’s response was immediate and resolute. “Your advice has been noted, Spartan Ishmir. Prepare for immediate support.”
Ishmir rolled his eyes. “Of course my advice is simply ‘noted.’ Stubborn freakin’ princesses.”
Ishmir had just lined up his next targets when a pair of energy lances sliced through the banshee and its wingman. One lance was of golden sunlight, the other of pale night-sky coloured magic. Chasing the beams of energy and swooping under the spiralling wrecks of the alien fighters were two figures.
Princesses Celestia and Luna swiped across the SCALPEL’s nose and dove wings folded towards the Kraken.
Checking his scopes, Ishmir spotted two of the three banshee’s on his tail peel away. The Spartan wasted no time in throwing the SCALPEL into a tight turn to engage them.
Ahead the princesses’ wings spread and the pulled out of their dive to circle and survey the Kraken. The banshees tracked and unloaded bursts of plasma fire. But the alicorns proved to be nimble fliers, pulling into dives and turns that would shear even the SCALPEL in two.
As if reading Ishmir’s mind, the princesses stuck together and doubled back, forcing their pursuers to roll and boost to catch up. But by then Ishmir was on a perpendicular intercept course and he let a few hundred armor-piercing rounds fly.
The banshee shields flashed out of existence and the two fighters dropped out of the sky, not even exploding until they hit the ground.
The pedals under Ishmir’s feet rattled as a volley of plasma hit his tail rudders. Pulling up sharply, Ishmir maxed out the throttle, swooping dangerously through the open bays of the Kraken. The moment he passed out the other side he eased off and pulled a tight turn, glancing back in time to see the banshee had tried to follow.
One of the craft’s stubby wings caught on one of the decks as it tried to exit and the small fighter turned into a burning pinwheel.
His tail clear for the moment, Ishmir spotted several more contacts closing in on radar. Judging by their heading they were a wave of re-enforcements deployed from the carrier.
“Re-enforcements incoming,” he reported. “I’ll keep the fighters off you. You focus on the Kraken.”
He spotted Celestia look past one of her wings and nod. “Affirmative. Stay close, sister.”
“I am on your wing.”
Following her older sister closely, Luna dove after Celestia towards the base of the Kraken where the three mechanical tentacles met. Ishmir in the meantime pulled up and darted to meet the banshees head-on, guns blazing and the targeting computer struggling to keep up as he spammed the enemy with missiles.
Meanwhile the princesses found a section of hull and laid into it with everything they had. Celestia’s face was a mask of motivation and strife as she focused the majority of her energy into a single focused attack. A wide beam of golden light was joined by the crackling energy bands of Luna’s magic and they struck a single point at the Kraken’s base.
The light was so bright it washed out Celestia’s vision for a moment. But when she refocused she saw the Kraken’s hull shielding splash and ripple as the alicorn relentlessly assaulted it.
A stream of plasma bolts cut past Celestia and hit the side of the Kraken. She didn’t look so not to avert her focused aim, but she shifted her eyes just enough to catch the sight of a banshee lining up on them. It must have slipped past Ishmir’s assault… but only for a moment.
An explosion bloomed off the side of the banshee, throwing it off course before it was perforated by focused machine gun fire. The SCALPEL fighter slashed by moments later with a pair of banshees close on Ishmir’s tail.
Celestia focused on her job as Ishmir pulled out of his steep dive, the remnants of the banshee fighters on his tail. He glanced over each shoulder as he spun into a tight slalom. The two banshees tracked and persisted, firing bursts from the main plasma cannons that flashed over Ishmir’s wings.
No matter how he rolled and spiraled though, the brutes on his tail proved to be competent pilots.
Diving to the left as a fuel rod shot whipped past his right flank and struck a cluster of Everfree trees on the gorge edge, Ishmir decided this was getting old.
“So you guys don’t wanna play kindergarten rules?” he mused engaging orbital flight systems and stirring the RCS fuel tanks. “You wanna play juvie rules?”
He looked over his shoulder to confirm the banshees were nice and close, then punched the throttle and pulled sharply upward. “Let’s play juvie rules.”
The SCALPEL ascended quickly and the banshees followed, struggling to keep up even on a full boost, but matching the steep incline of his climb none the less. Anywhere Ishmir could fly, the banshees could fly. But what set them apart was Ishmir’s sense of imagination.
He spiraled, keeping the banshees guessing where to place their shots next, at the same time watching his scopes. The distance between him and the enemy grew. Thirty meters… forty… sixty…
At eighty meters Ishmir smirked and prayed this would work.
“I deny your reality,” Ishmir said to nobody in particular and stomped on one pedal while throwing the throttle back into the idle position. The SCALPEL stalled nearly immediately as he kicked the tail out to one side.
RCS thrusters fired immediately on maximum burn. While they weren’t as effective in atmosphere as they were in zero-gee, but they did the trick with a little nudge from the VTOL engines. The SCALPEL did a full one-hundred-and-eighty degree spin, lining the nose and weapons up with a pair of very surprised brute pilots.
“And substitute it with my own,” Ishmir finished saying as he lined his sights up on the banshees.
The banshees didn’t even have time to veer away. Three missiles head on gutted the banshee on the left and cannon fire turned the other to scrap a second later. The SCALPEL dropped out of the sky and past the exploding banshees a second.
Hitting the air-brakes, Ishmir eased the throttle forward again and pulled out of the stalling dive before he lost control, then made a controlled spiral back down to the Kraken’s airspace. As he spiraled down he pinged the comms.
“How’s it going down there, Solar Flare? I’m running out of ammo and my fuel has dwindled to half-and-hour.”
“We have cut through the shields,” Celestia responded. “But it will take too long to burn through the armor as well.”
Marko chimed in over a crack of his shotgun tearing through what sounded like a brute. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means we need a plan-B,” Ishmir explained as he levelled into a stable patrol of the area.
“Why doesn’t plan-A ever work? Now what?”
“There has to be some sort of heart to this machine. A power supply or something,” Twilight suggested. “We could focus our efforts there and take this thing down.”
“She’s right.”
Marko scoffed. “As usual.”
“Head below deck and see if you can sabotage that thing. I’ll clear some airspace and prepare for hot extract.”
“Rodge.”
“Incoming drop ships!” Luna’s voice suddenly interrupted.
Ishmir looked up and there were indeed more re-enforcements incoming. He didn’t even have to check his radar, the Covenant carrier was breaking its position from over Canterlot and was inching closer. A cluster of craft had dropped from its belly for another bout, this time the telltale sleek carapaces of phantom troop carriers escorted by a couple of banshee fighters.
“They must not be allowed to land on the Kraken until Spartan Marko and Twilight Sparkle complete their task.” Celestia called as she led Luna into the sky. “Spartan Ishmir, my sister and I shall focus on those troop carriers. Attempt to draw away their escorts.”
“Copy that.”
Arming the last of his air-to-air missiles and stirring the fumes in the fuel-tank, Ishmir punched the throttle and powered directly at the enemy formation.
Inside the Kraken was a deeper shade of purple. Not the Twilight Sparkle kind of purple. It had the kind of purple that would have looked quite at home in a hooker’s boudoir.
The halls and their support struts were was architectural as well, like a cathedral. It seemed to want to live up to the holy war that the vehicle was designed to wage.
Actually, no, not a cathedral; it was more like a nightclub after hours with the cleaning lights on, except the luminous mystery stains were the fluorescent splashes of grunt blood splattered across the deck.
Marko kicked one grunt in the chest, toppling the alien over for Twilight to materialize a bayonet of purple light pointed downward on the creature. The shard of glassy magic slid downward, slicing clean through the grunt’s neck, and after a few quiet kicks and hisses of escaping methane the creature stopped moving.
They had slaughtered their way through dozens of aliens and Twilight Sparkle was pretty sure there were still more to be had hiding in the dark corners of the Kraken’s underbelly, gathering for another push against them. But everything so far, from brutes right down to the grunts at the bottom of the Covenant pecking order had fallen before them.
Trying not to feel too overconfident, Twilight righted her assault rifle and stood ready, watching Marko’s back as he had originally instructed her to do. Marko in the meantime knelt and pushed his last bandolier of shells into his shotgun.
He had stripped down all the explosives he had been carrying, using the rest to demolish the shade turrets and uproot the brutes dug into cover. Behind them was a sea of eviscerated alien bodies. And ahead was a nearly empty chamber littered with the still forms of those jackals and grunts who had been placed on guard for the Kraken’s core.
The core itself was an orb of blue light set into the floor at the center of the siege tower. Pulsing and sliding around it were several curved beams of the same alloy the rest of the Kraken seemed to be made of. They span and tumbled like a bunch of concentric hoops around a centrifuge.
Getting to his feet, Marko gingerly approached the ledge and looked down. He glanced at Twilight, who shrugged.
Looking back down, Marko shouldered his shotgun and unloaded every shell he had left into the orb of light. Buckshot sparked and rippled across the core like projectiles splashing on a shield. Only his work clearly had an effect. The core turned yellow, then eventually bright red as if to visually register the damage that was being done.
Eventually though, Marko ran out of ammunition and holstered his empty shotgun. It took some looking around, but he knelt by a dead jackal and relinquished one of the blue orbs adorning the dead alien’s belt and gave it a testy toss.
“Is this still part of the plan!?” Twilight asked.
Marko shook his head and activated the plasma grenade. “Nope! Now I’m improvising!”
The grenade flared and pulsed like the blue core had been earlier and Marko threw it. The smart technology in the grenade registered the grenade had not hit a hard target and the grenade bounced. It however became wedged in one of the undulating struts rotating around the orb.
Marko quickly pushed Twilight into a corner and huddled over her, and a second later the grenade exploded.
At first it was like they had made a black hole. All the surrounding light seemed to have been sucked into the center of the core. Then a shockwave staggered the duo and made the deck of the Kraken buck like it suddenly wanted to repulse them from its confines.
The centrifugal hoops collapsed into scrap and disappeared from sight. Alarms were blaring a second later. Conduits hidden in walls exploded and hissed steam. Lights were flickering all over, some even blowing out and sparking viciously.
Standing, Marko quickly pinged his comms. “Ishy, I did something dumb! You ready for our extraction?”
“No time like the present!” was Ishmir’s immediate reply.
Twilight Sparkle didn’t need any telling. As soon as it was established Ishmir was on the way, she was running after Marko like the worst demons of Tartarus were nipping at her tail. It didn’t take a genius to realize that if they did not extract immediately they would explode along with every alien still left on the Kraken.
Marko caught the corner at the top of the final ramp and swung out of sight. Thundering after her, Twilight skidded on all fours as she attempted to match the sharp turn. She could smell the acrid smoke of detonated explosives and cordite on the outside air. Ash was raining across Ghastly Gorge, swept up from the gutted banshees and phantoms Ishmir and the princesses had been blowing out of the sky non-stop.
Ahead the SCALPEL was hovering low, just over the edge of the Kraken’s main deck. Marko had closed the distance and leapt forward as Twilight Sparkle scrambled after him. The Spartan slammed into the side of the cockpit and grabbed hold, hanging like he had when they dropped in.
He turned to look at Twilight just as a blur of motion collided into her side.
“Warlock!” Marko screamed, half contemplating to leap back onto the Kraken as he saw a jackal dive out of nowhere and tackle Twilight Sparkle to the ground.
However, even as he called out, Twilight proved to have the situation under control. Rolling onto her back she grabbed the jackal by the neck and pulled it off her, slamming it into the ground with her magic tugging her pistol from its holster at the same time. She shoved the barrel to its temple and put two clean taps through the brain.
The jackal went limp where it lay and Twilight scrambled back to her hooves, re-holstering the pistol as she galloped.
Marko reached out at the same time and Twilight leapt for it, kicking her legs for balance and flapping her wings as hard as she could for extra acceleration. A moment later Marko caught her by the hoof and she swung forward colliding with the side of the SCALPEL.
“I’m beginning to wish you were as good with your wings as you are with guns,” Marko said, effortlessly lifting Twilight up and into his arms.
Together they mantled over the side of the fighter and settled back into their seat before the cockpit canopy slid shut again.
“We’re in!”
“Secure and away.” Ishmir flicked three switches across the dashboard and punched the throttle.
The main thrusters narrowed and threw the SCALPEL forward. Rolling right Ishmir pulled up hard and spiraled them around until they were pointed straight upward. Gravity shifted and pulled Twilight Sparkle into Marko’s chest as they burned straight up at the sky.
Twilight turned and looked back at the Kraken. The various glyphs and running lights glowing across the hull flashed and flickered before dying entirely. Bolts of purple lighting arched across the siege machine and the limbs holding it up went slack. Teetering first, the Kraken then toppled and slammed side-down into the hole it had been digging.
A cloud of dust and rock consumed the Kraken for a moment, then as the dirt settled revealed the lifeless mechanical creature was dead.
“That’s it?” Twilight asked with surprise. “I was expecting an-…”
Light consumed the Kraken in an instant, flashing bright enough to put spots in Twilight’s vision. The Kraken exploded, spitting plasma fire and jagged chunks of debris into the air with a shockwave that shook the SCALPEL despite their range from the epicenter.
Twilight gripped the sides of the cockpit for a moment as they wobbled, but as Ishmir got it under control again she cracked a smile. “Ah, there we go.”
The explosion did not mark the end of the fireworks display through. As the Kraken debris was raining back down to the earth, the ground began to rumble and shake. Soil and boulders displaced as the world began to quake at a shattering frequency.
And a moment later it was like Equestria shattered.
Boulders the size of ponies were catapulted into the air, smaller pebbles rattling along the SCALPEL’s hull. Ishmir rolled from side to side, glancing over his shoulders to anticipate the incoming debris. But eventually the clouds were too thick and something hit them.
There was a grinding noise in the engines before the turbines rattled and choked. Something struck one of the wings, jolting them violently to one side before Ishmir was forced to level out a good distance under the cloud cover.
Looking down, Twilight saw a tear had formed down the centre of the crater the Kraken had dug, running almost perpendicular to the ends of Ghastly Gorge to form an X-shape in the earth. The crack widened, and then split down the edges, crumbling into the darkening abyss as more hairline fractures began to form. Finally a column of dirt and rubble sprayed into the air, mesas forming within an instant and geysers of soil bubbling and churning violently. Clouds of dust formed thick banks of mist that engulfed not only Ghastly Gorge, but a good chunk of the Everfree Forest that began to sink away into the earth.
And rising up out of its billion-year-old tomb came a structure the likes of which Twilight Sparkle had never seen before.
When the dust settled, Twilight could see what had pulled itself from the earth, but she couldn’t make sense of it. She blinked once, twice, and then finally unraveled the optical illusion of patterns, colors and shadow.
There were pillars and arches spread over the circular, disk-like base, elevated aqueducts; columned towers with crowns of three-dimensional alien symbols; a forest of sculpted geometries of spheres, cubes and tori spread over the base; outer walls folding up like the flaps of an aircraft to form erratic looking defenses – it was a vast alien city.
Four columns placed at equal quadrants around the structure rose up like enormous blades. Bits of rock and soil still cascaded off the edges of the construct as the pillars cut upward, disrupting the errant Everfree clouds and the tops faded into the blue sky beyond. Even as they hovered just a few meters above the surface of the city the lights and oblique surfaces on the towers reconfigured, constantly moving and shifting as if there was something inside working away at some mysterious task.
At the center of the construct was a recess, smooth alloy forming a gentle crater to where a black hole sat at the very center. A wavering, uneven orb of crackling blue energy was dwarfed by the surrounding architecture. The center of the orb seemed to fade into pure darkness, with a tiny pinprick of white hovering in the middle.
And only then did the scale of the structure register. It must have been at least three kilometers in diameter, larger than any single solid state building constructed by ponies that she knew of.
Twilight’s mind rebelled at the scale of this technology, the effort it had taken to construct such a thing and then bury it, only for it to excavate itself a billion years later. She glanced at Marko. While he intently studied the structure, he did not seem the slightest bit impressed.
“Uh, is that a fucking forerunner structure?” Marko finally blurted out after a pause.
Ishmir glanced over his shoulder, partially trying to confirm Marko’s analysis, partially struggling to keep the SCALPEL horizontal. “I’d love to make architectural comparisons and as soon as we land I promise to take metallurgical samples so we can be absolutely sure; however I seem to be having a little trouble flying right now.”
“Oh, well. By all means, focus on that.”
Twilight Sparkle couldn’t wait until they landed though. “What’s a forerunner?” she asked over the groaning airframe.
“Ancient aliens. Older than us,” Marko explained. “Older than you. Older than planets probably. Looks like they were here before ponies at some point.”
Before Twilight could properly process that brief yet rounded explanation, something groaned and there was the distinct wail of tearing metal. The reassuring hum of the engines died out all at once and a second they dropped like a brick. Bracing herself, Twilight clenched her eyes shut, but it did nothing to stop her stomach from jumping in her throat.
Marko felt every muscle clench as he dug his armored fingers into his harness. “Hey, you okay up there?” he snapped at Ishmir.
“We lost something.” Ishmir’s voice was irritatingly calm.
“No shit!”
The view through the canopy changed. One minute Marko was looking at sky and horizon. The next thing it all span and spiraled out of control. They were tumbling, diving nose first at the surface of the forerunner structure.
Another violent bump hit the SCALPEL and kicked the tail out, throwing them into a stalled spin. Casting his eyes sideways Marko spotted bits of shrapnel tearing from a battered wing.
“Oh, this is not happening!” he cried, bracing arms and legs to supplement his safety harness. “Don’t let me die like this, Ish! I got so much blood left to shed! So many aliens to kill!”
Ishmir didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed on the ground as he battled with the throttle and the yolk. The pedals were locked in place and no amount of stomping or kicking would un-jam them. The tail flaps were either locked or gone. And if the right wing’s perforated condition was anything to go by, Ishmir figured the latter was a safe bet.
In seconds the ground rushed in so close Ishmir could open a window and touch it. He kept himself braced, but didn’t look away.
“Brace for-…”
Golden light washed across the cockpit and the falling sensation in their guts turned into a tight swooping like the SCALPEL had suddenly pulled up at the last second. Impossible, Ishmir thought at first. All control was gone. There was no way…
Then he saw Princess Celestia drift in near their right wing, her horn aglow with the same magical energy enveloping the fighter.
“Impact?” Ishmir finished on a surprised note.
He looked down and saw Celestia had caught them mid-air and pulled them out of their lethal dive. With minimal effort she levitated them in place for a moment, then she gently set them down into the smoothest landing of the SCALPEL’s short life.
“Now that’s a landing!” Marko whooped as the SCALPEL settled into its landing gear and the magical light faded.
Leaping from the cockpit, Ishmir landed lightly and tipped a courteous salute to the princesses. “Much obliged.”
He caught Twilight Sparkle as she dismounted the SCALPEL and waited for Marko to follow quickly.
“And you were worried,” Ishmir chuckled.
“Oh, shut up,” Marko sniped back, just glad to have his feet on solid ground again.
In the meantime, Princess Celestia landed gently beside Flintlock team, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was following a fleet of phantom drop ships descending from the Covenant carrier’s belly. As the dozen or so drop ships left the airspace, a glow of white hot energy gathered under the prow of the carrier.
A moment later a beam of intense energy descended from the ship and connected with the earth, burning everything it came in contact with.
“They’re bombing the Everfree Forest,” Celestia gasped. “They intend to focus their efforts on burning us out now they have uncovered this alien structure.”
The princess seemed torn for a moment. Even as the blue pinprick that was Luna was already orbiting the carrier and sticking it with the might of her magic, Celestia seemed reluctant to take off. Her gaze turned into the forerunner structure with a mixture of awe and suspicion.
“What are the Covenant after?” she asked quietly.
Ishmir shrugged. “Flintlock is grounded anyway. We’ll focus on figuring this out. You and Princess Luna should focus your efforts on the carrier. We’ll call if we need support.”
Celestia considered this for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “Very well, Spartan Ishmir. Remain in contact. Twilight Sparkle; be careful,” she added lowering her head to Twilight.
Warlock met the princess’ affectionate nuzzle before Celestia turned and shot into the air, leaving just a dust cloud and a few fluttering white feathers.
She skirted around the phantoms as they flew in close. Either the aliens didn’t see the downed SCALPEL and the headhunters, or they didn’t care. The sides of the drop ships hung open to reveal the blood-thirsty troops within. And in one of the phantoms at the heart of the formation they spotted a familiar figure.
Flanked by a mighty blue armored hunter, the brute chieftain the Spartans had fought in Canterlot stood with one hand clutching an overhead handhold, the other its war-hammer. Its armor was rightfully battered, considering the last they’d seen of it was on the wrong side of an exploding grenade bandolier. And while the brute did seem to be standing unevenly on a bandaged leg, the chieftain seemed alive and fighting fit.
Marko immediately pointed it out, his finger following the chieftain like the barrel of a sniper rifle followed a target. “It’s that hairy motherfucker from the palace! What’s it take to kill that fucker!?”
“He’s heading for the portal,” Twilight added, prodding her hoof into the center of the structure.
Indeed the fleet soared quietly by and made a bee-line for the wavering portal at the center of the crater.
Twilight Sparkle cocked her head as she conjured up the duffel bags containing their fighting equipment. “Where do you think it leads? And why?”
“I don’t know,” Ishmir said honestly as he knelt by the bags and produced himself a rifle. “But whatever it is, the Covenant can’t have it. Get ready, Flintlock. We’re going in!”
As Ishmir racked his weapon and Marko grabbed more ammo for his shotgun, Twilight’s horn began to glow and she brought her own assault rifle forward with an excited grin. “Roger the fuck that!”