“Ugh, my head…” I said, regaining consciousness from the crash. I suddenly panicked as to whether my team was alive or not. I threw my weight against the door but it wouldn’t budge.
“Is anyone there? Squad, this is a priority one hail, respond if you receive.” I heard over the radio, crackling because of the reception.
“This is Sgt. Lucas, I’m here. What happened?” I said over the radio.
“Lucas, this is Buck. Did you see anyone crash near you?” He asked.
“I don’t know yet, this damn hatch won’t budge. I think the emergency open levers are fried. Comms must have fried in the crash, too.”
“Send me your co-ordinates and I’ll come get you.” The comms crackled.
I looked down to my tac-pad on my wrist and centred my location and sent them to Buck. I tried once more to open the hatch but failed, slumping angrily back into my seat.
“Co-ordinates received, expect me to find you in a minute or two.” Buck said after receiving my co-ordinates.
“It’s not like I can complain, Buck.”
Several minutes later…
“You in there, Lucas?” I heard Buck say from outside the pod.
“Yeah, help me with this.” I said, pushing against the hatch door.
Buck pulled against the seals and grunted, eventually pulling off the hatch and I stepped out.
“I know the rest of the team isn’t dead, they’re signal is just probably dead.” Buck said and sighed.
“I know they‘re not dead, but I think Romeo was putting the moves on your girl.” I said, pulling out my M7S Caseless SMG and BR55 Battle Rifle from the weapon slots and putting one on my backplate, it magnetically attaching to it. I held onto my SMG though.
“Although I have respect for you, stay out of my business.”
“Fair enough, Gunney.” I turned to face outside of the pod when I caught sight of an odd, multi-coloured horse.
“Gunney?”
“Yeah?”
“Turn around and tell me that I’m not high right now.”
Buck turned around and saw the same sight I did: a multi-coloured horse, only smaller than us. It’s height was about up to our shins.
“You sure we’re not really dead and this is some fantasy death dream?” I asked, turning to Buck.
“I’m pretty sure we’re not dead, and don’t pinch me.”
“Wasn’t thinking about it, Gunney.”
“Now where in Carmen Santiago are we?” I said, looking around and seeing a colourful world, full of life, unlike our manufactured and glassed worlds.
Another horse that was about our size escorted by slightly smaller horses wearing medieval armour now stood in front of us. I tapped Buck on the shoulder and he turned around to see what I needed him for.
“Another one, I bet those spears aren’t just for show. If they attack, shoot everything.” Buck said.
“Heh, that’s my job description, sir. No need to remind.” I replied.
A purple horse with a horn appeared next to the taller white one, staring at us, probably because of our appearance.
“I’ve got no time to be stared down by horses, our team is still out there!” Buck said.
“Agreed, it’s not like they can speak English.” I said, looking at my tac-pad and trying to make sense of why my GPS wasn’t working.
“Princess, they can speak Equestrian!” A feminine voice said.
“Twilight Sparkle, stay back until I can find out what these things want.” I heard another say.
A cyan pegasus tackled me in my helmet, it’s hooves standing on my breastplate.
“Who are you and what do you want?” It aggressively said.
“I suggest you get off my VISR before I start cracking skulls.” I threatened.
“And I suggest you stop threatening my little ponies or I shall retaliate without hesitation.” The taller one said.
I grabbed the cyan pegasus by the back leg and forcibly pried her off my helmet visor, lightly tossing her on the ground.
If it’s a fight this thing wants, then it’s a fight it’ll get…
I pulled up my M7S SMG and pointed it at her, saying “Come at me, bro”
“Lucas, stand down.” Buck said.
“Blue thingy here attacks me and this other thing threatens to as well. What do you expect me to do, throw them a party?” I argued, turning to Buck and lowering my SMG.
“DID SOMEONE SAY PARTY?” A girly voice shouted, coming from a pink horse.
“Calm down, Lucas. Don’t let your trigger finger get the best of you.” Buck said.
“Fair enough, didn’t feel like fighting anything,” I shrugged, then looking back to the tall horse. “Hear that? You’re lucky…”
But again, the pegasus took it’s chances and attacked me again and failed miserably due to my armour blunting it’s attack. I looked down to it, almost sorry for it’s feeble attempt to brutalise me.
“Do you have a death wish, or just really ignorant that you can’t hurt me?” I asked.
It looked into my visor, defiant to stop trying to hurt me.
“Rainbow Dash, unhand him at this instant!” The tall one said.
“Yes, Princess Celestia.” Rainbow Dash said, backing off and getting off my breastplate.
“I’m sorry about anything that I or my friend here has caused, you see that is all a misunderstanding.” Buck apologised.
“A misunderstanding, how so?” Princess Celestia was intrigued.
“You’re not seriously going to explain the whole Human-Covenant war to them? They wouldn’t understand, Buck.” I said.
“You are humans? But you look different…” Twilight asked.
“It’s the armour.” I said, sighing and sitting down against my pod and activating the signal beacon.
Buck explained the whole situation about the Human-Covenant war, usually getting gasps of horror due to the blood spilled and lives lost. My radio crackled to life and was met with Dare’s voice.
“Buck, Mickey, anyone. I’m violently wounded. I need assistance, ASAP.” She said.
“Dare, this is Lucas and I’ve got Buck with me, we’re on our way.” I responded, getting off the ground.
“Buck, finish the story later. Dare is hurt, like real bad.” I said, quickly running into the direction of Dare’s pod.
“We’ll be back, one of our friends is hurt.” Buck said before catching up with me.
“Plenty of shit has happened on most of my drops, but not this, this is just bizarre…” I said, still running through the wetlands.
“We’ll get to that later, Storm. But first, we have to save Veronica.”
Fucked beyond recognition was Dare’s pod, with the hatch door stricken through a tree. A small blood splatter trail led us right to Dare, who had a shrapnel piece embedded in her shin and was limping.
“Veronica!” Buck shouted, making a mad dash for Dare.
I casually walked over to the two and Veronica slung her arm around my and Buck’s necks. We walked her slowly back to my drop pod and she noticed all of the horses near it.
“Don’t mean to skip our introductory speech, but where’s a hospital we can use?” I asked, grabbed my reserve medical bag.
“I’ll escort you there.” Princess Celestia said and led us to the nearest hospital and I cleared a bed for Dare while Buck laid her down.
I opened the medical bag and pulled an assortment of bandages, needles and pliers. I quickly got to work, injecting a tranquillizer needle into Dare’s shrapnel filled leg, prying out the shrapnel then bandaging the wounds. It was a messy process but it needed to be done.
“Done, I’m no doctor but that’s the best I can do, Dare.” I said, putting the excess equipment back into the bag.
“Thanks.” She looked at the both of us.
“No problem.” Buck said, helping her off the bed.
I simply nodded and slung the medical bag over my back. We walked back to my dropsite and Buck rested Dare inside my pod.
“I’m assuming you are stuck here?” Twilight asked.
“What makes you think we can’t just get back into our pods and leave?”
“Your transport of choice seems only for landing.”
“You’re smart, and I’ll give you that.” I said.
“Four left.” Buck said.
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“Dare, you and I are here. That only leaves Mickey, Dutch, Romeo and Rookie.”
“Which their pods must have scattered all over the place since the plan wasn’t exactly sound.” I added.
“I am still trying to comprehend why you and another alien species slaughter each other…” Princess Celestia said.
“Long story short; they attack us, we fight back. Simple.” I said, answering her suspicions.
“But the killing of another being sounds so horrid, how can you stand it?” She continued.
“Kill or be killed, you obviously don’t know what it feels like to get your hands- er, hooves dirty.” I replied back.
“You make it sound like it’s a good thing.”
“I know it sounds that way, but most of our people fight for our survival. We are on the brink of annihilation; we have to fight because it is necessary.”
“I did not understand your race’s complications with the Covenant you speak of.”
“Its fine, you didn’t know.” I said, sitting against a tree.
“I still don’t understand how you speak; your face doesn’t have a mouth, only a strange indentation where your face should be.” Twilight wondered.
“That’s easily answered.” I said, taking off my helmet and resting it on my knee.
“That explains a lot more then; you looked strange for a human when we first met.” She said.
I felt a tugging at my shoulder strap, then a clatter of metal on the ground within earshot behind me. I turned my head to see Rainbow Dash tugging at my Battle Rifle that was magnetized to my backplate.
“What are you doing?” I asked, confused to why she was trying to pull my gun off my back.
“Stupid thing won’t come off!” She said, using all her strength to pry of the weapon off my back.
“Best of luck, that thing’s stuck for good.” I laughed.
“Can’t you get it off?” She asked.
“It’s magnetized so it doesn’t come off by accident.” I explained.
A sudden bright light pierced the sky and revealed four drop pods shooting down from the sky and landing to the east, making a loud bang.
“You stay with Dare; I think it’s the rest of the team.” I said, getting off the ground and putting on my helmet.
“Affirmative.” Buck responded as I took off sprinting to the east.
I ran through town at my quickest pace, ignoring the ponies that stared at me. A cyan blur streaked through the air in front of me, I ignored it and kept running, coming across four metal pods that ought to contain the rest of The Squad. Four hatches flew off the pods and out stepped four familiar ODST.
“You guys alright, anyone get cooked on the ride in?” I asked, grabbing their attention.
“This isn’t any Covenant ship…” Mickey said, looking around his surroundings.
“Yeah, Storm. We’re good.” Dutch and Romeo said, grabbing their weapons out of the pods.
“What about you, Rookie?” I asked, turning to the quiet ODST.
He simply nodded and took his weapons from the pod too.
He doesn’t talk much, does he?
“Buck, found the rest of the team. We’re heading back to your position.” I said in the helmet comms, gesturing to the team to follow me by throwing my head back into the direction of my crash site.
“Affirmative.” Buck said back.
“So, uh where are we?” Mickey asked.
“Don’t know, the carrier jumped, we crash here. We’ll find out more from the local monarchy.” I replied, still walking.
“Everything looks strange.” Dutch said, looking at the brightly coloured houses.
“And there are tiny horses everywhere.” Romeo added.
“This your team, Storm?” Rainbow Dash asked out of nowhere, not revealing herself yet.
“Yeah, the rest of it. You can come out now, they won’t shoot, I hope.” I said, seeming like I was talking to nobody.
Rainbow Dash came down from a cloud and stood on the ground, about my shin height. The other four looked at her in surprise, mouths wide open but you couldn’t see that. (Their helmets are on so it was hard to tell.)
“Did that horse just talk?” Mickey asked.
“Yeah, what of it?” Rainbow Dash said, growling slightly.
“Apparently ponies talk in this place, I’d suggest you get used to it.” I replied.
Rookie didn’t seem phased and remained quiet, crouching down and looking the cyan pegasus in the eye. He mussed her mane with his fingerless glove, smiling behind his cloaked visor. Romeo saw this and mocked “You alright there, Rookie?”
Rookie stood up and looked at Romeo with a look of disappointment, we headed back for my drop pod and met up with Dare and Buck, who were idling around waiting.
“Celestia said we need a place to stay until we solve this problem.” Dare said.
“Why? We can stay in our pods, they provide shelter, right?” Dutch asked.
“Horrible creatures come out at night, you must stay within the town at night.” Princess Celestia said.
“Right, and we got these guns for no reason at all.” Mickey said sarcastically, waving his Spartan Laser around.
“I insist that you stay within the town.” Princess Celestia repeated, more insistent now.
“Your call, Buck. What do you want to do?” Dutch asked.
“I think we’ll take Celestia’s advice.” Buck said.
We took our belongings and followed Celestia into a house made from a tree, noticing that the roof wasn’t so low. We set off our stuff in the house and sat down somewhere with six ponies including Twilight and Rainbow Dash sitting near us.
“So who are you exactly?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“We’re elite soldiers that fight for the UNSC against the Covenant. Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, or ODST for short.” Dutch said.
“Orbital-what-now?” She asked in confusion.
“Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, we are shot from one of our carriers in one man pods from space into the Earth. The pods get extremely hot on the course down to Earth, hence the nickname ‘Helljumpers’.” I said, Rainbow Dash looking at me.
“You mean those things that you crashed in…” She said.
“Yeah.”
“Do you have roles or anything?” Twilight asked.
“I’m Captain Dare, an Office of Naval Intelligence operative.” Dare said.
“Gunnery Sergeant Buck, SNCO of the Marine Corps.” Buck said.
“Dutch, Heavy Weapons Specialist.” Dutch said.
“Mickey, explosive ordnance expert and unofficial pilot.”
“Name’s Romeo, squad marksman.”
“Also a smartass…” I said under my breath.
Romeo got up hastily and made his way to me.
“Problem?” I asked.
“You called me a smartass!” He replied, now angry.
“Only ‘cause it’s true.” I replied.
Romeo sat back down again, not wanting to fight, he was too tired to anyways.
“I’m Sergeant Lucas, CQC specialist, Rookie and I are new additions to this fine squad.” I said.
“What about you?” Rainbow Dash asked, now in front of Rookie, who was minding his own business.
He lifted his head to catch sight of her and then sunk back down again, doing his own thing.
“Is he alright?” She asked.
“That’s Rookie, doesn’t talk much. Self-explanatory.” I replied.
I got up and sat back down against the bookcase, looking up back to see my team and the six ponies inquiring us about where we came from, what we do and so on. I didn’t speak unless I was asked anything, so for the most part I just sat there and rested for a moment or two, I was still shaken up from the jump. Rookie was doing the same, his helmeted head slumped against his shoulder. I eventually fell asleep, my head against the bookcase. I was exhausted and confused.
End of Chapter Two