A Noble Cause

by Sarkastik Menace

Bump In The Night

“Sir, we just lost contact with the San Francisco. The admiral is ordering a general retreat.”


“Roger that. Men, I have something to tell you. This frigate can’t go into slipspace. A half hour ago we received critical damage to the engine compartment, we’re lucky this ship is still in one piece. A handful of you know this already, but kept this to yourselves as I had ordered. Tell the crew to abandon ship. You too, all of you. I’ll buy you the time you need.”

“Sir, with all due respect we won’t leave this ship without you.” one of the ensigns stepped out of his chair boldly stating.

“Son, you're brave. I was like you once, years ago. Sooner or later you’ll learn that some fights are not worth fighting. What I am doing today is to make sure you can live on to learn how important that sentiment is to take to heart. I’m ordering you, all of you, to go to the escape pods, or the pelicans, anything that can take off from this wreck and make it planetside.

“But sir, without the fleet the planet will just get glassed!”

“I know that, but we don’t have a choice, and trust me. They need you more down there then I do up here.

“Sir, with all do respect, I am not leaving this ship. We are not leaving this ship, till you are off too!”

“Dammit ensign! You dont have a choice in the matter! You are not wasting your life on unneeded heroism. Get off this bridge now, That’s an order.

A violent tremble interrupted the fierce argument on the bridge, knocking the ensign off his feet.

“Fourth level just lost life support, and the majority of the fleet is turning back. If we’re gonna evacuate it’s now or never” George, the shipboard AI advised.

The captain walked a few steps and lifted the ensign to his feet. “You heard the man, go. And get the spartan off above all else.” Dusting the man off, he lightly shoved him in the direction of the exit. The rest of the crew complied, giving no lip but saluting him as they left.

One girl remained, a tear rolling down her cheek at the doorway. She gave a salute, standing upright. He saluted back, pressing the input for the alarms. Lights going out, replaced by the red lights illuminating the ship, almost all noise was cut out by the wailing of the sirens.

He knew the girl’s name. Christina Walkins. Looking up she was gone, running to the escape pod. Waiting no more he activated the shipwide intercoms to confirm the crew’s fears.

“This is your captain. Abandon Ship. This is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill. May God help you all. Once again, abandon ship, this is not a drill. This is your Captain, Simon Watkins, signing off.”


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“Damnit! It beat eight of our guards to a pulp and just disappeared off the face of the planet?” Banging his hoof against the desk, Acting Captain Dawn’s Flame was angered. Protocol forced him to let go of his short lived chase for the monster. Even though he rescued the explorer. it was only half the objective

He already knew what would happen. The assignment would be handed over to the royal guards who were much more plentiful in numbers, though less in skill. Not to mention due to the area’s vicinity to Ponyville the elements were likely to be called in. That plan would no doubt succeed, but he would be the butt of the blame for the fiasco, although only the brass and the Princesses knew.

Sometimes he wished he could have more than one hundred soldiers at his command. But apparently it was intimidating, because the brass said it was intimidating. Intimidating, what a joke. A hundred ponies, albeit the best in the entire guard, were no threat to an army. A thousand, ten thousand! Now that was intimidating. And he wouldn’t need to worry about canceling operations like the one last night because one tenth of his forces were incapacitated, because he’d have more to spare.

Sighing, he let his stress go, taking another sip of his coffee. A violent monster on the loose just beat the crap out of eight of the most elite fighters in the guard, and walked away showing literally no wounds or weaknesses. And to top it off it was due ASAP, so he couldn’t even wait for the pony they had actually managed to rescue to wake up, so they couldn’t even see if she knew anything about it. He picked up his quill and began to write the report. It was going to be a long day.

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Walking through the forest. Not something the Spartan was used to, but for the past two weeks the experience grew more and more predictable. The food in the area was seemingly more normal to Six than in the other areas of the wilderness. Fruits, such as grapes were fairly common. Though Six was up to something else. Something she hadn’t done since very early in her childhood. She fished. Six considered herself lucky. Rummaging through Daring’s pack she found a very useful toy. A yoyo, with a fairly long line. Tying it to a branch about seven feet in length she taped it with duct tape and fished with the makeshift rod. Sitting down she let her mind wander back to the days her cousin took her out on his boat, catching exotic fish. She missed those days very much. It was early morning. He always told her this was when the fish woke up, hungry from their night’s rest. This would test him on that.

A pull on the line pulled her back from her memories. Letting the fish tug she tried to wait and see if it grew weaker. Not trusting the rod with much more other than the ability to snag a fish she waited until she was confident and yanked the branch up, sending the fish out of the water. It was a bass. Carefully pulling the branch to the side so the edge would touch the shore she heard cracking of the branch. Oh not now, the spartan thought to herself.

Keeping the branch as steady as possible she slowly backed up, trying to keep the fish on the line without the branch breaking in half. Hearing it begin to crack she threw it to the lake. Sighing, Six began to hear the flopping of the bass. Walking towards it she examined the creature. A little over two feet long and a bit over fifteen pounds, it was a big fish, and that was good. Six already spent too much time dealing with the fish’s bullshit as she noticed the sun high in the sky. She had to hide. The risks were too high for her to just give herself up. Spartans never surrender. Not to mention what could happen if she did.

Starting a very small fire Six sat down, roasting the fish just enough for it to taste good. Over the week and a half Six grew to know Daring a bit, developing a small bond with the pony. Six never really had someone to talk to on a personal level, or at least Six’s standards for personal talk. Now that she was gone, Six’s mind was left to wander. She could not stand that. Thinking for a second she hastily put out the fire. Why the hell am I lighting a fire anyway? She wouldn’t get sick from the raw fish. Looking around for anything that could see her she sat down on a log and bent her head over, resting her arms on her thighs, looking down as she took off her helmet, hiding her face as much as she could. Six began to ate. She missed the taste of fish.

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Twilight was awoken from her studying trance by one of the loudest burps she had ever heard in her life, unconsciously narrowing it down to Spike, her assistant. This meant one thing and one thing only; One of the Princesses sent her a letter.

Groaning, Spike handed her the letter, deciding not to read it aloud, moaning. “Why can’t she use the mail like everypony else?” The baby dragon plopped down on his makeshift bed, putting his claws on his tummy. Giggling at her friend’s antics, Twilight Sparkle opened the letter with her magic, reading it in her mind.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle, I send this letter to you of utmost importance. Make sure this message is shown to nobody but you and the other elements of harmony. What I am about to say you must under no circumstance be shared with anypony other than the elements. A monster is on the loose, a little under fifty miles from your town, Ponyville. I am very worried of it. It kidnapped our best scout, and discarded eight of my Lunar Guard without even a scratch. They are no longer permitted to pursue the creature, so the Royal Guard has taken over the search. A few hundred guards are on a manhunt for the creature, though I do not think it’s enough. That is why I ask for you and your friends to help in the search, and you personally to oversee it. The pony in charge of it is a subordinate from your brother himself, a Lieutenant I believe.

I ask you to make sure that this creature gets brought into custody alive by any means necessary. It’s fighting has surpassed the skills of the greatest fighters in the guard, and incapacitated eight of them.. Though you must keep in mind that all of them are in stable condition. Broken legs and wings are the worst of the injuries, the worst case only needing a month, granted it’s due in part to the abilities of our doctors, but they are all alive. We cannot kill it, for it could have just been acting in self defense. The Captain of the Lunar Guard disagrees, but this could have been a misunderstanding.

Please reply as soon as possible,
-Princess Luna

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“So, what did it say?” Spike asked, trying his best not to look like he cared, but Twilight knew.

“There’s a monster on the loose, and we need to help the guards find it. Better than usual i guess.” Twilight replied, giggling at her fear of letters from the princesses, as most of the time it was just summoning her and the elements to defeat ancient evils. Heck, even the good ones usually had some bad unintentional twist.

“That’s it? No throwing the house a few hundred feet in the air?” Spike said surprised, putting away his weird helmet and pillow armor.

“Oh Spike, i’m trying to be better at that, you know it.” Twilight lit up her horn mockingly “unless you want me to~!”

“Oh no no no! It’s fine! really!”

Twilight burst into laughter at Spike’s antics. He was so easy to mess with. “I’m joking!” In between laughs

Spike put a claw to his face, groaning and muttering something inaudible. He shook his head quickly, clearing his mind. “So uhh, what do we do now?”

“We gather the elements, and talk about this. But first,” Twilight levitated her quill and a piece of parchment and began writing, “I have to see if the Princess knows anything about this monster.”

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Six found a small creek and surrounded by tiny pebbles. After searching for the entire day there was nowhere that was considered tolerable to use as her site. Basically anywhere hard to see from a distance, that also had some natural way of preventing someone from sneaking close. Ducking and taking off her helmet she grabbed handfuls of water, trying to keep herself hydrated. Six had already ruled out insanity a few days after she got to this strange place, and only drank for physical health. Still she drank to just make sure she wasn't seeing things in the very slim off chance.

Six kept at it, trying to be as quiet as possible. This was, until she hears a siren sound, kind of like one of the dive bombers of the twentieth century. Looking up she sees a shadow zip right past her out of control, and not even a five second laters a very loud crash as the thing collides with a tree, Six able to hear the shaking from there. I shouldn't investigate, this screams trap. Six thought to herself. Still, she had some weird feeling that told her to. But what was it? Shaking her head, she got up and checked her assault rifle’s mag to make sure it was properly displayed on the screen. Six walked off after where she heard the crash from, shaking her head

Author's Note:

Posted an update. to the wrong story. http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/626104-reaction-faces

Comments

[Hallucination]

is this past or present tense? it switches so much

[Sarkastik Menace]

3375023 You think you can provide instances? This was done mostly by me only no editing because my editors were never available. So now i got three math tests in one week to do, so all ima do this week is study... So i figured a slightly less edited chapter was better than a week delay

[Alpharius IV]

Ruled out insanity weeks ago? I thought she was there only a little over a week, and I'm confused if your talking about ponies or something else with that "Insanity" line.

[Ghost-091]

Rummaging through Daring’s back she found a very useful toy. A yoyo...

First thought I has when I read this.

Also, the "back" in that sentence should be "pack"

[Hallucination]

3375167

“There’s a monster on the loose, and we need to help the guards find it. Better than usual i guess.” Twilight replied, giggling at her fear of letters from the princesses, as most of the time it was just summoning her and the elements to defeat ancient evils. Heck, even the good ones usually had some bad unintentional twist.
“That’s it? No throwing the house a few hundred feet in the air?” Spike says surprised, putting away his weird helmet and pillow armor.
“Oh Spike, i’m trying to be better at that, you know it.” Twilight lights up her horn mockingly “unless you want me to~!”
“Oh no no no! It’s fine! really!”
Twilight burst into laughter at Spike’s antics. He was so easy to mess with. “I’m joking!” In between laughs

you go from describing the things that happened to explaining things as they are happening, it just feels off to me

[Sarkastik Menace]

3375376 Ahhh, k thanks for this guise. ima correct

[Escaping Reality]

3375184 I think you're just thinking about it too much bud, just an insignificant statement.

[Hurgusburgus]

Your editor is doing a piss-poor job. There's grammar/punctuation/capitalization errors in droves.

[jaroslav]

Monster on the loose? Like those thousands of monsters that live in Everfree forest next to Ponyvile?
And i am surprised that the ponies can't see diference between monster and intelligent being.
Monsters don't wear armor.