STAR WARS / FiM: Realms of the Heavens

by Tathem_Relag

Chapter Twenty-Four: Bug Hunting

Location: Equestrian Badlands
Local Date: 12/28/3
Galactic Standard Date: 28:4:11
Local Time: 04:17
Coruscant Standard Time: 15:16

Malen flew across the wastes on his speeder bike, followed by a squad of four of the Empire’s elite, black-armored storm commandos. The ponies may have had a constant cordon of guards around the Everfree Forest, but they had no real way of watching all of Equestria at once. A black shuttle coming down in a desolate region during the middle of the night was almost guaranteed to avoid notice. His unfortunately scheming apprentice must have been suspicious that he was up to something when he failed to materialize in her room and summon her to the base like usual, but she would have no way to guess what that something actually was.

He cast around with his Force senses, trying to find a large number of presences that differed from the various lizards, snakes, scorpions, hawks, and small mammals that called this rocky desert “home.” This would normally be an easy task – the amount of sapient minds clustered together that he was looking for would stand out like a beacon among the scattered, extremely limited intelligences possessed by most desert creatures. However, creatures so naturally skilled in illusions were also usually quite good at suppressing or altering their Force signatures.

Plus, it was a big desert.

They had been scouring the red sands and mesas for six hours. Even travelling at the 74-Z’s top speed of five hundred kilometers per hour, he estimated they had covered only a few hundredths of one percent of the place, if that. Of course, they hardly needed to turn over every grain of sand. The Manka and the Nexu had performed scans of the area and provided them with rough maps of the area’s caves and underground tunnels. Any that wouldn’t be able to hold at least a few hundred pony-sized creatures packed together like military ration packs were ignored. Working from north to south, Malen and his commandos had explored about one-fifth of the formations that fit the criteria.

The next cavern was the largest. Approaching it, he felt a chill run up the back of his neck. Ordinarily, his danger sense going off would be cause for at least a little concern, even though he hardly disliked the idea of going into combat. Now, though, it brought him only relief. He really hadn’t wanted to spend more than a day here.

Sergeant Kal Dorin, his squad’s tech specialist, confirmed his suspicions. “Sir, sensors are picking up life signs that match the description. Maybe a regiment’s worth.”

Malen would have killed most people for addressing him as “sir” instead of “Inquisitor” or “m’lord,” but he understood that a one-syllable title was the most efficient, and commando teams valued efficiency more than anything else. As it should be.

A regiment… probably not enough to make a significant impact on the pony military… but then again, considering how pathetically the ponies did the last time they had to face these “changelings” in open combat, perhaps it is. Besides, it’s more than I expected.

The Imperials dismounted outside the entrance to the cave. “Rogan, Kal,” Lieutenant Bor Sadic directed. “Get that T-21 set up.” Sergeant Rogan Fadith unslung his heavy rifle, while Dorin pulled the portable generator that allowed the power-guzzling weapon to fire in fully-automatic mode off the back of his bike.

“Taan, with me,” Malen commanded.

Sergeant Hora Taan nodded and drew his DL-44 heavy blaster pistol. There wasn’t much technology on this planet that he could use his primary skillset on, but an important part of being a saboteur was the ability to move stealthily. Not as stealthily as someone who could Force Cloak, of course, but still impressive in its own way. There was a short, electronic buzz as Taan switched his scout helmet’s display to infrared vision. Then he followed the Inquisitor into the cave.

The first room was empty, as expected. Malen motioned for Taan to stay back, then waved a hand in front of himself, disappearing into his Cloak. A minute later, there was a tapping on Taan’s chest plate. He crept forwards, making sure to stay behind rocks whenever possible. Around a corner, he saw a faint, sickly green light up ahead. Peeking over a rock, he disabled his infrared vision. He wouldn’t need it in here. A green slime coated the walls of the massive cave, giving off the unnatural glow he had seen. Insectoid creatures flew and crawled around the cavern, or rested in translucent pustules in the ooze. At the base of the far wall, he could just make out a creature much larger than the others laying on the ground, its teal – was that hair? – draped over its forelimbs.

He activated his helmet’s advanced targeting system and holstered his pistol, unslinging his E-11s sniper rifle. Most storm commando saboteurs would be equipped with the standard E-11 as their primary weapon, but he had been recruited from the scout troopers, not the normal stormtroopers. As a result, he supplemented his technical expertise with one of the best aims in the galaxy, and he served as his squad’s marksman. He fixed his sights on the changeling queen’s eye and nodded, indicating to the Inquisitor, wherever he might be, that fire support was ready.

A few seconds passed. Without warning, Malen appeared right in front of the queen, sending the changelings into a shocked frenzy. The air was quickly filled with the buzzing of insect wings. Unsurprisingly, the creatures’ first instinct was to attack. Taan held his fire. The Inquisitor didn’t need any help yet.

Malen’s lightsaber whipped around in several circles, and four dismembered changelings collapsed around him. A pushing motion with his left hand sent a half dozen hurtling into one of the walls, where their bodies broke with crunches and sprays of green blood. The lightsaber flew out of his hand and cut apart three of the airborne creatures. While it was still carving its path, he cast out his hands to both sides and let loose with a furious barrage of lightning, frying another eight. His weapon landed in his hand again, and he rapidly struck down three more.

It was a miniscule number, compared to the two thousand or so changelings in the cave, but they weren’t used to fighting an enemy that was just as brutal as they were. Seeing two dozen of their number die in just over five seconds caused them to back off, none of them wanting to be the next to face this violent and powerful intruder.

In the nervous silence, Malen spoke. “Chrysalis! Queen of the changelings! I wish to parley with you.”

“And why,” she asked, stepping forwards, “would I want to do that after you killed so many of my minions?”

“Oh, don’t give me that!” Malen snapped back. “You just called them ‘minions,’ for the Emperor’s sake! You don’t care about them any more than I care about the average human Army grunt.”

“No,” she admitted, “I don’t. But you’re not a changeling. And do you know what happens to any non-changelings we get our hooves on?”

“You drain them of their love and leave them as empty husks,” he replied matter-of-factly. “And to that, I say: go ahead. Try me. Here, I’ll even make it easy for you.” He threw back his head and opened his mouth as far as it would go.

Chrysalis was, of course, suspicious – her meals didn’t usually offer themselves to her willingly. Still, food was food. She opened her own mouth, and a few small wisps of green smoke floated from his mouth to hers.

He chuckled. “Well, now. I didn’t think I had any love left. You have my thanks for removing it for me.”

Chrysalis blinked several times. The amount of love she had drained from him wouldn’t even count as a light snack for one of her drones. And he was thanking her for taking it from him? She smiled. This was a creature just as cruel and twisted as she was. “Very well, …”

“High Inquisitor Valerious.”

“Alright, Valerious, what did you come here for?”

“I wish to propose an alliance between the Galactic Empire and the Changeling Hive. Your changelings would infiltrate the ponies, sabotaging their defenses and feeding us information on their plans. In return, you would be allowed to have your way with any prisoners we take once we finish interrogating them.”

Chrysalis sneered. “You don’t seem to be offering anything we can’t do ourselves.”

Back at the entrance to the room, a black-armored hand pushed Taan’s rifle to the side. “Wha-?!” A fist caught him in the helmet, making him loose his grip on the rifle and sending him staggering. He caught the next blow and responded in kind, knocking his opponent back. He now saw that his enemy was a humanoid dressed in identity-concealing storm commando armor. His foe seemed unsteady on its own two feet, still reeling from what had been a glancing blow to the chest, as if badly drunk. He took this opportunity and tackled his assailant to the ground, then grabbed his attacker’s head and slammed it repeatedly into the ground until he heard a crack. The humanoid disappeared in a gout of green flames. A changeling appeared in its place, a pool of blood spreading from the crater in the back of its head.

Looking up, he saw himself surrounded by more “storm commandos.” He whipped out his pistol and began firing, quickly but precisely, into the crowd. In half a second, he got off three headshots before the blaster was kicked from his hand. Grabbing and twisting the offending leg, he threw the disguised changeling to the ground. He turned and lunged to his feet, pushing through the hands that grasped weakly at him, their owners not properly understanding how to use their new appendages. He snatched up his rifle by its barrel, then swung it in front of him, breaking one changeling’s skull and knocking down two more. One of the creatures broke off and rushed for the front room, but he couldn’t do anything about that now, as another changeling grabbed him from behind. He dropped his rifle and grabbed the creature, throwing it over his head. Dropping to a crouch, he swept out a leg, sending one of them flying off its feet.

Malen, not looking away from Chrysalis, raised his hands in fists and twisted them. Taan’s last two opponents who were still standing collapsed and reverted to their changeling forms, their necks broken. “It’s very impolite to impersonate and attack my associates while still engaging in diplomacy with me,” the Inquisitor pointed out mildly. Chrysalis merely hissed in response. “Taan, head back outside. I’ll finish up here.”

Taan saluted and picked up his weapons. At the entrance to the cave, he stepped over the mangled remains of the changeling that had tried to take his place. They could copy his physical form, but they couldn’t replicate his armor’s IFF transponder signal.

“Hey, Hora,” Sadic called. “How many notches on your rifle?”

“None on the rifle, unfortunately. Well, unless smashing a head with the butt gets me a notch. Killed five in total. That one with the rifle, three with my pistol, and one with my hands.”

“Only five?” Fadith adopted a tone of mock reproof. “Hora, I’m so disappointed in you! You’ve got to spend more time practicing!”

Taan punched his friend in the arm. “Ah, shove it, Rogan. I’m only seeing one out here. Doesn’t that mean you should be the one practicing?”

“Hey! I hit every target that presented itself. You could’ve spent three seconds blind-firing in there and still gotten more kills than you actually did.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t the point.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Sadic broke in, “but where’s the Inquisitor?”

“Still inside. Said he could handle this himself.”

“Hmph. Even his ‘Force’ can’t take on an entire regiment, not even one as primitive as this.”

“He didn’t seem worried. Has he ever guessed wrong before?”

Sadic muttered to himself a little, but he didn’t reply.

A few minutes later, a maroon-cloaked figure walked out of the cave, a smile on his face. “Well, it looks like we have a de– ksshhh!”

A red lightsaber blade erupted from the figure’s chest. Malen watched the changeling collapse and revert to its true form with a scowl. “If they don’t learn to stop doing that, we might have to take corrective action.” He looked up. “Nevertheless, what the creature was saying was true. We provide them with intel on targets for replacement and access to any prisoners that we’re done with, and they focus their efforts on those targets that are most advantageous to us and pass on anything their infiltrators learn.”

“Can we trust them, sir?” Sadic asked.

“Of course not. We’ll probably have to whip them into line several times before they learn not to cheat us. But once they’re properly cowed, they’ll make excellent tools. Now, come. Let’s get back to the shuttle. I want to spend as little of the daytime in this desert as possible.”

Comments

[Neo-Scott-Lightning]

Dayum malen is a baws

[Fluttercoat]

7305059 idk the way the stormtrooper handled himself with the changlings

[Im Iteration]

I hope a few good Changelings appear.

[PuppetXMaster]

i like the chapters with humans, force wielders are inhuman dogs tainting our glorious world, normal everyday humans built up the empire, not force wielders, we built everything and then they come along and take control, vile apes